 George Lazenby (in plaid) Remember my last blog about hiking to the Hollywood Sign? No, well go read it! For the rest of you, I headed back to the same area yesterday. I had a ticket to watch On Her Majesty's Secret Service, the third film in the Alex Theatre's five-week event series "James Bond 007 50th Anniversary" which featured an appearance by that film's Bond, George Lazenby. The trail leading to The Batcave is on the way to the Alex Theatre in Glendale. And since my New Year's Eve mission this month was to "Visit the Batcave", I did just that! The Batcave I'm talking about is the actual shooting location used in the 1960's Batman TV series starting Adam West and Burt Ward. It's located in an area just east of Hollywood called Bronson Canyon. I discovered this area last month while researching ways to get to visit the Hollywood Sign, my March NYE mission. 
Where I went
Now I've been a Batman fan for practically all my life, through both comic books and the 60's TV series. Watching it as a little boy, the infamous camp humor of the show was nowhere to be found. Instead, all I found were the brightest colors of the Dynamic Duo fighting against the forces of evil. Caped Crusaders to the rescue!! So when I discovered where the actual Batcave was, where they shot the scenes of the George Barris-designed Batmobile roaring out of a secluded cave that was supposedly outside Wayne Manor, I was more than thrilled to check the place out for myself.  So nearly a month after I was here, I was back again! Back to the Camp Hollywoodland sign in Bronson Canyon to trek up the other pathway leading away from the Hollywood Sign and onto the bygone lair of Batman's secret underground headquarters. Viewing the trail on Google maps, it was certainly a much shorter hike than the hike up to the Hollywood Sign. But I was surprised by how much shorter. It's about a ten minute walk from where I parked. Just up a curvy hill and you're there. 
Panoramic shot
 Me and The Batcave I'll be honest. The entire moment was a little anti-climactic, not the least of which was due in part to the fact that there were a lot of cars parked in the area! Apparently, I showed up on a day when a music video was gonna be shot here. Also, it looked different than how I remembered it. I'd been told by a friend who'd been there that it'd be different, but it's a lot more striking to actually be there and see the difference. I asked a nearby security guard if it was okay to roam through the area, and he said it was fine since they hadn't started shooting yet. I walked to the cave, walked through the cave, found more set ups for filming, and was pleasantly surprised to find a beautifully framed view of the Hollywood Sign from the other side of the cave. There's a road that circles around that leads you back to the front of the cave and that was the end of my tour. I brought with me a small die-cast model of the 60's Batmobile and a DVD movie titled "Return to the Batcave". I had hoped to showcase them in the foreground of a shot of the Batcave somehow. But there were no rocks or low hills in front of the cave that I could use as a stand to put them on, the ground here being very level and plain. Plus there was production people walking around and the winds today were really gusty, so the notion went away fairly quickly. But I was glad I got here in the afternoon, with the sun was behind me and flooding The Batcave area with a lot of natural light. I'm sure I got better shots at this time than if I'd decided to avoid freeway traffic and get here in the morning. So that's my short visit to The Batcave. All told, I was there for probably just over a half hour. Nothing like my hours-long trek to the Sign. It was a productive little trip. And with some Adam West Batman action figures coming out this summer that might inspire better ideas for some pictures, methinks I'll be back...TO THE BATCAVE! 
Mission accomplished.
You can see the rest of my Batcave photos at my Flickr site.
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 I discovered a wonderful place yesterday: the audio/visual section of the Katy Geissert Civic Center Library! :p
While meandering around the lower level, I found the Documentaries and Special Interests section where there were many titles I'd never imagined existed, like Star Wars vs. Star Trek: The Rivalry Continues and Best of Filipino Food Vol. 1. I checked out Pioneers of Television Season 2 and watched the first of four episodes on it. Science Fiction covered primarily the 60's, interweaving the origins of Star Trek, The Twilight Zone, Lost in Space and Time Tunnel through new and archival interviews with the series' casts, some of whom guest-starred in popular episodes of the other shows. I was surprised how much time they spent delving into the creators of the shows, mainly on Gene Roddenberry and Irwin Allen with a little on Rod Serling, as well as material on Shatner and Nimoy's early acting days. There were a few things I learned from it (As a Trek and TZ fan, so much of it I'd already known), but the new interviews (the DVD was released in 2011) and several stills that I'd never seen before I enjoyed a lot. The rest of the 50-minute episodes are Crime Drama, Local Kids' TV and Westerns. I'm looking forward to seeing and enjoying them too before I have to return this disc back to the library next week! |
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A fan of Star Trek, Star Wars, Harry Potter, Batman, comic books, Blu-rays, Disney, soundtracks, taking pictures, theatre and...Barry Manilow! Archives
March 2019
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