maybe they swap out actors like doctor who.
I don't know if you could do that. The concept of Batman pulling a "Bonanza" and running for eons is an interesting one, and frankly one that I'd like to see discussed, but I don't know if it's possible...at least with Batman the way it was. West and Ward made it theirs and are so indelibly Batman and Robin in that show. And I think it's hard to remove them from it on the basis of what that show was. Batman was not a drama, and I think a drama is somewhere where it's easier to swap people in and out. Batman was "theatre of the absurd" as Adam West puts it. Its campy and playing up the comic book and the wackiness of it as only West and Ward could do. So I don't really see the ability to remove them. At least not Batman. Ward could go off and the Robin's could be replaced like Shemps, but West is that Batman.
But, to the previous point, maybe if the Batman show played it straight then that could be possible. An idea struck me of maybe if
Lyle Waggoner had been picked as Batman instead of Adam West, then maybe Batman could have been done as more of a serious show, and thus allowing for swapping in and out and evolving along with the way Batman evolved in the comics into the 70s and onward. If you watch Waggoner's screen test, it does come off as the way drama stories were in the 60s:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Vpl-eO6Tik
There is another problem raised though, which is that the more serious take on Batman in the comics and in the 80s film came about to rebuke the campiness of the show. "Biff", "Pow" and "Zap" clung onto the Batman franchise like glue for decades, and it was hard to shake off. If the show is more straight forward, then there may not be that more serious take in reaction to it, and certainly not at all the 80s grittiness introduced with "The Dark Knight Returns" which followed afterward. The 70s serious Batman I'd expect to see, but not the 80's grit.