50 Years Ago this Month – Batman Rocks Radio

1966 bore the weight of conflict and free speech. Those of us graduating high school in the late ‘60s teetered on the cusp of one extreme or the other. For many, our choices programmed the rest of our lives – into mainstream college and families, or experimenting with life and visionary innovations. But the country – and we – were still young.

Fifty Years Ago this Month, music played a crucial sanctuary for our insecurities, much like today. No self-respecting car cruising the drag was without a radio; and like televisions today, a radio commanded space in every room of the house.

Did your after-school job take a month to earn up to $40 for that Silvertone 4-speed automatic phonograph? Thumbing through the Sears (& Roebuck) catalog though, you could score an AM clock radio for half that. We were cool. ♪ California Dreamin’ … on such a winter’s day … ♪

 

With our radios came those smooth-talkin’, happy-hawkin’ DJs who echoed our fears and soothed our tears … if only Batman could save the world!  

At WILS/Lansing Michigan, it was Batman to the rescue! Trading on the hottest show on television, the station’s “Top Sounds of the Week” for February 1966, featured “The exciting adventures of Bat-Fink and Rubin, the wonder-midget.” No, we were not particularly politically correct “in the day” …