Adam West

West is quiet and amiable in manner, and at the same time childish and unhinged. His schemes have sent the whole Quahog police force to Cartagena in Colombia to hunt for Elaine Wilder, a character from the 1984 film Romancing the Stone. He has put council funds towards a statue of the Dig 'Em frog cast in solid gold, and had coffins encased in cement against the risk of the dead returning. In "420" he legalises cannabis after Brian sings in favour of it, then reverses himself days later once Brian has been paid to sing against it. He has also been shown as a Russian sleeper agent, and "Dr. C and the Women" suggests the eccentricity is a screen for something darker.

Seth MacFarlane wrote for the cartoon series Johnny Bravo before Family Guy, and West played a strange version of himself in an episode MacFarlane wrote, first shown in December 1997. That version dressed formally and drew on his work in the 1960s Batman series, but carried the same delusions the later part would have, among them mole people living under a golf course. MacFarlane liked the performance enough to build a comparable character of his own. Steve Callaghan told Entertainment Weekly after the actor's death that five finished episodes with him were still to be broadcast, and that the writers had not yet decided how to handle the departure.