In a previous life, Alice and I co-wrote Conspiracy Theories & Secret Societies For Dummies (which is woefully out of date by 15 years, at least, yet still a hot seller in Turkey, if you can believe it). Every once in a while it pops back up in our daily doings.
One of the banes of Saturday night ritual at Hodapphaüs is that we are forced to suffer through an episode of the old 1966 Adam West Batman TV series, obtrusively airing between the Svenghoulie presentation of a classic old horror film and Star Trek - TOS. We usually take that half hour to walk the dogs, lube the cars, or unclog a toilet - anything but suffer through that silliness. We'd both had enough of that show with its cartoon villains when we were 8 years old. But somehow we managed to have about 7 or 8 minutes of the show inflicted on us last night, when this popped up.
“And that is Bruce Wayne’s grandfather, Mrs. Cooper?”
“His GREAT-grandfather,” she says.
He's referring to a painting of a handsome young man sporting a white football jersey with a navy blue 'Y' on the front, marking the old mister Wayne as a Yale University alum. He then cryptically says, “I understand he was tapped for Skull and Bones.”
To which Aunt Harriet swells up with indignant pride and replies, “Tapped for it? Why, he FOUNDED Skull and Bones!”
This is 1966, long before Skull and Bones was the topic of bad History Channel programs and Alex Jones paranoia podcasts. And somebody went to a lot of trouble in 1966 to execute a pretty decent painting of old mister Wayne as a young college lad for this one, single scene.
The scene is a fundraiser at stately Wayne Manor. The guest list is made up of millionaires, who are milling about making idle chitchat. A guest approaches Bruce Wayne's befuddled old Aunt Harriet Cooper and points to a portrait on the wall:
“And that is Bruce Wayne’s grandfather, Mrs. Cooper?”
“His GREAT-grandfather,” she says.
He's referring to a painting of a handsome young man sporting a white football jersey with a navy blue 'Y' on the front, marking the old mister Wayne as a Yale University alum. He then cryptically says, “I understand he was tapped for Skull and Bones.”
To which Aunt Harriet swells up with indignant pride and replies, “Tapped for it? Why, he FOUNDED Skull and Bones!”
This is 1966, long before Skull and Bones was the topic of bad History Channel programs and Alex Jones paranoia podcasts. And somebody went to a lot of trouble in 1966 to execute a pretty decent painting of old mister Wayne as a young college lad for this one, single scene.
Now, none of this is to suggest that the 1966 version of Bruce Wayne aka Batman (in his silk and spandex alter ego) himself was a Bonesman, only his great-grandfather. According to aficionados of Batman canon and lore, it's the only known reference to Batman and Skull and Bones, and no serious Batman fan counts the 1966 TVG creation, with its Happy Halloween-style costumes, grade-school art direction and Catskills humor as anything but a bad-taste aberration of an otherwise dark and sinister character of deep seriousness.
On the other hand, in doing a little poking around, I did come across a single comic book reference that showed Batman/Bruce Wayne's private study with a Yale Law diploma on the wall. ('Night of the Stalker,' 1974; Detective Comics #439, p.16).
The topic is interesting enough that it warranted an article by Chip Kidd in the Yale Alumni Magazine 15 years ago, when Skull & Bones mania was all the rage in the media.
