By Chip Hitchcock: Lorenzo Semple, Jr., who adapted Batman for television, died March 28 at his home in Los Angeles, age 91. Per the New York Times obituary, the ABC executives who hired him had intended a drama but Stemple “immediately saw the absurdity in the character of a wealthy bachelor who enjoyed dressing up as a bat to fight crime,” giving us the high-camp version that premiered on ABC in 1966.

And Wikipedia notes he also wrote de Laurentiis’s wretched 1976 remake of King Kong and the 1980 Flash Gordon (as far as I know, the first SF movie to spawn a pinball machine).