Originally planned as the pilot film for the "Batman" (1966) TV series, the movie was instead produced between the show's first and second seasons. The producers took advantage of the larger budget to have a number of new Bat-gadgets constructed, such as the BatBoat.
The BatBoat was built especially for the film by the Glastron boat company. In exchange for their cooperation, the producers agreed to hold the film's world premiere in Austin, Texas, Glastron's headquarters.
The original trailer includes specially-shot footage of the 4 supervillains outlining their plans for the Dynamic Duo. Still frames from these sequences are visible when Batman and Commissioner Gordon watch a closed-circuit TV update on villains at large. The trailer also includes specially-shot footage of Batman and Robin addressing the audience about their first motion picture.
Julie Newmar (Catwoman in the TV series) does not appear in this film because she did not know about it and had signed to do another project. By the time she was informed, she could not get out of the other commitment in time to do this movie.
The entire second season had already been shot before the movie was, even though it actually came out before the second season.
"Plaisir D'Amour" by Johannes Paul Martini, is sung by a chanteuse in the cabaret scene, but neither the song nor the singer are listed in the credits.
The supporting character Aunt Harriet (Madge Blake) does not have a single line in the picture.
Inside joke: Burgess Meredith's line, "Run Silent, Run Deep" is the title of a 1958 submarine movie in which Frank Gorshin might have played a role had he been able to make it to the screen test.
In the final fight scene, a stuntman playing one of the villains' henchmen dove into the water and hit his head on a metal stud at the bottom of the pond. He was knocked unconscious and had to be rushed to the hospital.
At the end of the film one of the delegates is seen banging his shoe on the table while yelling. This is a parody of Nikita Khrushchev's famous behavior during a debate in the United Nations General Assembly in 1960.
The Penguin's line "We shall hang together, or most assuredly we shall all hang separately" was a humorous phrase spoken by Benjamin Franklin when he was in danger of being accused of high treason by his fellow delegates.
Burt Ward has no dialogue as Dick Grayson. He appears without his mask only twice: in the opening when arriving by car at stately Wayne Manor, and later when a damp Bruce returns home from his kidnapping ordeal and Dick and Gordon are there to meet him.
During Bruce Wayne's fight with the villains, he says lines about a hidden radio up his sleeve and knowing the villains were listening, although he wasn't properly miked for the dialogue to be heard well.
Lee Meriwether was Miss America in 1955; same year that Lincoln Motor Co. built a "Futura" space-age prototype car that was later customized by George Barris Inc. to become this Batmobile.
During his date with Miss Kitka, Bruce quotes Edgar Allan Poe.
The faking of sea outside a phony yacht window was a clever ruse inspiring a "Hogan's Heroes" (1965) scene in which a kidnapped general is tricked into thinking he is aboard a plane flying at night to England.
Scenes shot in the arch-criminals' headquarters lair were filmed at an angle. Rumors at the time were that this was intentional and was meant to show that the four (Catwoman, Penguin, Joker, and Riddler) were crooked.
To date, this is the only live-action feature-length Batman film in which Alfred is not played by an actor named Michael.