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Holy Last-Minute Gift, Der Fledermausmann!

Filed under: Looked Into Tagged: Batman, Benjamin Chambers, Complete New Yorker, Die Fledermaus, Johann Strauss

Benjamin Chambers writes:

What would have been the perfect, last-minute gift for someone on your holiday shopping list in 1966?

I'm betting it would've been the Batmobile seen on p. 185 of the October 1, 1966 issue of The New Yorker. (Click on the image below for a larger view.)

I was lucky enough to own one of these (though I didn't get it until 1971 or so), and I can attest that it was the coolest toy car ever made. I quickly lost the "rockets", but nothing ever dulled the joy of the car's sleek lines, the futuristic windshield, or the chain-snapping blade that would pop out of the hood.

Curious to see if the Batman ever showed up in The Complete New Yorker, I was pleased to see that he did. I'll have more to say about this at another time, but my favorite find was the Everett Opie cartoon below, from the June 24, 1967 issue. (Again, click on the image for a larger view.)

Naturally, the cartoon made me want to look into the Strauss operetta, "Die Fledermaus," which I'd heard of, but never seen. I was amused to learn from Wikipedia that the gist of the finale is, "Oh bat, oh bat, at last let thy victim escape!"

Priceless!

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Who we?

Emdashes, founded in 2004 by Emily Gordon, is a place where keen and dedicated readers of The New Yorker, past and present, can find related news and commentary: about people, subjects, and ideas within the magazine, and events and conversations outside its pages. Learn more about us and our contributors.

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Some writing by Emily Gordon

Review: A Gate at the Stairs by Lorrie Moore (for Newsday)
Annotated slide show: a wet, festive 2009 Coney Island Mermaid Parade (for nycgo.com)
Proposal: A better-looking MetroCard (for A Brief Message)
Feature: Muslim immigration iconography in the Netherlands, and an interview with Ayaan Hirsi Ali (for Print)
Review: Does a redesign of The New Republic mean a change of tune? (for Print)
Interview: four online obsessives and visual cataloguers, Kate Bingaman, Nicholas Felton, Ellie Harrison, and John D. Freyer (for Print)
Review: King's Gambit: A Son, a Father, and the World's Most Dangerous Game by Paul Hoffman (for Newsday)
Interviews: winning New Visual Artists Eleanor Grosch, Zigmunds Lapsa, Christian Cervantes, and Kate & Camilla (for Print)
Profile: lindy hop legend Frankie Manning (for Newsday, with Robert Fouch)
Feature: Rea Irvin, illustrator, bon vivant, and The New Yorker's first art director (for Print)
Profile: screenwriter and novelist Joe Keenan (for Newsday)
Review: My Tiny Life: Crime and Passion in a Virtual World by Julian Dibbell (for Newsday)
Review: Charles Dickens by Jane Smiley (for Newsday)
Review: Jayber Crow by Wendell Berry (for Print)
Report: Learning to read with comic books edited by Françoise Mouly (for Print)
Report: The New Yorker's redesigned website (for Print)
Interview: James Surowiecki on what's next for the wisdom of crowds (for Assignment Zero)
Review: The Complete New Yorker (for Print)
Interview: Matthew Diffee on the appropriately inappropriate cartoons of the The Rejection Collection (for Print)
Interview: Roz Chast on Brooklyn, pysanky eggs, and animation (for Newsday)
Review: books about various New Yorker cartoonists by Liza Donnelly and Iain Topliss (for Newsday)
Review: Charles Addams: A Cartoonist's Life by Linda H. Davis (for Newsday)
Interview: Edward Gorey (for Newsday)

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They say that dashes “are particularly useful in a sentence that is long and complex.” Emdashes—like em dashes—emphasizes what’s between: in particular, between the lines, covers, and issues of a magazine close to my heart.

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Founded by Emily Gordon, edited by Martin Schneider, designed by House of Pretty, and illustrated by Inkleaf. Additional drawings by Carolita Johnson. Kissable pencil girl by Jennifer Hadley, based on a 1943 Dorothy Gray ad.

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