Quote Originally Posted by SiegePerilous02 View Post
Is the show a serious take for adults? I haven't watched it, but I heard it's pretty campy. Many of the people I worked with started talking about the show when they saw the ads for the movie, and they didn't give the impression it was a serious show.

It doesn't have to be strictly for children, but these characters were primarily designed with children and families in mind. People clinging to them well into adulthood and expecting them to age along with them and die isn't necessarily the best thing for the characters. It speaks more about the fan's inability to let go more than anything else. Batman was already over 5 decades old when I first "met" him in 1992, and it was all fresh and new to me at the time. The Batman vs. Joker stuff is played out to me now, but that's not Batman's problem, it's mine. The kids meeting Billy, Freddy and Mary at the cinema next week will have something brand new to them even though the characters have been around since the 1940s. If we get sick of eternally teenage Billy, the best course of action is to move on and not expect the character to change when he's timeless and not broken to begin with.
I don't know if the show could be described as "campy", at least in the same way that the 1960s "Batman" show was. Certainly, the show was not campy in the way that the cartoon version, which came after, was. There weren't any "super-villains", and Captain Marvel only came around in order to save the day. What I personally liked about the show was the idea that the protagonist commune with his "Elders", who tested Billy into actually solving the problem, with help from his Mentor, before he even felt the need to become "empowered". Then again, growing up without a dad for most of my childhood, I kind of empathized with the idea of these "larger-than-life" figures giving sound advice to the protagonist (though, even back then, I thought it was cheesy for the actor Michael Grey to speaking to cartoon figures in a cave...lol).

But, I've more or less stated all that is relevant to the subject. Though done, I would love to continue to read other people's thoughts on this subject. And, hopefully, whatever DC has in mind for the latest iteration of SHAZAM! will be both appreciated and expanded upon, especially if the movie does well in theaters.