Cesar Romero as the Joker gets perhaps the least to do, though he certainly seems to be having the time of his life responding to the Penguin’s nautical submarine commands with an unhinged “Yo-ho!” or fluttering in terror while being stared down by Catwoman’s thoroughly inoffensive-looking house-cat. Frank Gorshin as the Riddler is, as always, incandescently insane — after he accidentally hits the Batcopter with one of his skyrwriting riddle missiles, his wonderment is so intense that it blurs the line between ecstasy and disappointment. Burgess Meredith as the waddling Penguin delivers some of the film’s best lines, declaiming with squawking relish as he contemplates the possible death of his henchmen, “Every one of them has a mother!” or urging his submarine crew to dive with the immortal exhortation, “Run silent, run deep!”

One of my all-time favourite Batman panels was written by Haney and drawn by Jim Aparo and shows Batman strolling down the sunlit streets of Gotham, checking out the mini-skirted girls and accompanied by the line to end all lines: ‘Yes, Batman digs this day!”

“Batman was comedy,” West says, “let’s face it. What I loved about Batman was his total lack of awareness when it came to his interaction with the outside world. He actually believed nobody could recognise him on the phone, when he was being Bruce Wayne, even though he made no attempt to disguise his voice.”

“In the same way that Inspector Clouseau never notices his accent,” I suggest, “when everybody around him is also French.”

“That’s right. In the first episode, Batman goes into a nightclub in the cowl, cape and bat gloves. When the maître d’ says: ‘Ringside table, Batman?’ he replies, ‘No thank you – I’ll stand at the bar. I would not wish to be conspicuous.’”