Funko Puts a Little Vinyl Sugar on Batman '66

The great thing about the Batman 1966 licensing boom that we've been in for the past year or so has been the variety of collectibles commemorating the fan-favorite series. For a long time, we just didn't have much to work with when it came to the Adam West/Burt Ward era, but now we've got action figures, banks, miniature cars, statues, comics and all kinds of other random stuff.

While we've seen Funko's Batman 1966 Pop figures and Dorbz on shelves already, the creatives at Vinyl Sugar will introduce Vinyl Idolz based on the Bat-family this fall. The Batman '66 wave was teased earlier in the year, but didn't have any prototypes or release date mentioned at the time. The Vinyl Idolz line has already offered such pop culture icons like the characters from Seinfeld, Ghostbusters and Hot Fuzz in its strange-yet-appealing Family Guy meets Aardman Animation style, and the campiness of Batman '66 helps the characters fit right in without missing a beat.

Four figures will arrive in a few months, with Batman, Robin, Batgirl and Joker making the cut. Batman, Robin and the Joker were fairly safe bets, but I'm glad to see Batgirl making an appearance in the line-up as there just hasn't been that much new 1966 Batgirl merchandise. That said, I'm not super-wild about her face sculpt. I like the pose, and that they kept the sparkling costume, but her expression is too flat. All three of the others look quite nice, with Joker and Batman making the transition to this caricaturized iteration very well. Robin looks good, he just looks like he's taking things way too seriously, which is kind of how Burt Ward acted most of the time.

All four figures will be out in October for $19.99, and you can pre-order now through retailers like BigBadToyStore. Each comes in at around 8" tall, which is slightly more than your average action figure. I almost wish they were offered at a smaller scale to make them a bit more desk-friendly, but there are plenty enough vinyl collectibles from Funko already at a diminutive size that I can understand these pieces being slightly taller.

Funko