I’m going about this a bit backward, but The Wonder Twins were in the news last week, so that’s why they got the first “Sidekick Spotlight.” But the first comic book superhero sidekick was actually Robin, the Boy Wonder, the partner to Batman in DC Comics.
Robin was created for a pair of reasons. First, he brightened up the comics, which had started out darker and more noir/pulp in tone. When it was realized that these publications were for kids, Robin allowed the books to become a little more suitable for a youthful audience. Robin literally brightened things up with his red, green, and yellow costume. Secondly, Robin gave Batman someone to talk to, allowing him to convey clues and information to the readers.
Bill Finger (writer), Bob Kane (writer/artist), and Jerry Robinson (artist) are credited with Robin’s creation. Robin made his debut in Detective Comics #38 in April 1940. He was the recently orphaned circus acrobat Dick Grayson who was taken in as the ward of billionaire Bruce Wayne, who was secretly the crimefighter Batman.
Grayson took on the role of Robin, his partner in crime-fighting.
While in modern comics Robin has taken on a bird motif, after the bird the robin, he was actually inspired by Robin Hood, with his medieval-style tunic, chainmail briefs, and pixie boots.
Since this column focuses on animation, let’s fast-forward to 1967, when Robin did NOT make his animated debut.
No, in that year, Robin appeared the live-action on the Batman TV series, which featured Adam West as the Caped Crusader and Burt Ward as the Boy Wonder.
At this point in the comics, Robin had served as the leader of the Teen Titans, a collection of the sidekicks to most of the leading DC heroes and members of the Justice League.
CBS was also airing the Filmation-crafted series The Superman/Aquaman Hour of Adventure around this time, which showcased shorts starring the Man of Steel and the King of the Seas, as well as Superboy, Kal-El as a teenager growing up in Smallville. Each episode climaxed with a short featuring other DC heroes. The Atom, The Flash, Green Lantern, and Hawkman starred in three solo shorts each. In addition, there were three episodes featuring these characters combined with Superman as the Justice League of America. Finally, there were three shorts also dedicated to the Teen Titans.
Unfortunately, because Robin was starring in Batman, he could not appear in these shorts. This roster consisted of Aqualad and Kid Flash, who also appeared in the Aquaman and The Flash shorts, plus Wonder Girl and Speedy, even though their mentors, Wonder Woman and Green Arrow, did not appear in this series.
However, after the cancellation of Batman, Filmation and CBS snapped up the rights to both Batman and Robin. They animated the duo rebooting the cartoon as The Batman/Superman Hour. (Aquaman continued to air in repeats as its own show.)
Robin appeared in all 34 Batman shorts created for this series. It was the first time Casey Kasem, who was also a famous radio deejay at the time, voiced Robin. It wouldn’t be the last, as Kasem continued to voice Robin for almost two decades. He was also known for voicing Shaggy from Scooby-Doo and many other cartoon characters.
This was also the first time that Olan Soule voiced Batman, and like Kasem, he would spend over a decade performing that role. Soule also voiced Alfred the butler.
Among the classic comic book villains that appeared were The Joker, The Penguin, Mr. Freeze, The Riddler, Catwoman, Scarecrow, and The Mad Hatter. Original rogues, Simon the Pieman and Dollman, also recurred and were often featured in team-ups.
Jane Webb was also part of the cast as Batgirl and Catwoman. Ted Knight served as the narrator while also voicing Commissioner Gordon, Penguin, Joker, Riddler, Mr. Freeze, Scarecrow, Mad Hatter, Tweedledum and Tweedledee, Simon the Pieman, Dollman, and a judge in one episode.
Hal Sutherland is listed as the sole director of all of the shorts on The Batman/Superman Hour. Earlier shorts were stand-alone, while later episodes were two-parters with a cliffhanger in between, mimicking the format of the live-action Batman series.
One challenge the animators faced was that Robin’s “R” logo appeared over his heart, on the left side of his chest. It led to some bloopers, as animators would flip the animation cells to maximize the use of the cells. Quite often, Robin’s “R” logo would appear backward and on the wrong side.
Robin’s depiction in the animation was inspired by Burt Ward. But if you really look at the live-action Batman and these Batman cartoons, Robin isn’t a bumbling sidekick or a constant “damsel in distress” to motivate the main hero. Here, Robin is a pretty competent crimefighter, and there are even a few instances when Robin got a heavier spotlight than Batman.
The Filmation DC shows were all major hits. However, pressure from parents’ groups like Action for Children’s Television (A.C.T.) led to all of the networks canceling their adventure shows and replacing them with a more comedic fare. Ironically, one such comedic series led to Batman and Robin returning to animation on Saturday mornings.
In 1969, CBS and Hanna-Barbera introduced Scooby-Doo, Where Are You? which became a massive hit. But by 1972, the format had gotten a bit stale, so the program was reinvented as The New Scooby-Doo Movies. The episodes were lengthened to one hour and a special guest star was added to each episode to spice things up. Some of these guest stars were real celebrities of the time. Others were fictional. In the first season, two episodes featured guest appearances by Batman and Robin, as well as The Joker and Penguin.
Olan Soule and Casey Kasem returned from the Filmation cartoon to voice Batman and Robin, respectively. This meant that in “The Dynamic Scooby-Doo Affair” and “The Caped Crusader Caper,” Kasem pulled double duty as both Robin and Shaggy.
These two episodes were so successful that Hanna-Barbera looked into creating a new superhero show. Their original idea, Scooby-Doo Meets the Superheroes, would have had the Mystery Inc. crew teaming up with characters from the DC and Marvel Comics. Ultimately, that fell through, and Hanna-Barbera crafted Super Friends.
Once again, Soule and Kasem reprised the voices of Batman and Robin, with Norman Alden as Aquaman (and Green Arrow in one episode), Danny Dark as Superman, and Shannon Farnon as Wonder Woman. In addition, Sherry Alberoni voiced sidekick Wendy Harris, while Frank Welker (who voiced Fred on Scooby-Doo) voiced Marvin White and Wonder Dog.
Super Friends was loosely based on the DC publication Justice League of America, but Robin wasn’t part of that team. But because of how popular the character was, in part thanks to the ’60s live-action Batman series, he was included. But as mentioned, this team had three other sidekicks, Wendy, Marvin, and Wonder Dog, who were slightly similar to the Mystery Inc. characters from Scooby-Doo.
As a result, Robin was presented as a senior team member and was more of Batman’s partner than a sidekick. In fact, for the entire run of Super Friends, that is basically how Robin was depicted. In the second season, Marvin, Wendy, and Wonder Dog were replaced by The Wonder Twins and Gleek. Once again, these were inexperienced heroes-in-training. In contrast, Robin came across as a fully-experienced hero, although he was rarely depicted apart from Batman.
Perhaps Robin’s biggest “starring” role in the entire run of Super Friends was in the 1984 episode “The Case of the Shrinking Super Friends” in which he leads the teen members, The Wonder Twins and the newly-introduced Firestorm, after the adults have to leave for a mission in space and Lex Luthor attacks the Hall of Justice with his shrinking ray.
Secret identities weren’t used often on Super Friends. Robin’s secret identity of Dick Grayson didn’t appear until the 1985 episode “The Fear” which was the first time that Batman’s origin was ever depicted outside of the comics. Robin’s origin was never revealed on this program.
In an unusual move, Batman and Robin starred in two separate cartoons on two different networks starting in 1978. They continued as members of the Super Friends on ABC, while over on CBS, a new Filmation series debuted, fittingly referred to as The New Adventures of Batman. In this series, Adam West and Burt Ward provided the voices of the characters they had previously portrayed in live-action. Melendy Britt voiced Batgirl and Catwoman. Similar to Ted Knight on the ’60s cartoon, Lennie Weinrib did most of the heavy lifting, providing the voices for Commissioner Gordon, The Joker, The Penguin, Mr. Freeze, and Clayface, in addition to the numerous Filmation-created villains.
But since we are talking about sidekicks, The New Adventures of Batman fell into the trope of the “annoying sidekick” with the introduction of Bat-Mite, Batman’s biggest fan, an imp from the 5th Dimension. Filmation was bad about including cutesy annoying sidekicks, presumably to appeal to younger children.
And as was typical, Filmation founder Lou Scheimer provided his voice. He would later voice Orko on He-Man and the Masters of the Universe among others. As was also the norm, Scheimer also voiced the Bat Computer, as he had voiced other computers and mentor types in past shows.
Back to Robin, even though it wasn’t a cartoon, Adam West and Burt Ward reprised the roles of Batman and Robin on the 1979 live-action primetime two-part special, Legend of the Super Heroes. Though this was produced by Hanna-Barbera, and on the surface it appeared to be a comedic adaptation of Challenge of the Superfriends, this special aired on NBC, so they couldn’t use the name “Super Friends.”
The last season of Super Friends aired in 1985 and continued in reruns through 1986. After that, Robin wasn’t seen outside of the comics for several years.
*SIGH* This has run longer than expected, and there’s still so much more to cover. Guess I’m making this a two-parter!
Check back next week for the further adventures of Robin, the Boy Wonder!
