The Apollo, Pa., man has hundreds—if not thousands—of Batman items in his home, personal gym and tire shop in Leechburg, Pa., ranging from a 20-foot-long mural of him changing the Batmobile’s tires, to a Batman pinball machine, to artwork and other collectibles.
“There’s always more room for more stuff,” said Babyak, 50. “I’m always looking for something that catches my eye.”
For a long time, most of Babyak’s 20-year collection of Batman memorabilia was hidden in boxes in his basement or kept in his kids’ bedrooms. But his Batcave, in an apartment building he owns near his home, changed all that. He moved most of his Batman paraphernalia there in the late 1990s, and it doubles as his family’s exercise area.
Now, Batman movie posters, life-size cardboard cutouts, action figures and more watch over him and his family as they use the elliptical machine or lift weights.
He’s easy to buy for around the holidays. His wife, family and friends are responsible for about half of his collection, which includes Batman blankets, pillows, clothing, jewelry, a replica of a Bat-arang from the 1997 film Batman & Robin, masks, hats, a chess set, trains, signed portraits of every Batman actor from Adam West to Christian Bale, a Batmobile phone, Pez dispensers, a puzzle, toy cars, boxing gloves and a tire made for him by Goodyear with the bat symbol as the tread.
“I’m obsessed with it, with the signal,” said Babyak, who shares a Sept. 19 birthday with Adam West, star of the 1960s TV series Batman.
Bat fans were here long before filming for The Dark Knight Rises began in Pittsburgh late last month, and they’ll be here after filmmakers wrap up scheduled filming this weekend. But the movie is inspiring a new wave of Bat-mania.
Angie Adelman, 31, originally of Johnstown but now of Perry Hall, Md., tattooed a black-and-gold Bat signal over a Pittsburgh skyline on the inside of her left ankle in early July. She grew up with everything Pittsburgh and considers herself “a walking canvas,” now sporting 12 tattoos.
With the Batman filming going on this summer, Adelman saw an opportunity to ink a unique reminder of home on her body.
“It kind of made a little too much sense for me not to do it,” she said.
One fan spooks his co-workers with a 5-foot-tall cutout of “The Dark Knight” himself—Christian Bale—that hides in a corner of his cubicle in the University of Pittsburgh’s Cathedral of Learning.
“You actually think he’s standing there,” said Anthony Jones, 45, of Penn Hills.
Jones was “completely in heaven” when filming touched down in Oakland late last month, sneaking peeks of action on the set during his breaks from work. He was even a paid extra at Heinz Field when filmmakers shot a football game scene that involved a series of explosions.
“I’m hoping they call me back, because they’re still shooting,” Jones said.
Despite Babyak’s best efforts to get on the set, he never received a callback after he went to an open casting call in June dressed in a suit.
“He was crushed,” said his wife, Terri Babyak.
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Information from: Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, http://pghtrib.com
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AP-WF-08-19-11 1319GMT
