Wednesday, August 30, 2017

Only known video of Bill Finger's son Fred

In 2011, halfway between the time I sold the manuscript for Bill the Boy Wonder: The Secret Co-Creator of Batman (2010) and the time the book came out (2012), someone posted a most interesting comment on my blog…under my first-ever post about Bill Finger (2008).

This kind soul said Fred Finger was interviewed for a TV show in the late 1980s.

I was not trying to find Fred Finger footage because it never occurred to me that there would be any.

Think of the multiple levels of luck required for this to happen.

This person had to...

a) watch this BBC show
b) remember it 22 years later
c) happen upon my blog
d) take the time not only to tell me about the show but to find and include a link

And I still don't know who he is.

The clip is part of the 6/15/89 episode of a BBC show called The Late Show, which ran about 40 minutes and aired a week shy of the debut of Tim Burton's Batman.



Fantastic as it was to hear Fred's voice, and as articulate as he was, nothing he said led to a change in what I'd already written. However, a clip of me first showing this clip to Fred's daughter Athena made it into Batman & Bill. Though the already short clip is seen/heard only in passing in the doc, it's one of my favorite scenes.

Fred's appearance in full:


1 comment:

Patrick Hale said...

I'm a huge fan of comics. After seeing your documentary about Bill Finger I was amazed that this story has remained buried until you came along. Thanks so much for getting credit for Bill Finger!!