He was in competition with Lyle Waggoner for the Batman role.
Producer William Dozier cast West as Bruce Wayne and his alter ego, Batman, in the television series Batman, in part after seeing West perform as the James Bond-like spy Captain Q in a Nestlé Quik commercial. Main articles: Batman (TV series) and Batman (1966 film) In 1965, he was cast in the comedy Western The Outlaws Is Coming, the last feature film starring The Three Stooges. West starred in an episode of the ABC Outer Limits series titled " The Invisible Enemy". Clayton Harris, a handsome, young physician in two episodes of the sitcom Petticoat Junction. West was apparently unsurprised by the rejection, later noting that "It turned out to be one of the worst scripts I have ever read and it was one of the worst things I've ever done."
The series was not picked up and the pilot wasn't broadcast until 1968 when it was repackaged as a TV movie to capitalize on West and Shatner's later fame. That same year he was cast alongside William Shatner in the pilot for the proposed series Alexander the Great, playing Cleander to Shatner's Alexander. He made a brief appearance in the 1963 film Soldier in the Rain starring Jackie Gleason and Steve McQueen, and starred as Colonel Dan McCready, the ill-fated mission commander of Mars Gravity Probe 1 in the 1964 film Robinson Crusoe on Mars. His other role was as folk singer Pete Norland in "The Case of the Bogus Books". His first role was as small-town journalist Dan Southern in "The Case of the Barefaced Witness".
West made two guest appearances on Perry Mason in 19. He played Christopher Rolf in the episode "Stopover" of ABC's The Rifleman, which aired on April 25, 1961. On January 10, 1961, West appeared as a young, ambitious deputy who foolishly confronts a gunfighter named Clay Jackson, portrayed by Jock Mahoney, in the episode "The Man from Kansas" of the NBC Western series Laramie. West also appeared playing different characters in two episodes of Maverick opposite James Garner: "Two Tickets to Ten Strike" and "A Fellow's Brother" in 1958. 45, and Lawman - West played the role of Doc Holliday, the frontier dentist and gunfighter. westerns which aired on ABC- Sugarfoot, Colt. He had guest-star roles in a number of television Westerns. He appeared in the film The Young Philadelphians which starred Paul Newman. In 1959, West moved with his wife and two children to Hollywood, where he took the stage name Adam West. West later took over as host of the show. While in Hawaii, West was picked for a role as the sidekick on a local TV program, The Kini Popo Show, which also featured a chimp named Peaches. West with Anita Sands in a 1961 publicity photo for The Detectives After his discharge, he worked as a milkman before moving to Hawaii to pursue a career in television. Drafted into the United States Army, he served as an announcer on American Forces Network television. He also participated on the speech and debate team. He graduated with a bachelor's degree in literature and a minor in psychology from Whitman College in Walla Walla, where he was a member of the Gamma Zeta Chapter of the Beta Theta Pi fraternity. He attended Whitman College but studied at University of Puget Sound during the fall semester of 1949. West attended Walla Walla High School during his freshman and sophomore years and later enrolled in Lakeside School in Seattle. He moved to Seattle with his mother when he was 15, following his parents' divorce. Following her example, West told his father as a young man that he intended to go to Hollywood after completing school. His father, Otto Anderson (1903–1984) was a farmer descending from Scania in southern Sweden and his mother, Audrey Volenne (née Speer 1906–1969) was an opera singer and concert pianist who left her Hollywood dreams to care for her family. Adam West was born William West Anderson on September 19, 1928, in Walla Walla, Washington.