RIP Yvonne Craig AKA Batgirl

Today, we lost the original Batgirl. The one who was in the 60’s tv show with Adam West. Sure the show was campy, but that was part of the appeal. Sure she never punched any villains or henchmen, but she did lots of kicking. Somehow Batgirl would always be on some stairs, or a wooden crate so she could kick someone in the face with the BOOM effect appearing to block views from seeing that she didn’t really connect. I also loved how Alfred knew who she really was really Barbara Gordon, but never told Bruce Wayne (Adam West), and visa versa.

 The really cool thing about Batgirl was that she had a motorcycle as opposed to the batmobile, that Batman, and Robin drove.

 The thing about that series was that all the big names from that era wanted to appear on that show. From Vincent Price (A movie god) as Egghead, to Burgess Meredith (Mickey from Rocky) as The Penguin, to Julie Newmar as Catwoman. That show was the first really successful attempt to bring comic book characters to television.

She also was the Orion Slave girl from the classic Star Trek series. I remember an interview I read of her, how she said the the green makeup kept coming off on everything, and everyone she touched. There were no reports of green handprints on anyone’s butt however.

She was also on The Man from U.N.C.L.E. A movie reboot of that show just came to the theaters this month. Looking at her IMDB page shows her work goes all the way back to 1957, and her last credit is 2011. Working in the industry for 50 years is a major accomplishment.

I’m not a big fan of 60’s sci-fi, but Batman, and Start are exceptions. I’ve never seen The Man from U.N.C.L.E. so I can comment if it was a good show or not, but Yvonne was part of multiple series that helped shaped Pop Culture today. The original Star Trek has been re released in multiple formats, and I currently own this series on Bluray. Also recently the Adam West Batman show has also been released on Bluray. It’s a box set and expensive, but I think it’s worth it to see Batgirl again.

 You will be missed Yvonne.