Jan And Dean Meet Batman

Jan and Dean Meet Batman is a novelty album released in early 1966 by surf rock musicians Jan Berry & Dean Torrence. The album was a tribute to and a parody of the Batman TV series which had premiered in January of that year and quickly became a huge hit on ABC. The title track from the album, Batman!, made the lower half of the Hot 100 (Ironically, the song peaked at #66), but the album itself failed to chart, though it is considered a cult favorite today. It was also the duo's last album before Jan Berry was involved in a near-fatal car crash that April.

Content
The tracks on the album alter between comedy sketches and Batman-themed songs, including a cover of Neal Hefti's theme from the TV show. The first sketch tells of the origin of the "Titanic Twosome", in which Jan & Dean were endowed with mystical powers by the "Little Old Lady from Pasadena" (named from their hit 1964 song) and became Captain Jan & Dean the Boy Blunder. To change into their heroic alter-egos, the duo sang the lady's name, using the opening line from the song.

With help from the Little Old Lady, the "Titanic Twosome", as they were called in the sketches, created their lair in the attic of their Bel Air mansion, while they made their way around Surf City in their "atom-powered Woodie". In their normal guise of Jan & Dean they still toured performing concerts, but when trouble arose in Surf City, they were able to use their "instant distance mental powers" to transport back to Surf City and save the day.

In all, the Titanic Twosome take on three different villains in this album:


 * Dr. Vita Min and his wretched wife Hy Po,


 * The Garbageman, and finally


 * The Fireman

Production Notes
Initially, the sketches involved Jan and Dean respectively portraying Batman and Robin taking on actual villains from the series including Riddler, Joker and Penguin, but when Jan and Dean were informed that they were permitted to do the songs but not the sketches, they scrapped the already-produced Batman/Robin sketches and created the Captain Jan/Boy Blunder bits.