#50 Batman’s Burt Ward To The Rescue

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Jeff Dwoskin 0:15

All right, Alfred, thank you so much for that amazing introduction. You get this show going each and every week and this week, I could tell you brought something extra. That's right. You did and why wouldn't you? It's Episode 50 only 50 episodes Batman of live from Detroit, the Jeff Dwoskin show. How do I know? I'm your host, Jeff Dwoskin. I keep track of these things. It's my job. What I do. And for Episode 50, we pulled out all the stops. That's right, ladies and gentlemen. We've got an amazing guest for you today. Burt Ward. That's right. Burt Ward Robin from the 1960s Classic TV series Batman. He's here. We're talking tons of Batman stuff. But you know what else is amazing? Burt runs with his wife the biggest giant breed dog rescue in the world. Burt Ward has saved over 15,000 dogs. He's also developed a revolutionary dog food. It's incredible. Burt is a hero in more ways than one. And I cannot wait for you to hear this interview. It's incredible. Absolutely incredible story. You're gonna love it. That's coming up in just a few minutes.

So I'm really so excited everyone about my 50th episode. I was up late last night maybe I had one or two many lemonades at a time and he ordered a bunch of mugs with live from Detroit. The Jeff Dwoskin show logo on my wife says I can't keep them. So I'm gonna give some away. That's right. It's another live from Detroit, the Jeff Dwoskin show giveaway to celebrate our 50th episode, it's going to kick off on April 20. It's Tuesday at 3pm. Eastern go to @JeffDwoskinShow on Twitter, you'll see a tweet from my personal account that I'll retweet from there or go to my personal account at bigmarker. @bigmacher it's gonna be a fun hashtag game. Just reply to the tweet that I do and go subscribe to my podcast. You'll see all the directions and all that good stuff. And you could be a winner of a live from Detroit the Jeff Dwoskin show mug. I know you're like Jeff. I was just thinking about that. What would make my life complete while I was sipping from a horrible, horrible mug? And I was like, Yeah, I know. Here I am. swooping in, make sure you're following us on Twitter. If you're not signed up for my mailing list sign up for that at Jeff it's funny calm. Also be shooting out a mailing list reminder as well. All that good stuff so you can when we're excited. Did you hear that noise? I thought I heard something. Anyway, so and so I'm really excited. So definitely check that out. Also, don't forget to check out every Wednesday crossing the streams. That's my live show. Every Wednesday 9:30pm Eastern Time live on YouTube. Just go to YouTube and search the Jeff Dwoskin show find my page and subscribe to my channel and you'll be notified or on facebook@facebook.com/jeffisfunny.

Did you hear that?

I keep hearing noise anyways. So definitely check out the live show. It's great. We talked about all the TV shows you should be streaming crossing the streams. Get it haha. Okay, so that's fine. All right.

And now it's time for the social media tip! this is a part of the show where I share social media tip to everyone to help us all get better on social media, because that's what it's all about 50 tips and you must be super excellent at this point. But I got one for you today. That's super special. And in theme with the show and our guest Burt Ward. And today's metta tip is be a hero. What do I mean by be a hero retweet or share someone's post that has them talking about something special that they did, or tweet or post something really nice about someone you know, and maybe something they accomplished. Be a Hero make someone else feel good on social media. You know how good it feels when someone says something nice about you take a moment on the platform of your choice and spread that love to someone else. Do you guys hear that? I did. There's something coming from behind that door. I apologize. It's anyway, that's the social media tip.

I do want to take a moment to thank everyone who supports the sponsors week after week after week can't think enough it means the world to me. It's how we keep the lights on here at live from the droid the Jeff Dwoskin show this week sponsor K.G. Bird: makers of superior umbrellas. That's right. Do you need an umbrella? Well, K.G. Bird has the umbrella for you. Whether it be rain, shooting gas as it or simply to use your umbrella as a gun. K.G. Bird is the umbrella for you. That's right. located conveniently in the center of Gotham City. K.G. Bird has been supplying quality umbrellas since the 1960s. You need an umbrella, you need K.G. Bird. All right. That sounds good. You know it was raining the other day and I'm like I left the umbrella in the car. It was the worst. Oh man. There's a noise again. Sorry, I got a check but something's going on behind this door. Hang on a second.

Celebrity Voice 5:05

SURPRISE!

Jeff Dwoskin 5:07

Party for me. I said don't throw a party.

Celebrity Voice 5:10

What's going on so many people here. Hey, you. Congratulations, Jeff.

I'm really excited for you, man. Glad you're doing so well from the old pal. Sly. Hope you got 50 more in the tank

Jeff Dwoskin 5:20

guy, buddy. Oh, wow. Good to see you again. Oh, hey. Wow,

Celebrity Voice 5:24

Jeff, you've crushed it. You got 50 episodes. You're doing great stuff. So proud to know you. Let it go. Good guy.

Jeff Dwoskin 5:33

Thank you means the world. Oh, hey.

Celebrity Voice 5:36

Oh my gosh. Jeff Dwoskin hit 50 episodes.

This is so huge. Hi, Peter Griffin here. And I just wanted to say congratulations, Chef. You're doing real good. doing real good. love your show. Big fan.

Jeff Dwoskin 5:49

Who knew that it would be so grand?

Celebrity Voice 5:51

Oh, hey, are you Oh pal, Matt here. Just want to say congratulations. You're doing great stuff. Jeff. super proud of you, man. Super excited to see you're doing so well. Number five of Congratulations, buddy. Got to have you on down in the house. Maybe play a little game. Have some barbecue Tiger shirts off. Just cruise around for a little bit because there's demand gratulate right. All

right. All right. Oh, hey, everybody, you want to send out a really big shout out to Jeff Dwoskin for reaching 50. year old buddy, Kermit here. Just want to say congratulations, Jeff and Keep up the great work, buddy.

Jeff Dwoskin 6:23

Wow, this is a little overwhelming. But we're gonna come back to the party after the interview. I think now it's time to get things started. And I'm excited to share with you my conversation with Burt Ward. We'll see in a little bit. Hey, save me an order. All right, ladies and gentlemen, I am so excited to introduce you to my next guest. Actor hates Crusader. canine Crusader. Ladies and gentlemen, Burt Ward. Welcome to the show, Burt. I'm trying to get over the fact that I'm talking to you, Burt. It's quite a thrill. I grew up watching Batman and Robin, thank you for being here.

Burt Ward 7:03

It shows You have excellent taste, Jeff,

Jeff Dwoskin 7:05

thank you so much. There's two origin stories that I want to kind of cover with you. One is the path to becoming the boy wander. And then the other one is the gentle giants rescue and how you've saved over 15,000 dogs and created a food that's revolutionizing the dog food and screen saving and extending the lives of dogs. That real life hero thing I think is fascinating. The more I dug into it, that's such an incredible story. What led you to the rescue.

Burt Ward 7:37

We rescued about let's see, it's now it's like 26 years ago, my wife and I, when we had our daughter, we were living near the beach and we had a house that was like four storeys high with these balconies that you know, you would never want a child out on balcony like that. So we decided we're gonna move inland and we decided to get a dog for our daughter to grow up with. And I always liked Great Danes, my wife like Irish Wolfhounds, and we ended a rescue in a Great Dane. And we heard about other Great Danes that needed rescue. And we took another one. And then we figured, well, the ones that that we didn't take, they're still in people's homes, and I'm sure they'll find them a place you know, they weren't in shelters where they were in immediate danger. But later on, we found out that the ones that we didn't take were actually ended up going to shelters, people couldn't find anybody to rescue them. And they were being put to death. And it was the first week in August of 1994, that I said to my wife, Tracy, these gentle giants, they're so loving their big loving dogs. And it's a terrible injustice for them to be put to death, only because they don't have a home. And the shelters are just overflowing with animals that are homeless. And I said, why don't we just for a couple of weeks, just for a couple of weeks. So we find somebody else to take this over. Let's just rescue these great days. I mean, how many can there be? Well, by the end of August of 1994, three weeks after I had made that marvelous comment to my wife, we had 102 great things in our house 102 giant dogs in our house and 62 puppies, under seven weeks of age. We had seven litters that we rescue from animal shelters from people that didn't know how to bring up a litter and oh my gosh, I told my wife Tracy, just two weeks, so we find somebody else. Well, it's been 26 years, Jeff, and I still haven't found somebody else to rescue these dogs or maybe even rescue me. In any event. We love these dogs. But we also found that they live really short lives. And we adopted I mean over the years, 26 years 15,500 of these dogs in the safe loving homes. But the ones that we didn't adopt they tended to die at very young ages. Great Danes only live in average of seven to nine years again. We thought what a terrible injustice. So we decided that because we had so many in our house, we've always had a minimum of 50 in our house, giant dogs 50. And those of your listeners, they want to go to our website, gentle giants dog food calm. The first thing you see on our homepage is a full screen video of my wife Tracy and I in bed with 50 of them. And of course, they can't all get on the bed. I mean, they're way too big, but they're all around the bed somewhere on the bed, some get off some get on kind of fun, actually three pretty amazing. And they're all the dogs get along fantastically, and stuff like that. So we found a way by feeding so many every single day. Just to give you an idea. Every day, here we feed 600 pounds of gentle giants dog food here a day. First, we found a way that by feeding and care for them, we could add about three years to each dog's life, we found by feeding five or more times a day, smaller, more frequent meals, elevating their food, all of which your listeners could if they go to gentle giants dog food calm, they can go to our special feeding and care program. And they can learn what took us 26 years to learn, they could read and learn in less than 25 minutes, then we said you know we've got these dogs living an extra three years longer, which even by itself is pretty spectacular. You know, a dog that lives seven to nine years now you got living on average 10 to 12. But we decided what if we made our food and because we could afford it, let's make the finest food in the world just for our rescue dogs, you know, because, you know, maybe we can pull out another year or two? Well, when we went to make the food, we found out something that was so upsetting to us, Jeff. And what we found out was that all dog food companies know something the average person doesn't know, which is the more fat content you put in dog food, the hungry or it makes dogs. So dog food is filled with fat on the inside. And after it's made sprayed with fat on the outside, all with one purpose, make dogs hungry, make them eat more, and you have to buy more dog food. We believe that's incredibly horrible, very upsetting. That is very

Jeff Dwoskin 12:06

upsetting.

Burt Ward 12:06

You know, if you think about it, one of the reasons our dogs are living up to 27 and a half years, I mean one of our dogs actually four times for normal lifespan, but most of our dogs are living twice their normal lifespan. People say how can you do that? Is this some kind of magic? No, it's not magic. But think of it this way. Just one thing alone. We don't coat our dog food with all this grease on the outside. People say well, how could that be so bad? It was animal fat. I said, Well think of it this way. Would you ever take a can of bacon fat. After you cook bacon and pour down your garbage disposal that Oh, you would never do that. Because you know that unlike water that evaporates animal fat coagulates. And when it hardens, it's like cement. So if you took a can of bacon fat and put it down your garbage disposal, want to let it sit there for an hour or two, you'd end up buying a new garbage disposal. So my point is when you realize that animal fat will ruin a metal garbage disposal, what do you think is happening to the arteries and intestines of dogs and cats and other animals, when every single day, every single meal. Every single bite, every single kibble is encapsulated in animals. That's one thing. And the other thing is dog food as genetically modified organisms and dog food. We're maybe the only company that uses non GMO ingredients in our dog food. And on our website at the same gentle giants dog food.com. There's a section of non GMO dog food and we have a video up that we didn't do but all these veterinarians from all across the USA, we got a whole bunch of them got together. And when they were interviewed all said roughly the same thing, which is 1015 years ago, they would see one or two patients a month that had cancer of pets, dogs and cats. Now they're seeing one out of every two dogs or cats as cancer 50% of every animal they see has cancer. And they attribute that to the genetically modified organisms in food. Like for example, grain, whether it be corn or wheat or soy or even nutrition springs, oatmeal, flaxseed, brown rice, they're filled with genetically modified organisms. And why do they do that? Because pests will ruin the crops. So when they modify the plan to not die when you spray pesticides on it, the plant lives. But guess what those pesticides are still inside that plant. You feed them to your animals and dogs are dying. The average life of a dog is only seven years, little dogs maybe two or three years more than the average. But we've got dogs consistently living into their 20. So anyway, we made the food for our rescue dog. We never thought of selling it until the people who started adopting from us they would come and see an 18 year old Great Dane which Just like twice their normal lifespan, they'd say, What are you feeding that dog? Oh, that's just the food we made, they'd adopted dog and they would leave. They say, Well, what am I going to feed my dog? Well, you can feed your dog, whatever you want. They said, No, no, we're not going to adopt his dog. Unless we get that same food that you got was it? Oh, my gosh, well, we had especially made, it's in plain white bags, we're not selling it. And then we had to go through that whole thing of labor laws and all that stuff. And that's how it all came about. And one of our adopters was a store manager of a chain of grocery stores, and they wanted our food one thing led to another. So here we are, 15 years later, where we're all over the country, we're in Walmart, we're in target. We don't take $1 in salary, it's our charity. But dogs are living all over the place incredibly long. I just got an email from a man who said he's been feeding you Shepherd our food for 15 years, and the shepherd just died. But a shepherd was 23 years old for a German Shepherd. unheard of. So we know this works. And it's our charity. Now we have our cat food, using the same ingredients with some additional things for cats. And last year, we lost two of our cats one was 31 years old, the other was 32 years old, unheard of nobody has ever done anything like that. And it's our charity. So that's what we do. And we love animals. And actually, we've created another company called superheroes to the rescue. And what we're doing is trying to encourage everyone, no matter where you are, what you do, to try to make a little bit of a contribution to make a better world for all of us, even if it means taking a blanket to an animal shelter so a dog can be more comfortable doing whatever you can to make life a little better for the rest of us. So that's what our focus is 100%

Jeff Dwoskin 16:46

Sure. All right, that's incredible. And I have a couple follow up questions. One I did watch the video on your website and the first thought I had was is that a standard King or did you have a specially large size bed man?

Burt Ward 17:00

It is it's a regular King mattress but the bed is a little bit larger. And the thing was is the support couple of our dogs are right at 300 pounds. You know most people have never seen a 200 pound dog. Almost no one has ever seen a dog that's right at 300 pounds. One of our dogs Sammy is a great thing that when he stands up on two legs, you know he stands up like a person. He stands seven feet five and a half inches tall, which is four inches taller than Shaquille O'Neal. To give you a perspective, four inches taller than she he weighs 285 pounds. Another dog of ours avalanche we believe was the largest dog in the world. He weighed 305 pounds. He also stood seven and a half feet tall. But when he was on all four legs, just like a typical dog you see walking, the lowest part of his back was 45 and a half inches tall, which to give you an idea is five and a half inches taller than your kitchen counter. kitchen counters are 40 inches tall is the lowest part of his back and he would come over to our kitchen sink and to the we turn on the faucet and he would lean way down to drink from the faucet

Jeff Dwoskin 18:11

bird to put you into my head for a second. I have a Maltese. A Maltese is probably the equivalent of the size of and I'm sure you know this the head of any one of your

Burt Ward 18:22

half the size of the head of one of our dogs. How much is your Maltese weight?

Jeff Dwoskin 18:27

Probably four pounds or less?

Burt Ward 18:28

Okay, well guess what? We have not just Great Danes in large breeds. We also rescue tiny breeds. The smallest breed we have here is a Chinese crested Are you familiar with Chinese presidents as adults, they weigh two pounds. So we go from two pounds to 300 pounds. We have 45 different breeds here. Here's the interesting thing. Our food is for all breeds at all life stages. We start puppies. When we rescue puppies, we get them at three and a half weeks. We start off on our food and the same food. We feed the three and a half week old puppies. We feed to 2526 and 27 year olds see

Jeff Dwoskin 19:08

we had a rescue before the Maltese it was English Springer Spaniel Collie mix, and we had him for 16 years. He was 16 when he died

Burt Ward 19:18

that's great.

Jeff Dwoskin 19:19

I know right? Even on our food, you could add another 10 years and wish I had known about your food at the time he you know, he got to the point where he really couldn't, he couldn't move anymore.

Burt Ward 19:29

Well, that's interesting that you brought that up. Let me tell you something about dogs because of living with 15,500 dogs over the last 26 years. 24 seven. I mean, this is a level of experience. I don't think anyone in the world that I'm aware of has has experienced and they're living in our house or not in some building or some yard or whatever. This is hands on. They're here. They're here right next to me now, but in any event, here's what we found out. dog's bodies were out much faster human bodies and one of the things that people say to me. And they'll say, No, I watched your videos, I see dogs running around like puppies in their mid 20s. How is it that your dog can run around like puppies in your mid 20s? And my dog can barely get up? And here's what the answer is actually ties into Batman, if you remember on their series, every week, we had different villains. And we all there was always these hour classes where you turn it over and like the sands of time are running out. Well, I explained to people think of their dog's life, energy, that energy to get up to walk to run to play to function, like the sand coming out of that hourglass, when it comes all the way out. It's over for our dogs as well as anybody else's dogs. But here's the difference, we found a way to slow it down, we found a way to conserve that energy. So when other people starves, can't get up anymore. And they think it's very unjust that their dog can barely walk. And our dogs are running around at twice their age. And the answer is conservation of energy. And as two examples, one example is, you know, if you watch television, you see these commercials for these dog food companies. They don't know anything about dogs, they'll have a Great Dane or some big dog come over and lean down on the floor to eat out of a bowl or drink out of the bowl on the floor. Well, let me tell you something, we elevate the dog's food and water bowls. And every dog has a specific height, just for that dog that's proper. You want to have a height of water and food that the dog never leans down, never leans up, just tilts her head down. And you say, Well, why is that so important? Well think about it. If you put the food and water on the floor, every day, your dog leaned down to get food up and down to get water up and down and up and down. They're prematurely wearing their bodies out. And when you start to think of that every single day, look how much energy is wasted. Second thing is, for example, with your dogs, Jeff, how many times a day you feed your dogs,

Jeff Dwoskin 21:57

we feed our Mounties three times a day. And the last time is at five, but it's like a two scoops instead of one.

Burt Ward 22:05

Well, here's the problem that shortens their lives. Did you know that?

Jeff Dwoskin 22:09

Don't say that. And there's no my wife here as

Burt Ward 22:12

well, though, I'm just telling you the truth. Let me explain to you what, it's all science. All right. Think of it this way. I like to use human terms. I'm sure in your life. You've gone out maybe you went to a buffet or somebody's house and the food was so great. And maybe you overate and I'm sure in your life at least once you came home and literally had to lie down to digest your food. Hasn't that happened to you in your life?

Jeff Dwoskin 22:33

I cannot relate to that at any level. Burt, I don't know what you're talking about. But let's assume let's assume the audience doesn't continue.

Burt Ward 22:39

Yeah. Okay. Yeah, I get it. Well, here's the point. When that happens with humans, their body's basically saying I'm shutting down to do anything else other than digest this food is just too much food, there's no energy to spare for other activity other than digesting this food. When you feed a dog only once, twice or three times a day, you are making that dog's body go through that massive digestive effort every single day, and it's prematurely wearing their bodies out the way we have dogs running around like puppies in their 20s is we feed our dogs a minimum of five or more times a day, smaller, more frequent meals. Okay, that's one thing. Secondly, think about it. Whatever day of the week it is today, when you got up this morning, were you exactly as hungry this morning, as you were yesterday morning, maybe maybe not. The point of it is when people use a specific like you use number of cups. When you use that specific number. Maybe on a Monday, that's fine. But maybe on a Tuesday, your dog might want more. If they only have that amount, and they've eaten all that food, and they're still hungry. That's stressful. You've heard the term stress kills. So these functions we teach our dogs to self regulate, we let them out. And they go out of our house all day in and out all day long. They are exposed to food at least five or 10 or 15 times a day. And sometimes they eat something sometimes they eat not one bite 20 bites, it's all different. But there's a psychological thing when the dog realizes that they never have to worry about food. They don't have to be like the squirrel gathering nuts for the winter. So this is all part of the system we've developed and our dogs self regulate. We use these huge tool chests. If you ever seen them on the back of pickup trucks, people put their tools in them, you press the button, the top pops up. Well, each one of these is up on concrete blocks because they're elevated and each one holds 200 pounds of our food. And when you get an idea how big our operation is here we have 27 of those that are filled with 200 pounds of food a day and our dogs are eating from them. They never overeat. They never gain too much weight. They only eat what they need. This is all part of our system that these animals are living so incredibly long. And by the way, we have no illness here Jeff zero illness our dogs are so healthy, they only go to a veterinarian every three years. For a $10 rabies update,

Jeff Dwoskin 25:02

that's incredible. It's interesting because the living longer thing when you're newly married, and you get your first dog, meaning it isn't under the ownership of your parents, it's your dog. The one thing that nobody prepares you for is that dog passing away and dying. The majority time, from what I can see, dogs generally don't just die Ramya you don't just come downstairs in your dog. Usually you have to put the dog down for some reason. It's like the hardest thing in the world and like went to like so the idea that you created this product that can not only make them healthier, but live longer just I picture the look at my daughter's eyes when our dog Samson got sick and, and all that kind of stuff to know that you that could have been avoided or prolongs in a positive way. It's an amazing thing that you've done.

Burt Ward 25:48

Let me mention that to you that you brought up your daughter, Tracy and I we have a daughter, her name is Melody, when melody was a year and a half a we got her a six month old American Eskimo, it's a small breed dog weighs about 25 pounds as an adult, she's had that dog over 20 years. And when you think about it, what a great thing. People like to get pets for their children. But the sad thing is, is that most of these dogs are only living seven to 10 years, you've got like yours lifted 16 that one dog, but on average, they're living seven to 10 years. And here you got a child that's got to their best friend is their pet. And when that dogs die, you're having to explain death to a child, you shouldn't have to do it. Our daughter has had that same dog for more than 20 years. And what a wonderful thing for kids to grow up and have that same friend, they might not have human friends that long, but they have their canine pet loving them for all those years. So that makes a big difference if you're a family person, too.

Jeff Dwoskin 26:44

Absolutely. And you know, just it was interesting to know that you made earlier about the dogs eating and eating and eating because growing up when I was five or something like that we had a dog that a Schnauzer they got into the dog food and ate himself to death he got in he ate all they just kept eating. He didn't stop eating.

Burt Ward 27:03

It is so insidious. Okay, Jeff, because it actually affects their brain to believe they're hungry. And for an animal to be hungry. They the instinct is to eat to saturate the that hunger to cure that pain of hunger when you make them hungry like that. And then the other thing is, you know, I tell people, I said, with dog food companies, they would love to have it where everything your dog ate, came out the other end, so they'd have to keep eating and eating for nutrition. We're just the opposite. We want your dog to eat less of our food and get more nutrition people so why would you want them to eat less? Because less digestion? Yes, less burning up of energy, more conservation of energy. So years later, they're still running around like a puppy.

Jeff Dwoskin 27:50

It's amazing story bird how you know you went from playing hero to becoming one for all these animals. It's it's really, really cool. And again, for everyone. It's gentle giants rescue and I'll put the URL and I know birds mentioned it already. But I'll put it all in the show notes. Anyone has a quick link to it. So they can check that out and purchase that thing. It's online. And then it's pretty much every target Walmart, Petco, every everywhere you can get it.

Burt Ward 28:15

Yes, I like to say that I was the cape Crusader. And now I'm the canine Crusader. And most recently become the cat Crusader.

Jeff Dwoskin 28:23

You should get Julie Newmar to help you with the cat food.

Burt Ward 28:25

There you go. I think she wouldn't be perfect for that are perfect.

Jeff Dwoskin 28:32

All right, so let's talk about your other origin story. So TV has changed forever. January 12 1966 7:30pm. You debut as Robin with Adam, West, Batman and Robin, those go backwards. Now. What was the process of becoming Grayson, getting the role of the boy wonder Robin,

Burt Ward 28:51

kind of a unique process. I think in this case, I wanted to be an actor. I was studying acting at UCLA where I was going to college, I was also studying professionally, I was very fortunate. I worked for my father, I was living in Beverly Hills, and my father was a prominent real estate broker. and on weekends, I would sit on these open houses, people would come in to look at the house and possibly buy a house and my father had had 65 houses that he was representing someone who had them, I had ownership of those. And so I was like sit on one house for a couple hours. And I go to another planet. And one of the people that came into look at the house was prominent producer. He was very nice. And and I was very nice to him. And I asked him, I said, You know, I realize you're looking at a house, but would really appreciate if you could just spend five minutes and let me do a scene for you. And he said yes. And I did it. And he said, You know, that's pretty good. He said, Let me send you to an agent and see if they can help you out get some work. So he sent me to this agent and I went to see this agent who was it was not exactly encouraging. His first comment was I can't get Work for the actors I've got, I would never take a new actor. And it's only because this producer asked me to take you as an actor don't expect to work for a year. And if you get a job, you might have one line, you know, then that's not terribly encouraging, right? Yeah. I left their little dejected, but I went home. And believe it or not, about three weeks later, somebody from this, this agents office called me and said, there's something going over 20 Century Fox, we got an appointment for you tomorrow at 430. You can drive over there, and then they'll let you park in the lot. And they'll direct you to you know, where you have to go for this interview. And I said, well, what's it about this? You know, I don't know, honestly, we just know that there's something for there. You're looking at young guys. I mean, so there was no, no advance. So but so I go over the next day, and they let me on the line. And they say, Oh, you got to go to this bungalow. And I went over there. And I was introduced to the casting director, and he said, Would you like to meet the executive producer? I said, Sure. I figured, you know, everybody got to meet the executive producer. Well, that's not true. But I didn't know that. So I went in to meet the executive producer. And you have to understand, so many of these actors have been so rejected. And so just like their feelings hurt so many times, they're like wounded animals going in for an interview you I mean, you're just going to cut them down. Because remember, their product is themselves. If that's something that they make, they can say, well, the heck with that. It's you. You're an actor, because I hadn't been rejected before. I just went in. I said, you know, Hello, Mr. Dozier, and I shook his hand a little aggressively. And he was completely taken aback. He's like, Who is this guy that is so bold, and he said to me, looked at me says, well, you're kind of big for this part. I said, Oh, But sir, I promise you, I won't grow anymore. And it's like, how can you promise somebody that? And he laughed. He thought that was funny. He said, Well, would you like to do a screencast? I said, Sure. I figured everybody that met the executive producer got to do a screen test. Well, that wasn't true, either. But I didn't know. So it was arranged. I went to 20th Century Fox a couple weeks later, and I did some some martial arts. I had been studying karate, and karate came to the United States in 1959. And in the early 60s, I was studied in Los Angeles, there's a very famous teacher, Ed Parker. So I did some stuff. I broke a board with my hand, which at that time, nobody had ever seen anything like that. I was given a scene to do in civilian clothes. And they said, We have another actor to work with you. And they introduced me to Adam West. They said, you know, why don't you guys go over your lines, and then we'll shoot in about 15 minutes, I was handed a sheet of paper, and just a single sheet of paper, and it had paragraphs on top of one paragraph it said, Bruce, it didn't say Bruce Wayne didn't say anything. But bat just said Bruce with dialogue and then the next below what it said dick with dialog broomstick roofdeck, I started talking to Adam West, and in five minutes, the two of us were laughing. We never stopped laughing for over 50 years. We just got along so well. We're like instant friends. I mean, there's not a lot of people in life. But you know, some people you meet, and it's just whatever it is, they say makes you laugh, and whatever you say makes them laugh. And we just got along great. So then we did the scene together, and they filled it. And I said, Well, thank you very much. And I started to leave and they said, Well, wait a minute, Burt, we're not done with you yet. We want you to go over to the other side of the soundstage to see way down there over there. Then we got a trailer with two wardrobe men there who are going to help you get dressed. And I stopped present as well. With no disrespect. I'm perfectly capable of dressing myself. Oh, no, no, no, you don't know you guys go over there. I walked away or the other is building I'm just like walking a mile. It seems like a huge soundstage. Now get over their journal, they've got a dressing room and I walk in and it's just like a giant, I don't know couch. It's like 15 feet long or something and all this stuff on the couch. And I said, am I going to put some of that on? They said no, you're going to put all of it on. I said what? So these guys helped me get dressed the most uncomfortable thing in my entire life. And I've always been an optimistic person, Jeff, I always try to find the good things right here I am. I can't see out of the mask except straight ahead. Because the way the mask is the mask is like irritating my eyelashes. The tights are pulling the hair on my leg. The boots are too tight. The cape is pulling my head. I mean, everything was going wrong, but I tried to find something positive about it. So as I'm hobbling towards the door of this trailer, I turned to these two wardrobe guys that said, Look, the good news here is that after another 15 or 20 minutes, I'll never have to wear this costume again. Famous last words. And then of course I went to the do the scene and there is Adam. But you see I never read a Batman comic book. I never heard of Batman where I live they had Superman comic books and super Boy, that Batman so I looked at him in this outfit. I'm looking at me and I'm trying to see what is is is is this some kind of Shakespearean period piece or something. I had no idea and it wasn't until weeks later, like six weeks later that I found out all about it. That's it the time that I was called in by the agents, they said, Oh, come on in, and we're going to have you signed contracts. It's in Great. Now I'm going to be formally represented, having my own agent. And I looked down at the contracts and said, 20 Century Fox, I said, What's this? I thought I'm signing agency got, oh, no, no, you got the part you're signing. They said, You mean, the studio didn't tell you? I said, No. Two weeks later, I was in at the studio. And the studio said, You mean, your agents didn't tell him. So of the six weeks that I was rotting, waiting to find out? If I got the part four of the six weeks, I'd already had the part, I couldn't understand why the studio is asking me calling me and say, what's your shoe size? What's your ad size? Well, I don't wear a hat, we'll go get your head measured, please. Things that I knew nothing about. And that's what really happened. And then to top it off, when I finally went to do it, some test stuff, the executive producer came in and said to me, Burt, would you like to know why out of 1100 young actors that we interviewed that we pick you? I said, Yes, sir, I really I would like to know very much. He said, Okay, here's the answer, for getting television. Forget Freeman, if there really was a rock, I mean, the real thing, we think you personally would be it. So we don't want you to quote act, we actually want you to just do two things. One, be yourself. And to be enthusiastic. Well, I'm already enthusiastic. So this is this be yourself. And that's what I did for 120 episodes, and not once and those 120 episodes, with all these different directors working 14 hours a day, six days a week to make each one of the 120 episodes, did any director ever tell me how to stay alive?

Jeff Dwoskin 36:45

They didn't tell that divide the chemistry of the two of us working together. Just it worked. The way he would say his lines would cause me to react naturally, in the way I do. And that's how it worked. It's amazing when you think back on the chemistry and the picking of just the right actors, because famously when they show the screen test of you and Adam West, they always play it. You know, like in YouTube clips they play back to back with bio Wagner and Peter RJ dial. Yeah. What do you think Peters doing right now, Burt?

Burt Ward 37:16

I have no idea. It's a really nice guy. I just had fun with it. I mean, Lyle Wagner, great actor. But Adam has a sense of humor that carried across he was so Batman, his style, his stoic, kind of very grand, and the more stoic and skip he was, the more relaxed and wild and loud I was and just hyper. If you look at the great comic duels in history, they've always had great contrast. I mean, think of it like Abbott and Costello, even modern times with Johnny Carson, Ed McMahon, you know, Laurel and Hardy always great contrast. So there was this tremendous contrast between Adam who was very slow and very grand. And here the kid me is Robin, and it worked and collected mentioned the scene I did the kind of typifies how I approach the character, I just basically did what I thought was right. So let's take a scene we had in the very beginning show with Frank Ocean is the Riddler. And this particular scene, Batman and Robin drive up outside this museum. And we're going to climb up the side of the building, because we believe that the museum is going to be robbed by the river and we climb up the side of the building. But well, before we do that, we pull up and we come to a screeching halt. And of course, Batman has to be stylized with it, you know, racing into the butt instead of getting out of the door, like most people would, I would usually jump over the door. But in this particular scene, I decided when we stopped because it was behind us where we were going, I stood up on the door and walked in the tail fin to the back of the Batmobile and then jumped off. But when I did that, the director said and the camera were saying you didn't tell us you were gonna do that. We had you coming out the door. We've got to lay track down. We've got to have a dolly, we got to follow you a lot. You don't you know all of this stuff. I did what I thought was right. But let me tell you something, which was really interesting. What I did naturally thinking what was right to do, you know, just kind of instinctively it worked. And I found out something very interesting. A year ago, I got my star in Hollywood Boulevard, January 9 2020. Congratulation, it's real party afterwards, around the corner from where I got my star effect. The star of both Adam and I is right in front of the Guinness Museum of world records. And right around the corner is the Hollywood museum. And we threw a party there. Coming to the party was Robert Butler, who was the director of the first Batman Episode The pilot. This is the man that I worked with first. I hadn't seen him in 55 years, hadn't talked to him hadn't seen a blow. He told me a story, Jeff, that I want to tell you that I didn't know I found out 55 years later. And here's what the story was. He said that when he was hired to do the pilot, and with the pilot, you know, it's the first show, they want it to be extra spectacular. So instead of six days to make it, they gave him three weeks to make it right really wanted to be special. He said that when he was hired, that he was meeting with the executive producer, William dolger, who said to him, we hired this young kid to play rock, he seems great for the part, but we don't know how well he's going to work as being an actor. So what we'd like you to do is I'd like you to go talk to him, and see in talking to him, if you feel that you can work with him. And if he could do this part, and he's telling me the story, here it is 55 years ago that I never knew this story. So I do remember you coming over to me and saying that, could I talk to you for a few minutes. And he said that after he talked to me, he went back to the executive booth says, Well, what did you think about you directing this kid Burt Ward, as Robin? He said, let me tell you something. And he said this to me, he said, When I saw his talent, he says, as a good director, I stay the heck out of the way. And let somebody who really could do it perfectly do it without messing with. I mean, it was a real compliment to hear something 55 years later that you didn't know. And it was great. And of course, you know, our show became number one and number two in the entire world. Our first show on that January 12 1966, had a 55 share. And what that means for your listening audience is that of all the televisions on in North America, which included not just the United States, but also Canada, and Mexico, okay. of those countries. It 55% of every single television was watching Batman and all the other the two other US networks and all the regional stations, all the local stations, were all sharing that other 45%. And if you were to compare that now they didn't have Superbowl but okay. But if you were to compare that just to the ratings of Superbowl, our opening night was higher than any Superbowl in history. That was how many people were watching that.

Jeff Dwoskin 42:05

I also read it was the highest since the Beatles had been on itself.

Burt Ward 42:08

Oh, yeah, it was some. It was amazing. You know, Adam was like, I love to have him he but he was so funny. He said, you know, Burt, there's really the three beads. I said the three B's Yes. Bond, Beatles and Batman. Yeah. And he was like, Oh my gosh, you know, what made him so hilarious to me is that he saw everything in such grand ways, such gigantic ways thought of himself like Winston Churchill and somebody that everything was so deep and so profound. And I'm like this kid, you know, this, like, let's go, let's go this. Wait a minute, Robin. And one of the great things that tells the humor of our show, we were chasing these villains right in the city running across the screen, and Batman says we can't do that. We have to go through the crosswalk. It's illegal to walk across the street without going through the crosswalk. Oh, you're right. So of course, we had to slow down chasing them because we had to go across the crosswalk to chase down these villains going the other direction.

Jeff Dwoskin 43:05

It's so funny. It's so and that was part of the the charm of the show. Okay, since you're full in to the mode of the show, I have a few important questions for you. You ready? Sure. Okay, when is the time of a clock like the whistle of a train

Burt Ward 43:19

when it's two two two, two two two

Jeff Dwoskin 43:22

what has neither flesh bone nor nail yet has four fingers and a thumb.

Burt Ward 43:26

I'd love to turn to Glover Ave,

Jeff Dwoskin 43:29

you've done it again, Shawn. Let's just hope we're not too late.

Burt Ward 43:33

Yeah, you know, it was so fun on Batman and Adam. I just loved him so much. On the weekends, he and I would go play tennis. Sometimes we have, you know, regular civilian clothes plane. And people. They were public courts. So you'd have people in the court next door, you see looking at us, like those people look familiar. And then all of a sudden, what I'm gonna say, Oh my gosh, it's Batman and Robin play tennis. And it was just, it was such a fun time. And it's so funny that even years later when Adam and I would meet people at these Comic Cons or other events and stuff. When people would meet a celebrity. It's like, oh, wow, you know, that's nice. That's great meeting you. But when they be introduced to add Batman or Robin, it's like people would get this smile across their face and a twinkle in their eye. We used to say that we put on our tights to put on in the world. In fact, we were the only superheroes that wore our underwear on the outside of our clothes.

Jeff Dwoskin 44:29

Yes, you were but you weren't so well. He awards so to to to Glover Avenue. People are gonna think I prepped you for that bit, but I did not.

Burt Ward 44:37

Oh no, you know, I had some real tongue twisters though. Yeah, it was not just all the holies I did, but I had some tongue twisters and remember the character of Robin was highly energetic and spoke quickly. So it's not your you get a tongue twister. Yes. If you kind of practice it, you don't say it too fast. But you have to do lines like I had to do at incredible speed and have these tongue twisters. I had a line where I said to Batman, gosh, Batman, haven't you some anti ballistic bat flax in your utility belt? Let me tell you something, Jeff. I struggled with that for a half an hour. Before I got that line down.

Jeff Dwoskin 45:13

Who made it look so easy, Burt, you made it look. So this is fine. Let me ask you about all the amazing guest stars that you had on this show because it's it's like a who's who of everybody? Well, let me first ask the walking up the building was that literally just kind of worked in just to fit in more cameos?

Burt Ward 45:34

Yes. And no, the reason why it's yes or no is we did have scenes walking in the building. But when so many stars wanted to be on our show. I mean, these are people that you know, it's funny when something is hot. Everybody wants to get in on right. When Batman came out and was such a huge hit every celebrity in Hollywood, it seemed like especially ones that had children. Okay, those kids were driving, you got to get a Batman. That's the coolest show that. So the producers were like, what are we doing? We're bombarded by, you know, these are the greats in the show business. So that's when they create said, Okay, well, how about if we have that man and rock going up a building, and a window opens? And then a celebrity opens a window and has some dialogue? So the very first celebrity that did that was Sammy Davis, Jr. and then you had so many great people on there. Colonel clink and lurch and Nick Clark and Don whole and Jerry Lewis.

Jeff Dwoskin 46:30

Yeah. Jerry, good. anticline. Right. Edward G. Robinson,

Burt Ward 46:34

Betty White. I mean, you have all these people that had been around and we're very recognizable. Everybody wanted to be on Batman and the actors that played the villains, they had a great time, most of these great actors in the roles that they normally portrayed. They were limited by the character. But here when you're bigger than life villain, you can be as pain as you could imagine. And of course, they the signs, like you know, villains height. And of course, the camera was always tilted. Did you notice that? Yes. And you know why it was tilted? I didn't know that until till after production. I said, what's wrong with you guys drinking or what? What's the matter? The cameras, no bird. That was our way of participating. What do you mean? They said, well, the villains were crooked. So our camera angle was crooked. And I said, I never knew that. And I was shooting the show every day.

Jeff Dwoskin 47:25

Subtle brilliance. Yeah, I was reading Burgess Meredith who was he's is one of my favorite and he would say like we didn't do it for the money we did it because it was the thing to do was to be on the Batman show. Exactly. And so they just came back and did it over and over again.

Burt Ward 47:44

They loved it and let me tell you every time they did it, they had fun and the shows were crazy. And that Mike gosh the all these contraptions and these things that Batman and Robin were in such trouble with the special effects they had so many effects and the crew was more than twice the normal size all these people trying to make these special effects work

Jeff Dwoskin 48:06

one of the characters that popped out of the window when you're walking up the wall was Green Hornet and Kato who later actually on the show is those 85 and 80 say the Green Hornet and Kato were actually characters on the show. And you bought Cato? Yes. Talk to me about Bruce Lee for a second and I know you split a brick and a board and then your audition and stuff but

Burt Ward 48:26

people don't know was that I lived in the same complex of condos that Bruce Lee with and he and I were friends and we sparred together. That's where you fight with you pull the punches, so and then actually we would go to dinner occasionally his wife, Linda, and at that time Brandon, whose son was only six months of age and we went down to Chinatown and had dinner because Bruce had lived in Hong Kong for 10 years and knew all the most authentic foods but the same executive producer that was producing Batman produced the Green Hornet and that's why the Green Hornet and Kato were injured spurs into one of our shows to help them launch in the fall because they were going to be a false TV series. A piece of trivia for your listeners is Bruce Lee, who became by far the most famous cinematic martial artists in history right? his very first fight scene on film was fighting me on Batman The Batman style was you never wanted real violence. You never wanted any blood. You never you know, people were really hurt. So on Batman, you know, and then the scene that we did, Batman is fighting and these guys would pick up a table and hit him over the head and maybe fall down but didn't bounce right up. It was bigger than life stunt fighting. There was that scene that Bruce and I fought and they purposely toned it down because the stuff that we did when we were sparring was much rougher and much more real but they didn't want it to look that way. Everything had to be Batman style campy style, so that it would be suitable for kids of all ages.

Jeff Dwoskin 49:56

Very cool. So I was reading an interesting story. I saw a clip Adam was talking about this so Vincent Price was egghead episodes 4748 there was kind of a joke they played on you

Burt Ward 50:07

absolutely. what it was, it was the final fight scene where egghead as got me like like a headlock, and Batman comes in to rescue me. So the way the scene starts is this Batman comes in and grabs under the neck. And Batman says on hand him and he breaks like two eggs over my head. Real eggs, by the way, not anything fake the real thing. And then Adam, Batman has a mind and then he has a couple lines. And then he lets me go with Batman comes into fighting, right? Well, they're a little joke on me was to purposely goof up their lines, and they goofed him up seven times. And each time I had two eggs broken on my head, I had 14 eggs on my head before they got the scene, right. And they thought it was funny, but I didn't think it was funny because believe it or not, first couple eggs doesn't bother your head. But if somebody breaks 14 eggs in your head, at some point, it starts to hurt head eggs going down my back in my costume, all the way down into my shorts behind my cape and my my and my T shirt. It was Oh, it was horrendous. That sticky egg, you know, and I was so upset by that. Okay. But I mean, I was angry, but at the same time, you know, it's not where are you totally angry, but you're just like, you know, fed up that I was supposed to pick up a half a dozen eggs and throw them at again. But I didn't do that. I picked up a dozen eggs I came over and if you look at that scene, I hit him so hard on his end that his egg moved off of counter there. It was a little bit at an angle it I moved his egg on his head. And it was because I was like, Oh man, I Alright, I'm gonna get even. And then the other thing we did on that same episode, that same scene, we had an egg fight where egghead and his henchmen are on one side and Batman and Robin the other were supposed to be throwing eggs at each other and we were but I used to be a pitcher. I purposely threw the eggs to hit the crew. Okay, instead of throwing. I mean, I would throw a couple of mins again, but then I throw What did I hit the cameraman. And they like they they got all upset. They realized that I was doing it on purpose. And there was all these eggs on the set. And on off the set extra eggs. I mean, just like 1000s of eggs, right? And then they started throwing them at me and Adam and it was just as gigantic egg fight that we had on the set. It was hilarious. Everybody got hit with it. Nobody that didn't get

Jeff Dwoskin 52:31

getting hit by an egg is no yolk.

Hey, you know when I prep for conversations like this, I kind of I dive in you know, because you got the memories and then you want to kind of just refresh them. So one of the things that I stumbled on was was talking about the Liberace episodes episodes 49 and 50. So these would have come I think after the movie, Liberace played schandau which is in one of the villains that comes to mind immediately for me when I was when I reflect on the show, but the reason I mentioned that is interestingly enough, these were some of the highest rated episodes. These were the highest rated episodes of the series, so I thought that was very interesting. Just the draw that Liberace masis

Burt Ward 53:14

Did you know that that he had two names on there? It wasn't just shoved down. You know, the other characters name that he portrayed fingers on the character fingers, fingers? Yes. If I mgrs and he tried to be as evil as possible, but it didn't come along go off as frightening as it could have been. Because he wasn't exactly a frightening guy.

Jeff Dwoskin 53:36

No, no, no, he's he's not. He's not an evil villain. When when you think Liberace right? I did hear he brought his own pianos to the set.

Burt Ward 53:43

Oh, yeah. Oh, and I'll go back to that man play. Well, he was he was unbelievable, tremendous talent,

Jeff Dwoskin 53:50

you know, tremendous. So the show kicks off and Riddler is your first villain, Frank gorshin. He played the Riddler for the majority of the show. However, after the first season, he left was it a money thing that he left about? Because or was there some kind of dispute?

Burt Ward 54:08

No, no, no, it was never money. No, it was not that at all. It was, again, the pressure of having so many actors want to play roles. They actually asked him if he wouldn't mind and john asked and wanted to play the Riddler in one episode. And he went along with that he was because everybody wanted to be a part of it, everybody. I mean, you live we had three cat room and Julie Newmar Leon Merriweather played in the Batman movie at earthly Kent played in our series in the final season.

Jeff Dwoskin 54:35

Do you have a favorite or do you not like to go on record? Oh,

Burt Ward 54:38

I like to call it everybody. You know, everyone was so nice and such a pleasure to work with. And you know, they all brought their own creativity to the character, every one of them. And they were great. Let me tell you, I the way I looked at it. I came in on a show as a young actor, really young. I was the youngest person on the set. And I was like a kid like candy store. I mean, every one of these actors or actresses, or somebody that I've either seen on television, or seen in the movies when I was growing up, so for me, I was like, oh, wow, you know, I'm working with all these people. It was fun. I had a great time.

Jeff Dwoskin 55:15

I heard the Frank Sinatra would visit the set or visited the set, but he never appeared on the show.

Burt Ward 55:20

No, he actually wanted to be the Joker. I don't know. I mean, yeah, I never saw him on the set. So I mean, if he did, I just either I wasn't there at the time. But I know that he wanted to be on the show. And but they'd already cast Cesar Romero as the Joker.

Jeff Dwoskin 55:36

So Did any of you like with Cesar Romero, kind of pull him aside and go Cesar maybe just shave the mustache?

Burt Ward 55:44

No, no, he didn't want to shave his mustache?

Jeff Dwoskin 55:47

No, I know. He didn't. I

Burt Ward 55:48

know. He was sort of man style. see another reason that can't be styled? No. And then the producers, they said, Fine, you know, it's it badly and was so bigger than life, that there was no limitation of what you had to do, other than to be the baddest of the bad, the most evil. Everything was like, kind of like almost symbolic.

Jeff Dwoskin 56:09

Right. Okay. That's cool. And then there were three. Mr. freezes. Yes, Otto Prime Minister.

Burt Ward 56:14

He was the most everybody when he came on the set. See, he had a reputation of destroying people. When he was a director. He destroyed actors. I mean, he was just apparently, you know, the word was that he was very rough with actor. So everyone, he was going to be there. Everybody was intimidated. They didn't know oh, my God, this guy is known as a tyrant. And you know, some he's the nicest guy in the world. So I don't know. But it was a pleasure to work with him, you know. And Jordan Saunders was another one. He was great as Mr. Frese he was working great working with these people. We had some great Shakespearean actors there that were on our set as well.

Jeff Dwoskin 56:49

The interesting thing about Mr. Freeze as I was kind of reading is the character in the comic book was Mr. Zero Yes, the TV show changed the name to Mr. Freeze. And then this being one of a few examples of this the comics then change the character to Mr. Right.

Burt Ward 57:06

Yeah, there. There were some adjustments and then and, you know, subsequent to our series, the original comic book, Robin looked a lot different than than me I mean, he had like curly hair, big curl on the forehead. But you know, the DC Comics suit as part of Warner Brothers owns the rights, the characters, they came out with a comic book based on our 66 Batman, you know what I mean? They call it you know, Batman 66 it was drawn to look just like me and at just drawn to look like Adam. There's a whole series of Batman 66 merchandise with our pictures on it. I saw a one armed bandit like 11 feet tall that had for bigger than life photos of Adam a night on that casinos. And then there is a an amazing pinball machine that Adam and I each did 300 separate voices, character voices, you know, holy this or holy that for the pinball machine stern pinball. And in fact, I bought one of those for my wife, they were so nice about it. I asked if I could get a special recorded message just on my machine for my wife, Tracy. You know, it was really pretty cool that that they did that for me. And I gave that to her as a gift. So, you know, we've had some really spectacular things that there's so much Batman merchandise, it's still incredibly popular. In fact, I don't know if you know this, but the highest selling licensed merchandise in the entire world is Batman more than Star Wars more than Superman where the Lord of the Rings more than Harry Potter more than anything. Batman is always been the number one selling merchandise course the Batmobile is by far the most famous car in history.

Jeff Dwoskin 58:47

I believe it I have an Archie Batman 66 comic book. It's sort of a it's a mash up. It's an Archie comic book and Batman 66 as part of it. My daughter, my youngest daughter was a film's Batman v Superman in Detroit. And she was in I don't know if you saw but there was there's a scene where Superman in the Day of the Dead and my daughter's in that scene, right? And so my wife was on set with my daughter and she was all excited because she got they had the even though the Batmobile wasn't in the scene. It was there and she's like, I touched the Batmobile.

Burt Ward 59:22

Yeah, that's great.

Jeff Dwoskin 59:23

Now granted, it's not the Batman 66 Batmobile, but it was still you know, you got to take we can get but you got to take.

Burt Ward 59:29

Oh, absolutely. And oh, I mean the Batmobile late. I mean, the original one. We actually they had made three because they were so worried that if something broke down, they just can't have that in, in production. So there was three of them. But the original and the main one was auctioned off by George Barris for I think it was a three It was 3.6 million or something like that. It was you know, more than $3 million. Wow. And it wasn't even finished on the inside. I mean in other words, because of all the cameras The lights it had to be inside. I mean the dashboard was finished but you didn't have rugs or anything in it. It was kind of plain because they would they had their lights that they screw down to the floorboards. I mean it was it was terrific making that show it was a lot of fun. So what is the

Jeff Dwoskin 1:00:14

purchase Meredith like his he's like he's he was like in it. I think well, between him and Cesar Romero they were in the most episodes is as the penguin and the Joker. He loved it. Is it true that they had scripts is ready to go in case he was in town

Burt Ward 1:00:27

Dad, I don't know, because I wasn't privy to the producers were stuff went on. But I tell you working with both of them incredibly professional. I mean, just it was an honor to work with both he and Cesar Romero. I mean, they were just the consummate professional period.

Jeff Dwoskin 1:00:43

I know for your first job, you guys. I mean, like to go home. Have you worked with Burt? Oh,

Burt Ward 1:00:48

yeah, I know. I was very fortunate. That's why I told you. I was like the kid in the candy store. Everything looks fantastic to be

Jeff Dwoskin 1:00:55

how do you spend your time these days,

Burt Ward 1:00:57

my wife and I, we really have a great time we work together every day. We have fun. And I have two children. And I love them very much. And people ask me Well, what's it like to have 15,500 canine kids? And I say, Well, you know, let me tell you something. I love my daughter's very much by human daughters. But it also speaking about these dogs that have 15,500 not one of them ever asked me to buy them a car. It's been great with the animals. And it's it's like we kind of live this this life that we do. And we have fun every day and everything we do we try to do positive Jeff, you know, there's a famous saying live each day as though it were your last. And someday you'll be right we have you know, very positive things. And in fact, we try to exude the positive to people. In fact, I want to tell you that I had heard something very profound, where they said, somebody said, you know what the three essentials to happiness are? I said no. What are they? And here's what I was told the three essentials to happiness, someone to love, something to do and something to look forward to. And if you have that, you really can have happiness. And I wish that for everybody. Everything my wife and I do every single day we try to do a little bit better today than what happened

Jeff Dwoskin 1:02:16

yesterday and make things a little bit better every single day when you told me the story about giving your wife a pinball machine Tracy and my first reaction was Tracy must be an angel and love you so much. If I gave my wife something, here's something to do when I'm not around. And it was my voice.

Burt Ward 1:02:33

Yeah, you know, and it's funny. When I tell people because I'm very high energy. Obviously, my wife is higher energy than I am. If that's such a possible thing. And I tell people you know, it's a good thing you talk to me first before talking to my wife Tracy, because otherwise you would think I was cute that I couldn't talk because she can out talk me. She's got it. It's so funny here two of us are always fighting that really fighting but you know, fighting to get the last word in one of us. Well, yes, but this What about that? And in fact, if you'd like I can play you that message on my pinball machine if you'd like to hear it. For your for your listeners.

Jeff Dwoskin 1:03:13

Yeah, that would be great.

Burt Ward 1:03:14

Oh, hold on one second. And I'll see if I don't play for us. Here we go. For my darling Tracy is your husband bird who loves you very much. And this is for you. Were you able to hear it?

Jeff Dwoskin 1:03:29

Oh, yeah. Yeah, that was really cool. Thank you so much for that. Hi. I did have one other quote. I had another question. If you don't your legends are the superheroes? Yes. Those are the 1979 two specials that you did you add them last and Frank question came back, talk to me a little bit about those. Those are like called classics.

Burt Ward 1:03:49

They were kind of their own style, because they had all these other villains that I didn't even know about. It was kind of fun. It had mixed ratings in terms of some people that are diehard Batman and Robin fan, some didn't like it. Others thought it was kind of goofy, and it was fun to do you know, and was shown broadcast nationally both shows. And you know, actually since Batman and we did our first Batman movie, even in the last few years, Adam and I before he passed on, he and I did the voices for two full length Batman feature films from Warner Brothers. The second one was Batman vs. Two phase and in that one two phase was played by the voice was played by William Shatner, which is pretty cool because here you have actors from the two most iconic television shows in history. Batman and Star Trek working together and Shatner was terrific. He's a pleasure to work with and always very nice to me. I would see him at these Comic Cons. We had a lot of fun and we the shows came out great and the one of them was voted as the As a superhero animated show of the year, lots of people enjoyed it.

Jeff Dwoskin 1:05:05

What was it like being Robin on The Simpsons?

Burt Ward 1:05:07

Well, that was fun that they show was, I think that show was called large March, it was great doing that. Something else that came on that was aired on The Simpsons, his wife comes in, and they've got this baby baby thing. You know, it's called baby on board. I don't know if you've seen this thing. And so he sits down at the piano. And he started playing baby on board that that Burt Ward, and that was part of one of their shows. But I mean, it was it was separate at the large margin when we did but I was also on other shows, you know, like future Rama, Adam, I did voices on that. And then we did some other animated shows that we did some wild and crazy stuffs on that was on Adult Swim. Sure, sure went on Adult Swim was pretty adult. And there's a funny story that goes with it. When I first saw the script. I mean, it had Robin using language that Robin would use, and my wife praises his bird. You better not do this, because Warner Brothers are gonna be really upset. You're, you know, denigrating their character. I said, Tracy, the Warner Brothers sanctioned this setting Warner Brothers, people said they have the rights to do it. So trace it, I don't think you should do it. So there was a holdup of me doing this voiceover animated show, because my wife Tracy thought that Warner Brothers would be very upset. So the agent representing us went back to Warner Brothers says, You know, I don't think Bernie's gonna be able to do it. Because, you know, his wife is very worried that DC Comics and Warner Brothers gonna be very upset if he says those lines. So they first they changed the lines. And then Tracy came back as well. I don't even believe that they have the rights to do that. The long and short of it is that it took a vice president of Warner Brothers to write a letter to my wife saying it is okay for Burt Ward to do it. We approved that and then of course she gave in and I did the show.

Jeff Dwoskin 1:07:02

Tracy obviously is not seen Titans

Burt Ward 1:07:04

know we all we know about it, though. We know about it. That's a whole play. See, that's not me doing?

Jeff Dwoskin 1:07:09

No, no, I know. I'm just saying like in terms of language coming out of the Dick Grayson character.

Burt Ward 1:07:15

Oh, yeah. Well, you know, and I'm, I'm not so sure that such a great thing. Because it's nothing uplifting about some of this course dialogue. It's not necessary, great. Or good acting doesn't require you to use foul language to convey what you want to say. So that's just my opinion. But on Batman, we made our show for all ages, you know, the littlest kids to seniors to teenagers and college kids. And it was wholesome. It was wholesome as the kind of thing that anybody could look at and enjoy to that extent. I'm very proud of that.

Jeff Dwoskin 1:07:48

Yeah, it is. It's it's still fun. Even today. It's it's funny as I was kind of redoing it, you know, as a kid watching it in, you know, just syndication. You know, they don't play him in order. Maybe, you know, maybe the ones that go together, but like, I didn't realize it backrow was only in the third season till I like That's right. So I sat down and really kind of looked at it chronologically.

Burt Ward 1:08:09

No, you're right. That was the third season and you know, Yvonne Craig credibly sweet lady and a lot of fun to work with. And she, she wrote kind of a foreword in my book boy wonder my life in tights, who the editor, by the way, was Stanley, Ralph Ross, who wrote 32 episodes of Batman and probably one of the funniest men I've ever met my life, great sense of humor, he created Wonder Woman, but he also wrote, all of all of the Catwoman shows a Batman,

Jeff Dwoskin 1:08:37

what was it? Like? Was it a kind of a thrill to do the Crisis on Infinite Earths? That was kind of a cool thing that they do with all those DC show.

Burt Ward 1:08:44

Yes. And what was nice about that is that they put it right in front of the main titles of Supergirl. And they did that. And I enjoyed doing that. And so many people were like you, you just wouldn't believe it got all of this stuff on the internet. You could do a search about me at that time. And you said Burt Ward, and it was something like 34 internet pages that were every single comment was about me doing Supergirl wondering if I was gonna play Robin. If I was Grayson and I you know, it was just so much thought about it. It was it was cool.

Jeff Dwoskin 1:09:18

Yeah, it was it was really neat how they The CW shows Well, they're not the campy fun of the Batman 66 right, but they are more in line with like, I watched Supergirl with my girl, right? I could not watch tightens with my dogs. What happened to the original Robin costume.

Burt Ward 1:09:34

I had one costume that I donated to charity and raised like $500,000 for charity. So it was a you know, it was a gift that I made and I just thought was a nice thing to do.

Jeff Dwoskin 1:09:45

That is a really nice thing to do. Other than kind of the Batman type roles. What what's the favorite, your favorite?

Burt Ward 1:09:53

Well, I did 4040 films for television that I actually either as co starters Already, the way I look at it is this because some people say, Well, you know, but what is like, you know, would have been great if you could ever be another big project like that. And the way I look at it is this, it's like a glass that is full, you can have it full with a whole bunch of different projects. Or you can have it full with one main project, and a bunch of smaller ones, the glass is still full, the life is complete. And that's the way I look at what I did on that.

Jeff Dwoskin 1:10:25

That's awesome. That's great. And it's nice in this conversation, how passionate you still are about it, and love talking about it, and reflecting on it. It's, it's so it's such a special thing to so many people. And when someone like myself gets to meet and talk with them like you and and it's special to you too. It means a lot to, you know, to us the fans. It really does. So thank you for that bird. This was so much fun. You're amazing. You really are. This has been a real joy. Thank you so much.

Burt Ward 1:10:56

Well, thank you. I've enjoyed it. And you know, I can't always get out and meet all of the listeners and the people that enjoyed our show. But I do wish everyone well and my wife and I we try to do our best every day to make a better world for all of us to live in. Because we're all on this planet. Jeff only a very short time, it's important that we do the best that we can.

Jeff Dwoskin 1:11:17

Well if you have an inspiring story. You and Tracy have done amazing things. And just everyone please go to gentle giants dog food calm. Thank you very much for making a better world and just all the positive that you brought into it. I can't thank you enough. I can't thank you enough for hanging out with me. This has been a real pleasure. Holy hell and i don't i Batman. How amazing was Burt Ward.

He's so amazing. I it was such a pleasure to be able to talk to Burt for my 50th episode watching the Batman series growing up was so special. I loved it so much. So to be able to talk to Burt to talk to one of the heroes from Batman and to find out what a hero bird is today, saving so many dogs over 15,000 dogs keivan it's amazing and the dog food and cat food that he's created to help our pets be healthier and live longer.

Incredible. Just incredible. Please check out his website, show him some love checkout everything he's doing with his wife. It's absolutely incredible. I know it was a long interview but I it was he was such a pleasure to talk to and I wanted to share the whole thing with you. So I hope you enjoyed it.

And here we are getting close to the end of the 50th episode of live from Detroit the Jeff Dwoskin show, but you know that means that means it's time to read a trending hashtag for the family of hashtag roundup games. That's right hashtag roundup on twitter at hashtag roundup and download the free hashtag roundup app on the Apple Store or Google Play totally free and you can play along with our hashtag games. One day one of your tweets may show up on an episode of a live from Detroit, the Jeff Dwoskin show.

This week's hashtag is from feel good tags. It's a weekly game on hashtag Roundup, and in honor of rewards amazing dog food which helps our pets live longer. We're gonna play #ThingsToBlameTheDogFor or as right dogs to be around longer. That gives us more opportunities to pass the buck. All right, as always, every tweet I read will be retweeted @jeffdwoskinshow and will be in the show notes retweet them show him some love All right you guys ready?

Here we go. #ThingsToBlameTheDogFor not lowering the toilet seat. Every time my wife yells at me I always blame it on the dog. Here's another thing is to blame the dog for bad tweets. haha that's a good strategy. Oh, you didn't like that tweet. My dog was to grab my phone. And here's a classic things to blame the dog for eating my homework. You knew it was common. It's a classic barking up the wrong tree. That's the thing with dogs they never know it's tricky to bark up. Here's another #ThingsToBlameTheDogFor not texting back. And that massive phone bill you can't blame the dogs they don't understand the concept of limited data plans. Brexit so many people blaming dogs for Brexit it's it's a shame. And here's another one drinking the last beer and not buying more. Wow, that's just your fault for letting the dog learn how to open the refrigerator. Global warming. That may be your fault, buddy. What do you feed that dog? And the final #ThingsToBlameTheDogFor how bad the movie cats was? Oh right. Those are hashtag things to blame the dog boar find them all retweeted @JeffDwoskinShow again, play along on hashtag round up. And one day one of your tweets may show up on a future episode. from Detroit, the Jeff Dwoskin show.

I can't believe the episodes almost over. I'm actually going to head back to that party. I'm going to invite you to come with me. I think there was a few more people that wanted to say Hello, so let's get back to the party. I see the party's still going on. Oh, hey.

Celebrity Voice 1:15:06

Hey Jeff. Congratulations

from your old pal jack hirji hit 50 episodes really big deal. Way to go, man. Oh, I'm

Jeff Dwoskin 1:15:16

honored.

Celebrity Voice 1:15:17

Oh, hey, everyone get to the chopper quick. It's Jeff's 50th episode. The Live from Detroit roads. Very funny. You have to listen to it. It's altoids Nagy I'm very happy for you very excited for Jeffrey I think his 50th episode. Congratulations. Way to go.

Jeff Dwoskin 1:15:33

It's not a tumor. Hey, thanks for coming back.

Celebrity Voice 1:15:36

Oh, hey, hey, Jeff, way to go ahead with your 50th episode. That's that's pretty cool. It's pretty great. Yeah, way to go. help you make this a big deal and help you make sure to name drop as much as possible, right. It's really tragic. Way to go seriously, that

50 episodes is an achievement.

Jeff Dwoskin 1:15:55

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Oh, my gosh, look, it's Christian Bale Batman.

Celebrity Voice 1:16:00

Jeff. It's me The Dark Knight. And I have to tell you, what you've done with 50 episodes of your podcast deserves as much celebration as the crimefighting IQ and Gotham every day.

Jeff Dwoskin 1:16:15

Well, that is some high praise. Thank you. And thank all of you for tuning in Week after week. 50 episodes. Can't believe it. We're here. Thanks again to my guest, Burt Ward for stopping by. And we'll see you all next week. Same bat time, same bat channel who spilled the wine on the rug? Who spilled it? I just needed to know who.

Announcer 1:16:39

Thanks so much for listening to this episode of the Jeff Dwoskin show with your host Jeff Dwoskin. Now Go repeat everything you've heard and sound like a genius. catch us online at the Jeff Dwoskin show.com or follow us on Twitter at Jeff Dwoskin show and we'll see you next time.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai