Batman

The impact of the original Batman television series on kids in the early 1960's would be hard to overstate. The first 45 rpm record I ever bought was the Batman theme song, and I persuaded my next door neighbor, a professional sign painter, to paint a sign for my tree fort that read "Bat Man House This Way" (I was disappointed, though, when he deliberately misspelled some words and painted it in a 'kiddie' font). These kinds of things are hard to measure, or record, but this photo from the Cleveland Press Collection at Cleveland State University comes close; here are some kids, dressed in their Sunday best, who have taken up residence in a Bat-cave of their own, with a chalked-up logo and a hole in the floor for extra Bat-realism. If I could have known where in Cleveland these kids were, I'd have wanted to join their club!