With Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice dropping on Friday, we're getting yet another dark and dramatic Batman film. We've seen numerous incarnations of Batman on the silver screen over the years, with varying levels of serious bat vigilante. I'm all for that...but I miss the campiness of the series, and comics as a whole. All of the onomatopoeia of the 1960s Batman TV show intro, which begat one of the most lit Batman films, the 1966 film with Adam West as Batman and Burt Ward as his sidekick Robin.
While the film was essentially "this squad of villains is trying to jack Batman up," one of the more interesting sequences happens fairly early on in the film involving a rescue mission involving a yacht. Batman and Robin board the batcopter to rescue Commodore Schmidlapp when Batman ends up dipping into the water while on his (bat-)ladder. When he emerges from the water, A FUCKING RUBBER SHARK IS EATING HIS LEG!
Keep in mind, the film is rated PG, and was made in the 1960s, so there's no gory, blood-dripping mutilation...but it's also a goddamn rubber shark. Whatever, suspension of disbelief, right? Right, because Batman immediately calls to Robin for the "shark repellent bat spray." It sounds silly af, but he actually has all of the oceanic repellent bat sprays.
As you see in the video up above, the rest of the scene is spent following Robin find his way to hang upside down to hand Batman some goddamn spray. The Caped Crusader sprays the shark like he's attacking roaches with Raid, and it falls from the ladder, making a massive splash into the water below (well, massive for a rubber shark).
Now, this is pure malarkey, and unless Batman has some kind of fast-acting shark acid in that repellent bat spray, I'm not sure how this would actually work IRL. The thing is, this isn't real life; this is campy superhero amazingness, and sometimes, I wish those more cartoon-y aspects would creep back into these darker tales of strife and superhero frustration.
