It started like all adventures start, these days. With a text:
"Hey. You want to go see the Batman Exhibit?"
Well, yeah! Yeah, I did!
The Hollywood Museum is this Art Deco-era building in the heart of Hollywood. Walking distance from legendary Hollywood eatery, Musso and Frank (where one of the waiters has been serving since 1967), the Hollywood Museum is a standout, even at Hollywood and Highland.
A pink and white confection of a building, the museum used to be the old Max Factor building, where the most elite ladies of Hollywood's golden age were made up. While the (very, very pink) ground floor pays homage to those days, the rest of the four-story building has been given over to various moments of cinema history.
Of course, they have the movie playing in the background, so you can hear Hannibal and Clarice chatting.
The Dungeon level is filled with delightful reminiscences of horror movies past. Spiderwebbed Rogue's galleries festoon the brick walls and take you back to some of the most spine-tingling moments of the genre.
One of these days when I get a place of my own, I simply must create a pipe organ...
An old LA fiend, Elvira, has her own space.
And there's a case of Death Masks of the old horror stars.
Cinephiles will find both projectors and cameras to satisfy their tastes.
And then there was the third floor, and the Batman 66 exhibit!
If you're around my age, you probably grew up on the re-runs of this show, so you know how delighted I was to see all this amazing Batman memorabilia under one roof and so masterfully curated!
The villains and their costumes. SO fabulous!
And of course, George Barris created the Batmobile, and loaned it to the exhibit.
And a little trivia for you: A guy by the name of Richard Edlund did the graphics and hand-lettered all the *BAM!* *SPLAT* and OOFs you saw on the show. He's the same guy who created the font for the original Star Trek series, too, and went on to do visual effects on some little movie series called Star Wars. (also did the effects on Poltergeist, which scared the crap out of me!)
And no episode of Batman would be complete without a little homily from Batman, himself.
I will have a button to my lair hidden in a bust of Shakespeare, by the way!
Afterwards, there was more ambling around to see the other wonderful pieces of cinematic history the museum proudly displays.
And there were a few more pieces of Batman memorabilia, including Batgirl's lacy communicator...
And there was a great photo op with Dick and Bruce, too!
Photos, call sheets and scripts...
Tucked away, just as I was leaving, a lone jester laughed maniacally...
Yes. It was a very grand day out!
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Great exhibit - loved Batman when I was a kid.
ReplyDeleteThat looks like a ton of fun.
ReplyDelete