Gold Key did not own the Green Hornet. He started in radio in 1937 and ran weekly for almost twenty years. WXYZ out of Detroit ran both his and the Lone Ranger's radio shows and later established that the Western masked lawman was the Hornet's uncle or grand uncle.

The big problem with the 60s Batman series is that it's virtually impossible to take it seriously. It's a camp gay delirium in which practically everything is treated ridiculously simply because the director of this series thought it was stupid for someone to dress up in a uniform and go around fighting crime. Everything in the Batman series is exaggerated and ridiculous to the extreme. Green Hornet, in turn, took a dark uniformed vigilante fighting crime outside the system much more seriously and we had Bruce Lee who was impeccable and majestic as Kato. I'm not saying that Batman was bad at all, the series was fun in its own way and there are many Batman fans for whom it has a place in their hearts and the lighter and more fun approach to this series definitely worked to break the brooding and dour aura of the Bat, but the image of Gotham's Caped Crusader became stereotyped as a gay character because of this live action series.

I think opinion is divided about the merits or otherwise of Batman '66. It's obviously still a viable interpretation of the Caped Crusader, given that the sixties series still runs in syndication and presumably, the estates of the actors affected (and Burt Ward) are still getting paid royalties for it. And there's the Batman '66 comics series to consider. I don't think it's as objectionable or anywhere near as bad as (shudder) Frank Miller's All-Star Batman and Robin or any of the progressively worse sequels to the Dark Knight Returns, which goes to show that the opposite extreme can be just as bad.

However, the Green Hornet is the focus of this thread. So, okay, the Green Hornet becomes a successful television and Batman fails instead. What's the fallout? Does DC acquire the Green Hornet from Gold Key? Does Gold Key keep the rights to Green Hornet, given that, with a more successful franchise, it may make money if it does? Does DC cancel Batman after getting their fingers burnt with an unsuccessful series and decide that that property isn't viable anymore? Does Green Hornet 'replace' Batman on Earth-One as a result... and what about possible past Green Hornet/s on Earth-Two?

It's interesting to hear this, since I took the show totally seriously when I watched it. I guess if you are a fan of the silver age comics, it makes perfect sense.

If one was a big fan of 60s comic books (I was) and watched cartoons every Saturday morning (I did), the Batman TV series fit in perfectly with those. It was the current Batman comic coming to life, and of course it had those big blaring "Kapow! 'captions; because that's what they did in comic books. It appealed perfectly for the audience they aimed for.

The Green Hornet must not have been appealing to kids like me - at least it wasn't to me...

Yes, I agree that much of the live action Batman series from the 60s had much of the same atmosphere as the Silver Age with its stories that were colorful escapisms much lighter than current superhero stories where the heroes were beings of unquestionable nobility, owners of the highest possible heroic ideals who never descended to the same level as the villains they fought and always managed to defeat their enemies and never needed to do things as absurd as in the miniseries "Identity Crisis" which was one of the most horrible things I have ever seen happen with heroes. In the Silver Age, the villains were just a bunch of smart guys with crazy plans and gadgets capable of freezing the Sun, shrinking the moon to the size of a basketball and giving super powers to all living inhabitants of Earth. Never NEVER monsters who raped a hero's wife and then killed her while she was pregnant with their first child or who crippled a heroine like they did to Batgirl / Barbara Gordon in "Batman The Killing Joke" and even the theoretically more "diabolical" ones like Lex Luthor , Ra's al Ghul , Joker , Mongul , Brainiac and Darkseid would never do such perfidious things that would outrage the reader . We were a long way from things like Batman The Dark Knight and his grim and gritty Caped Crusader. I honestly prefer Batman from " Batman the Animated Series " and " Justice League Unlimited " who managed to be dark and at the same time maintain the aura of a dignified and heroic hero who never crosses the line that separates good from evil and never descends to the same level as the villains he faces. I think the problem with the 60s Batman series is that it currently isn't what fans expect when they see Batman.