The actor who originally played Robin in the Batman TV series was once told his penis was too big – yes, too big – for the show... Having been encouraged to try and shrink things down.
No doubt many men would enjoy being told that they’re simply too well-endowed, but it’s something that actually proved to be a bit of a problem for Burt Ward, who played the sidekick to Adam West’s Batman in the 1960s TV series and its various offshoots.
The Caped Crusaders were known for their tight-fitting superhero garms, squeezing their bits and bobs into teeny tiny lycra hot pants and tights.
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This, of course, didn’t leave much to the imagination, which turned out to be an issue when people saw what Ward was packing.
Speaking to Page Six back in 2020, the 77-year-old revealed that the size of his genitals turned out to be an unexpected area of concern for the Catholic League of Decency, who felt Robin’s bulge was too large.
“They thought that Robin had a very large bulge for television,” Ward said, adding that the same couldn’t be said for Batman.
“With Adam they put Turkish towels in his undershorts,” he explained. Savage.
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Eventually, it got to the stage where the studio was unable to ignore the complaints, and had to do something about it.
Execs ended up sending Ward to a doctor to see if there was anything that modern medicine could do to help.
The star recalled how the doctor prescribed medication to ‘shrink me up’, but he stopped taking the pills just days later.
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“I took them for three days and then I decided that they can probably keep me from having children,” he said.
“I stopped doing that and I just used my cape to cover it.”
Despite being a huge celebrity by the time he was 20 – and one packing particularly impressive heat, at that – Ward said he didn’t spend evenings as a young adult out on the town picking up women.
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“You must understand I never smoked, drank or did drugs so I never went to a bar in my entire life,” he continued.
“It’s not to say I didn’t go out and have a good time but I never went out and did what you think Hollywood [celebrities] do.
“I was a straight-A student at UCLA. In fact, the Dean at UCLA was upset with me when I left in my third year to do Robin because she said I should have been a nuclear physicist.
“I was in the top 3% in the United States in science and math.”
Topics: Film and TV, Celebrity
Jess Hardiman