When news came yesterday shortly before noon that actor Adam West passed away, I wrote the following over on the comment section of i09.com:

The curse of growing old yourself is seeing all these people who have given you such joy themselves age and, in time, pass.

I liked Adam West and admired the work he did in his most famous role, that of Batman.  Someone over on YouTube posted their favorite scenes from the 1966 Batman movie…

As you can see and, provided you’ve lived under a rock these past fifty or so years and therefore never heard of or saw the Batman TV series or the movie it was based on, this version of Batman was very much tongue in cheek and often quite silly.

And yet, what made it work was something the Zucker Brothers and Abraham did nearly a decade later with such films as Airplane!: The silliest crap works best when at least one person in the middle of it takes the material dead seriously.

This, effectively, was Adam West’s Bruce Wayne/Batman.  In the middle of madness he was acting with a dead seriousness.

And it was ingenious!

As I wrote above, there is a curse to getting older and, part of that curse, is seeing people who you may or may not know personally but who you love for whatever reason also grow older.  In some cases, you witness their passing and it really, really sucks.

Last year I was shocked and very saddened when David Bowie passed away.  The realization there would be no more “new” David Bowie music, though one can hope some music hidden away in his vaults might see the light of day, is a startling thing, just as the thought of never seeing or hearing another Adam West bit hits me.

Time affect us all.  Even the stars.

Rest in Peace, Mr. West.

You brought me plenty of joy over my lifetime and tonight, just for the heck of it, I might sit down and watch a few Bat-episodes on my Bat-TV.