Family Guy's Adam West Tribute Video Is Hysterical and Touching

For all the problems Family Guy undoubtedly has, the show knows how to be warm when it really counts. Sometimes that means when one of its own passes away. Adam West,  the beloved veteran actor and one of the most enduring bearers of the Batman torch, died this past June, and the staff of Family Guy responded to it with an appropriate tribute: a highlight reel.

The video above showcases the very best of West's work on the show -- a role in which he played a neurotic, fictionalized version of himself who happened to be mayor of the main characters' fictional town, Quahog, Rhode Island. It's worth pointing out that while Family Guy's quality as a show has long been the subject of debate and derision, the energy that West brought to the show never has. As Mayor Adam West, he was pitch perfect, and the role was arguably the capstone of a lengthy second career as a voice actor which also included appearances as Batman on several kids' cartoons in the '70s and '80s as well as an especially memorable turn as a character called "The Grey Ghost" in Batman: The Animated Series. That character, a washed-up actor whose onscreen superheroics inspired a young Bruce Wayne, served as a tongue-in-cheek nod to West's earlier role as the Caped Crusader himself in the '60s. 

West brought that humor and humility to every performance in Family Guy, and this supercut, "In Loving Memory of Adam West," features his best gags over the course of 9 minutes spread across 15 seasons. The video ends on this brief statement: "We'll miss you dearly. Quahog couldn't have had a better mayor. We couldn't have had a better friend."

...Plus a single live-action visual gag I refuse to spoil. Rest in peace, Batman.

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