NELSON RIDDLE - Batman: Exclusive Original TV Soundtrack LP

Label: Mercury

Well, Bat Fan, you can whet your Bat-ppetite further with Mercury/UMe's reissue of the show's Original Television Soundtrack Album. Originally released by 20th Century Fox records in 1966, the year the series debuted, this record was both of its time and seemingly ahead of it, much like the series it advertised. Nelson Riddle's mix of lounge jazz, light Rock & Roll, and surf was very sixties soundtracky, while the presentation was much more forward thinking.

The way the record folds dialogue from the series in with the music sounds like sampling twenty years ahead of schedule, especially the litany of Burt Ward's "Holy-This!" and "Holy-That!" littered through "Holy-Hole-in-the-Doughnut -or- (Robin, You've Done It Again)". There's also guest gabbing from Villains Anne Baxter (as Zelda), Frank Gorshin (as The Riddler), Burgess Meredith (as The Penguin), and George Sanders (as Mr. Freeze). The re-release is available on both CD and vinyl, but if you really want to recreate that Bat feeling of '66, the vinyl is the only way to go.