Van Williams was one of Hollywood's classiest acts in the 1960s/early 1970s. He took his successes in stride;
he didn't let his failures brand him. And when he saw the proverbial writing on the wall, he backed away
from Hollywood and found a new life as a part-time sheriff's deputy and full-time firefighter in the Los Angeles
area.
Of course his best-known role was the television version of a venerable, ancient radio show, The Green Hornet,
in which he played the title character, newspaper heir Britt Reid turned crime fighter, the urban version of his great uncle
the Lone Ranger---infiltrating criminal gangs and enterprises to dismantle them. It left him a wanted criminal
himself in the eyes of the police, but he could live with that so long as the real criminals were given what for.
Williams played the Hornet with aplomb and dry wit. In recognition thereof, here are all the reasons why the
Green Hornet was a better crime fighter than Batman, his television contemporary/camp legend:
* He was born in old-time radio, not the comics.
* He dressed for success, not in his underwear.
* He had a more useful sidekick.
* A sexy but intelligent secretary.
* A classier theme song.
* And a classier ride.
* He didn't have to wear a phony utility belt with comic-opera weapons---all he needed was a gas gun and an expandable
telescoping laser sting.
* He invented the drone. (The Black Beauty scanner was the great-grandpa of today's remote control drones.)
* He fought real criminals, not clowns with theme crimes, bad makeup, worse puns, and wastes of some of Hollywood's most
legendary talent. (If there was justice, Vincent Price would have sued for defamation of character for being paid to play
Egghead.)
* And while we're at it, he didn't flinch when infiltrating the criminals' operations; Batman would have run home to mommy
at the very idea of it.
* Britt Reid at least worked for a living---he turned his father's inheritance into an even more successful newspaper.
* And he didn't live in an oversize mansion spending most of his time in two rooms.
* He also didn't have to figure out how to change clothes sliding down a fire pole to a cave.
* He dated better-looking women than Bruce Wayne.
* And probably got more second, third, fourth, and fifth dates.
* He had the D.A. on his side. The best Batman could do was a police commissioner who probably had no business in the job.
* The Black Beauty's front-and-rear rockets could get the job done faster than the Batbeam.
* The Batmobile was uglier than the Lincoln Futura concept car from which it was built.
* The Black Beauty looked better than the Imperial Crown Sedan from which it was built.
* The Green Hornet didn't have to bust every speed limit in town to get the job done; hell, he had enough trouble with
the cops thinking he was a murderer because of the nature of his operation.
* And he didn't have to have cameras at weird angles to show him climbing walls he couldn't climb in the first place.
* Do you really think Batman would have had the cojones to kidnap a foreign head of state to save his and his
fiancee's life?
* Kato was a more useful domestic servant than Alfred ever was.
* Quick---name one legendary relative of Batman. I couldn't, either.
* The Green Hornet otherwise kept his carping, harpie, harridan relatives out of the house. (If he had an Aunt Harriet worming
her way into living in his pad, he'd have turned the Hornet Sting on her without regret, and no jury on earth would have
ruled it unjustifiable.)
* When the Green Hornet and Kato were brought onto Batman for one sequence, Kato kicked the living crap out of
Chicken the Goy Wonder. And it couldn't have happened to a nicer guy.
* The Green Hornet: Took on crooked cops. Batman: Wouldn't have known a crooked cop if he'd paid graft to one.
* The Green Hornet: Beat arsonists, bootleggers, mind-controllers, crooked political operatives, shady foreign heads of states'
chiefs of staff, fire commissioners turned arsonists, heroin traffickers, and renegade soldiers. Batman: Beat clown crooks
whose plots were about as indecipherable as a box of Alpha Bits. (And probably couldn't close the deal if he ever did
get into the Catwoman's pants.)
* Britt Reid knew how to handle himself at mix-and-mingle time. Bruce Wayne was a wallflower.
* Kato knew chemistry. Dick Grayson probably flunked it.
* The Green Hornet admitted to being something of a romantic. Batman's idea of romance was a session with the
Batcomputer.
* The Green Hornet didn't mind turning over the profits of the rackets he broke up to charity. Batman was too busy tabulating
the expenses of the Wayne Foundation.
* No self-respecting crime fighter would be caught dead doing his work in a cave in a character based on a bloodsucker.
* You could dress the Green Hornet up and take him anywhere. You couldn't dress up Batman or take him anywhere other
than a Halloween bash.
* The Green Hornet would never let himself get caught in frosty freezie makers or piano roll punchers.
* And, the Green Hornet would never have let Liberace get the best of him for even half a two-part episode.
So there!