How Will “Batman” Shrink? : HBO AND CINEMAX BRING LAST YEAR’S DARK HERO DOWN TO TV-SCREEN SIZE

Holy cable television!

“Batman,” last year’s megahit (250 million bat-dollars), is making its cable debut this week.

Pow!

With “Dick Tracy” T-shirts at almost every retailer and Tom Cruise posters looming from city billboards, last summer’s Batmania is almost a faded memory.

But not for Joe Desris, a Kenosha, Wisc., advertising executive, who has the largest collection of “Batman” memorabilia in the world.

Zowie!

Desris has some bat-facts to share just in time for this week’s cable premiere, on HBO Sunday at 8 p.m. and Tuesday at 3 p.m. on Cinemax.

Ker-plow!

And just how many times has he seen “Batman” take flight?

“I lost count after a while,” he said with bat-sigh. “I was out in Los Angeles last year and saw the film about a week before it came out.

“Interestingly enough, there was a really brief scene they subsequently cut out. It was when Batman was in the Batmobile and he drives into Ajax Chemical Company and blows it up. When he drives out and gets out of his car, he looks up and the Joker is in his helicopter. There were 10 or 15 seconds they cut out, which is just as well because it looked like a toy helicopter.”

Holy whirlybird!

Desris found a lot to like in the Michael Keaton-Jack Nicholson action flick, especially the Oscar-winning art and set design. “There is this contrast in the architecture,” he said. “There is modern stuff and throwbacks to the 1880s. The scene where reporter Alexander Knox is in the office of Vicki Vale--there’s a good contrast with the manual typewriter on the desk and Knox’s microcassette recorder--it’s set in the ‘40s, the ‘90s and in the future.”

Zounds!

One of the most visually impressive scenes to Desris is set during the opening moments when two crooks are on the top of a building and Batman mysteriously pops down behind them. But, he said, some of that is lost on the small screen.

“Some of the things in the Ajax chemical factory with all the steam and the liquid escaping are good,” Desris said. “Some moments in the bat cave are interesting, but they may be trouble on TV. It’s like translating the chase scene in ‘Bullitt’ onto a 19-inch TV.

“It’s really fun to see a movie like this on the big screen because of the whole audience participation thing. It’s much more enjoyable.”

Though Desris saw the film countless times and owns the video, he’s the first to confess “Batman” is a flawed creature.

Thud!

“‘Some grade school back east had bats in the lunchroom and they had to get the kids out of there because of the stench,” said Desris, laughing. “Obviously, if you have bat droppings all over the place, it will be a pretty nasty smelling bat cave.

“There are other things: Batman designed this really interesting craft that could fly all over the place, but the Joker could shoot it down with an itty-bitty gun. And if the Joker fell from that high of a building why would his body still be intact?”

Holy gaffes!

Desris quickly pointed out, though, that he once read an article about “Star Wars” which pointed out the 1977 George Lucas classic contained more than 150 mistakes. “As much as I like ‘Rear Window’ and ‘Psycho,’ there are flaws in them.”

Powie!

Desris hasn’t seen “Dick Tracy” and has no inkling if the highly publicized Warren Beatty film will cause as big a flap at the box office. “Last week I was in a Target store and they had a whole aisle devoted to ‘Dick Tracy’ stuff, which was great, but nobody was there,” he said. “(Last year) if you found any stuff in toy stores on ‘Batman,’ there would be 18 kids around it or it was already sold out.

“It’s great (Disney) has made plans in advance and made all this stuff available, but when you plan a blockbuster, it’s not a blockbuster,” Desris said.

“Warners aired its first (“Batman”) TV spot, I think, on Memorial Day. They didn’t want to give away a lot of things. Whereas with ‘Tracy,’ you could get stuff a long time ago.

“(Warners) didn’t know if ‘Batman’ was going to be great. There was a lot of publicity, but it wasn’t coming from Warners; it was coming from the media and all the fans.”

Kaboom!