Original subtitles

Hi, everybody-- Jeff Dunham again at Dunham Family Motors,

along with my buddy Peanut. - No, no-- I am Batnut.

"Batnut?" Wait, it's--

"No, I'm Batnut."

And why are you dressed like this?

To fight the crime of high car prices.

This next car wasn't built to be bought.

It didn't come from Detroit, Germany, or Japan.

It came from the pages of a comic book.

Its sole mission?

Strike fear into the hearts of criminals.

It's long, loud, armed to the teeth, dark as night,

and driven by...

well, this dude...

If you're looking to get yourself into something

with no cup holders, drinks jet fuel for breakfast,

and has some accessories that will likely result

in federal charges,

I might know a guy.

And the next baby-- A Batmobile?

No, no, it's the Batnutmobile.

Throughout time,

humanity has been obsessed with getting places

using anything, but their own two feet.

We've tried all kinds of things.

- Until finally... - Hmm.

...the greatest invention of all time--

the automobile.

Moron!

These are-- "The Cars That Drove Us."

Comic legends Bob Kane and Bill Finger gave

Bruce Wayne a nightlife in 1939.

And in the years since making the...

leap from page... to screen,

there have been many different--

- Bats? - Well, Batmen.

Lewis, Adam, Val, George, Kevin, Christian, Ben...

Why did you say that name?

...Robert, and of course, Michael.

I'm Batman.

But some things...

Flash the Bat signal.

...have never changed.

Batman has always been the Batsuit

and the Batmobile.

Arguably the most iconic vehicle in all of pop culture.

And much like the man steering it...

We've seen a bunch of different executions

of the Batmobile, each encompassing

a bit of the new and a bit of the old.

But in 1989...

When Tim Burton's Batmobile showed up...

Whoa!

I mean, it took it to a new level.

...a level of Batitude

that ranks the '89 Batmobile

as quite possibly the most iconic of them all.

The Batmobile was the star of the picture.

And like any superstar superhero,

the Batmobile's origin story is one of drama,

He said, "He's crashed a car," I said, "No".

Suspense, and redemption.

And the whole audience spurs into applause.

Though, thankfully...

no dead parents are involved.

But before this Batmobile could turn heads in 1989,

a very different one would have to turn pages in 1939.

when the first "Batman" comic book came out.

Batman had a Batmobile.

Well, sort of.

They didn't call it a Batmobile.

It was just a red sedan.

Not a name that strikes fear in the hearts of criminals.

But a red sedan, by any other name,

would actually be way cooler.

And so in "Detective Comics," issue 48,

the name Batmobile was born.

But why stop there?

They started changing the look of it to blue and black,

and they put a bat symbol in the front of it,

and they just made this iconic vehicle.

Arguably, the most iconic vehicle in all of pop culture.

And just in time,

because when Batman made his big screen debut

in this 1943 serial...

Let's go!

...the Batmobile was ready for its Hollywood green light.

Wait a minute. Is that the red sedan?

Sorry, kids.

The first Batmobile that we used on film was

a '39 Cadillac convertible.

If Bruce Wayne was driving it, the top was down.

Alfred, drive into that alley and put the top up.

If Batman was driving it, the top was up.

How sneaky!

Well, until you get out of the car.

Look out, Batman! They can see you!

That's the most ridiculous thing I've ever--

Second most ridiculous thing I've ever heard of.

You are Superman, aren't you?

Luckily, after a couple of decades,

things would get far less ridiculous.

Holy sardine!

Well, at least from an automotive perspective.

But by 1960 standards, the Batmobile was

old technology.

It was made from something called a Lincoln Futura.

A one-of-a-kind Ford concept car from 1955.

Really cool looking.

Hollywood auto fabricator,

George Barris, thought so.

He bought it from Ford for a dollar.

What a... steal!

And when Barris got the gig...

He realized they didn't have enough time to do this properly.

Time is getting short!

So he looked around at what he had and thought,

"You know what?

"I can take the Futura and use this as the foundation.

And with a fair amount of moderator tweaking,

television and superhero history was made.

Hey, it's the Batmobile!

That show was part of my childhood, so

that was my first Batmobile.

Complete with Batman and Robin!

And for the next two decades...

Fortunately, old friends,

Zayre is open 24 hours until Christmas.

...George Barris' was the only on-screen Batmobile.

There's some cartoon versions.

Well, sure, for the little guys.

But other than that...

nothing.

Cut to the mid-to-late '80s,

and we find out they're making a Batman movie.

We're dying to find out

how they're gonna execute the Batmobile.

And in 1988, concept designer Julian Caldow,

was one of the few people qualified

to answer that question.

But at this point, he was wrestling

with his own more personal uncertainties.

And I met Anton Furst on a movie called "High Spirits,"

where I was doing some of the makeup.

I showed him a folio of the sketches

that I'd been doing and said,

"I really want to get into the art department."

Brash, confident,

this kid knew exactly what he was doing.

And then it kind of hit me

that I didn't really know what I was doing.

Well, he was still brash and confident.

He'd figure it out.

But I was kind of learning on the job.

A job that entailed bringing Anton

and director Tim Burton's vision of Gotham City to life.

I thought they were the perfect gelling of

crazy minds to come up with the way

that that whole thing looked.

A Gothic metropolis of epic scale

and massive proportion.

But I didn't really understand scale, proportion, et cetera.

Be patient. He's learning on the job.

And so the art department threw this rookie

a softball assignment.

They got me working on the Batmobile because

I didn't understand stuff about architecture.

The seasoned vets would handle the gargoyles

and flying buttresses while they tossed...

The most iconic vehicle in all of pop culture.

...to the new guy, which was certainly a choice.

Having to invent beautiful Batmobile while holding in

the history of that car,

the history of the aesthetics of Batman.

It is a really, really difficult charge.

- Um-- - Yeah, no pressure.

Let me think.

2 First-time concept artist Julian Caldow was under pressure

to design the Batmobile to top all Batmobiles.

Principal photography was four short months away.

And so Julian leapt into action.

I was starting to do little sketches of a sporty,

'50s road car, a muscle car with fins that was sort of similar

in vibe to the TV show.

But very soon I realized that that wasn't gonna work.

Because this wasn't your father's Batman.

Precisely.

It was Tim Burton's, which means a certain...

approach would be necessary.

Anton said, "We're not doing a car specifically,

we're doing sort of a brutal statement."

Oh, no.

"Something that looked quite menacing."

The concept inspired Julian to think

outside the box...

or the bat-box.

There's no need for this thing even to be roadworthy,

so that's when I got into my mind the idea of...

these land-speed-record cars,

specifically the green monster,

to have this enormous intake at the front with this point.

I mentioned this to Anton,

and he was very excited by that idea.

Anton was so taken with the intake

that it was taken in to the Batmobile design.

So I had this big rocket going down the center of the car.

That feels right.

That is like, "That's what Batman should have."

And it was like a piece of art.

And soon it was time for Julian to present his art

to Anton and Tim for approval.

Tim, when he saw a drawing that he liked,

he would have a little giggle.

And when you heard that giggle,

you knew that you were on the right path.

And when Tim saw Julian's drawing,

there was no giggle.

And Julian learned about rejection on the job.

I had two little jet cockpits either side

of this rocket engine, and Tim said,

"I've got dialogue between Vici Vale and Batman."

Where are we going?

"They won't be able to hear each other."

And I said something stupid like,

"Well, what about they have walkie-talkies?

Where are we going?

So that was rejected pretty quickly.

Undeterred, Julian went back to the drawing board.

And this time--

I was taking steps from all kinds of different decades.

The grills either side of the car were taken

from Ferrari Testarossa.

I had these little gills at the front, and they were

from a Corvette Stingray,

which also informed the back of the Batmobile,

melded with a Volkswagen Beetle.

Finally, I based the cockpit on the X-15 experimental aircraft

that Neil Armstrong was flying in before he went into space.

And after numerous small steps,

Julian's design was one giant leap

from where it had begun.

And this time...

...the giggler struck.

The Batmobile had arrived.

So everybody loved it,

but the following week, we sat and looked at the sketch,

and someone said, "How does anybody get into this car?"

Great question, and one that Julian, as the designer,

should be able to answer.

I hadn't really even thought about doors.

Maybe we have gull-wing doors coming up on either side.

Uh, seen it before.

Probably don't wanna go "back" to that.

Or maybe the whole cockpit comes up like a jet.

Yeah, that too. You could probably "top" that.

It was actually Nigel Phelps.

A production designer, working on Gotham City.

Who said, "Why not slide the whole thing

down the bonnet and just jump in?"

That felt very elegant.

And with that, it looked like the Batmobile was

finally cruising down Easy Street.

Excuse me.

Oh-- apparently, special effects supervisor,

John Evans would like to have a word.

Special effects is a problem with time and money.

Because now John and his team had to build

a working Batmobile.

No, we had to get two, not one built.

Two working Batmobiles.

And we had to have it in 10 weeks.

Yeah, about that.

That's not only not enough time,

that's an absurdly small amount of time.

I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy.

Neither would Warner Brothers.

So they wished it on John Evans instead.

A special-effects man's job is not easy.

2 With an almost laughable deadline,

special effects supervisor, John Evans and his team of craftsmen were

rolling up their sleeves to build two working Batmobiles.

We really didn't have the time to build our own chassis.

The solution? Two chassis-es... es.

There was a kind of an accident

that the car was as long as it was.

Because, as you'll remember--

I didn't really understand scale, proportion, et cetera.

So I was not going out of the art department

with a tape measure and looking at the average size of a car.

Basically, he was bat-winging it.

Um, but--

John and his special effects team were

there to pick up the slack.

Believe it or not, when the fiberglass body came up,

everybody was there, and we slotted it on,

and it went on like a glove. But then...

Duh-oh.

...all the gadgets started to come in

from the art department.

That's right, gadgets, such as--

Where the hook comes out.

We had two machine guns.

Which were the biggest gadgets, but they were almost

the biggest mini gadgets.

I had encouraged Anton to use mini guns.

I had just seen "Predator."

Having those come out of the bonnet would be great.

Uh--

But they couldn't get a license to get those weapons

into the UK.

That was a problem that wasn't our problem, really.

Don't get too excited, John.

They'd find something else for you to cram in there.

Eventually, they went with Brownings, which armorers

in this country had access to.

But they were coming in two weeks after we started

the design of the car, so it caused problems.

But we did get it in the end.

But there were a few extra features to be bolted

onto the outside of the Batmobile.

The front intake is from a Harrier, and the back is

from a Rolls-Royce jet engine?

That's perfection.

The flame out of the back of the Batmobile,

which we had to create,

it's not easy, because you've got to get the force of it

coming across on the screen.

And I just didn't feel we had it right.

For about a week, we were playing around with it.

Avoid the following combinations.

Liquid gas, paraffin, and petrol.

Yeah, sounds safe.

We had to be careful.

Got the driver in there.

If anything went wrong with his flame...

you've got big problems.

Luckily for the film's insurance policy...

We did get it in the end.

And no stunt drivers were incinerated.

But John did have reason to worry about

one particular Batmobile driver,

the one on the movie poster.

We kept asking Michael Keaton to sit in the Batmobile

for a fitting because it was tight.

Can't imagine why he wouldn't want to.

Liquid gas, paraffin, and petrol.

You can take all the measurements you like.

If you don't have an actual fitting, him sitting physically

in it, you don't know.

But they were about to find out.

On the first day we shot, first time he had jumped

into it, he was too tall, and the ears were sticking out.

When the cockpit closed, his ears were bent back.

Well, if anyone had a solution,

Michael was all ears.

If you look at the scenes inside the cockpit,

he's got these special little ears that he's wearing.

Good luck trying to spot them.

He's sensitive about his stubby nubbies.

But that was, again, my ignorance.

Well, at least there was one thing impervious to Julian's

inexperience with a tape measure.

The paint job.

I always had the idea that it should look like

a Beatles carapace.

It's got, like, purple and blue and all these colors.

It's very organic.

And somehow the guys who did the paint job managed

to emulate this thing so that from different angles

it had different colors.

And to finish it off...

They didn't give it a glossy finish.

Opting for satin instead.

It was really the perfect way to kind of make it just

a little bit darker on every level, absorbing everything

that went around.

But just like Bruce Wayne...

Now you want to get nuts?

- Come on! - Let's get nuts.

...satin paint can be temperamental.

Just a little wear and tear on it would scratch it.

There's a scene where Vici Vale is getting out of the car,

and she throws her heel.

And the reason she did that is

she would scratch the Batmobile.

Ahh!

You weigh a little more than 108.

The paint was very temperamental.

Which, for the record, was not Julian's fault.

And lucky for him, neither was what would happen next.

Well...

2 Against all odds, Anton Furst's art department

and John Evans' special effects team,

designed and built two Batmobiles

in four months' time.

Filming was well underway when...

Anton comes in the workshop, Sunday afternoon,

and he said, "Oh, I'd like to drive the Batmobile."

I can't say no to him, he's the designer.

He could send Anton off

with special-effects team member, Andy Smith.

I said, "Be careful, don't let him get in the driver's seat.

"Just take him up and down Gotham City,

that-- quite at good speed, and he'd be happy.

Sure. Couldn't do any harm.

About 15 minutes later,

Andy Smith comes in the workshop, white-faced.

He said, "He's crashed the car."

I said, "No." - Yes.

And this was no minor fender-bender.

He crashed it into one of the lampposts.

I said, "Why did you let him get in it?"

Luckily, Anton was fine.

But it was lights-out for the lamppost and the Batmobile.

And I go out there, and he smashed all the side

to the, uh, car.

If only someone had told him to--

Stop.

Talking about you, John.

So now, this prop, we've only got two.

Well, now one.

And at this point, it's--

Two o'clock, three o'clock, Sunday afternoon.

We've got to have it on the set for Monday morning.

It was time to send out a signal for help.

So I phoned the guy up who does the fiberglass,

told him the situation.

Plus, we had to get it sprayed as well.

Luckily, no one else had brunch plans that day either.

Skin of our teeth, we got it done.

But how we got it done, I don't know.

The Batmobile was as good as new.

And nobody knew about it. Only Anton and me.

Well, and the lamppost.

With the Batmobile back in action,

Batman wrapped filming in January of 1989

and headed for the summer box office.

If you start lining up now, you might get in to see it

the first couple of days.

And while this kid felt good about it...

I think it's gonna be rad.

...others had reason to be trepidatious.

You have to understand, we didn't have a ton of

superhero movies, and most of them were not just bad.

They were awful.

Hey, man, I don't wanna mess with you.

Open the door, would you please? I'm not feeling well.

The stakes are about as high

as they could be that it is

not dumb.

I can definitely remember going to see it

with my family,

and there's that line where Batman and Vici Vale

come out of the museum, and Batman says--

- "Get the car." - And she says,

"Which one?"

And then...

...and the whole audience burst into applause.

And it can all be attributed to the sure-handed

talent of the now successful veteran production designer,

Julian Cal--

That was something I didn't even realize

I was doing at the time, em...

And this should have been when Julian learned

about taking credit when things go well on the job.

The 1989 Batmobile was an instant classic.

And while there have been many different versions

in the years since...

They're each different approaches to executing

an absurd comic book in the real world.

Some, a little more absurd than others.

Chicks dig the car.

This is why Superman works alone.

None have quite captured the magic

of that mythical summer of the bat.

I was proud of it, and-- and all my team were

very proud of it.

Never got to drive it.

Shame.

There's people of a certain age, who when they went to see it,

thought it was the best thing they'd ever seen,

now, they're 40,

and they look back with that movie with a lot of nostalgia.

And while you can never truly go back--

And here's our exclusive first look

at the $17 Batmobile.

Yeah, that hasn't stopped some from trying.

Jumping into the Batmobile...

Oh.

Oh, OK, it-- gently

easing into the Batmobile...

is like jumping into the pages of a comic book

with nothing but open road and crime to fight ahead of you.

Because it's more than a car.

It's every bit a crime-fighting hero itself, worthy of sharing

the screen with arguably the most iconic superhero

of all time.

I'm Batman.

I kill you!