Welcome to Comic Book Legends Revealed! This is the seven hundred and seventy-seventh installment where we examine three comic book legends and determine whether they are true or false.
As usual, there will be three posts, one for each of the three legends.
NOTE: If my Twitter page hits 5,000 followers, I'll do a bonus edition of Comic Book Legends Revealed that week. Great deal, right? So go follow my Twitter page, Brian_Cronin!
COMIC LEGEND:
The Batman TV show originated and/or popularized the term 'Dynamic Duo' for Batman and Robin
STATUS:
False
It is clear that, for many people, the first time that they heard the term "Dynamic Duo" came in the astonishingly popular Batman TV series that debuted in 1966...
The term was used frequently on the series...
Reader Art S. was wondering if that was the first time that the term "Dynamic Duo" was actually used/popularized. He noted that the term was never used as the title of a Batman story until after the Batman TV series was already on the air, like Detective Comics #361...
and Detective Comics #369...
In both of those instances, it is clear that they are being influenced by the Batman TV series for the usage of the term "Dynamic Duo."
So Art's certainly not unreasonable for tying the term to the TV show.
However, the term first originated in Batman #4 (by Bill Finger, Bob Kane, Jerry Robinson and George Roussos)...
And in 1960's Superman's Pal, Jimmy Olsen #69, the term was already recognizable enough that when Superman and Jimmy Olsen were in their Batman and Robin-style identities as Nightwing and Flamebird, the comic specifically used the term "Dynamic Duo," thus obviously playing on the fact that readers were familiar with that term to describe Batman and Robin....
So no, the TV show might have made the term even MORE popular than it already was, but it didn't coin it or even make the term popular in the first place.
Thanks to Art S. for the question!
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Check out some other entertainment legends from Legends Revealed:
1. Was Robert Downey Jr. Written Out of His Own Character’s Wedding Episode on Ally McBeal?
3. Were There “Back-Up” Mothers on How I Met Your Mother?
4. Did Lost in Space Coin the Term “Does Not Compute?”
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Check back later for part 2 of this installment's legends!
Feel free to send suggestions for future comic legends to me at either cronb01@aol.com or brianc@cbr.com