Between The Wheels

Each year I like to watch an entire TV series, starting on January 1st. This year, it's the 1960s TV classic, Batman.

I loved this show as a kid, and again when it was repeated in the late '70s, after what seemed like a very long absence. I don't remember seeing it again since then.

Until today! I have acquired all three series in a very nicely transferred high definition (BluRay) format. So:

1:01 Hi Diddle Riddle

It's a Riddler story. Frank Gorshin gives a fantastically over-the-top performance as the arch-criminal who likes to taunt his nemesis with puzzles. I never realised that Batman was in essence a comedy back in the '60s, but it definitely is. I have to say - Adam West's deadpan comic timing is spot on, especially as Bruce Wayne. Brilliant.

The plot is a bit silly. It's about Batman being tricked into a lawsuit, then Robin being kidnapped. But I can easily see why I liked it so much in my formative years. The Batmobile with the flames and smoke from its "atomic turbines", the batpoles behind the sliding bookshelves, from which Bruce and Dick somehow emerge in costume in the Batcave. The computer with all the flashing lights. It's all very colourful, as well. And preposterous, but deliberately, beautifully so.

Jill St. John, later the Bond girl in Diamonds Are Forever is in it. Annoyingly she's shown in soft focus every time there's a close up of her, something that I would have thought was a bit redundant for a 1960s TV broadcast because usually, your telly would do that for you.

It really looks great in high definition. We're fortunate that it was captured on film and preserved so well, especially when you think of the British TV series from around the same time that were recorded on fuzzy black& white videotape, and / or subsequently wiped. Very few people can have had colour TV in 1966.

Anyway that was a highly entertaining 25 minutes. Today's instalment ended on a cliffhanger, so presumably I'll find out what happens to Robin tomorrow! There's actually more than a hint of darkness in the fate that it's suggested that The Riddler has in store for him.

There are 120 of these, so my Batman journey will conclude on April 30th.

1:02 Smack In The Middle

The Riddler story introduced in the first episode concludes. It's very meandering and a bit random, but that doesn't detract in the slightest. it doesn't really build on the plot set up in the first one. It just goes a bit bizarre and random. Again, Frank Gorshin as The Riddler is absolutely manic. Brilliant. The only other thing I can ever remember seeing him in is an episode of Star Trek.

There are some brilliant gags - Batman and Robin bursting out of the priceless "Mammoth of Moldovia", Trojan Horse-style. It's supposedly a priceless and extremely rare national treasure, but they more or less destroy it in the process. And best of all, Molly, played by Jill St. John, puts on a Robin costume and rubber mask and becomes identical to the Boy Wonder.

(https://i.ibb.co/XphKM76/batman0102.jpg)

There's a very impressive climax on a huge set with the usual KAPOW! ZAP! punch up and explosions aplenty.

Fun gadgets, as well. I especially liked the "mobile crime computer" in the boot of the Batmobile, with an automatic radio link to the Batcave and a punched card reader.

Great stuff.

01:03 Fine Feathered Finks

Did I dream that? Did I somehow ingest hallucinogenic substances this evening?

This time it's the turn of The Penguin, newly released from the local penitentiary, to confound the Caped Crusader. It's just really, delightfully bizarre. The plot, if I can call it that, involves a fiendish plan to confound the forces of law and order with umbrellas. There are exploding umbrellas aplenty, and even a giant umbrella that descends upon the streets of Gotham City.

One brilliant moment - when Batman pulls the emergency u-turn lever in the Batmobile. The ensuing emergency 180 degree turn, complete with parachutes, is so obviously faked that it's absolutely hilarious. Intentionally, I'm sure.

Burgess Meredith is on fabulous form as The Penguin. I loved it.

There's a particularly dramatic cliffhanger, so it's a two-parter. Were they all two-parters? I'd forgotten that.

1:04 The Penguin's a Jinx

Starts with an ingenious (though very silly) solution to the cliffhanger at the end of the first part. Then it's quite slow for the rest of the first half.

But there's an ingenious plot device - The Penguin and his gang enlist Batman's help in planning their next crime, by listening in on a bugging device while the Caped Crusader and Boy Wonder are speculating what he'll do next.

But of course, the Fiendish Feathered One's plans are ultimately thwarted by the Dynamic Duo. There's a hilarious punch-up at the Penguin's hideout, in which Batman, Robin and the Penguin gang have a sort of sword fight with umbrellas.

Very, very entertaining.

1:05 The Joker Is Wild

Here comes The Joker, played with endearing over-the-topness by Cesar Romero. I must say all of the Batman villains so far - and we've had the main three - have been portrayed with exhilarating daftness by the thespians entrusted with the responsibility.

In this one, The Joker springs himself from prison. Literally.

(https://i.ibb.co/fXRY9cH/sprung.jpg)

He then embarks on a crime spree in Gotham City. Naturally the Dynamic Duo aren't far behind, but at the last minute the Clown Prince of Crime and his lackeys get the better of them, and are about to unmask the pair live on television.

There's a particularly rubbish special effects moment when Joker and his gang break out of statues that they've (somehow) hidden inside, in a museum where some priceless jewels are kept. All we see is a little flash going off behind each statue, then the hidden villain emerges from behind it.

Still - good one. Can't wait to find out how Batman manages to prevent his secret identity being revealed.

Interesting that Cesar Romero had a 'tache under his white Joker make up. Not sure if that would have been noticeable on a telly in the '60s. I've just read that he refused to shave it off for the part: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cesar_Romero

"From 1966 to 1968, he portrayed the Joker on Batman. He refused to shave his moustache for the role, and so the supervillain's white face makeup was simply smeared over it throughout the series' run and in the 1966 film"

1:06 Batman Is Riled

The Caped Crusader and Boy Wonder escape from the Joker by setting off the sprinkler system (somehow. It's not particularly convincing). A few minutes later, the Joker manages to tie his nemesis up in confetti tape.

He's had his own utility belt made, you see, to match Batman's.

The Dynamic Duo's failure to bring the Clown Prince of Crime to justice inspires a crime wave in Gotham City. Worse - the Joker plans to steal an ocean liner! It doesn't sound like the most practical crime, does it?

Can Batman and Robin overcome the giggling fiend and restore the public's confidence again?



There's a nice overhead view of the docks at Gotham City in one scene. Curiously, the Empire State Building can be seen in the distance.

So we've had the three main villains now. The only others I remember from the TV series are King Tut and (of course) Catwoman. But there's a brief announcement at the end that next episode's villain is Mr Freeze - portrayed some thirty years later in one of the movies by Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Quote from: Slim on January 06, 2025, 04:40:46 PM1:06 Batman Is Riled

The Caped Crusader and Boy Wonder escape from the Joker by setting off the sprinkler system (somehow. It's not particularly convincing). A few minutes later, the Joker manages to tie his nemesis up in confetti tape.

He's had his own utility belt made, you see, to match Batman's.

The Dynamic Duo's failure to bring the Clown Prince of Crime to justice inspires a crime wave in Gotham City. Worse - the Joker plans to steal an ocean liner! It doesn't sound like the most practical crime, does it?

Can Batman and Robin overcome the giggling fiend and restore the public's confidence again?

Sorry but you are not allowed to view spoiler contents.

There's a nice overhead view of the docks at Gotham City in one scene. Curiously, the Empire State Building can be seen in the distance.

So we've had the three main villains now. The only others I remember from the TV series are King Tut and (of course) Catwoman. But there's a brief announcement at the end that next episode's villain is Mr Freeze - portrayed some thirty years later in one of the movies by Arnold Schwarzenegger.

1:07 Ice Instant Freeze

An old enemy of Batman bears a grudge because he has to live in a carefully controlled -50 degrees (fahrenheit, one assumes) environment. This apparently happened due to an accident in his sinister crime laboratory during a punch up with the Caped Crusader.

And he's back in Gotham city, to steal all the priceless diamonds (ice - geddit?) he can get his hands on.

Mr Freeze (for such is his name) wears a sort of temperature-controlled spacesuit and helmet. He carries a futuristic weapon that can both freeze objects (and people) and frazzle them, with a sort of laser ray. So the episode has a pleasing '60s sci-fi feel.

It's a pretty out-there tale, but of course it's supposed to be, isn't it?

There's a nice moment when someone gets zapped with the freezing weapon, then they fall over and we hear them shatter like broken glass off-camera. And at the crux of the episode, the Dynamic Duo get zapped frozen solid with the freezer ray as well. How are they going to get out of that one? Well .. I'll find out tomorrow.

Mr Freeze is played by Eli Wallach [EDIT: no, see next post], who gives a considerably less manic performance than the actors portraying the three previous villains. But for an actor best known for playing swarthy Mexicans in spaghetti westerns, he's pretty convincingly Germanic. Actually Wallach was a Jewish Pole by descent.

Some nice Batcave scenes in this one. I love the way that everything in there is labelled.

(https://i.ibb.co/R9rQZ1Z/batsorter.jpg)

01:08 Rats Like Cheese

Batman and Robin are thawed out, very carefully, in the super-hypotherm deicifier chamber (mark 7) of the Gotham City Hospital.

Freeze kidnaps Paul Diamante (diamond .. geddit?), a local baseball hero. He offers to trade him for Batman. The Caped Crusader readily accepts, because Diamante is the idol of millions of impressionable young lads. And he must live - to inspire the youth of today, who will be the men of tomorrow. It's all very noble.

He agrees to go to meet Freeze alone. But Robin secretly plants a homing device on his mentor, so he can follow.

To no avail, because the Boy Wonder gets captured as well. Freeze plans an icy death for them. And as long as the Cold-hearted Criminal stays in the deep-refrigerated part of his secret hideout, they can't touch him. How can Batman possibly overcome the Frigid Fiend?



Naturally there's a KAPOW style punch-up. It's remarkable how many times the two get punched in the face without ever getting bruised. I reckon Robin could take on Tyson Fury and emerge unscathed.

I liked this one, it's a fitting climax to a solid two-parter. And I think it owes something to the Bond movies, with a cold, urbane and sophisticated villain planning an elaborate death for the two crime-fighters. He even has dinner with them while holding them captive at his secret hideout.

By the way Mr Freeze is played by the English actor George Sanders in this one, not Eli Wallach as I claimed last time. Wallach portrays the Refrigerated Rascal in a later episode. Otto Preminger also plays Freeze in the series.

Think that could well by my favourite spoiler comment ever!  ;D

1:09 Zelda the Great

Every April 1st, a mystery criminal robs one of Gotham City's banks of the sum of $100,000. When it happens for the third year in a row, Commissioner Gordon decides to ask Batman for help.

There's a disturbing moment at the scene of the crime when a bank guard shoots the crook (the eponnymous Zelda) at point blank range, with very little provocation. She escapes, because she's wearing a bullet-proof vest. But it's really quite jarring. Surprisingly cold-blooded for a show that was watched predominantly (I would suppose) by kids.

Anyway - Zelda is portrayed by Anne Baxter. I don't actually remember the character but she did seem familiar. Anne was a screen actress of some repute, and she has a nice comic touch. I especially liked a scene in which she breaks the fourth wall for a sneaky chat with the viewer.

(https://i.ibb.co/8dtdvLQ/batsignal.jpg)

Zelda is an escape artiste - a master illusionist. And she needs the $100k to procure an Inescapable Doom Trap from her secret inventor, an Albanian named Eivol Ekdal, to revitalise her act.

Batman tricks her into believing that the $100k she's nicked is counterfeit by planting a story in the press. So she has to come up with another plan .. the Dynamic Duo lay a trap for her, but she's ahead of them. She ignores it and kidnaps Dick's beloved Aunt Harriet!

And unless Bruce Wayne comes up with $100,000 in an hour, she has quite a grisly fate in store for the old girl, as you can see below. Again, a bit dark for 1960s kids' TV, isn't it?

(https://i.ibb.co/cLRywdQ/harriet-oil.jpg)

I quite liked Zelda. Not sure if she exists in the DC Batman universe (ie the comics). Probably not.

Can't wait to see if Harriet can somehow be rescued from the vat of burning oil. I think she will be. Just a guess.

We see the Bat Signal for the first time in this episode. Bruce and Dick notice it because they're outside with a telescope at the time. And yet the signal only works when it's cloudy.

1:10 A Death Worse Than Fate

Well needless to say, Aunt Harriet doesn't end up being cooked in a vat of oil. There's a delightfully surreal scene in which Bruce Wayne (who's supposed to be stumping up the cash) and Robin communicate with her over a TV broadcast, while she phones in. Robin admits that the cash she's already nicked is real, not counterfeit - thereby effectively paying her off.

She does the decent thing and discreetly releases the old girl from a car at a street corner in Gotham City.

But there's a problem with the Inescapable Doom Trap that she's forking out $100,000 for. Her evil Albanian accomplice Eivol, despite having invented it, doesn't actually know a method to escape from it. So he contrives a plan to lure the Caped Crusader into it, so he can show them. Lateral thinking, eh?

But there's another twist. Two of Gotham City's criminal fraternity have paid Eivol an additional $100,000 for the privilege of "rubbing out" the Dynamic Duo. They have pinstripe suits, Fedoras and Tommy guns. Were these really de rigeur accessories for the organised crime fraternity by the mid '60s?

More importantly, can Batman and the Boy Wonder somehow escape the Inescapable Doom Trap, then avoid being "rubbed out" by the murderous gangsters?



One odd thing is that when Zelda and Eivol spy on the two costumed crime-fighters when they arrive at Eivol's secret hideout, they don't use secret cameras and CCTV. They use periscopes.

(https://i.ibb.co/QpH4mB4/zelda-periscope.jpg)

Not a bad one. A brief announcement at the end announces that The Joker is back next time.

1:11 A Riddle a Day Keeps the Riddler Away

Despite a brief announcement at the end of the previous episode that The Joker would be back in this one, it's the turn of The Riddler to confound the Caped Crusader and his sidekick.

A visiting head of state called King Boris visits Gotham City. His arrival at the airport coincides with a disturbance, with a clue from the riddler descending from a balloon. When is a person like a piece of wood? I'll leave that one as an exercise for the reader, though Robin worked it out in about ten seconds.

Certain plot devices from the previous story are reused in this one. For example a homing device is implanted in fake jewellery, but The Riddler knows all along that it's a trap and discards it - just as Zelda discards a fake precious stone with a homing device from the scene of her crime two episodes ago.

Anyway, eventually the Prince of Puzzles kidnaps the King during a visit to a wine cellar. Somehow the King conveniently walks over to a trapdoor in the floor of the cellar. Most cellars don't have those.

But the King is only a pawn in the game, and for some reason chess metaphors are used liberally in this episode. He's merely the bait in a trap to lure the Dynamic Duo to an old water processing plant, where The Riddler captures them in a net, has them sprayed with sticky stuff, then ties them to enormous spinning wheels - part of the plant's machinery. Once set spinning, the centripetal force will tear their bones from their bodies!

The Riddler's accomplices are called the River Rats Gang. They behave like rodents and like cheese. At one point one of them offers King Boris a piece of cheese. "Not without a good vintage port", he replies.

There's a nice moment in the Batcave when the two crime-fighters use what could be thought of as an early version of Google Maps.

(https://i.ibb.co/h7VnjPG/gotham-views.jpg)

Not too sure about the keyboard design. Could be a bit more ergonomic.

1:12 When the Rat's Away the Mice Will Play

Batman manages to get a cutting torch out of his utility belt and kills the motor that drives the huge spinning wheels that he and Robin are tied to, saving them from being whirled to death.

The Riddler and his gang have already fled the scene, so they think the Dynamic Duo are deceased. And they have a plan to extort $1 million, by threatening to blow up the Queen of Freedom monument (I think this is the Batman universe version of the Statue of Liberty) unless the city pays up.

Well, needless (and suffice it) to say, their plan doesn't work, because of course - the Caped Crusader and Boy Wonder are still alive.

There's an odd plot hole in this one. The Pernicious Puzzler actually tells Commissioner Gordon that Batman is dead by telephone, after leaving the two crime-fighters to their fate in the old water works. And yet he later sends one of his gang to impersonate the Dark Knight Detective at Gordon's office, in a Batman costume. It makes no sense.

Still - quite a good one I thought.

I liked the girl who plays "Mousey", with an appropriately squeaky voice. There's nearly always a cutie villain's sidekick. Played by Susan Silo, who went on to have a successful and distinguished career as a voice artist, well into the noughties. She's 83 now.

I'm 10% of the way through these now .. still enjoying the kitsch campiness and colourful flamboyance at the moment.

1:13 The Thirteenth Hat

A villain best known as The Mad Hatter has been released from prison on parole, and he's out for revenge. Armed with a Super Instant Mesmeriser that flips out of his top hat, he overcomes and kidnaps the members of the jury who convicted him. And their hats. Conveniently, they all have hats. He has a thing for hats.

(https://i.ibb.co/phPMMcN/mesmeriser.jpg)

But the prize he wants most of all is Batman's cowl. And once he has it, he plans to ensure the Caped Crusader meets a grisly fate in his hat factory. It has a rather dangerous looking shredding machine, and flailing knives. Batman testified against him at his trial, you see.

The Top-Hatted Trickster lures the Dynamic Duo to the studio of a notable sculptor, where he and his gang somehow get the better of the pair following one of their trademark punch-ups. Batman ends up covered in super fast hardening plaster. And that's the cliffhanger.

Well - it's a bit silly, and The Mad Hatter is not one of the classic Batman villains. But I quite liked it.

1:14 Batman Stands Pat

Batman breaks out of his plaster tomb. He explains that he simply held his breath. It's not a particularly convincing escape from a cliffhanger, but I think a touch of comedy is intended.

The Mad Hatter and his criminal cohorts manage to get away. There are some shennanigans with a secret homing device (again), a punch-up in the villain's secret hideout (again), and that's pretty much it.

Probably the weakest story so far over the two parts. It just recycles plot ideas from the stories we've already seen. But Alfred has more of a part in this one.

Alfred was played by Alan Napier. I don't think I ever saw him in anything else. I always thought of him as an old man, and I suppose he was. He was 63 when this was filmed.

1:15 The Joker Goes to School

The Clown Prince of Crime is back. He's been released from jail, and he's bought a one-armed bandit novelty company.

The first thing he does is to sabotage vending machines at a school, so that they give out free stuff. A drinks machine gives away silver dollars. A candy bar machine gives away stocks and bonds. A coffee machine dispenses quarters.

But why? Well, Batman surmises that he wants to lure students into a deceptive pattern of easy living. They'll quit their studies and become dropouts. Then they'll have no other recourse but to join criminal groups.

But the Giggling Ghoul puts his newly acquired manufacturing facilities to more directly criminal use, as well. A shotgun barrel extends from a juke box at a bistro to threaten the staff and customers, while two of his henchmen rob the till.

There's a wonderful moment when Batman, after a visit to the school, grabs a bat-megaphone from the Batmobile, and to the crowd of students gathered near the front entrance, exhorts "Boys and girls. Go back to your studies. Believe me, nothing in life is free!" before driving away.

Anyway the Dynamic Duo get captured after Batman inserts a dime into a vending machine he suspects to have been tampered with. Articulated leg cuffs extend from it and trap them, while a knockout gas renders them unconscious.

And there's a terrific cliff-hanger - The Joker has them strapped into electric chairs in the back of a mobile execution van. The electricity supply is connected to a remote-controlled one-armed bandit, and if it comes up three lemons - they get 50,000 volts! The two are even shown wearing the metal cap that conducts the electricity, although they haven't bothered to take Batman's cowl off.

They don't make children's TV like that any more. Or do they? I must admit I don't watch CBBC.

Naturally the episode concludes just as the second lemon comes up.

1:16 He Meets His Match, the Grisly Ghoul

So the Dynamic Duo are saved from a grisly death by a power cut. After the usual risible plot twists, they finally corner The Joker and his gang at the school where they've been sabotaging vending machines. The Clown Prince of Crime has loaded a milk machine with forthcoming exam paper solutions, to compromise the school basketball team.

Or has he? No. Batman has switched them for fake exam answers. There's a punch-up and the Dark Knight Detective's work is done for another two-parter.

There's a fantastic scene in this one in which Robin, in the guise of Dick Grayson, goes undercover to try to infiltrate The Joker's gang. He knows, to his huge disappointment, that Susie, his school's chief cheerleader, is working with them. So he approaches her at the Easy Living Candy Store, chewing gum, wearing a leather jacket and addressing her as "Sue baby". It's priceless.

Oh yes and there's a dark moment worthy of the original homicidal DC Comics Joker when the master criminal gives Susie, after he realises that she's been compromised, a bottle of perfume called Une Nuit Sans Fin (endless night). It's a deadly poison, intended to silence her forever. Dark eh?

Needless to say it doesn't work. But she does end up at the Wayne Foundation for Delinquent Girls.

Anyway a pretty good one over the two parts, the plot's not quite as paper thin as some of the recent stories, and it's a nice idea.

1:17 True or False Face

In this one, we meet a new villain known as False Face - a master of disguise. Like nearly all of the Caped Crusader's foes, he likes to send a cryptic message to Commissioner Gordon before committing his crimes.

He steals an armoured car full of money, but it's a trap! As usual. The Dynamic Duo overcome him and his henchmen. But they discover his scheme to steal real bank note paper, so he can counterfeit his own currency. Unfortunately, the Masked Malevolent lays another trap for them and they end up fastened to the track at a disused subway station. The next train is due through in five minutes!

I assumed that False Face was invented for the TV series, presumably based on Batman's old arch enemy from the comics, Two-Face. But in fact he's a bona-fide DC Comics villain, first seen in a Batman comic in the '40s. He usually wears a rather sinister rigid plastic mask, except when impersonating someone else with a rubber mask, when he somehow looks exactly like them.

Myrna Fahey, who plays the cute villain sidekick (there's always a cute villain sidekick) sadly died only eight years later in 1973, at the age of 40. She appears in a lot of '60s TV shows, including The Time Tunnel and Bonanza.

1:18 Holy Rat Race

The get-out from last episode's cliffhanger is sillier than I could have imagined. Batman, fastened by the wrists and ankles to a subway track, manages to communicate with Alfred via his wrist radio. He pulls the antenna out with his teeth. The Caped Crusader urges his faithful servant to pull the short circuit lever on the bat transmitter. This causes the wrist radio to explode, destroying the tie binding his wrist to the track. He's then able to reach into his utility belt for his bat-cutting-torch-pistol, to free himself and Robin, to remove the other ties.

It turns out that the Masked Master of Criminal Concealment's plan is to fill one of the banks with counterfeit money. "Nobody's money would be worth anything .. except for False Face's", argues Robin. I didn't quite follow the logic but I went along with it.

(https://i.ibb.co/541zjj7/falseface.jpg)

Anyway there's the usual subterfuge with the villain setting a trap and eventually a sort of game of hide and seek at a disused film studios. At one point Batman deploys an incredibly convincing inflatable decoy Batmobile to draw the dastardly master of disguise's fire.

I wasn't keen on False Face. For one thing, and mostly because when he's not disguised as someone else he wears a rather charmless plastic mask, he lacks the charisma of the better-known villains. And secondly his ability to disguise himself, perfectly, as other people is just too far-fetched, even for Batman. At one point for example, while being chased through the film studios, he incapacitates Commissioner Gordon and impersonates him flawlessly. We're asked, presumably, to believe that he happened to be carrying a Commissioner Gordon rubber mask and identical clothes.

I mean - if it was suggested that he'd stolen the Commissioner's clothes that would be something, but we later see the real Commissioner emerge in identical garb, right down to the silver-grey tie. So there's a hint of the supernatural about him, or at least a poorly thought-out script.

False Face was played by an actor called Malachi Throne. We never see his actual face but I recognised it when I looked up his name - he was in an episode of Star Trek at about the same time.

Anyway - it's the delectable Catwoman next time. Wahey!

1:19 The Purr-fect Crime

The delectable Julie Newmar makes her first appearance as Catwoman. I last saw her playing a character called Stacked Susie in The Phil Silvers Show filmed in 1957 and nine years later, she's lost none of her charm. Phwooar.

She's nothing short of brilliant in this. The feline mannerisms, the lascivious crack of the whip she uses to keep her two minions in check, the way she purrs and miaows through her lines .. absolutely off-the-scale feminine charisma. And her tight-fitting costume is rather easy on the eye, as well.

So - as usual, or at least as very often is the case, the episode starts with the arch-criminal-du-jour sending a cryptic message to Commissioner Gordon, who then gives the Caped Crusader a call.

Batman lays a trap for her - he sprays the golden cat statue which it's assumed she's about to steal with a radioactive mist, so that he and Robin can track her with the Bat-o-meter. But (again, as usual) she's one step ahead of them and she lays a trap.

(https://i.ibb.co/pWVR4Rg/newmar.jpg)

They end up trapped in a sort of dungeon, where she toys with them (like a cat with a mouse - nice touch) with pranks like walls that close in on them spiked with sharp blades, that turn out to be silver-painted rubber - then a bomb that springs a little flag bearing the word "MEOW".

Unfortunately her last little game seems to be a little more lethal ..the Caped Crusader is invited to choose to open two doors.. Catwoman is behind one of them (or so she tells him) and a tiger is behind the other. He makes the wrong choice ..

Very good one.

1:20 Better Luck Next Time

The episode opens with Batman wrestling with a tiger. Sort of. The tiger leaps up on him repeatedly, though it doesn't want to eat him. Must have been filmed with a tiger handler in a Batman costume and a tame tiger. The tiger's roars are clearly dubbed on. Sorry about the number of times I've used the word "tiger" in this paragraph.

Anyway, the Dark Knight Detective escapes by climbing up one of the walls with his hand-held bat claws, then reversing the polarity on his bat-communicator before increasing the audio modulation to 20,000 decibels. Naturally he puts his mini bat-ear-muffs on first. This subdues the tiger long enough for him to escape through the door by which the tiger entered.

There follows a second cliffhanger. Robin has been suspended on a plank of wood over a pit of tigers. Only a counterbalance full of sand is preventing a grisly death, but the sand is running out! Arch-villains love their elaborate murder methods. When Robin wakes from a knockout potion to find himself in this predicament, he exclaims "Catwoman! You are not a nice person!"

Obviously, Batman comes to his rescue. And there's a punch up, but the arch-villain has already left the scene.

(https://i.ibb.co/4Zp8RzM/catwoman-mask.jpg)

It turns out that the two golden cats she's stolen have cryptic patterns on them, which form a map with the location of ancient hidden treasure. And that's what the Fiendish Feline has been after all along.

Anyway the Dynamic Duo track Catwoman down, she's laid a trap for them (of course), they manage to evade it (of course) and eventually, as she's pursued into a cave, she falls into a bottomless pit because she'd rather cling on to the bag of loot than free her hand to let Batman help her out.

But of course, cats have nine lives.

One odd thing in this episode - in the second half, she wears a mask as part of her costume. She doesn't wear it in the first episode at all.

1:21 The Penguin Goes Straight

The Penguin has been released from prison, yet one of his first actions is to foil a robbery at a theatre! He defends himself with a bulletproof umbrella before overcoming the would-be thief.

It's a turn of events so unexpected, so bizarre, so suspicious, as to provoke Commissioner Gordon to give Batman a call.

The Abominable Avian has even started a new career as the proprietor of a security company - and a wealthy socialite named Sophia Starr has entrusted him with her valuables!

It's clear by now that some Batman plot devices get reused over and over again. I'm destined to see decoy fake jewels and secret homing transmitters employed in Batman scripts at least another 80 times. In this one, the Dynamic Duo attempt to swap Ms Starr's jewels with fake ones, to prevent The Penguin from nicking them.

But The Penguin catches them with their hands in her safe! Bang to rights! There's a punch up and they get away, but the waddling, pompous master criminal calls the police and they're outlaws!

Anyway eventually they get lured to a party at Gotham Pier. But it's a trap (because of course it is) and they get strung up behind some targets at a shooting gallery. The Penguin has swapped the pellets for proper bullets! And Commissioner Gordon and Chief O'Hara are about to have a go!

I was pleased to see two regulars from The Phil Silvers Show in this one. Hope Sansberry, who played the colonel's wife, has a small part at the beginning. And Harvey Lembeck, who played Rocco, one of Bilko's two sidekick corporals, plays one of The Penguin's henchmen.

1:22 Not Yet, He Ain't

The Dynamic Duo escape from their grisly fate by swinging upward at the very moment that the bullets fly through the targets in front of them. The soles of their footwear are bulletproof (of course). Batman manages to extract his bat-knife from his utility belt, and frees them from the ropes from which they're swinging.

Arch-criminals never learn do they? Like Bond villains, they'd much rather plan an elaborate and complicated murder than just have their henchmen shoot their sworn enemies in the head.

But the crime-fighting pair are still wanted for burglary. Commissioner Gordon knows they're innocent of course, and he helps them to fake their deaths by organising a shoot-out in which the Gotham City Police Department expends a large quantity of blank ammunition at them.

The Penguin has persuaded the wealthy socialite Sophia Starr to marry him. He organises the wedding, and an elaborate plan to cause a sort of indoor rain storm with burst water pipes, so he can make off with the (fantastically valuable) presents. In the Batmobile - now the Birdmobile - which he's stolen.

(https://i.ibb.co/KVMDkhz/batbike.jpg)

Eventually there's a quite brilliant sequence in which Batman and Robin pursue them on the Batcycle. They set off ejector seats in the Batmobile remotely, to dispense with The Penguin's two henchmen. This is fantastically well done - we see the Batmobile speed past and two dummies are fired at least 30 feet into the air, with quite some force. They must have used some sort of pyrotechnic dummy cannon. The two bad guys land on the road with quite some force, from a significant height. But we see them dusting themselves off later.

Anyway .. Batman takes control of the Batmobile with a little remote steering wheel mounted on the bike, the Waddling Pompous Master Criminal is apprehended, and that's pretty much a wrap apart from an amusing scene in which poor Sophia declares that she still wants to marry him. But he'd rather go straight to prison.

(https://i.ibb.co/2MNmVcd/bateject.jpg)

The plot is a bit less thin than usual and the briliant Batmobile / Batcycle scenes elevate this one to a considerably higher-than-usual standard, I'd say.

1:23 The Ring Of Wax

The Riddler's back. He's only been out of prison two weeks and he's up to no good. He stages a spectacular theft of a new Batman figure as its unveiled at the Gotham City Wax Museum, leaving a Riddler waxwork in its place!

I don't quite get why Batman villains, usually having committed crimes including attempted murder, get released into society again so soon.

He really goes to a lot of trouble in the execution of his nefarious activities. The Riddler wax figure has been rigged with a gun that squirts red paint at the guests. And he leaves a tape player, with two cryptic riddles.

So of course Batman follows the clues, and of course the nefarious puzzler has set a trap. Batman evades it, but The Riddler escapes. It turns out that the reason he's stolen the Batman waxwork is that it's made of a special universal solvent wax, which can be used to melt through steel. He's used it to break into a vault at the public library and steal a rare book about hidden treasure. It's illegal to import it.

It's explained that the special wax is made by bees from the Cognac region of France. Sounds legit.

So following the next clue, the Dynamic Duo visit the waxworks, but the Prince of Puzzles has disguised himself as one of the exhibits. Again, he's really put a lot of time into it. He overcomes them with drugged blowpipe darts.

Actually the logic by which the Caped Crusader and Boy Wonder arrive at the correct conclusion from the second clue left by The Riddler is beyond ridiculous.

Anyway the crime-fighting pair end up tied up, being slowly suspended into a large vat of boiling wax. "why kill them fast, when watching them die slowly is so much more entertaining?" asks The Riddler. Don't these dastardly villains ever learn?

1:24 Give 'Em The Axe

The Dynamic Duo's escape from their predicament is very creative. Batman notices an open drum of chemicals sensitive to heat, in the room where they're being lowered into boiling candle wax. Conveniently, the Riddler and his gang have left, to avoid the fumes. But they're watching remotely. Using CCTV? Of course not. A periscope.

Batman notices a shaft of sunlight from a crack in the ceiling .. he manages to reflect it onto the chemicals with his highly polished belt buckle, and BANG! they're blown clear. The rope they're suspended with snaps very accommodatingly.

The Prince of Puzzles assumes the explosion was fatal, as he view them lying still on the floor, through the periscope. For someone who goes to so much trouble to prepare his dastardly escapades, you'd think he'd bother to check they're dead, but he doesn't. And of course they aren't.

He calls Commissioner Gordon to gloat, then he's off to the Gotham City Museum, to plunder an ancient Incan sarcophagus for treasure. He's given the Commissioner a clue in the form of a clue, of course. Batman and Robin decode it, highly improbably, and they follow him there.

But - oh no! the door's locked! There's an open window on an upper floor, but it's only just big enough for the Boy Wonder. That's right, Batman doesn't have anything in his utility belt to get overcome locked doors.

Robin gets in, he gets captured, he gets tied to a rack in a room full of very convincing looking mediaeval torture equipment. I did wonder if all the instruments of torture and execution had been borrowed from a museum and were real, but I suppose they were reused props from old Errol Flynn films. Or something. I will say though that these old Batman TV shows are pretty lavishly produced, with very decent sets, plenty of outdoor location filming and nice photography. Good that they were recorded to film.

Obviously the Caped Crusader finds his way in, there's a punch up and it's job done.

Next time, according to a brief announcement, it's The Joker again. While I admit that he and The Riddler are strong characters, I do think they're getting overused somewhat. I'd rather see an indifferent villain like Zelda again than the same three or four villains over and over. Except Catwoman, I can't get enough Catwoman.

1:25 The Joker Trumps an Ace

The Joker holds up a fur coat store, where he steals only a hairpin (the significance of this will perhaps be explained in the next episode, I assume). He's already stolen a hole from a golf course.

He kidnaps a visiting maharajah and steals his golden jewel-studded golf clubs. And he leaves a clue, for the Dynamic Duo to find him. Is it a trap? Of course it is. They get tied up and incarcerated in a chamber. The Cackling Crime Lord tells them that if they can escape their ropes and remain afloat in the chamber for an hour after he fills it, then he'll free them .. but there's a catch! He starts to fill it with a deadly gas! They aren't going to be able to float in that.

(https://i.ibb.co/NVy5KJN/jokersidecandy.jpg)

While I can't quite imagine how they'll get out of it at the start of the next episode, I can't quite see them not getting out of it either. Even though - using a plot magic wand even more convenient than The Doctor's sonic screwdriver - he's neutralised their utiity belt gadgets with a "funny ray".

Quite a high standard of villain sidecandy this week. Cesar Romero of course puts in the usual manic performance.

1:26 Batman Sets The Pace

Well - Batman and Robin manage to climb up a conveniently wide ventilation chimney, back to back. I do believe I actually remember watching that scene as a kid, the first time in this run-through that anything specific seemed familiar. I didn't get how this scene was done, it's very convincing.

They manage to track The Joker and his gang to a novelty and magician supply company. They break in there via another conveniently wide ventilation shaft, for once it's not a trap, there's a punch-up of course. But the giggling fiend and his sidecandy escape.

Eventually it turns out that the maharajah was The Joker, in a padded suit and a rubber mask all the time! His purpose is rather confusing but it seems to have been to withdraw a huge sum of money from the real maharajah's bank account, while discrediting Batman by getting him to endorse the cheque.

There's a rather odd moment when Batman, in order to test his theory that the maharajah's voluminous person is mainly padding, discreetly pushes a long steel spike into his clothing. But it's so obviously a telescopic prop - it looks like a transistor radio aerial - that I think that even our late 1960s telly would have given the game away.

And at the very end of the episode, another strangely superfluous moment when Commissioner Gordon calls the Caped Crusader on the Batphone to have him confirm or deny a rumour that he's been asked to run for Governor of California.

Quote from: Slim on January 26, 2025, 06:26:42 PM1:26 Batman Sets The Pace

Well - Batman and Robin manage to climb up a conveniently wide ventilation chimney, back to back. I do believe I actually remember watching that scene as a kid, the first time in this run-through that anything specific seemed familiar. I didn't get how this scene was done, it's very convincing.

They manage to track The Joker and his gang to a novelty and magician supply company. They break in there via another conveniently wide ventilation shaft, for once it's not a trap, there's a punch-up of course. But the giggling fiend and his sidecandy escape.

Eventually it turns out that the maharajah was The Joker, in a padded suit and a rubber mask all the time! His purpose is rather confusing but it seems to have been to withdraw a huge sum of money from the real maharajah's bank account, while discrediting Batman by getting him to endorse the cheque.

There's a rather odd moment when Batman, in order to test his theory that the maharajah's voluminous person is mainly padding, discreetly pushes a long steel spike into his clothing. But it's so obviously a telescopic prop - it looks like a transistor radio aerial - that I think that even our late 1960s telly would have given the game away.

And at the very end of the episode, another strangely superfluous moment when Commissioner Gordon calls the Caped Crusader on the Batphone to have him confirm or deny a rumour that he's been asked to run for Governor of California.

Funnily enough, I was channel hopping during the week and caught the end of this on Talking Pictures TV :)

If I were to watch that channel now, it would be the Wheeltappers and Shunters Social Club...

Quote from: Slim on January 26, 2025, 06:26:42 PMAnd at the very end of the episode, another strangely superfluous moment when Commissioner Gordon calls the Caped Crusader on the Batphone to have him confirm or deny a rumour that he's been asked to run for Governor of California.

I wondered if this was a topical joke. From IMDB:

The bit at the end about there being a rumour that Batman was going to California to run for governor was a spoof on the 1966 campaign in that state. At that time, the state was going through the Berkeley protests and Watts Rebellion, and there were at least five serious Democratic candidates challenging incumbent Pat Brown, and five Republicans, including Ronald Reagan. Brown and Reagan easily won their primaries, and Reagan won the election in a landslide, winning all but three counties close to Brown's home turf of San Francisco.

Which reminds me.. California's governor from 2003 to 2011 played Mr Freeze in one of the films.

(https://i.ibb.co/FYG6MQF/schwarzfreeze.jpg)

1:27 The Curse of Tut

A giant sphinx appears in Gotham City Park, and begins to make sinister pronouncements to the general public. An ancient King of the Nile has risen, it explains. To claim Gotham City as its own.

Could this be the work of the arch-criminal known as King Tut? The Egyptologist academic who was struck on the head in a student riot, only to wake suffering from the delusion that he is the reincarnation of King Tutankhamun - and that Gotham is the ancient city of Thebes?

Why would he tip us off? O'Hara wants to know. Come on, the villains always do that. You should know that by now. And of course, it's a trap. But Batman and the Boy Wonder manage to avoid being stabbed by a long extending blade when they examine the Sphinx.

Well, Bruce Wayne gets involved. He's on the Board of Trustees at the Gotham museum, where an Egyptian antiquity exhibition is being unveiled. And he gets kidnapped! Strapped to a hospital trolley in the back of an ambulance being driven by one of Tut's men.

He manages to crash open the back doors, but ends up rolling down a steep hill to a 400 ft drop! A nice variation on the cliffhanger, there. Bruce in peril instead of Batman and Robin.

One odd thing - the Sphinx statue's public pronouncements in the park always begin "NOW HEAR THIS", which to me has more of a flavour of an announcement from the US Navy than a proclamation from ancient Egypt.

I really liked this one. The villain is genuinely deluded, which puts a different spin on it. Properly nuts. The ancient Egyptian sets are very elaborate. And Victor Buono plays Tut with a beautiful pompous comic touch. His weary disdain for the decidedly un-royal manners of his criminal minions is delightful. Actually he reminds me of Charles Winchester in M*A*S*H, and he has a bit of the same Boston accent.

Much less manic than The Joker or The Riddler. But a pleasingly eccentric performance. I'd been looking forward to seeing Tut again. I do remember watching the Tut episodes as a kid.

1:28 The Pharaoh's In a Rut

Bruce manages to free his arms as the trolley he's strapped to hurtles toward the cliff edge. Conveniently, there's a low railing he can grab a couple of metres from the precipice. Seems a bit of a cheap way to resolve a cliffhanger but hey.

Batman announces he's off to Alexandria in Egypt to do some research, but it's a ruse. Actually this seems very superfluous to the plot, but anyway - assuming Tut and his gang will try to kidnap Bruce Wayne again, the Caped Crusader sets a trap.

He employs a clever subterfuge by which he substitutes himself, in full costume, for Bruce at the kidnap. Unfortunately he gets knocked unconscious on the way to Tut's hideout. But a homing transmitter is involved naturally, so Robin follows him there.

Batman manages to overcome the villains, Robin joins him for the punch up (and a sword fight, once they've disarmed a couple of the goons). But Tut escapes in the Batmobile. You'd think it would have a steering lock or something.

(https://i.ibb.co/K6Vmf7R/batmobilerelay.jpg)

One thing that really fascinated me about this one - the Caped Crusader communicates with the Batmobile Relay Circuit at the Batcave, via radio. It's voice controlled. Now - I suppose that people did talk to computers and machines in the sci-fi of the time. Kirk often talks to computers in Star Trek. But to see something labelled explicitly as "voice control" in the '60s really seems striking.

So anyway, Tut ends up getting flung into the air by the ejector seat and lands with an almighty crash. Curiously, he regains consciousness in Commissioner Gordon's office, not a hospital.

And as he comes round.. he thinks he's had a bizarre dream.. he's back in the room, an Egyptology professor. He soon realises it wasn't a dream. Oh, whatever will the Dean say?

Well presumably he'll have a relapse, or another knock on the head. Because I'm sure there are a few more Tut stories to come.

Fun fact, just noticed this. At the site of the 300 foot drop which Bruce manages to evade, you can just make out the HOLLYWOOD sign on a hill in the distance.

1:29 The Bookworm Turns

Bruce and Dick watch the opening of a new bridge in Gotham City on TV. Suddenly, Dick (Robin of course) recognises an arch-villain in the crowd - Bookworm! Moments later, Commissioner Gordon is seen to have been shot by a sniper, and falls from the bridge to the river, far below.

Oddly, although most of the coverage on the TV at Wayne Manor is in colour, the man falling from the bridge is shown in black & white. Stock footage of course.

So Batman and Robin race to Gotham Police HQ, only to find that the Commissioner is still alive! Bookworm must have pulled off a stunt. But why? And why has a bomb, in the form of a book titled For Whom The Bell Tolls been planted in the Batmobile?

Well - it's a message from Bookworm of course, a clue. No arch-criminal in the Batman universe worth his or her salt would contemplate a serious crime without sending a clue first.

(https://i.ibb.co/qLtMRq6L/bookworm.jpg)

Impressively, the Dynamic Duo become aware of the book bomb via the Batmobile's bomb detector. It's safely ejected remotely, although mysteriously the seat it's been placed on doesn't actually move. One second the bomb's there, the next it isnt. It explodes in mid-air, but the title is still legible.

I was sceptical that a book-themed villain would work, but actually it's a pretty good character, played by Roddy McDowall. A few years before his Planet of the Apes gig, but he was already a notable screen actor. Not as manic as The Riddler or The Joker, but he does bring a sinister intensity to the part. It's a decent idea as well; he's a frustrated novelist with no ideas of his own, so he commits crimes based on plots stolen from books.

He's also capable of extraordinary feats of speed reading. At one point he reads through a book about five inches thick in a minute. It's actually very obviously a phone book; the prop department must have assumed that you wouldn't notice that on a 1960s telly.

Anyway obviously the clue is intended to lead the Caped Crusader and Boy Wonder to a trap. But it's Robin who ends up in a trap (and the cliffhanger). He gets tied upside down to the clapper of a huge clock tower bell, and it's one minute to midnight! It tolls for thee, Boy Wonder. Or does it? I'll find out tomorrow.

Oh yes just remembered, as the Dynamic Duo make their way up a wall using the Batrope, Jerry Lewis pops his head out of a window to say hello. A few celebrities had cameos in a similar manner, I recall. Pretty sure I remember seeing Sammy Davis Jr pop his head out once.

1:30 While Gotham City Burns

Batman has worked out - incredibly improbably, given the available information - that Robin has been tied to the clapper of Big Benjamin, at the Wayne Memorial Clock Tower. It's one of the show's running jokes that the Dynamic Duo are able to draw critically accurate conclusions from extremely ambiguous and minimal information. Reacher novels can be a bit like that to be fair, though in that case it's not supposed to be funny.

Anyway the solution to the Boy Wonder's plight is ingenious indeed. With seconds to go, Batman fires his Batrope grappling hook Batzooka at the tower's lightning rod. He fires another hook at the hands of the clock. Then he connects the ends of the two ropes to the positive terminal of the Batmobile's nuclear power source, to generate an electrical field to repel the clapper from the side of the bell. Leaving aside the very unlikely proposition that the ropes would be conductive, brilliant.

Bookworm steals a priceless book from Wayne Manor. I can't actually remember why, it seems a bit superfluous. Meanwhile a huge cook book appears somewhere in Gotham City, in the middle of the road. The Dynamic Duo go to investigate of course - Batman works out that the front cover is made of steel, and he opens it with a sort of portable magnet contraption.

(https://i.ibb.co/YTfhGr7t/batmagnet.jpg)

Of course once the two are inside, it turns out to be a trap. A rather elaborate one. It's fitted out like a kitchen, with stoves and soup pans. But they're to be steamed alive in there!

By the time Chief O'Hara and his men have managed to get the front cover open again, the two have gone. Escaped down a manhole. They catch up with Bookworm and his gang, there's a punch up, job done. How did the Caped Crusader and Boy Wonder find them? Well, while in the steam trap / massive cook book, Batman managed to contact Alfred at the Batcave. He asked him to "flood the end of the voice actuated circuit of the anti-crime computer" and was able to listen in on the bookish fiend's plans in the Batmobile, which he's nicked.

Quite a recurring theme in recent episodes that the Batmobile gets stolen by the villain. The Penguin and King Tut have had a go in it as well.

Well, I liked that one. I'd love to think that we'll see Bookworm again, but I've just checked and we won't. There's a brief announcement at the end of the episode that it's The Riddler again next time. I think I'll start a spreadsheet to keep count of villain appearances, I think this will be the fourth Riddler story.

1:31 Death In Slow Motion

The Riddler returns for the penultimate two-parter of the first series. He turns up at a silent film festival at a cinema in Gotham City, in the guise of a Charlie Chaplin impersonator. He and his henchmen, dressed as Keystone Cops entertain the folks gathered there with a little comedy cameo.

I was so impressed by this - Frank Gorshin inhabits Chaplin beautifully. It's note-perfect. The umbrella mannerisms are spot on.

Anyway while he's there he robs the till and leaves a clue, in the form of a riddle of course. Yes, a trap. He lures the Dynamic Duo to a bakery (where he steals the payroll but escapes before they get there) and a library, where the crime-fighting pair fall victim to a giant book falling on their heads. Couldn't help wondering if this was a prop left over from the last story.

Finally he spikes the drinks (lemonade) at a temperance party with a villainous substance he's concocted to make the guests, including Commissioner Gordon and Chief O'Hara, bad tempered. A hilarious KAPOW! OOOFF! style punch up breaks out among the well-to-do of Gotham City.

Robin gets kidnapped (knockout gas of course, pretty much every Batman episode has it) and as the episode closes, he's strapped to a conveyor belt and about to be introduced to a circular saw!

The Prince of Puzzles is particularly manic and twisted in this one. But why is he recording his nefarious activities on a movie camera? And will Robin get sawn in half?

1:32 The Riddler's False Notion

So: it's not Robin strapped to the conveyor belt, it's a dummy. Batman turns up at the lumber yard where the dummy Robin is about to meet its fate. He finds Riddler's sidecandy there, and takes her to Gotham Police station. Quite an interesting scene follows, in which he intimidates her a bit. But he decides to take her to the Batcave, and asks Commissioner Gordon to come with him - just to have a credible witness to attest that he doesn't apply any unduly sinister methods.

Robin's life may be at stake, after all.

He takes them there in the Batmobile, with the two passengers unconscious from a quick blast of Bat gas, to keep the location secret. Then the Caped Crusader subjects the villain cutie to a lie detector test, involving dissolving her breath into a flask containing a clear chemical substance, after asking her a couple of questions. It goes red, indicating that she's told the truth. But the only information he's gained from her are her fiendish boss' next riddles.

But that's enough for the Dark Knight Detective to work out where Robin is being held. And when he arrives there, he finds Robin, his hands tied behind his back, about to be thrown from a high ledge on a very tall building! He's too late to prevent the puzzling fiend from throwing the Boy Wonder to his fate, but the quick-thinking Caped Crusader throws down a batrope on the end of a Batarang, which Robin is able to capture in his teeth. Genius.

(https://i.ibb.co/svd2Jyns/skywriting.jpg)

Riddler and the gang escape in a helicopter. The Prince of Puzzles does a bit of skywriting from the helicopter with some sort of smoke-emitting hose, and some fairly lengthy and elaborate clues appear in the sky, in a matter of seconds. Impressive. They're intended to lead the two crime-fighters to a decoy location.

Riddler then turns up, in a cowboy outfit - in keeping with the movie theme - at the home of a wealthy silent film collector, and we finally see why he's been filming the Dynamic Duo in secret at the scenes of his crimes. He's made the first silent movie epic in four decades, featuring Batman and Robin in live action no less, and the collector has agreed to pay $100,000 for it. Of course as soon as the hapless collector opens his safe, the villainous puzzler attempts to rob his entire film collection, assuming that he'll pay handsomely to get it all back. But Batman and Robin turn up. They've worked out what The Riddler's up to.

Oddly, at the moment the Caped Crusader appears, The Riddler is pointing a gun at him. But he doesn't attempt to use it. Then there's quite a satisfying punch up and it's job done. We end on a heartwarming moment, in which Batman and Robin visit Aunt Harriet, ostensibly at Bruce's request, fulfilling her ambition to meet them one day. How she doesn't recognise her nephew Dick behind the mask, I can't imagine. Bit of a Superman / Clark Kent situation there.

Really a pretty good one, nice to see Frank Gorshin get to play the Chaplin character in the first part and the cowboy persona in the second. And he really chews the scenery as The Riddler in this one.

1:33 Fine Finny Fiends

Alfred is kidnapped by The Penguin and his loathsome criminal associates during a visit to a fish store. He's buying caviar for an annual multi-millionaire award dinner, organised by Bruce Wayne. Naturally Batman is on the case immediately, but before you know it, Alfred turns up safe and sound.

But he's been brainwashed by the waddling pirate of plunder - in a quite bizarre contraption resembling a personal sauna with Christmas lights. Alfred's purpose is to find out where the dinner is being held, so that The Penguin and his gang can rob the attendees.

Fortunately the Caped Crusader realises that his faithful servant has been compromised. He and Robin find a clue in the fish store. It leads them to The Penguin's waterfront hideout.

(https://i.ibb.co/nJ0R9Fs/penguincandy.jpg)

There's then a bizarre punch-up that turns into a swordfight with umbrellas, and somehow the Dynamic Duo are overcome. I think that's a first. After being subdued with knockout gas, they're restrained and introduced to a vacuum chamber, where - thanks to a gigantic reverse bellows operated by The Penguin's disgusting henchmen, the air is slowly being pumped out!

Quite a high standard of villain's cutie again in this one. I was also pleased to see a bevy of swimsuit-clad beauties at the Multi-Millionaire's Dinner rehearsal.

This is the last two-part story of the first series, so I can announce that for this first set of 34 episodes, the Villain Appearances League Table is as follows:

(https://i.ibb.co/NdhxnTLx/villaintable.png)

The table in the rightmost two columns is generated automatically from the data in the first two columns. Some of the second series stories are two-parters with multiple villains - rest assured the spreadsheet caters for that, so for example if the text "Joker, Penguin" is entered in a cell in the second column, the formula will separate them and count them separately. I love a spreadsheet, me. I will admit though that I got Meta AI to assist with this one.

Sorry not Batman related but excel. Thanks to chat gpt and in turn thanks to you (for highlighting the possibility) I discovered the rank.eq function. It allows me to give a rank to my daily solar production figures without having to sort them so they remain in date order - thanks!

Quote from: dom on February 03, 2025, 10:55:39 AMSorry not Batman related but excel. Thanks to chat gpt and in turn thanks to you (for highlighting the possibility) I discovered the rank.eq function. It allows me to give a rank to my daily solar production figures without having to sort them so they remain in date order - thanks!

That's interesting, I haven't used that one. I think I'd probably use SORT(), but leave the source data intact separately (did that for the Wordle league table last time).  Might start a spreadsheet tips thread.

1:34 Batman Makes the Scenes

The Dynamic Duo avoid suffocating in the vacuum chamber thanks to Batman's emergency tank of bat-oxygen, secreted in his utility belt. It feels like a rubbish get-out to the cliffhanger.

Knowing that Alfred has been brainwashed, the Caped Crusader tells him the location of the multi-millionaires' charity dinner - a luxury ocean liner named SS Gotham Neptune.

Upon receiving the info from Alfred, The Penguin substitutes his own criminal cutie associate for the young lady who was supposed to be jumping out of the cake at the dinner. And when she does emerge from the cake, she gives everyone present - including Batman and Robin - a dose of knockout gas from the tip of one of The Penguin's umbrellas. I've never been to one of those parties where a girl appears out of a giant cake. I feel I've missed out.

The pompous, waddling fiend and his loathsome gang make off with the loot, but they find the Dynamic Duo waiting for them. They took anti-knockout-gas pills as a precaution, and were secretly conscious the whole time. There's a punch-up and it's back to the penitentiary for The Penguin and friends. Although why Gotham City's pre-eminent crime-fighting pair wouldn't just have the punch-up at the dinner rather than letting them run off with $12 million, I have no idea.

The Penguin's cake girl is wracked by remorse, and she gets to go to a followup millionaire party before going to prison.

In one scene Alfred is heard to sing Rule Brittania to himself while cleaning the windows at Wayne Manor. I liked that.

So that's a wrap for the first series. There's a brief announcement at the end that Catwoman is back "next week", which I don't understand because there was a delay of four months before the second series started, back in 1966.

2:01 Shoot a Crooked Arrow

Gotham City has a new arch-villain - The Archer. He's a sort of Robin Hood character who steals from the rich to give to the poor. Armed with a set of arrows with various imaginative payloads - explosives, knockout gas, flashbangs and even sneezing powder - he goes about robbing large sums of money from wealthy individuals and businesses, before throwing it around in the streets for the poor folk to pick up.

It's not long before the Dynamic Duo catch up with him, there's a punch-up and he and his gang are bang to rights. But he promises that he will no longer rob from the rich - "yea and verily I shall no longer rob thee", he says - and he's soon out on bail, and something of a local hero.

Naturally Batman and Robin are still keen to investigate, fearing that he might start robbing the poor instead and using the usual highly improbable logic, they track him down to an archery range.

(https://i.ibb.co/zVN9wjS6/archervillain.jpg)

Well it turns out that Wayne Manor's faithful butler Alfred is a crack shot with a bow and arrow. In his youth he was known as the "William Tell of Liverpool", he says. He's dispatched to the range to keep The Archer distracted. Liverpool seemed to me to be a rather lazy choice of English city. Perhaps the prominence in popular culture of The Beatles at the time had something to do with it. Certainly, his rather patrician tones aren't a good match for the accent. But in any case, off he goes to keep The Archer busy while the Caped Crusader and Boy Wonder nose around in the malfeasant marksman's underground hideout.

But they get caught in a trap, then tied to poles in a field. The episode ends with The Archer and his gang bearing down on them at high speed on horseback, with rather lethal-looking pointy lances.

I wondered if I'd notice a subtle change in the sets, costumes, direction, photography, cast or something else for the second series. No. I will say though that The Archer is a rubbish villain. Nothing charismatic or menacing about him. He's pretty much just a '60s B movie Robin Hood.

Did Batman and/or Robin have any empathy for the Archer's goals or was he perceived to be as evil as all the other villains?

Quote from: dom on February 04, 2025, 09:45:03 PMDid Batman and/or Robin have any empathy for the Archer's goals or was he perceived to be as evil as all the other villains?

They were deeply suspicious of his motives, and I suspect their suspicions will be seen to be well-founded in the next episode.

2:02 Walk the Straight and Narrow

The Dynamic Duo avoid being impaled on lances by activating the bat-springs in their footwear at the last second, propelling them about two metres into the air, but The Archer and his villainous henchmen escape them. Later, they hold up and steal an armoured vehicle containing $10 million in cash, intended to be presented to the poor of Gotham City. But when the vehicle is found, all the cash seems to be present and correct.

Batman has another pressing problem, however. He's been asked to attend a ceremony at which Bruce Wayne is also due to appear! His solution is to get Alfred to don the Batman costume, but keep a safe distance. "Puff up your chest and look virile", Robin tells the faithful manservant. Batman gives him a bat-speech-imitator, programmed with his own voice. Another example of technology that was pure fantasy in the '60s, but a reality now.

The ceremony is a rather odd event in which the poor of Gotham are presented with cash individually, to a round of applause from the attending public. We're told earlier in the episode that 100,000 needy Gotham residents are due to receive a payout, which would mean that the ceremony would take several months to complete, but in any case it's cut short when the money is found to be counterfeit. The Archer has kept good on his promise not to steal from the rich. He's stolen from the poor.

This makes very little sense to me, plot-wise. I can't see how The Archer and his cohorts gain anything from substituting counterfeit cash, unless it's to buy time to get away? Which would make sense, but it's not even hinted at.

Anyway Batman and the Boy Wonder work out from the available information that Allan A Dale, an employee of the Wayne Foundation, is working with the criminal gang. He's the only person who knew about the armoured vehicle with the cash. They further deduce that the villains have made off in a boat, on their way to Europe to deposit the cash in a Swiss bank account. To the Batboat!

(https://i.ibb.co/cMPQfRz/batchange.jpg)

There's a hilarious punch-up / swordfight on the boat, and it's game over for the villains.

As the Dynamic Duo speed to the Batboat in the Batmobile, there's a lovely moment when we see a lady complaining to a police officer that they always get away with speeding and going through red lights. He replies: "Batman is a duly deputised officer of the law, ma'am. And if he is not pursuing a dangerous criminal, he drives more safely than any motorist I've ever seen. In his off hours, he lectures to driving classes all over Gotham City. No, ma'am. If ever you see Batman driving speedily, you can be sure that he is endangering his life to protect yours and mine".

That was actually a pretty good two-parter. An unusually substantial and clever plot. And although The Archer is a pretty bland villain, the Allan A Dale character makes up for it. He's a sort of artfully effete and acerbic cross between Peter Mandelson and Loyd Grossman.

Nice to see the Batboat as well. Presumably a leftover from the 1966 Batman feature film, which was made before this second series. Also, there's an explicit confirmation that the Bat poles do actually perform a costume change. A switch is pulled to prevent Bruce from changing into his Batman garb, when he descends into the Batcave.

2:03 Hot Off The Griddle

Three unusual crimes take place separately in Gotham City. A model catamaran is stolen from Gotham City Nautical Society. A catalogue is taken from a department store (actually I thought they gave them away). And a pair of mittens is stolen from the apartment of a gentleman named Andrew S Kitten.

It can only mean the return of the Princess of Plunder herself - Catwoman! She must be up to something.

Naturally the Dynamic Duo are on the case immediately. But what sort of bait do you set for a cat? A bird of course. Batman contacts a newspaper man of his acquaintance named Jack O'Shea, and asks him to plant a story about a rare species of canary being exhibited on the 12th floor of Gotham's natural history museum. Alas, said newspaper man is in cahoots with the Viscountess of Venality and he contacts her immediately on a special transmitter labelled "GOSSIP PHONE".

Amusingly Batman, standing in his superhero costume in the Batcave, tells Robin that O'Shea is "a bit too theatrical for me".

Batman and Robin lie in wait for Catwoman and her gang at the museum.There's a punch-up (of course), but the Feline Fiend shoots the two noble crime-fighters with drugged darts, before having them thrown out of the 12th floor window. Thank goodness Batman took the precaution of having a safety net placed a few floors below!

(https://i.ibb.co/BKSsXMXZ/magnify.jpg)

Another clue leads the Dynamic Duo to a suspiciously cat-themed club called The Pink Sandbox. But when they take their seats, the booth they're sitting at flips round into the wall and deposits them in a sort of steel-walled cell. I was sure this idea was nicked from a Bond film - perhaps You Only Live Twice - but then I realised that the Bond film with an equivalent scene was Live and Let Die, made in 1974.

Catwoman, watching from a window in the high ceiling, tortures the two for a bit by turning on powerful heaters under the floor. She demonstrates their situation for the viewer by dropping two eggs onto the floor, from above. They're fried in no time. I assumed this was going to be the cliffhanger, but no - she has them rendered unconscious by knockout gas, then strapped to giant barbecues under huge magnifying glasses.

Delighted to see the lovely Julie Newmar back as Catwoman. She's still delightfully feline, but a bit more sinister and violent than last time. There's a nice moment when she gives one of her minions a well-aimed, sharp kick in the face for questioning her motives. Unfortunate that she wasn't available for the Batman feature film that was made between her first appearance and this one. She was replaced by Lee Meriwether. I must watch that again some time, haven't seen it since I was a kid.

2:04 The Cat and the Fiddle

Batman remembers that a solar eclipse is due to take place imminently, which gives the two a brief respite from the magnified solar rays. The eclipse is only due to last half a minute. Given that it's a proper eclipse which renders everything dark, I don't actually think this is possible in real life. But anyway the two imperilled crime-fighters use their time wisely. The Caped Crusader has calculated that they need to shift the giant magnifying glasses by exactly 14 degrees with their feet to get the magnified rays to burn through the ties on their left wrists.

I could have sworn their ankles had been tied but they don't appear to be when they move the magnifying glasses, which they can just reach with their toes. Batman's plan works. And yet as Batman frees himself, we see that their ankles are tied again.

Anyway Catwoman and the gang have already left of course - the villains always do this, never bothering to wait around to check that their elaborate execution methods have actually worked. The Dynamic Duo follow up their next clue, which leads them to the Gotham State Building skyscraper, where a wealthy old recluse is about to conclude a sale of two priceless Stradivarius violins to a similarly reclusive and massively wealthy old woman.

(https://i.ibb.co/FkmnkTSG/getaway.jpg)

But Catwoman, made up very convincingly as a feeble old lady, has taken the place of the would-be violin acquirer. She's already got hold of the $500,000 that was the asking price. Soon she'll have the violins as well!

Or will she? On the top floor of the Gotham State Building, she suddenly pulls off her glasses and coat, and she's transformed instantly, somehow, into her usual Catwoman guise. It's extraordinary. All the grey hair and makeup just disappears. But the old bloke with the violins does exactly the same, and it's the Boy Wonder!

Unfortunately, Robin is overcome by the Feline Felon's henchmen. They're about to throw him out of the window. Can Batman make it up there in time? Well not easily, because Catwoman has had the elevator switched off. But the Caped Crusader has a trick up his sleeve - two portable bat jets. We saw him working on these in the Batcave in the last episode. He claims that they're capable of propelling a 500 pound car 500 miles into space. Actually I think even a Fiat 500 weighs twice that, but anyway - they're roughly the size of a packet of biscuits.

He attaches both of them to the bottom of the elevator car (would have thought one of them would have done) and he's on the top floor in no time. Catwoman and her criminal friends - including the newspaper man who's been working with her - mount a getaway rocket pointed at the window, to make good their escape. But it won't start. So there's a punch-up of course. Her henchmen are all subdued, but she escapes onto the ledge. Batman ends up saving her life, to her sincere gratitude. But after he gets thrown out of the window by the criminal newspaper man himself, they both end up clinging to a rope, and Robin saves both of them.

(https://i.ibb.co/352XgZDw/bale-lal.jpg)

There's a touching final scene that explores some tentative romantic chemistry between Batman and Catwoman.

I really liked this one. Any episode with Catwoman as the villain is a good one. Julie Newmar is just brilliant in that role - off-the-scale charismatic, lithe and sexy as fuck and with an impeccable comic touch. I didn't quite see what the criminal newspaper reporter added to the story, though.

One odd thing - the driver of the armoured car who brings the $500,000 to the old woman (really Catwoman) for the violins, then takes her to the Gotham State Building looks uncannily like Christian Bale, who played Batman in a successful film franchise nearly 40 years later. Second pic.

One disappointing thing about the last couple of episodes - the KAPOW! CRUNCH! etc in the punch-up scenes, previously superimposed on the action like this:

(https://i.ibb.co/Myb7k7SH/powtwo.jpg)

.. now have a solid background like this:

(https://i.ibb.co/Q3h2BNxm/powone.jpg)

02:05 The Minstrel's Shakedown

There's chaos at Gotham Stock Exchange, when investors start to make huge losses and inexplicable gains. The stock market is all over the place. It's total unpredictable pandemonium.

What can possibly have happened? Just as the market chaos is being described on the evening news, a new transmission takes over the airwaves. A fetching chap dressed in mediaeval minstrel garb and weilding a lute appears. After strumming out a fetching little ditty, he promises immunity from a repetition of the day's stock market calamity - for the fee of $1000 per week, per stock exchange member. Payable to his Swiss bank account of course. Blackmail! The Swiss banks were the Bitcoin of their day.

The Dynamic Duo are on the case immediately. Batman inspects the transmission systems and the coding circuits at the stock exchange. He finds that the circuits have been tampered with. Late that evening, they lie in wait at the stock exchange, waiting for The Minstrel - for such is our new arch-villain's name.

Well he does turn up, but he blinds the noble crime-fighters with some sort of bizarre electronic firework device. He gets away. Once Batman has recovered, he inspects the modifications made to the stock exchange equipment - and realises that The Minstrel is an electronic genius.

At this point I must say it did occur to me that all the stock exchange folks had to do to prevent their members being fleeced for $1000 a week was to fix the equipment and improve security. But perhaps that's not the point. After all - who could know where he'd strike next?

(https://i.ibb.co/JW7Z9wHQ/minstrel.jpg)

Well - the troublesome troubador decides he has to eliminate Batman and Robin. But his two noble adversaries have a plan of their own - to track down his studio, next time he makes an unauthorised TV transmission, using a radio-tracking drone. It looks a lot like a model aircraft.

I thought this was really interesting, this idea of a remote-control drone being used in the 1960s. They were already being used in Vietnam for surveillance when this episode was filmed, but they were not a familiar idea in the public domain. There's a brilliant moment when Batman asks Alfred to retrieve the drone - by activating the bat drone retriever switch. About ten seconds later, it glides gracefully through the Batcave entrance.

Anyway, the villainous lute-wielder makes another TV transmission, the Dynamic Duo track the fiend's unauthorised TV studio down to an old warehouse, they go there and enter it via an open window on an upper floor. I love those bat rope moments when they walk up the side of a wall.

But it's a trap! The Minstrel's henchmen are waiting for them. There's a punch-up. The henchmen are overcome fairly easily after half a minute of KAPOW! etc. But when the Caped Crusader and Boy Wonder go to look for the boss, they get caught in a villainous trap.

It's not clear how this happens, exactly. We see them breaking down a door. Then there's a cut to a scene in which they're trussed to a giant rotating spit, over a barbecue. And that, of course, is the cliffhanger.

(https://i.ibb.co/chPDKWWc/batbarbecue.jpg)

He's an odd sort of villain, The Minstrel. His persona - being an Olde Worlde minstrel with a lute - is at odds with his gimmick, which is that he's a criminal electronics mastermind. Would have made more sense for him to have been called Electron, and wear a costume based on wires and transistors. Or something. In any case I recognised him immediately; he's Van Johnson, star of many an old war movie. He had a prominent role in 1954's The Caine Mutiny alongside Humphrey Bogart. Brilliant film.

One interesting moment in this episode early on - Commissioner Gordon tells Batman to be careful. In response, the Caped Crusader lists all the super-criminals he's successfully overcome - Penguin, Catwoman, Joker, King Tut et al. He even mentions one we haven't seen yet - Clock Face. But he doesn't mention The Riddler, even though the Prince of Puzzles has made more appearances (four) than any other villain in the episodes up to and including this one.

Why? Well, I suspect that this little exchange was concoted as a deliberate middle finger to Frank Gorshin, who doesn't appear at all in this second series as The Riddler - because he wanted a salary hike that the studio didn't agree to. There is a Riddler story in the second series, but John Astin (Gomez in The Addams Family) plays the riddling rascal.

I do believe that no-one succumbs to knockout gas in this one, which is highly unusual.

02:06 Barbecued Batman?

Unusually, the villain and his dastardly associates hang around to watch Batman and Robin meet their end over a barbecue. How then can they possibly escape? Well, it turns out that the Caped Crusader took the precaution of planting some bat-bombs in the building on his way in. These go off, creating an effective diversion - the bad guys run off to investigate and the two crime-fighters manage to shake themselves free.

There's a punch-up when the villains return of course, but The Minstrel escapes. His criminal sidecandy surrenders, but Batman very graciously declines to take her into custody, allowing her to go free. Because he's planted a homing device / bug in her handbag, to lead him to The Minstrel.

However, the melodic mischief-maker discovers the bug quickly, and he tells the Caped Crusader that he is about to invoke a dastardly plan. He tells him to be at the conference room of the stock exchange in 30 minutes, with Commissioner Gordon and the assorted stock exchange personnel.

Thirty minutes later, at the stock exchange .. the building shakes dramatically. But it's not an earthquake. The Caped Crusader surmises that the villainous lute player has made the building shake by installing subsomic devices to hit exactly the right resonant frequency. Next, the crooked mastermind appears on TV. He'll cause irreversible calamity by nightfall unless his extortionate terms are met.

But Batman has an idea. Switch off the power to the building at 6pm exactly. Then the devices, wherever in the bulding they're installed, won't work. The building engineer and electrical crew are put to work to rig up a master switch.

Well .. the switch is thrown at 6pm exactly. The power goes off .. but it's to no avail! It comes back on a moment later! The Minstrel is somehow broadcasting power into the building!

Oddly though, the twisted technical trickster has turned up in person there, in a sharp black suit and heavy-framed specs. The old Clark Kent gambit.

Why he's done this is not really explained, but Batman recognises him. His henchmen emerge from the shadows. There's a punch-up. The arch-villain attempts the trick with the blinding electronic firework again, but it won't work. Robin explains that he and Batman are wearing "particle bat accelerator units", to create an anti-charge to deflect the effect of the weapon. I suspect that Burt Ward got the words "bat" and "particle" the wrong way round there. I think they were scripted the other way round.

And it's off to jail for The Minstrel.

I must say the stuntmen playing the henchmen in the final punch-up scene do some very good work. Robin sends one of them flying into a spectacular sliding reverse somersault over the surface of a conference table.

Always nice to see a change from the usual Joker / Riddler / Catwoman ideas, apart from Catwoman. But I don't think The Minstrel is a great villain. In any case, I don't think we'll see him again.

Frank Zappa wrote and arranged this, in 1966.

02:07 The Spell of Tut

A safe is broken into, somewhere in Gotham City. But the thieves - dressed in ancient Egyptian garb - make off only with a string of amber beads, leaving behind priceless diamonds and rubies.

Could it be the work of the university professor who, following a blow to the head, became convinced that he's a reincarnation of Tutankhamun, with a divine right to rule over all Gotham City? Certainly Gommissioner Gordon thinks so, and he's not wrong. The wayward academic has had a relapse. The Dynamic Duo are on the case immediately.

(https://i.ibb.co/8LhGMBNq/tutandcutie.jpg)

Gordon's usual secretary is on leave, and her temporary replacement seems very eccentric.

Well - it turns out that Tut wants the amber beads because several specimens of a long-extinct scarab beetle are encased in them. He plans to create an ancient potion, called aburabusimbutu. One of its critical ingredients is the distilled essence of scarab limbs. It's capable of paralysing the human will. If he can get enough of the stuff, and get it to the populace somehow, the whole of Gotham will be at his mercy!

He manages to bring the scarabs from the amber to life, Frankenstein-style, by putting 200,000 volts through them. He only has a few of them of course, but they reproduce very quickly. Batman and Robin track Tut and his gang down, but following a brief punch-up, they get away.

(https://i.ibb.co/xtFB9t8Z/greenhornet.jpg)

Meanwhile .. Bruce Wayne has bought Tut's talking sphinx statue, as featured in the first Tut story. The mad monarch dispatches two of his henchmen to steal it from the gardens of his stately home. They do. But Robin is hiding inside it!

Unfortunately, the Boy Wonder is discovered once the sphinx is relocated to Tut's secret hideout. Fortunately Batman has tracked him there. But the Evil Egyptologist attempts to administer a dose of his newly created potion to the lad. Robin escapes through a side door .. but it leads to a platform suspended over a crocodile pit! As the Boy Wonder maintains his balance.. the platform starts to retract into the wall! Can Batman get there in time?

I must say the crocs look ridiculously fake, but that's all part of the fun.

By the way Commissioner Gordon's temp turns out to be Tut's villainous cutie sidekick. She's planning to give the old boy a dose of the wicked aburabusimbutu potion in the guise of one of his vitamin pills.

A couple of Tut's henchmen are authentically Egyptian-looking and a bit bonkers, like he is. Last time his hired help were all locals who realised he was a nutter, but were happy to get paid.

There's a cameo from Van Williams and Bruce Lee (no less) who starred in The Green Hornet, which was made at the same time as Batman. Never seen it myself. This was a couple of years before Lee went on to be a martial arts cult hero of course.

Good one. Tut is definitely one of the best of all the Batman villains. He chews the scenery delightfully when called upon to do so - especially when his evil beetle experiment initially fails, and he's distraught. I don't quite understand though how a university lecturer manages to afford a grand hideout with all the monarchical Egyptian furniture, a handsome set of evil laboratory equipment and a team of paid-up loyal henchmen. And a pit of crocodiles.

This story sees Tut in equal fourth place (with Catwoman) in the villain appearances league table.

02:08 Tut's Case Is Shut

Batman arrives just in time to save the Boy Wonder. He zaps the iron bars over a high window in the crocodile room with a sort of laser pistol, climbs up there, swings down and retrieves the lad on the end of a rope. He only just makes it. It did occur to me that he could just have zapped the crocs with the laser weapon.

Meanwhile Tut's villainous cutie persuades O'Hara, in Commissioner Gordon's absence, to take one of the wicked potion pills. Tut turns up in Gordon's office! And in no time, Tut has the hapless policeman, completely under his spell, performing acrobatics on the high ledge outside for his entertainment. The wicked cutie loves this; she has a delightful gleeful laugh.

The Dynamic Duo turn up, but Tut and his latter-day Queen of the Nile manage to leave just in time.

The talking sphinx arrives in one of Gotham's parks, to give proclamations to the general public. He's going to provide more drinking fountains! And Tut has managed to get Commissioner Gordon to take some of the evil potion. The mad monarch's will is now the commissioner's command.

(https://i.ibb.co/WLPW3gk/batpistol.jpg)

Batman arrives at the park. Gordon is there, and gives the Caped Crusader a lemonade from a refreshments stand, spiked with the potion. Robin watches helpless as Batman turns into a subservient zombie. They're both taken away to Tut's palatial hideout. The Evil Egyptologist has created thousands of gallons of his mind-bending drug, and he's going to introduce it to the water supply.

But not before he's fed Batman and Robin to his crocs.

Of course, and I think most viewers would have suspected this, Batman was never affected by the potion. He'd consumed several glasses of buttermilk to line his stomach, as protection.

So there's a punch-up and it's game over. In the final scene, we see Commissioner Gordon pondering whether it's really appropriate to try Tut, who's returned to his persona as a harmless university professor, for his crimes.

02:09 The Greatest Mother of Them All

The infamous Ma Parker turns up in Gotham City. She and her four delinquent children have terrorised numerous American cities over the years but until now, she's never troubled the sprawling metropolis defended by Batman and Robin.

She and her ill-mannered hillbilly kids pull off a number of robberies in the city. She manages to escape the Dynamic Duo and Gotham Police even after they have her surrounded in a house (lovely moment this - she tells the kids to finish their dinner while she takes aim at the forces of law and order with a submachine gun out of the window).

The Caped Crusader and Boy Wonder manage to apprehend one of her kids every time they catch up with them .. but it's all part of her plan!

(https://i.ibb.co/nsqMfWky/parkerdinner.jpg)

Not long after she gets taken to the penitentiary herself, it turns out that she's had all of the guards substituted by members of her gang. As soon as Batman and Robin leave, she takes the governor prisoner, and she's in charge of the place! Not only that, but she's had dynamite installed in the Batmobile. As soon as it hits 60mph on the way back to the Batcave, they'll be blown to pieces!

Parker only trusts her three sons. She thinks her daughter, "Legs", is useless because she's a girl. I loved that. But Robin quite likes the malfeasant matriarch's daughter: "her legs sort of reminded me of Catwoman's", he says to Batman in an unguarded moment. "You're growing up, Robin", his mentor replies.

(https://i.ibb.co/Zz0pPSpQ/parkergun.jpg)

I didn't think this was a great one but Ma Parker - played by Shelley Winters no less, and she does have a nice comic touch - is a lot more down to earth and less loony than your typical Batman super-criminal. There is one odd moment, when she's seen to drive a rocket-powered wheelchair while disguised as a care home resident. Holy Werner von Braun, as Robin points out. Seems completely superfluous.

Presumably, like Boney M's Ma Baker, she's based on the real life Ma Barker. Made a change, I guess. I was reminded of The Dukes of Hazzard.

Notice how, in both pics, the camera is on a tilt. I think this was done to give the photography a DC Comics sort of feel. But, it's only ever used at villain hideouts.

02:10 Ma Parker

Batman keeps the speed down below 60 on the way back to the Batcave. The speed limit is 55 on that stretch of road. He articulates the importance of following the law to Robin (strange then that at the end of the last episode, we did see the speedo just about nudging 60).

But he starts to wonder about the penitentiary inmate who was having a curious look under the bonnet during their visit. Was the Batmobile tampered with? He stops, has a look, and finds the dynamite in the engine. He throws it as far as possible, and it explodes. I didn't really understand why. Perhaps he threw it at a speed in excess of 60mph. In any case - wouldn't it have been easier to rig it up to a timer? Why doesn't the Batmobile have a lock on the engine cover?

But I'm being far too picky about a minor detail, and we're only about a minute in. Let's crack on. The Caped Crusader decides to head back to the pen. Clearly, something is amiss.

(https://i.ibb.co/BVdhmcbj/catcameo.jpg)

The Costumed Crimefighters decide to sneak in over the wall once they get there. But they're met by one of Ma's guards, with a rifle. He threatens to shoot them, but Batman reminds him that it's only 48 years until he's eligible for parole. Why throw away the chance of being free in 2014? So he lets them pass, but nonetheless they do get captured and strapped to electric chairs in the penitentiary's execution chamber. Ma plans to apply the necessary voltage at midnight, when no-one will notice the additional drain on the city's electricity supply.

Once the two are left alone in there, Batman manages to snap one of the electric cables, and uses the chair's power to send a signal to the Batcave - in Bat code (it seems to be very similar to Morse). Alfred gets the message, urging him to have the Gotham City Electric Company shut off the power at precisely midnight. Which they duly do, in the space of 15 minutes.

Well, the switch gets thrown, nothing happens, the two break out of their ties (there's a suggestion that they weren't able to do this earlier because it would set off the power), punch-up, Game Over.

(https://i.ibb.co/dshrqQW4/legsnumber.jpg)

I thought Ma was a pretty decent villain actually. Very well portrayed by Shelley Winters. And it's quite nice to have the villains engage in good old-fashioned armed robbery and wearing normal clothes, or what passes for normal clothes in the American Midwest of the 1960s.

One very endearing thing about this episode - Catwoman has a cameo. There's a scene where Ma addresses the rest of the inmates once she's in charge. The feline felon speaks up, wanting to know how Ma's made sure Batman won't spoil their plans. Clearly, she's been excused prison uniform.

Another nice touch - Legs' prison number is 25-23-24.

02:11 The Clock King's Crazy Crimes

When an antique clock with a hidden camera dispenses knockout gas at an upmarket jewellers, enabling the theft of some highly valuable diamond brooches, it can only mean one thing - Clock King!

Who? Well we haven't seen this particular villain before and I don't remember him from my childhood TV viewing activities, but he's an ingenious, odd-looking old chap who's obsessed with clocks, and time.

(https://i.ibb.co/nMmLSFvZ/sammyd-bats.jpg)

Batman and Robin catch up with him after he robs an art gallery of a priceless masterpiece, using a time-based mechanised art installation that surreptitiously saws a hole in the wall of the strong room. But he activates a counter-measure in his art object that wraps them in coils of elongated clock springs, allowing him and his cronies to escape.

(https://i.ibb.co/GfmKFzg2/clockcutie.jpg)

A clue leads the Dynamic Duo to his hideout, an abandoned factory that made synthetic jewels for watches. They enter via an upper window as usual and who should pop his head out of a lower window to say hello than Sammy Davis Jr! I did actually remember that, wondered when it was going to come up.

The factory and the wall they climb up are exactly the same sets used in the one with The Minstrel, a few episodes back. Anyway it's a trap, because of course it is, and after the two noble crime-fighters slip up in a pool of super-slick watch oil and get knockout-gassed, they get incarcerated in a giant hour glass. Will they be buried alive?

(https://i.ibb.co/LdKHt8kk/bathourg.jpg)

02:12 The Clock King Gets Crowned

The two imperilled crimefighters manage to escape their temporal trap by swaying from side to side, until the giant hourglass falls over. It doesn't break - but they manage to roll, hamster wheel style, out of the entrance to the building and on to the road. A truck driver pulls up just in front of them. We don't actually see them climb out of the hourglass. The viewer is left to assume that they receive assistance.

It's Bruce's birthday, and Aunt Harriet has bought him an unusual antique windmill clock. But Clock King has had a secret camera installed, to help him rob Bruce of his collection of antique pocket watches. I'd say the plot takes a bit of a liberty here. We're meant to believe that he's provided the clock to dealer in the certain knowledge that Harriet would buy it. A bit of a stretch.

But anyway there's a hitch - one of his henchmen (or "second hands" as he calls them) has fitted the clock with the wrong secret device. He's installed an atomic energy directional control switch instead of a knockout gas activator.

So the Hideous Horologist and his villainous crew have to get it back! He badly needs the atomic energy directional control switch to pull off a big crime later on! So they break into Wayne Manor, cosh Alfred and nab the clock. Alfred manages to set off a Batcave alarm, so the Dynamic Duo come speeding up the batpoles - they're fitted with compressed steam elevators - and arrive on the ground floor as Bruce and Dick, just in time to prevent Harriet from being kidnapped (it's not really clear why the villains want to do this). The villains get away.

Batman deduces, through the usual risible logic applied to the sparse available evidence, that Clock KIng intends to steal an extremely valuable caesium clock being delivered to a heliport in Gotham City. He's going to do this by the unfathomably elaborate method of having a mechanised bronze figure in a clock tower facing the heliport strike his "atomic energy directional control switch" with its hammer. I think this is supposed to disable the helicopter somehow. It's not really clear. The whole plot is nonsense quite honestly, you've just got to roll with it.

So of course the Caped Crusader and Boy Wonder turn up in the nick of, er, time. There's a fantastically choreographed punch-up in the inexplicably huge clock tower chamber, involving the life-sized bronze figures (really human actors and very well done). And of course it's job done.

I would say that was a poor one, except that the clock tower and hourglass sets do elevate it a bit - they really put a lot of artful design into these.

So that's six two-parters done in the second series, six different villains. I didn't think Clock King was a particularly good character, but it's a change from watching Riddler and Joker all the time.

02:13 An Egg Grows in Gotham

This time it's the turn of Egghead, the smartest villain in the world, to pit his considerable wits against the Dynamic Duo. It's Vincent Price! The criminal mastermind steals a priceless, historic copy of the Gotham City charter from Gotham City Hall.

Gotham's charter states that, each year, nine racoon pelts must be paid to the last descendent of the Mohican tribe from whom it was bought, centuries earlier. These are provided by the three remaining descendents of the original settlers, all of whom are millionaires and one of whom - of course - is Bruce Wayne. The ceremony in which this quaint tradition is honoured is due to take place on the very same evening.

But Egghead has scrutinised the charter very carefully, and he discovers that if, for whatever reason, the nine racoon pelts are not provided to Chief Screaming Chicken - who runs a modest roadside business selling inexpensive items from a tepee - then Gotham City reverts to its original owners.

So he makes a deal with the noble old Indian chief. $100 a month, and all the eggs he can eat, in return for Gotham City. All the eccentric
egg-obsessed villain has to do is prevent the ceremony from taking place.

(https://i.ibb.co/6cprSxs3/egghead.jpg)

I think that some might find the Chief Screaming Chicken character a bit troubling. He speaks in broken English, always substituting "me" for "I". He's remarkably naive and stupid and all in all is a ridiculous caricature of a Native American. He's actually a browned-up American actor of British and German descent called Edward Everett Horton, and I was surpised to find that he was 80 years old when this Batman episode was filmed. His character is supposed to be 60 years old, and in what I thought was an odd bit of dialogue, one of Egghead's henchmen comments that he hopes he looks as good when he gets to 60.

Anyway Batman and the Boy Wonder track the villains down to a new egg firm that's just opened in Gotham - the Ghoti Oeufs Caviar Company. The Caped Crusader of course explains to Robin why Ghoti is pronounced "fish".

The two crime-fighters turn up there and wade straight in with a punch-up - they don't bother asking the villains to come quietly. But the yolk's on them. They're overcome by laughing gas, dispensed in an egg-shaped bomb, of course, while the baddies get away.

Batman / Bruce confirms with the other two millionaires that they're planning to attend the ceremony, which they are. But the car that comes to pick them up is driven by Egghead. They get overcome by knockout gas and taken to the dastardly villain's secret hideout. But it gets worse! The brilliant criminal mastermind has worked out that one of them is Batman. After all, the Dark Knight could only be a millionaire with time on his hands. Furthermore, he's pretty sure it must be Bruce. One of the other two is left-handed, the other one has a strong French accent.

And to test his assumption, he's restrained Bruce in an electro-thought-transfer device. Soon, all of his knowledge will be transferred to Egghead. But either way, Bruce's brain will be emptied, destroyed.

The laughing gas scene is priceless. Very funny.

Decent villain, I think. Couldn't really be anything other than a highly charismatic performance from Vincent Price. Actually I always thought he'd make a good Joker. Always thought Cesar Romero's performance as the giggling fiend is a bit Vincent-Price-ish.

02:14 The Yegg Foes in Gotham

Dick, who's been kidnapped along with Bruce, manages to flip the power supply to the mind hoover contraption from 440 to 220 volts while no-one's looking. There's a huge sign labelled DANGEROUS next to the improbably massive switch, so why he's been left right next to it, albeit his hands are tied, is anyone's guess.

The contraption explodes, freeing Bruce. The villains run off, leaving a "radar egg" to ensure they can't be followed. It will blow up if their ex-captives make a sudden move.

Bruce, Dick and the other two millionaires do manage to escape, but it's too late - it's after midnight when they arrive at the ceremony. Chief Screaming Chicken now owns Gotham. And he's leased it to Egghead.

The Cranially-Overdeveloped Criminal's first act is to fire the Mayor and the Police Commissioner. He has complete control. He forces the police department to ignore serious crime, and focus instead on minor misdemeanours like parking offences and littering. He banishes Batman and Robin from the city.

But Dick and Bruce steal the charter from its case in the City Hall, where, conveniently for the plot, Egghead has returned it. Bruce wants to have a careful look at the small print. And it turns out that there's a stipulation that the city can never be leased to anyone who's "committed crimes against the city, territory, or crown" - that latter part referring to Gotham's distant past as part of a British colony, of course.

Back in the Batcave, the Caped Crusader works out what Egghead's up to. He's going to loot Gotham's treasury! The logic for this conclusion is largely based on the fact that another word for treasury is exchequer, which sounds a bit like "eggschequer".

They rush there - but it's too late. The criminal mastermind has made off with all the cash. But he's left Chief Screaming Chicken behind. The Chief tells Batman that Egghead intends to lay low, then emigrate to South America.

Well the Caped Crusader knows that Egghead's diet consists solely of grade AAA white eggs, and that he'll need a substantial supply of them for his trip. So he and Robin catch up with him and his gang at Old MacDonald's Chicken Farm. There's a splendid punch-up, involving a massive quantity of real eggs being broken - must admit it made me uncomfortable to see all that food go to waste, let alone the thought of clearing up the mess. Apparently Vincent Price ad-libbed part of this scene. He was supposed to crack an egg on Burt Ward's head but he lets him have a whole tray of them, which explains why Robin's reaction is very realistic.

(https://i.ibb.co/SXRbysTB/price-ward.jpg)

And that of course, once the Dynamic Duo have prevailed, is job done.

I quite liked Egghead. There have been five new villains so far for this second series. Only Egghead and Ma Parker have worked for me, the rest have been poor. But Vincent Price really excels in this.

02:15 The Devil's Fingers

A benefit concert is due to take place at Gotham Town Hall for the Wayne Foundation, and Aunt Harriet has been given an opportunity to rehearse with the great Chandell - a brilliant pianist of some renown. It's only flippin' Liberace!

But as they rehearse their Highland Airs at Wayne Manor, three ghostly Scots lassies appear, with bagpipes - ghosts called from their slumber by the bonny music. They rob Harriet of some jewellery and help themselves to some other items. Their Scottish accents are terrible. But that's alright, they're really three villainesses in the employ of Chandell. It's a triple helping of eye candy in this story. And he's the villain.

Or I should say that Chandell and his twin brother Harry are the villains. Harry, also played by Liberace, is much less flamboyant and camp than his brother. And I must say Liberace does a decent job of playing Harry as a down-to-earth and masculine sort of fella. It must have been a strain.

(https://i.ibb.co/V0DWjNkp/scotslassies.jpg)

Harry is blackmailing Chandell. He knows something that his brother doesn't want made public. So he's taking a huge percentage of his ill-gotten gains.

Anyway as soon as Wayne Manor is robbed, Commissioner Gordon gets onto the Batphone straight away. But to their dismay, Alfred tells them that the two crime-fighters are on holiday! They're going to have to solve a case themselves!

Which is unfortunate because the unprincipled pianist has a big job planned. He's going to steal the entire fortune of the Wayne family.

That evening, the illicitous ivory-tinkler plays the benefit concert. As he performs a Burmese piece, three dancing girls appear in front of a Burmese import company premises, in front of a police officer - then a bomb goes off and they stroll in, presumably to rob the place. It all seems a bit unnecessarily elaborate and pointless to me. And it could almost be designed to draw attention to Chandell. But oh well, I just went with it.

Fortunately though, Bruce, who's on holiday - which is why Batman's on holiday of course - is listening in to the concert. He notices that Chandell plays a wrong chord. And that's enough for him to contact Dick using a secret transmitter and return at once to Gotham City.

(https://i.ibb.co/C3X2S079/dickdate.jpg)

It's a great shame, because Dick is on a date, and he seems to be on to a very good thing. But the fight against crime comes first. The young lady will have to do without Dick tonight.

The two return to Wayne Manor, only to see the three phantom floosies appear like wraiths at the window. Believing that Chandell is responsible, Batman rushes to the Town Hall - only to find the pernicious pianist apparently unconscious, knocked on the head with an empty bottle. Chandell claims that his brother Harry did it, and gives the Caped Crusader his address.

(https://i.ibb.co/zhyc4myK/apparition.jpg)

The Dynamic Duo go there - but it's a trap (because of course it is) and there's a punch up. Harry gets the upper hand, and they get strapped to a conveyor belt, about to be fed into a huge machine designed to perforate music rolls.

I suppose that the notion of music rolls was probably more familiar to the TV viewer of the 1960s, but they were rolls of perforated paper that operated automatic pianos. I sort of doubt that the machines that perforated them were as huge as depicted here.

This is actually a pretty good one - Liberace's innate campiness fits the '60s Batman paradigm very nicely. And the script is a bit more imaginative than usual. But we'll see how it concludes.

02:15 The Dead Ringers

It looks like it's curtains for Batman and Robin as they're conveyed helplessly into the mouth of the enormous music roll perforator. Then suddenly, Batman finds a solution! He sings a set of carefully selected notes to make the perforations fall precisely around the outlines of their bodies, overcoming the music that's being piped into the microphone of the perforator. Brilliantly, he's visualised the chords in his head.

Amusingly he tells Robin to sing along, matching his notes exactly. Robin conspicuously fails to do this. They both sing random dissonant quasi-melodies with nothing in common. I suppose it would have been a lot of work to rehearse one.

Once out of the machine, they confront Harry and the girls. The villainous wenches run off, but Harry gets knocked out with a Batarang, then delivered to the police. Unfortunately his lawyer, a sort of 1960s Saul Goodman, gets him out on the basis that there weren't any witnesses. But not before he's told them that a master criminal named "Fingers" is planning to steal the Wayne fortune.

Batman soon works out that "Fingers" is Chandell. He further surmises that the malevolent maestro plans to get his hand on Bruce's fortune by killing Bruce and Dick off, and marrying Aunt Harriet - which explains the queasy scenes from the first part in which he's coming on to her.

So - the Caped Crusader fakes a tragic explosion in Dick's photographic darkroom, in which they're both apparently killed in a huge explosion. It's not clear to me that this was really necessary to the plot. But anyway - once the three villainesses find out that Chandell is planning to go straight and leave them out in the cold once he's got the cash to pay off his brother for good, they side with Harry and turn on the master pianist with the bagpipe weapon that they used at Wayne Manor in the first part. It emits some sort of ultrasonic disabling audio beam. The usual Batman hokum.

Harry's lawyer, a criminal attorney in both senses, gets the same treatment once he asks Harry for his rather exorbitant fee.

Then Harry comes up with a plan - he'll impersonate his brother - using the outfit Chandell wore for Elizabeth's coronation, no less - and woo Harriet himself. But she works out that he's not Chandell, and in a remarkable scene, she whips a revolver out of her handbag and holds him at gunpoint. It's to no avail - she gets zapped from behind by one of the girls with the bagpipe weapon.

(https://i.ibb.co/ynvvFHDL/harry-gun.jpg)

Harry orders his henchmen to stuff her into a trunk, which, once it's been taken to his hideout, he liberally sprays with bullets from a Thompson submachine-gun. But the Caped Crusader and Boy Wonder emerge from it - from behind a Bat shield, of course. They've rescued Harriet and substituted themselves!

There's a punch-up, naturally. One of the villainous cuties attempts to subdue the Dynamic Duo with the bagpipes, but it doesn't work. We aren't told why. Perhaps the solution was in the original script; it looks like there's an edit at this point, perhaps for timing purposes. In any case, it's Game Over. The two crime-fighters rescue Chandell and the lawyer from the perforator, where Harry was about to dispense with them permanently - and everyone's off to the nick.

Despite some curious plot holes - what was the wrong chord in the Town Hall performance about, for example? - this was a really good one. The basic story, despite its flaws, is a lot more substantial than usual. There are some priceless comedy moments. And although Chandell doesn't have the ridiculous costumes or gimmicks of the typical super-criminal, Liberace does endow him with a huge amount of camp personality. Clearly he wasn't a great actor, even in a light entertainment context, but he was clearly having a very good time playing these two characters, and I found that quite infectious.

02:17 Hizzoner The Penguin

Of all the Batman episodes I've watched this year, and that's 51 of them now - I'd say that this one leans furthest into regular comedy.

The Penguin is back, and he's been seen to commit conspicuous acts of kindness and charity. He rescues an elderly blind man from a mugger. He's polite and co-operative to the police. And he donates $100,000 to the Gotham City Charity Fund.

What's the Fiendish Feathered one up to? Well he's running for mayor, and once his acts of benevolence and public-spiritedness get into the local press, he's running at 60% in the polls.

Of course he'll bleed the city dry if he wins, so the incumbent Mayor of Gotham City comes up with a plan. Who's so popular and well-respected that he couldn't possibly lose? Batman of course! The Caped Crusader reluctantly accepts, and agrees to run for Mayor against the pompous master criminal.

Unfortunately - it doesn't go as well as you might think. Batman runs a scupulously honest, rather humdrum campaign, focusing on local issues. Whereas The Penguin's campaign is lavishly funded, all glamour and glitz - public rallies with big promises, dancing girls, free champagne and a pop group (the actual Paul Revere and the Raiders). Oh yes, and a belly dancer.

At one point Robin expresses a concern that Batman's campaign posters are a bit small (The Penguin has huge, colourful poster campaign of course). His mentor replies that the voters are interested in issues, not window-dressing. He goes on to say "I'm convinced that the American electorate is too mature to be taken in by cheap Vaudeville trickery. After all if our national leaders were elected on the basis of tricky slogans, brass bands and pretty girls, our country would be in a terrible .. mess, wouldn't it?" .. and there's a priceless ironic look to the camera.

(https://i.ibb.co/kV32hZw5/gallus.jpg)

The whole episode feels like satire, a 25 minute comedy sketch. The voters are easily taken in by the populist glamour of The Penguin's campaign, while Batman's dull meetings attract people in single figures. The polling experts who appear early on (Gallus, Rooper and Trendek) really look especially like caricatures. A bit of Googling that there were actual polling organisations called Roper and Trendex, as well as Gallup which of course everyone's heard of. There's a very funny moment when Batman declines to kiss a baby on the grounds that it's unsanitary for the baby. The parents are outraged.

But we revert to more usual Batman fare when Gotham's most celebrated crime-fighter is invited to speak at the Grand Order of Occidental Nighthawks, only to be ambushed there by the waddling fiend's goons (G.O.O.N y'see). Despite a spirited punch up that degenerates into a swordfight with umbrellas, the Dynamic Duo end up tied up and suspended in a basket of a giant scale, above a large tank of sulphuric acid. Balancing them out on the other side of the scale are large chunks of ice. But they're melting.

Very intriguing. This episode was first broadcast in November 1966. Midterm elections were held that month. This episode would have been written quite some time before that, of course.

02:18 Dizzoner The Penguin

Batman covers his face with his cowl, then jumps over the side of the basket, into the bath of sulphuric acid. A noble act of self-sacrifice to save his old chum? No. His costume is made from acid-proof material, so he emerges from the tank unscathed. He dissolves his bonds in the acid and frees Robin.

Knowing that he has no proof of The Penguin's murder attempt, he puts the matter aside and later, takes part in a TV debate with the felonious fowl. But it's interrupted by news that Gotham's convention hall is being robbed of a $2m jewellery display. Both candidates rush to the scene of the crime.

(https://i.ibb.co/Xr0FnLCr/tvdebate.jpg)

There follows a brilliant, hilarious sequence in which Batman, Robin and Penguin all fight the would-be robbers - in reality Penguin's goons, of course - while a TV presenter commentates on the proceedings from an upper floor with a view of the hall, in the manner of a sports anchorman. He keeps score on a blackboard. Batman, heavily outnumbered, only manages to deck one of the villains, while The Penguin gets seven!

There's even a reporter on the convention floor who attempts to interview the two candidates, Alan Whicker style, during the punch-up. It's pure absurdist comedy.

(https://i.ibb.co/bRYmB4Lk/punchinterv.jpg)

Naturally, the waddling trickster soars in the polls. But when the results come in on election night, despite early gains, he doesn't do so well. He loses the mayoral election, to the Caped Candidate.

(https://i.ibb.co/RpPTQys0/sportpresent.jpg)

Pengy's solution to this is to kidnap the board of electors, so that the votes can't legally be counted. Unless the City Council proclaims him mayor, they'll end up in the morgue. But the Dynamic Duo work out where he's hiding, there's a punch up and that's the end of The Penguin's political career.

(https://i.ibb.co/9HHP0DrK/packager.jpg)

I must say the concluding punch-up has a lovely feature in this one. The Penguin has acquired a huge campaign material packaging machine. It has rotating penguins and flashing lights. The villains get punched or thrown into it, and emerge from the other end tightly wrapped in cardboard boxes.

The Penguin's appearance in this very different two-parter puts him in equal first place - so far - in terms of villain appearances, with The Riddler. The league table now stands as:

(https://i.ibb.co/tw2j5rVx/vleague250221.png)

02:19 Green Ice

Mr Freeze is back. He's escaped from prison. He has Miss Iceland kidnapped from the dressing room at Gotham's Miss Galaxy contest. Then he appears at an air vent in Commissioner Gordon's office. He blasts them, and their surroundings with his icy freeze blaster weapon. Gordon manages to call Batman, who comes to rescue them from an icy death by blowing open the frozen-solid doors to the office with plastic explosive.

Interesting that isn't described as "Bat explosive", just "plastic explosive".

When Gotham's press later come to ask questions in Gordon's office, Freeze has a large sum of money delivered there, addressed to Batman - to give the impression that they're being bribed.

(https://i.ibb.co/zHxsFN7J/poolside.jpg)

Later that evening Freeze and his gang hold up Bruce and his guests at a Wayne Foundation poolside reception, robbing them of their valuables. Batman and Robin appear in no time - but they blunder around, tripping over themselves and missing punches. After the bad guys get away with the loot, they leave quickly with their tail between their legs instead of helping the guests, who are trapped in the pool - the icy interloper made them stand in it before freezing it solid. How come? Well they're impostors - two of Freeze's men. He's trying to discredit the Dynamic Duo.

The real Batman and Robin track down Kool and the Gang (like what I did there?) to his hideout at a disused cold storage plant, where he's keeping poor Miss Iceland prisoner. He's slowly reducing her body temperature to acclimatise her to extreme cold. But the two crime-fighters are ambushed at the Frosty Freezies factory next door and placed in giant freezing vats.

(https://i.ibb.co/nMh11B1H/freezingvats.jpg)

Freeze is played by Otto Preminger this time, and he's quite a bit more unpleasant than George Sanders' version from the first series. He has a more grotesque appearance. He wears the special refrigerating suit all the time, not just when he's out and about. But rather than a helmet it has special refrigerating jets built into the collar, aimed at his head. His kidnapping of Miss Iceland, apparently for his own amorous purposes, is an especially creepy touch. She's played by Dee Hartford, who was 39 years old when this was filmed. Her sister was married to Groucho Marx.

Interesting that this time the eye candy is a victim rather than an accomplice.

02:20 Deep Freeze

I must say the get-out from the cliffhanger that opens this episode is probably the worst one we've seen so far. As they slowly freeze to death, the two crime-fighters search for a "heat exhaust valve" at the base of the vats they're trapped in, with their feet. If they can just "recycle the exhaust in the heating unit" of the containers, they might "reverse the process of refrigeration", Batman tells Robin.

We don't actually see this. Very poor.

Anyway, apart from forcing the enslaved Miss Iceland to marry him, Freeze is planning to extort $1 billion from Gotham City. And if the city doesn't pay up, he'll freeze the whole city in a giant cake of ice! He transforms the city's reservoir into a solid block of ice to demonstrate his ability to do this.

Batman and Robin are lying low, partly due to the success of the cold criminal's efforts to discredit them, but partly because the Caped Crusader feels that a false sense of security - Freeze thinks they're dead, of course - might encourage him to overplay his hand.

(https://i.ibb.co/gFd2Mjsw/freeze-cell.jpg)

Anyway eventually of course the two turn up at Freeze's hideout, where by now the cold-hearted criminal has encased poor Miss Iceland in a block of ice! There's a punch-up. But the Caped Crusader and Boy Wonder get trapped in Miss Iceland's cell. It looks like they're finished, when Freeze turns his freeze blaster weapon on them. But they've taken the precaution of applying special Bat-anti-freeze to themselves. They blast the cell door open with explosives, the punch-up resumes, they break Miss Iceland free from the ice and it's Game Over for the icy-hearted enemy of the people.

Otto Preminger is best remembered as a film director rather than an actor and unfortunately he seems to have been a bit unpleasant. Adam West remembered him as being rude in his memoirs. Laurence Olivier, who appeared in one of his films, found him to be a "bully". I'd guess that he was a bit awkward to direct.

02:21 The Impractical Joker

A number of key-related crimes take place in Gotham City. A book called Keys of the Kingdom is ripped up in a book shop. A vinyl record called You're the Key to My Heart is smashed at a record shop. A folder is taken from the filing cabinet at an establishment called the Key Club, and burned. Finally, some signage at Gotham's Keystone Building is tampered with.

In what seems to me to be an inexplicable leap of logic, Commissioner Gordon decides that only The Joker can be responsible. But of course, he's not wrong.

Batman surmises that a Scottish gentleman with a collection of valuable keys must be The Joker's intended target. He's in Gotham to give a private exhibition of his collection of keys, one of which is the Jewelled Key of Kaincardine, a priceless item handed down between generations of Scottish rulers.

(https://i.ibb.co/20HvgK3s/batscotsman.jpg)

So the Dynamic Duo head over to Gotham Towers, where the exhibition is taking place. Sure enough, The Joker is there - but they're helpless to prevent him making off with the priceless item. To their great embarrassment, he switches on a little box with flashing lights that renders them insensible while he gets away.

Later, Batman realises that the little electronic box was just a prop, and that the malevolent mischief-maker must have hypnotised them. But the giggling fiend takes over the airwaves briefly with his own TV transmission (another idea that's frequently reused, of course) to send Batman a clue.

The clue leads Gotham City's masked crime-fighters to a fur shop, where they find The Joker and his gang. The Comical Criminal attempts his hypnotism trick again, but to no avail - his intended victims have taken counter-hypnosis Bat pills. Of course there's a punch-up, but the malfeasant master criminal gets away. No worries - the Bat Computer comes up with another lead. The Dynamic Duo follow it to an apartment somewhere, but (of course) it's a trap. Batman ends up restrained in a huge, human-sized key-cutting machine. Robin is thrown into a wax-spraying booth, the usual purpose of which is not clear.

(https://i.ibb.co/1fY387Nk/purpletits.jpg)

This two-parter's villainous sidecandy is fit, fair-haired, shallow, self-interested and vain, which come to think of it is a pretty accurate description of my younger stepdaughter. Clearly Burt Ward liked her though, because despite being married to someone else at the time this was filmed, he married her the following year.

02:22 The Joker's Provokers

Batman escapes from the key-cutting machine by managing to pull a spare house key out of his utility belt, and jamming the machinery with it. It springs open (but why would it?) and he's out. He has a brief punch-up with the four villainous henchmen (The Joker has left the building), then he frees Robin from the wax-spraying chamber. He's waxed solid, but fortunately some Bat wax solvent does the trick.

So it turns out that the malfeasant mirth-merchant has somehow constructed a little gadget that, in conjunction with some sort of mind-altering chemical that he intends to introduce to Gotham's water supply, is capable of manipulating time. He can make people, speed up, go backwards or freeze in time.

Well it turn's out that Alfred's cousin Egbert works at the waterworks as a security guard, and as you'd probably expect, he looks exactly like Alfred. Except that he doesn't wear glasses. He talks with an unusual earthy accent that's somehow a cross between a gruff cockney and New York.

(https://i.ibb.co/PZZ8L695/waxrobin.jpg)

So in the expectation that The Joker and his malevolent minions will turn up there, Alfred stands in for his cousing at the waterworks. They do turn up, he pulls a gun on them, makes them drink some water contaminated with the mind-bending, time-manipulating-susceptibility drug. Then he time-freezes them. Unfortunately he fiddles with the gadget and inadvertently un-time-freezes them, but the Dynamic Duo turn up, the usual punch-up ensues and apart from a entertaining little piece in which Aunt Harriet turns up at the waterworks having run out of petrol then recognises Alfred, who claims of course to be his cousin Egbert, that's yer lot.

I'd have to say that this is a poor one. It's based on a weak idea, it goes nowhere. There's absolutely no sense of jeopardy or suspense over the time-bending gadget or The Joker's plan to control Gotham's time, unlike for example The Minstrel's plan to cause chaos on the stock market, or Freeze's threat to freeze the whole of the city. The Joker's crimes aren't particularly interesting. It seemed to me that the time gadget idea was made up half-way through, shovelled in as an afterthought. it has nothing to do with the story's "key" theme.

The one redeeming feature is that dear old Alan Napier gets a decent chunk of script, and gets to play an additional character. He's very entertaining.

There's a slight mishap in a Batcave scene in which Robin puts one of his gloves on the wrong hand briefly, but Burt Ward recovers quickly.

02:23 Marsha, Queen of Diamonds

Gotham's poilice are on high alert, because the infamous Queen of Diamonds - a renowned jewel thief - is back in town. And she's after the Pretzel Diamond, a huge and very valuable, er, diamond.

She pulls up in a Roller outside the store, or exhibition (it's not clear which) where the diamond is being held, with Chief O'Hara in tow. And O'Hara orders the staff to hand over the diamond to her, on pain of arrest!

It seems that she's able to bend men to her will by dosing them with a love potion, made by her Aunt Hilda in a basement. Hilda is clearly slightly bonkers. She's an ex chemistry professor, but she dresses like a witch, with a pointy hat and everything.

Alas, it's not long before Commissioner Gordon is under her spell. He turns up at her place (it's not exactly a "hideout", everyone seems to know where it is) demanding to know what she's done to O'Hara, he gets shot by her little remote-controlled cupid statuette that fires potion-tipped darts, and three seconds later he adores her. He'll do anything for her. He just wants to worship her. But he goes to join her collection of men in cages.

like the other men the despicable diamond-obsessive has ensnared.

Fearing for Gordon's safety, the Dynamic Duo turn up there. Predictably, Batman gets shot by her "disposition improver". There follows a highly entertaining half minute or so in which the Caped Crusader develops feelings for her and turns a little amorous, but by sheer force of will he's able to regain his composure and defeat it.

She summons her minions, but during the ensuing punch-up, she surreptitiously reloads the statuette and Robin gets the potion-tipped dart! Alas his willpower is not as strong as Batman's, and in no time he's in love with her. He even turns on Batman! The Caped Crusader gives up. He's in a helpless situation.

It turns out that the diamond-dizzy dame wants the Bat Diamond. It's the size of a fridge, and it powers the Bat computer. Conveniently, we see it early on in the episode when the two crime-fighters are doing a bit of maintenance in the Batcave.

If she doesn't get it, she'll never release the young man from her spell. The Boy Wonder will be hers to command forever, a helpless, devoted, besotted slave!

(https://i.ibb.co/nMzM3QNq/batwedding.jpg)

With no other choice, Batman agrees to give her the huge diamond. But she wants more than that - she wants to go to the Batcave with him herself, to pick it up. The Caped Crusader explains that he's taken a vow never to take a stranger there. Marsha's solution to that is that they get married - then she won't be a stranger.

And, amusingly, that's the cliffhanger. Batman's dire predicament this time is that he's about to get married. The episode concludes just before he says "do", having already uttered a very reluctant "I".

Batman's assertion that he never takes strangers to the Batcave is problematic, given that he has twice taken female accomplices of The Riddler there in previous episodes. The first one was disguised as Robin, but the Caped Crusader did know that all along. She ended up dead sadly, but that certainly wasn't the plan.

The second Riddler sidecandy was rendered unconscious by Bat gas for the journeys there and back.

Marsha is Morticia from The Addams Family. She was 36 when this was made, though she does look older and she does have an appealing mature eye candy thing going on.

Quote from: Slim on February 24, 2025, 07:13:38 PM(https://i.ibb.co/1fY387Nk/purpletits.jpg)

Those incredible, pointed, highly- structured undergarments favoured by ladies in that era must have given rise to some incredibly disappointing 'bedroom' situations, methinks  ;D

02:24 Marsha's Scheme of Diamonds

Alfred turns up at Batman's wedding to Marsha, and insists that proceedings are halted. He claims to be a solicitor, and produces documentary evidence, from a registrar in Gloucestershire (which I thought was an odd geographical choice) that Batman is already married! And he brings along Aunt Harriet, posing as the Caped Crusader's wife (another odd choice given that she's in her 60s).

It's all fake of course. Alfred has had the documents printed on the Bat printer. Since they aren't supposed to know each other, the elderly Englishman introduces himself as Bruce Wayne's butler.

The Caped Crusader administers a general all-purpose Bat-antidote to Robin, who's been given a sleeping potion, and frees him from his cage. It just seems to open, despite having a chain round the door. It's not clear why they aren't being guarded. Alfred gives O'Hara and Gordon the antidote as well.

Marsha visits her loony old auntie in the basement and insists she comes up with a stronger potion. She's intent on getting her hands on the Bat Diamond.

Meanwhile back at the Batcave, the Dynamic Duo try to work out where Marsha is. There follows some really terrible technobollocks. Marsha is always surrounded by diamonds. Therefore if they set the Bat radar at the emanating frequency of diamonds - they can calculate the reflection pattern of the diamonds, and make them appear on the Bat radar!

(https://i.ibb.co/Xrj5r8bs/batdiamond.jpg)

I mean I know this is not a TV show to be taken seriously but - please. The worst thing about this is that it's totally unnecessary to the plot, because Commissioner Gordon phones the Caped Crusader to tell him he knows where she is. And actually her location is the same building where they found her first time. Just in the basement. Which just makes it seem even more silly.

Anyway the Dynamic Duo go there. There's a punch-up which, as seems to happen very often, turns into a swordfight. Marsha's henchmen are all Arabic gentlemen in traditional dress with those curvy swords. The loony auntie tries throwing potions, to turn the two crime-fighters into mice, or lizards. They don't work. Finally Marsha throws a knockout gas bomb. Auntie throws a potion over them to turn them into toads.

And it seems to work, because the next thing you know, Marsha's in Commissioner Gordon's office with two caged, caped toads. They speak! They're Batman and Robin! They urge Commissioner Gordon to assist the diabolical diamond-lover on the Bat Diamond, or she'll feed them to her cat!

It's not at all clear why Gordon doesn't just have her arrested on the spot, and remove the cage from her so that she can't harm the two unfortunate toad-transformed troubleshooters. In any case that proves to be unnecessary, because suddenly Batman and Robin turn up in human form! It transpires that Marsha's sidekick / servant was performing an act of brilliant ventriloquism to give the toads their voices.

How did Batman and Robin escape her lair? Yet more abject technobollocks, I'm afraid. Thanks to the extraordinary transmitting powers of the Bat Diamond, the two managed to perform some long-distance computations in the Batcave, by wiring the bars of their cell to convert them to a radio aerial - thereby enabling them to use the Bat computer to calculate the 3,724,521 possible combinations of the tumbler lock on their cell door.

We get a good look at the Bat Diamond at one point in the episode, it looks a bit like a Star Trek prop (see pic). Really the idea of a huge diamond powering a computer is ridiculous, but I expect we won't see it again.

Despite the silliness I didn't think this was a bad one. I liked Marsha. And there's a very funny scene when O'Hara and Gordon discuss how they'll explain their absences, while under Marshas's spell, to their wives. I did like the talking toads, as well.

02:25 Come Back, Shame

A series of car thefts take place in Gotham City. In one particularly audacious theft, a highly expensive racing car is stolen from the Gotham City 100, a highly prestigious oval circuit event. It seems remarkable to me that the perpetrator gets away with this. He just holds up the driver at gunpoint, then he and his gang make off with it. Presumably they just drive it out of the circuit, unhindered.

Anyway the villain this time is Shame, a western desperado played by Cliff Robertson. The odd thing about his crimes is that he steals only one high-spec part from each of the cars that he thieves, leaving the rest abandoned.

Batman and Robin hypothesise that he's building a high performance engine - perhaps to enter a car for the Gotham City Grand Prix the following month, and win a $100,000 prize. They conclude that a camshaft and valve lifters will be next on his shopping list.
So - Bruce Wayne has an announcement made on a radio station that's popular with racing fans. He lets it be known that his car has had a special imported camshaft and high performance valve lifters fitted, and that he'll be showing his car at an auto show the following week.

(https://i.ibb.co/LdK1nyPQ/shamegang.jpg)

So Bruce and Dick get car-jacked. It transpires that Shame really wants the parts so he can build an engine for a truck capable of doing 300mph - so he'll be able to outrun the Batmobile. He's building it at his hideout, an abandoned Western film set at an old movie studio.

But Bruce, or Batman, has cleverly had the car tyres coated with "infra red bat dust" - so that it can be tracked through the Batmobiles special tinted windshield.

The Dynamic Duo turn up at the Cowboy Criminal's hideout. "The best laid plans of mice and men gang aft agley", he tells the assembled villains, in a remark that seems oddly incongruous with this particular story's theme - although I suppose it was written in the era of the Wild West, strictly speaking.

Anyway there is of course a punch up. But the two crime-fighters are overcome when the villainess shoots through the rope holding up a large wooden candle-equipped chandelier over their heads. I think she's based on Annie Oakley.

(https://i.ibb.co/yF2CtM13/stampede.jpg)

Is Shame going to shoot them in cold blood? Well "it wouldn't be sportin'", he says. So instead they get staked to the ground, and he starts a cattle stampede by shooting his pistol into the air.

Exactly where hundreds of cows come from in the vicinity of an abandoned movie set is anyone's guess. It's really best not to dwell on the details, isn't it?

Cliff Robertson is clearly a class act and he does the outlaw cowboy thing to a T, but Shame doesn't really seem like a Batman villain sort of character .. still he does make a change from the usual manic loony in DC comic style villain outfit. A bit like Ma Parker did.

I did enjoy the punch-up in this one. Classic Western style bar room brawl, with bodies sliding along the bar and people getting hit with bottles. I must say, for a little fella, Robin sure packs a meaty punch. At one point he sends someone about twice his weight flying about six feet with a right hook.

02:26 It's How You Play the Game

Fortunately, the rumble of approaching hooves loosens the stakes that Batman's wrists are tied to, so he's able to unplug them from the ground, then use his cape to divert the onrush of cattle, matador-style.

Once free, he and Robin visit a gentleman called Laughing Leo who sells used cars. They've had a tip that he might know what Shame wants with a super-fast truck.

He's not much help, but then he's secretly working with Shame.

Specks of avocado and chile are found on Bruce Wayne's stolen limo once its recovered, and these lead the Dynamic Duo to a motel on the inbound state highway. Sure enough it's the gang's hideout, but they've already gone.

So Batman has an idea. He reckons that the gang have relocated to the old Western set again. Robin objects to this, on the grounds that he and Batman already know about it. But Batman explains that that's exactly why Shame thinks it's the last place they'll look. They go there, but it's a trap! "I knew he'd think I'd think he'd think I'd think he'd think I'd come back here", explains the six-gun totin' villain. The gang are waiting with their guns at the ready. Robin gets shot in the heel! And yet when they have the advantage, the gang "vamoose".

Back at the Batcave, once Robin has been restored to fighting form with some fast-acting Baticillin lozenges, the Caped Crusader remembers that some prize cows (or is it bulls? cattle anyway) worth $300,000 each are due to be shown at the Gotham City Rodeo. Clearly, this must be the Conniving Cowboy of Crime's target. They rush there, but the villains have already made off with their priceless bovine haul in the super-fast truck.

(https://i.ibb.co/fVvPYQC9/kocorral.jpg)

The Boy Wonder comes up with a theory (the logic employed is hysterical, very funny) that the gang and their priceless stolen cattle are at the KO Corral. There follows a very funny parody of the High Noon type shootout scenes from old Westerns, complete with the suspenseful close up of the town clock and the long shot between the villain's legs.

Batman manages to prevent being shot at by the gang by deploying a Bat smoke bomb. He and Robin count the bullets. Then when their foes have run out, the inevitable punch-up occurs, and the villains end up being taken into custody.

One annoying thing about this episode - a kid called "Andy" keeps turning up in pointless little cameos. Also Colonel Klink from Hogan's Heroes does a bat climb window cameo, in character. Which I thought was a stretch given that the series are set more than 20 years apart.

I wasn't too impressed initially with this one but I was won over in the second part. I really liked the Western movie parody element.

So far we've had a different villain for each of the 13 two-parters in the second series so far. But I do believe The Penguin is back next time.

02:27 The Penguin's Nest

The Penguin is out of prison. Quite why he'd have been released in the 20th century considering the severity of his previous crimes is anyone's guess, but anyway he's mastered the are of haute cuisine in the kitchens of Gotham City Penitentiary and he's opened a high class restaurant called The Penguin's Nest.

And yet it's clear that the Feathered Fink wants to go back to prison. He steals a diamond bracelet, under Chief O'Hara's nose. He assaults Commissioner Gordon with a pie. He even stages a mock execution of one of his gang when he knows that Batman and Robin have him under surveillance.

He seems to get his wish, when Batman puts the Bat cuffs on him - only to find himself at the city jail for petty crooks instead of the penitentiary - for discharging an umbrella gun at a licensed restaurant, which is a breach of Gotham City's sanitary code.

Batman finds out that Ballpoint Baxter, a notorious forger, has the cell at the penitentiary next to The Penguin's usual cell. He surmises that the wily old bird's plan is to use the hand-written orders from the wealthy guests at his restaurant to have Baxter forge blank cheques. How could he possibly get his hand on blank cheque forms? Well the inmates can just order them from the prison print shop. The idea is to teach them to handle their personal finances responsibly. I love the running joke about Warden Crichton's excessively liberal rehabilitation methods.

(https://i.ibb.co/qLw7gqkt/gunpoint.jpg)

At this point it seemed to me that the obvious solution would be to humour The Penguin's desire to go back to the pen, but put him in a different cell and keep the two apart. But that wouldn't make for much of a two-parter, so ..

The avian antagonist's gang turn up at the jail to free him. The Dynamic Duo arrive there at the same time. There's a punch-up naturally. But O'Hara blunders in, the villainous cutie gets the drop on him with her revolver and The Penguin and his villainous cohorts leave with him as their hostage.

Later, The Penguin calls Commissioner Gordon, with the Caped Crusader and Boy Wonder present, and asks the two to meet him at the old abandoned navy recreation centre, where there's a swimming pool. He promises the two crime-fighters a fair fight, but of course it's a trap!

(https://i.ibb.co/HD3K4jXk/poolelec.jpg)

In what must be one of the very silliest cliffhangers to date, O'Hara is trapped inside a metal trunk at the top of the swimming pool's slide. The villains are going to open fire on the Batmobile with a heavy machine gun (painted purple and white for reasons unknown) then electrify the pool and push O'Hara, in the trunk, down the slide!

I mean if they're planning to murder the Dynamic Duo as soon as they turn up, why the theatrical finale for O'Hara?

Anyway, a decent one I thought. The Penguin's appearance in this story propels him to the top of the villain appearances league table. This is the fifth Penguin two-parter.

Lurch from The Addams Family has a Bat climb window cameo. Might have been nice to have it in the one with Carolyn Jones (Morticia) as Marsha.

02:28 The Bird's Last Jest

The Dynamic Duo arrive at the abandoned navy recreation centre, only to be met by a hail of heavy machine gun fire. Holy Guadalcanal! As Robin points out. But the two advance under the cover of the Bat Shield. Penguins henchmen push O'Hara in the metal trunk into the pool. But Batman uses a Bat inverter to reverse the polarity of the electric cables running into the pool - thereby turning it into a giant anti-magnet - and the water propels the metal trunk out, and onto the side of the pool. Done by running film backwards of course, but very funny. I must say for a supposedly "abandoned" place, the old navy recreation centre is remarkably well maintained.

The Penguin and his dastardly gang are taken into custody, and there's a trial scene. Kidnapping and attempted murder are the two most serious charges. But the waddling, pompous wrongdoer points out that his lawful rights were violated when he wasn't sent to the penitentiary. The judge accepts his view that since he was deprived of his rights - it's not Batman's place to decide who goes to the pen and who doesn't - he had no other recourse but to take matters into his own hands.

(https://i.ibb.co/LhPB45hC/cook-alfred.jpg)

Batman comes up with a clever scheme - he applies false fingerprints to Alfred and has him masquerade at The Penguin's restaurant as Quillpen Quirch, a British master forger of high renown. The feathered felon checks the fingerprints from a glass - remarkably, he keeps fingerprint records in the restaurant's kitchen - and Batman's ruse nearly succeeds - until the waddling master criminal recognises him as Bruce Wayne's butler.

Remembering that Wayne is a prominent bank director, the Pengster reasons that the millionaire is trying to foil his cheque forgery initiative. He has Alfred encased in a huge pie crust, then takes it to Wayne Manor. He threatens to light a burner under the pie and cook the hapless butler unless Bruce compensates him to the tune of $1,000,000. Bruce and Dick make excuses to leave the room and get the cash, then a minute later, Batman and Robin appear.

(https://i.ibb.co/Q727vWQx/ballpoint.jpg)

There's a punch-up of course. The eye candy nearly gets the upper hand by holding Harriet and gunpoint, but Alfred emerges from the pie and disarms her, while Harriet knocks a vase over her head.

It's bang to rights. The gang are off to the penitentiary. But wait, that's exactly what they want isn't it? Well it would be, but Bruce Wayne has arranged parole for Ballpoint Baxter. He's going to teach penmanship to underprivileged children for the Wayne Foundation. Ballpoint looks a bit like Joe Bonamasa.

Odd that the defeated villains are always taken to Commissioner Gordon's office before being carted off to the pen. I had the odd thought from Robin's "Holy Guadalcanal" remark that World War 2 ended only 21 years before this was filmed. Adam West would have been a teenager during the Guadalcanal campaign.

Quote from: Slim on March 03, 2025, 07:15:41 PMIt's bang to rights. The gang are off to the penitentiary. But wait, that's exactly what they want isn't it? Well it would be, but Bruce Wayne has arranged parole for Ballpoint Baxter. He's going to teach penmanship to underprivileged children for the Wayne Foundation. Ballpoint looks a bit like Joe Bonamasa.

I've just read that Ballpoint, pictured above, was played by Stanley Ralph Ross - who wrote 27 Batman episodes. Although not this one, ironically.

Although his appearance here was a brief non-speaking part he was a prolific voiceover actor. He wrote Man from U.N.C.L.E and Monkees episodes as well.

02:29 The Cat's Meow

Catwoman is out of prison again and she's formed a group, Catwoman and the Kittens. She's due to appear at the Police Benevolent Society Ball, on the same bill as English singing sensations Chad and Jeremy.

But of course the felonious feline has no intention of going straight. She has an electronic device that makes people lose their voice completely. She uses it on a radio presenter. It even works down the phone, as Commissioner Gordon unfortunately finds out - but not before she's charmed him into telling him where Chad and Jeremy are staying. Wayne Manor.

(https://i.ibb.co/C3fw4nZZ/catty.jpg)

She turns up there to check the place out in the guise of a dance instructor named Miss Klutz, to give Dick some dancing lessons. But her cover is blown when she sneezes. Her hair comes down, the glasses come off, and Dick recognises her immediately. She throws a knockout gas pellet and makes a run for it.

So the Dynamic Duo track her down to the dance studios that are her cover. There's a punch-up, but she manages to subdue the two crime-fighters by scratching them with her super-sharp kitty fingernails, laced with a sleeping drug.

(https://i.ibb.co/RGmDpzq1/watertorture.jpg)

They awake in an enormous acoustic torture chamber, designed to amplify the sound of water tapping onto a drum above their heads ten million times! Their brains will be turned to mush!

Catwoman's assistant Eenie is played by Sharyn Wynters who although she must be about 80 years old, still looks pretty good (pic below taken this year). Unfortunately she seems to be a MAGA fruit loop and a "naturopath". She also dabbles as a jazz singer and having had a listen on YouTube I have to admit that although she's not brilliant, she's not bad.

(https://i.ibb.co/J06LPkp/wynters.jpg)

02:30 The Bat's Kow Tow

Batman remembers that glass can be shattered by sympathetic vibration. He implores Robin to hum an F# above high C along with him. Actually Batman hums a C#, ie a semitone above middle C (I checked). Robin hums an E, a major third above high C. Nonetheless, the glass side of the acoustic torture chamber shatters and they're out. Obviously Catwoman and her gang have already left. The villains never seem to hang around to see their diabolical lethal schemes to the expected conclusion.

Catwoman's plan, as the Caped Crusader learns from one of her associates who's stayed behind to sweep the floor, is to steal Chad and Jeremy's voices at their show at Gotham's Town Hall that evening. And she does! Clearly security is a bit lapse at the Town Hall, but she turns up with her gang and points her voice eraser device at them from stage left. Batman and Robin arrive there but it's too late. She and her cohorts get away.

The cat-like criminal intends to extort £8 million for the return of their voices. Who will pay this monstrous sum of money? England will. Because, as she goes on to say, England swings like a pendulum do. She argues that without Chad and Jeremy's income tax payments, the British Empire would crumble and the Pound would be deflated. Batman realises that once this happens, the entire economic structure of the world would collapse.

(https://i.ibb.co/zhk62CYT/chadjeremy.jpg)

She also mentions that £8m comes to more than $22m, and I checked - in 1966, she's not wrong.

So the Dynamic Duo pay a visit to the British Consul General, a delightfully stereotypical English old codger with a handlebar moustache. He passes on the news (from "Harold", presumably Wilson) that Blighty won't be paying a penny to Catwoman.

Batman collects a tape of Catwoman's phone call to Commissioner Gordon from O'Hara. He runs it through the Batcave's Bat Sound Analyzer (sic) and learns that three hair dryers can be heard faintly in the background. Well that's not much help. Gotham City has over 2,000 beauty salons. Shortly afterwards, Robin - in his persona as Dick - checks on Chad and Jeremy. Still unable to speak, they pass on a message on a piece of notepaper. They'd like to get their hair done - at Mr Oceanbring's, Gotham's world-famous hair stylist. Are there hair dryers there? Dick wants to know. Why yes! Three! The Boy Wonder therefore concludes that Catwoman is hiding out there. The logic is not compelling, is it? And yet - of course - he's right.

(https://i.ibb.co/wrsb4sW8/gothamconsul.jpg)

They go there, there's a punch-up, the two crime-fighters emerge victorious of course, but the Fiendish Feline legs it. The Caped Crusader runs after her - she ambushes him round a corner and has him at gunpoint with her sonic beam weapon.

And yet - she can't do it. She has feelings for him. She gives up and comes quietly. She explains how to restore the stolen voices, and there's a touching little romantic scene between them before Robin turns up and spoils the fun. In any case, it's Game Over.

Chad and Jeremy appear at the Town Hall again, and Commissioner Gordon, Dick, Bruce, Alfred and Harriet attend. Harriet opines that they are "very hep". "It's 'hip' Aunt Harriet, they changed it", Dick tells her. The Commissioner considers them to be "a bit on the groovy side".

(https://i.ibb.co/xt8ztTF2/catandbat.jpg)

Julie Newmar is brilliant in this role. The clever comic touches, the mannerisms, the magnetic sex appeal that goes to 11. The sheer charm. I think she may be the most exquisite woman ever to have lived. I must watch the 1966 movie again to see how Lee Meriwether does with the part.

There's a Bat rope window cameo from Don Ho. I wasn't aware of him, he was a Hawaiian pop star.

Chad and Jeremy were a real thing and had a few hits in the '60s, though in the real world outside the Batman universe, they weren't Britain's most popular export.

02:31 The Puzzles Are Coming

Another brand new villain for the second series, this time The Puzzler. There is a Puzzler in the DC Comics universe, but not in Batman comics - so it's safe to say that this particular criminal has nothing to do with that one. He's a rather effete, mildly Quentin-Crisp-ish old theatrical luvvie with a habit of quoting Shakespeare all the time. He's English, of course.

The old poofter has teamed up with a massively wealthy entrepreneur called Artemis Knab for a new venture - puzzle balloons. But Knab also dabbles in the aerospace industry, and he's launching a brand new jet aircraft called The Retsoor. The Puzzler intends to steal it.

It seems that The character was invented by the TV show folks to use (most of) a script intended for a Riddler story. Frank Gorshin was in a salary dispute with them. Like The Riddler, The Puzzler always sends a clue first in the form of a puzzle (or riddle).

(https://i.ibb.co/yntrsjZZ/thepuzzler.jpg)

So the pernicious ponce turns up at the launch party at Gotham Airport, for the Retsoor. Impressively, an actual jet aircraft is used on the set, so I think this was filmed at an actual airport. It's a Lear Jet. But he renders the guests immobile and stupefied by popping the balloons he's given to the guests, which contain an invisible stupefying gas. He steals their jewellery and takes some photos of the aircraft's controls.

Batman and Robin turn up there, only to be stupefied themselves. The English Evildoer and his hoodlums make off with their loot (and the photos). But using the usual comically improbable logic applied to a clue provided to them, the Dynamic Duo soon catch up with them at the Old Globe balloon factory. There's a punch-up naturally, but the felonious fop overcomes the crime-fighters by throwing model aircraft with drug-tipped pointy spikes. The Shakespeare-obsessed shyster has the two tied up and placed in a hot air balloon. He performs The Unkindest Cut of All on the tether rope, to release it from the ground. Once it reaches 20,000 feet the basket will detach automatically, sending them to their deaths!

(https://i.ibb.co/1t9Vj3FT/batballoon.jpg)

As usual there are some very funny throwaway lines. Robin refers to Artemis Knab as a "reasonably successful multi-billionaire".

I'm sorry to report that - not to be unkind - this one has a rather low standard of eye candy. And I'm not too impressed with The Puzzler. As with The Minstrel, his gimmicks - a love of Shakespeare, a tendency to provide puzzle clues and an unhealthy interest in aviation - are a bit of a mismatch. But we'll see how the second part unfolds.

The Puzzler is played by Maurice Evans, who was quite well known in the US for appearing on TV productions of Shakespeare plays. He gained US citizenship in 1941 and joined the US Army during the war. But he returned to the UK at the end of the '60s. His Wikipedia entry notes that he never married. I think he probably played for the other side.

02:32 The Duo Is Slumming

In the nick of time, Robin manages to seal the air hole of the hot air balloon's altimeter with a piece of discarded chewing gum (they work on air pressure, y'know). But having prevented the basket being released at 20,000 feet, they have a new problem - they're still floating helplessly up toward the stratosphere.

We saw Robin, or Dick practicising his bird calls at the beginning of the previous episode, and now we see why. Batman remembers that a species of unusually agressive, high-flying bird is migrating south at the moment. He urges Robin to try to attract one. Robin expertly performs a bird call, one of the birds (a "high-flying new thatch bird") turns up and, infuriated by Robin's intervention, pecks a hole in the balloon. The two float safely to earth. They land in a remote site in the wilds upstate of Gotham, but conveniently there's a phone booth about six feet away.

Meanwhile the villainess sidekick is visiting Artemis Knab (the "bulti-millionaire" as she calls him, I suspect a slip of the tongue rather than scripted). She drugs his cup of tea, rendering him unconscious. The Puzzler enters, cracks open his safe (while copiously quoting Shakespeare naturally) and photographs the blueprints of the new jet.

The blueprints consist of about seven pieces of paper. I read somewhere years ago that when the blueprints for the Merlin engine were provided to Packard by Rolls-Royce so that it could be built under licence in the US, they had to be loaded onto the back of a truck.

Anyway the pernicious poof leaves a deliberate clue in an envelope for the Caped Crusader in the form of the single word "PUZZLES". Based on this being seven characters long and bearing in mind an old Shakespeare line, Batman reasons that it's something to do with a phone number, with odd numbers in it. He gets it right first go. During their brief telephone conversation, the larcenous luvvie offers him another puzzle clue.

He's also provided Commissioner Gordon with an odd clue in the form of a rooster delivered in a large box. It's an odd name for an aircraft, "Retsoor," but it is "rooster" spelled backwards. A bit contrived and rubbish really.

But the Dynamic Duo reach the necessary conclusion and they're off to the airport just in time to stop the fiendish fop and his gang of wrongdoers flying off in the new aircraft, following a punch up of course. Robin gets stuffed into one of the jet intakes at one point but fortunately they hadn't powered it up yet.

It's not a great one, but I don't believe we see The Puzzler again.

02:33 The Sandman Cometh

Catwoman is out of prison again somehow. It's no wonder she's a repeat offender when you consider how leniently the Batman universe judicial system deals with attempted murder. She's teamed up with a European master criminal called Sandman - played by Michael Rennie, who was the visiting alien in one of my favourite ever films, The Day the Earth Stood Still fifteen years earlier.

Between them, they intend to rob the millionairess J Pauline Spaghetti. The world's only billionaire in 1966 was called J Paul Getty. I quite like what they did there.

Of course they intend to double-cross each other.

(https://i.ibb.co/5xxf60BJ/cats-sand.jpg)

By means of an elaborate stunt involving Catwoman posing as a sleeping person in the window of a department store that sells beds, then being interviewed on TV following a fake abduction - it does sort of make sense when you watch it - the two master criminals manage to bring J Pauline's attention to the services of Doctor Somnambula, Sandman's alter ego. She's had trouble sleeping for years. He goes to her penthouse suite at her hotel, administers a sort of hypno-drug, then photographs her financial records. This is a really funny scene. The old bird, under the influence of the drug, locates her files for him, shovelling through piles of banknotes and valuable jewellery in her dressing table.

In the meantime, the Dynamic Duo consider the situation, and enlist the help of the Bat Computer. It literally oozes strings of pink spaghetti. From this, the two realise that J Pauline is the target of the two master criminals' attentions. So they turn up at the millionairess' penthouse - but find no evidence of wrongdoing. All her valuables and cash are still in place.

(https://i.ibb.co/sJFNGhYY/batspag.jpg)

Nonetheless, acting on some clue that isn't particlarly well-explained, the crime-fighters visit the Morpheus Mattress Factory. They find Sandman and his gang there. Of course there's a punch-up, with pillow stuffing and feathers flying everywhere. But the two are overcome. Robin gets a dose of the hypno-drug. Batman gets restrained in a giant stitching machine!

Early on, Catwoman discovers that one of her feline assistants is an undercover policewoman. Hopefully we'll find out if the brave officer of the law escapes the vengeance of the feline fiend in the next one.

Not sure why the writers of this one are so keen to stress Sandman's credentials as European, but he's referred to variously as "Europe's crack criminal" and a "continental criminal". Michael Rennie was actually from Bradford, although he cultivated a refined mid-atlantic vocal manner for career purposes. I always thought he was a well-spoken American, to be honest. Certainly there's not a trace of West Yorkshire in his voice.

Any Batman episode with Catwoman in it has got to be a good one, though she seems to be the lesser criminal partner here. Hopefully we'll see more of her in the second part. But irrespective of that this story does seem to have a bit of a decent plot, which is not that usual. Interesting to see a double-villain episode for the first time (not counting Chandell & Harry who were both played by Liberace).

2:34 The Catwoman Goeth

In the Batmobile, Sandman delivers Robin in his drugged state to Catwoman. She forces him into a dimly lit electrified maze, from which he may never escape! She's already thrown the undercover policewoman in there. But in the meantime, the giant stitching machine punches through one of Batman's restraints, allowing him to free himself.

Fortunately, Batman is able to locate the Batmobile by means of the Batmobile Tracker Map in the Batcave. Alfred gives him a lift to the run down factory - helpfully labelled RUN DOWN FACTORY - where Sandman has abandoned it.

(https://i.ibb.co/YBV3DPVn/catbats.jpg)

Meanwhile - Commissioner Gordon learns that Sandman, having easily overcome J Pauline's police protection, has eloped with the pasta billionairess - to J Pauline Spaghetti Island. He's got his hands on her entire fortune! And (as expected) he's double crossed Catwoman by passing on her Cat Lair address to the Caped Crusader.

Batman pays her a visit. The catty criminal agrees to co-operate, but as Batman goes to free Robin (and the undercover cop lady), she attempts to do a runner. But the Gotham City Police arrive to take her into custody.

So the Dynamic Duo race off to the island in the Bat Boat (same footage we saw last time, possibly reused from the feature film). They find Sandman and his gang there with J Pauline. Of course there's a punch up. And it's Game Over for the sleep-oriented scoundrel and his henchmen.

(https://i.ibb.co/6R5fGnFF/rookiebrolin.jpg)

One disappointing thing about this one - usually the Batman folks do a sterling job with the stunt doubles, but the guy they got to take the punches and falls for Michael Rennie looks nothing like him.

Oh yes, and there's an amusing scene in which a cocky rookie cop is talked out of giving Batman tickets for three traffic violations by his partner. The rookie is none other than James Brolin! I noticed his name in the credits and I think he was in a previous Catwoman episode as well, in a bit part as a driver.

Decent two-parter, on the whole.

2:35 The Contaminated Cowl

When seven hundred hat boxes are stolen from a box boutique in Gotham City, it can only be the work of The Mad Hatter, recently escaped from Gotham Penitentiary. he's finally putting away his collection of stolen hats.

But he must have one more prize for his collection - Batman's cowl. Also, Gotham's Grande Dame of local society Hatty Hatfield is holding her annual head-dress ball, and she'll be wearing the famous Hatfield ruby in her ridiculous headwear. The headwear-fixated hoodlum goes there disguised as the Three-tailed Pasha of Panchagorum, to steal it. The Dynamic Duo anticipate his move of course, so they go there as well (up the side of the building of course, although it's more than 60 floors up, with glass walls).

(https://i.ibb.co/HfnsHpy9/hattercandy.jpg)

They confront the cranial accessory crook and his gang, but despite a spirited punch up, he gets away with the ruby - but not before spraying Batman's cowl with a radioactive substance that turns it pink!

All Batman's spare cowls are in the bat-dry-cleaning plant. So the Dynamic Duo rush to Gotham's Atomic Energy Laboratory, to enlist the help of Professor Overbach in having it decontaminated.

But The Mad Hatter and his gang have followed him there. Batman removes his cowl behind a screen and following a scuffle, Hatter - disguised as the professor's assistant, Otto - steals it. When the two crime-fighters confront the wrongdoers in the lab moments later, they get overcome very quickly. Not even a punch up! And they are thrown into a fluoroscopic cabinet, about to be bombarded with deadly radiation.

(https://i.ibb.co/LDf1t6jx/pinkcowl.jpg)

I wasn't particularly looking forward to another Mad Hatter two-parter as I didn't like the first one that much, but this one had an unexpectedly strong first part. The character seemed a bit more interesting this time. Seems to have a bit more pompous swagger and cunning.

Very high standard of villainess eye candy in this one.

2:36 The Mad Hatter Runs Afoul

As the episode opens, we see the skeletonised remains of the Dynamic Duo, apparently having met their end in the high voltage x-ray fluoroscopic cabinet. As the tragic news spreads, world leaders are informed. Crowds gather everywhere. O'Hara and Gordon sob uncontrollably (hilarious scene, that one). Businesses shut down.

I'm at a bit of a loss to understand why the news would meet with such a profound global response given that they only ever solve crimes in Gotham City. But anyway - of course it's a ruse. The Caped Crusader used the Bat X-Ray deflector from his utility belt to defeat The Mad Hatter's lethal scheme, and substituted model skeletons.

Sorry to say that the plot, such as it is, does unravel a bit in the second part. There's no particular reason for the Dynamic Duo to fake their own deaths, or at least it wasn't obvious to me. The ruby stolen from Hatty Hatfield turns out to be a replica, The Mad Hatter supposedly knowing this all along. He intends to switch it for a real ruby from a buddha statue at an exhibition. And there's a plot element about a tracking device in the contaminated cowl being hidden in a water tower which seems to be there only as an excuse for an interesting location for a punch up. it makes little sense.

(https://i.ibb.co/ZphbHcxD/atthetower.jpg)

It is a pretty good punch up though, filmed up a real water tower. Excellent work from Robin's stunt double hanging off the railings high up (I assume there was a large safety net).

On the whole a pleasing two-parter - nice to see that David Wayne, the actor portraying the villain of the piece, had fleshed out the character a bit. In particular in this second story, the Hatter has a delightfuly contorted, excessively patrician English accent. The eye candy is quite special in this one as well.

Wayne was American, born in Michigan where he grew up. But he joined the British Army at the beginning of WW2. He joined the US Army a couple of years later.

This is the first two parter to be shown in 1967. I'm 70 episodes in now.

2:37 The Zodiac Crimes

The Joker is back. And this time, he's teamed up with The Penguin! The Master of Maudlin Mockery has enlisted the help of the Feathered Fink to perform a crime wave in Gotham City, based on signs of the Zodiac. Naturally he lets Commissioner Gordon know what he's up to, first.

The Dynamic Duo's investigations first lead them to visit Gotham's new singing sensations The Twins - there they find, then pursue The Penguin - but it's a ruse to divert their attention while The Joker robs a jewellery store of two huge diamonds, also called The Twins (Gemini, y'see).

The two crime-fighters derive the location of The Joker's hideout using the usual Batcave tech. They go there, but only the cutie villainess is present. But they persuade her to see the error of her ways, and help them.

(https://i.ibb.co/PZ7T0rX5/crimpair.jpg)

She tells them that the giggling ghoul's next crime is due to take place at an operatic performance. The Penguin is to meet him there. There's a punch up on the stage while the opera singer, Leo Crustash (representing Leo and Cancer - the crab) continues obliviously until he's kidnapped by The Joker and his gang. But Batman and Robin are at least able to apprehend The Penguin.

One of Gotham City's most valuable art treasures, a statue called The Virgin Bereaved (Virgo of course) is assumed to be The Joker's next target. So the two noble guardians of the law plan to wait for him at the museum. Unfortunately, some of the statues there are really Joker's gang in disguise and make up. The arch criminals of Gotham City go to a great deal of trouble in pursuance of their criminal lifestyles, sometimes.

(https://i.ibb.co/HpKhQr6G/terrymoore.jpg)

After a protracted punch up, the Dynamic Duo are overcome by some sort of debilitating substance. They get strapped underneath an exhibit of an 8 ton meteorite beneath a solar system model. The grinning fiend has attached a thermite bomb to the planet Saturn - at dawn, it will make its way round to the cable holding up the meteorite and burn through it - flattening the Caped Crusader and Boy Wonder.

The was the first episode of a three-parter.

Impressed with the eye candy in this one - she has a nice comic touch with the overdone melodrama and her performance as a spoiled Southern Belle in the jewellery store was spot on. Terry Moore. She was pally with Marilyn Monroe and dated James Dean, although both had died by the time this Batman episode was made. And she was married to Howard Hughes at one point allegedly, although there seems to be a bit of doubt about that. Still with us at the age of 96.

2:38 The Joker's Hard Times

Batman manages to reach his Batarang. He throws it, and dislodges the thermite bomb that threatened to burn through the cable holding up the 8 ton meteorite. Conveniently, the thermite bomb (actually it looks a lot like a firework) lands on the platform so that he can use it to burn through the ropes binding his wrists.

The meteorite drops just seconds later after they've escaped from under it, although given that the thermite object didn't burn through the cable, it's not really clear why.

Meanwhile The Joker continues with his Zodiac crime spree. He steals a marble statue of a figure with the scales of justice (Libra). His villainous sidecandy steals a priceless item of jewellery called the Golden Scorpion, armed with a quick-drying cement spray to avoid being pursued (Scorpio, of course). He kidnaps a millionaire named Bowman (Sagittarius. The archer, of course). The Dynamic Duo arrive too late to save the hapless millionaire, but on the plus side, Venus, the villainess, realises the error of her ways again, and offers to help the two crime-fighters.

(https://i.ibb.co/VWMmb4fh/terryandbats.jpg)

She leads them to a record shop where the Dynamic Duo help themselves to a punch-up with Joker's gang and free Leo Crustash, the opera singer kidnapped in the first part.

And in a hilarious scene, he steals two priceless tropical fish - the last of their species, no less - being exhibited in a fountain at Gotham Park. He swoops in with a fishing net on the end of a cherry picker. His henchmen keep the fish at bay by throwing fish at them. And they kidnap the treacherous Venus.

The Caped Crusader and Boy Wonder give chase in the Batmobile, but when they catch up with the giggling ghoul and his twisted henchmen at their hideout- it's a trap! They get ensnared in a huge net.

There follows possibly the most monstrous cliffhanger we've seen so far, when the two crime-fighters and the reformed cutie are chained and left in some sort of indoor water feature, to be fed to a grotesque, carnivorous giant clam. By the time the credits roll, the monumental mollusc has already started to eat Robin - only his feet are visible, sticking out of the creature's mouth! If that's what clams have. Kudos to the prop designers. It's just delightfully, hilariously grotesque.

(https://i.ibb.co/MX80CDY/robinswallowed.jpg)

(https://i.ibb.co/JR9d8j54/batfear.jpg)

Once again Terry Moore puts in a bravura performance as the villainess with a conscience. The scene in which she rather amorously comes over to the good side definitely owes something to her old pal Marilyn Monroe. I think she must be the highest quality eye candy we've seen so far, Catwoman episodes excepted of course.

We don't see The Penguin in this one, but I believe he's back in the third part.

2:39 The Penguin Declines

Batman frees himself from his chains and prises open the vile clam creature's jaws. Or whatever they are. He pulls Robin out of its mouth, and unchains Venus.

It's a bit of a cop out cliffhanger escape, Batman finding the "inner strength" to break his chains. But there's no doubt that it was a phenomenal cliffhanger.

So Venus is taken to Bruce Wayne's midtown apartment, while The Joker's gang spring The Penguin from prison again, in a laundry bag. The giggling ghoul wants to enlist his fellow arch-criminal's help in eliminating Batman once and for all.

Penguin goes off to visit Venus at Bruce Wayne's apartment (The Joker has tracked her there using a homing device), There's a revolting scene in which the feathered fink charms her with expensive perfume and champagne. He persuades her that he's going straight, and pleads with her to persuade Batman to take her to the Batcave, where she can surreptitiously remove his file (a punched card of course) from the Bat Computer.

Meanwhile The Joker turns Gotham City's entire water supply to strawbarry "jelly" by emptying a couple of test tubes into the reservoir. In American English, I think "jelly" is something like jam. Odd cove, Johnny American. The gloop comes out of every tap in the city. The face-painted fiend wants $10m to restore the water supply. It's his Aquarius crime.

(https://i.ibb.co/N6B8vKP7/batcopter.jpg)

Fortunately, the Dynamic Duo are able to save the day. They rush to the reservoir in the Batcopter (I assume the footage we see is re-used from the feature film). Batman puts the portable Bat lab to good use (it's a sort of chemistry set in a red briefcase). He concocts a formula to transform the red gloop into water again, and launches it into the reservoir with the aid of an exploding Batarang.

So Venus pleads with the Caped Crusader to take her to the Batcave. He agrees to take her there under the influence of Bat gas, so she won't know where it is.

But shortly after they arrive there, somehow The Joker, The Penguin and no less than five of their goons emerge from the boot (or "trunk") of the Batmobile. The Penguin levels his deadly umbrella gun at the Dynamic Duo. He's going to off them so that the two dastardly wrongdoers can turn the Batcave into a giant criminal HQ!

There is, I'm afraid, a rather silly plot device to conclude the story, in which Batman supposedly intended to draw the two super-felons to his lair so that he could subject them to his Bat-spectograph criminal analyser, to record their bone structure, metabolism rate, retina patterns and other scientific data for his records.

(https://i.ibb.co/YTDxV8fX/batcave-crims.jpg)

And he's made sure the umbrella gun doesn't work by placing a negative ion attractor in the boot, to deplete its power source.

Still - there's a splendid punch up in the Batcave, after which the two arch-felons are off to prison, under the influence of Bat gas, of course. They may have visited the Batcave, but they still don't know where it is.

Well - I think the main takeaway from the first three-parter is that Batman plots aren't really good enough to sustain them. At least on the evidence of this one, the two-parters work better. This one tried my patience a bit, despite the excellence of the eye candy and the participation of two of the main villains.

Anyway although he wasn't in the second part, The Penguin's presence here sees him take first place in the appearance league table, with six stories under his belt.

2:40 That Darn Catwoman

Robin addresses a graduating class at one of Gotham's high schools. He urges them to remember always to obey the law and support the local police. But shortly afterwards, a young woman with pink cat ears approaches him.

She is none other than Pussycat, Catwoman's new protégé.

(https://i.ibb.co/FL8DqXLP/catsgore.jpg)

She scratches his neck with a sharp claw dosed with a drug called catophrenic designed to reverse his normal moral and ethical standards. It takes effect immediately, transforming him into an adolescent hoodlum! A minute later, he's physically assaulted Chief O'Hara.

Later, Catwoman and her gang - including Robin - turn up at Wayne Manor. Robin ties up Alfred and Harriet while the gang loot the safe. Catwoman helps herself to a saucer of milk. Brilliant.

(https://i.ibb.co/Z1hW2sKK/catsrobin.jpg)

Batman is alarmed and troubled by this turn of events of course, especially when the feline feloness telephones him to let him know that she plans to commit a series of robberies - and if he, or the police interfere, she'll have the Boy Wonder killed instantly. The Caped Crusader replies that she is odious, abhhorent and insegrevious. I must admit that last one was a new one on me.

She robs an eccentric inventor of the cash under his mattress. And she steals a large sum of banknotes from a wealthy prince at his embassy. He's performing an annual ceremony in which he has himself weighed in a huge scale, before distributing his weight in banknotes to orphans. No expense spared, for the Batman set designers.

(https://i.ibb.co/LqRqZFc/saucermilk.jpg)

Batman's waiting for her at the embassy - and there's a punch up, but this time he's taking blows from his own (usually) faithful sidekick! he nobly declines to punch back.

The arch criminaless and her gang get away, but the Dark Knight Detective follows them to her lair. Is it a trap? Well judging by the sign reading "Catwoman's in here" on the door, it might well be. Sure enough, Batman ends up rendered unconscious and strapped to a giant mousetrap. Unless he agrees to help the evil villainess, he'll be snapped into two pieces.

And he doesn't .. so .. Robin gleefully begins to saw through the rope restraining the huge trap's spring with a large knife.

Catwoman's lair is in "New Guernsey". Just another clue that Gotham City is a sort of alternative universe version of New York.

Pussycat is played by Lesley Gore, best known as the singer who had a hit with It's My Party in 1963. In the Batman universe she's a rock'n'roll singer gone bad, so she gets to sing a song for the gang in Catwoman's hideout, making this episode a musical of sorts. It feels superfluous of course, but hey - it's Lesley Gore.

I must say Burt Ward does the unpleasant adolescent criminal thing to a T. Very good. But as always, it's Julie Newmar who steals the show. I'm sure she ad-libs some of the little comic flourishes. You couldn't script them.

2:41 Scat! Darn Catwoman

With Robin's knife having made it nearly all the way through the rope restraining the huge Bat Trap spring, Batman agrees to become her partner in crime. Not to spare himself - but to prevent Robin becoming a murderer.

Catwoman insists that he undergoes a dose of her wicked catophrenic potion to erode his morality and warp his sense of ethics, but - suspiciously - he asks if he can take a Bat pill for his headache first, leaving the viewer in no doubt that he's taken some sort of preventative antidote drug. Nonetheless the Caped Crusader acts the part convincingly well, becoming slightly lecherous, wilfully participating in her criminal schemes and addressing her as "Cat baby".

(https://i.ibb.co/sdyJCMHF/robinknife.jpg)

They go off to commit crimes in the Batmobile, which doesn't escape the attention of Gotham City's police department. Commissioner Gordon sends out an APB to have them both arrested. Dead or alive, he says.

Next, Batman and Catwoman visit an old criminal's home, to acquire some secret plans for Gotham City's mint from a retired gangster, in exchange for the $1m that the catty criminal has robbed from various sources.

Gotham City Police department receive an anonymous tip (surely from the Caped Crusader) as to the whereabouts of the Cat Lair. They turn up there and arrest Robin and Pussycat. Shame, because the Boy Wonder was doing his best to cop off with her. But she never kisses on the first crime.

So, with the Cat Lair now known to the police, Catwoman insists that Batman takes her to the Batcave. And he does! But he gives her a blast of Bat gas first so she won't know where it is. When she awakes there, he tells her she fainted. They leave again shortly afterwards, but not before the Caped Crusader has left instructions for Alfred to take some Bat antidote pills to Robin, presently in police custody. He gives Catwoman another blast of Bat gas, though we don't find out what his excuse for rendering his new boss unconscious again is. Presumably he tells her she fainted again.

Anyway at 5AM the next morning, Catwoman and the gang, including Batman of course, break into the mint via the secret, concealed entrance revealed in the $1 million plans. But when she blows the vault with special silent explosive, who should jump out but the Boy Wonder - no longer under feline felon's influence.

Batman was never under the influence of the drug either, of course. There's a punch up. The henchmen lose but the arch-criminaless escapes in the Batmobile!

The Dynamic Duo give chase in a squad car borrowed from Gotham's finest. How can they hope to catch up with the atomic turbine-powered Batmobile? Well Batman has a remote control of course (and we saw this in one of the Penguin stories in the first series, I think. Although it was a bit more convoluted that time, involving a relay to the Batcave as I recall).

The Batmobile comes to a graceful halt outside a building overlooking the West River. There's some nice location shooting here, presumably on some rooftop in Los Angeles. She climbs to the roof of the building. He gives chase. Finally, he has her cornered on the edge of the roof. There's nowhere to go but a 100+ foot drop to the water!

He pleads with her to give herself up. He'll do anything he can to rehabilitate her. Anything? "Marry me", she says. "Everything except that", he says. And, having watched 75 of these this year, I can say that this is the only scene from any of them that I definitely remember watching as a child, or a teenager. Or both. I wondered if we'd see it on the TV series or the movie.

She falls backwards into the water. The Caped Crusader pulls out a Batkerchief, and has a bit of a cry. But has she merely used up one of her nine lives?

Pretty good two-parter. There's a musical interlude from Pussycat in the second part as well. Could have done without those, but I must admit Lesley Gore does a decent job portraying a young criminaless.

2:42 Penguin is a Girl's Best Friend

The Penguin is out of prison again, somehow. He's conducting an armed robbery in the streets of Gotham City, when he's interrupted by the Dynamic Duo who overcome his gang in the usual manner, ie by punching them repeatedly in the face.

But what's this - a film crew is present! He was filming a movie! It's all legal. The Dynamic Duo will end up in prison for aggravated assault and malicious property damage - unless Batman agrees to appear in his movies. So he does.

(https://i.ibb.co/1G6t55F5/marshalegs.jpg)

The feathered fink has an ambitious crime planned, but he needs investment. He approaches Marsha, Queen of Diamonds. He promises to make her a billionairess. And she agrees, on condition that she can appear in his movies as well, alongside Batman. She's going to get her bonkers aunt, who is of course a witch, to cook up one of her love potions and make lipstick out of it for one of their love scenes.

Anyway the pointyosed old crook is panning to film some scenes for a historical drama at Gotham's museum of antiquities. Some precious 15th century chainmail armour goes missing. So there's a punch up at the museum, with The Penguin's men dressed as Roman centurions for their parts in one of his films. Alas - the two noble crime-fighters are overcome when The Penguin aims one of the stage lights into their eyes. They get netted and attached to a giant catapult, about to be hurled through the sky across Gotham City. The vile criminal has even attached film cameras to their legs, to record their fate for posterity.

There's quite an entertaining subplot about one of the scenes being so risque that the Gotham Film Decency League - headed by Aunt Harriet, in a sort of 1960s Mary Whitehouse capacity - feel they need to intervene.

(https://i.ibb.co/TDhRqFt9/catapult.jpg)

Batman later claims that he knew the armed robbery was a trap all along, he just knew the feathered fraud was up to something and wanted to stay close to him. It's not particularly clear why The Penguin wants the Caped Crusader in his movies, unless the cliffhanger has something to do with it.

Very odd also that Batman appears in costume, in a historical drama set in Roman times.

Nice to see Martha again. Another double-villain story, though I must say I think Penguin is getting overused a bit. This is the first of a three-parter.

2:43 Penguin Sets A Trend

As Batman and Robin await their fate, about to be hurled several miles through the air to be splattered somewhere on the other side of Gotham City, the Caped Crusader asks the Boy Wonder what the cube root of pi is. He can't remember. But no matter, his mentor remembers it - and he mentally calculates the precise location in Gotham City where their trajectory, once expelled from the catapult, will take them.

He manages to reach the Batmobile remote control from his utility belt and somehow, with it behind his back, he manages to guide the Batmobile to the exact street location. He operates the Batmobiles rear safety net - it springs out of the boot, and the two brave crime-fighters land safely.

Absolutely remarkable when you consider that the Batmobile remote is a little box with about three buttons to operate.

Despite The Penguin having attempted to murder them, the two return cap in hand to his office, asking if they can still be in his movies. Obviously they want to find out what hes up to. At this point he still has the priceless chainmail armour, of course. At this point I just gave up on the plot being anything resembling sensible. But I rolled with it.

Well it turns out that what the feathered fraud is up to is an initiative to steal some secret plans from The Hexagon, which evidently is the Batman universe version of The Pentagon. He goes there and butters up some vain senior officers by telling them he wants them to appear in his films. Then his gang break into a top secret room, steal some secrets, and run out. They've taken the precaution of wearing the priceless chanmail armour, and when some of the guards stationed at The Hexagon bravely take them on, the bullets just bounce off them.

(https://i.ibb.co/67YrxY9C/peng-officer.jpg)

Meanwhile, the Dynamic Duo have been kitted out in suits of armour - not the priceless ones - for their next part. It's a trap. They get stuck to a giant electro-magnet while Penguin and the gang are off robbing The Hexagon of its secrets. Batman manages to short circuit the power supply by chucking a bit of metal into a lamp socket. They race after The Penguin and his gang in the Batmobile, still wearing their suits of armour.

But the Penguin manages to overcome the two crime-fighters once they're out of the car by rolling oil barrels at them. Hard to avoid in a suit of armour. And they get taken away for scrap! We seem them being tipped into a crusher. How're they going to get out of that one?

More than any other episode I can remember so far, this one really leans into absurdist comedy.

One of the officers at The Hexagon was also a regular feature on The Phil Silvers Show as one of the officers at Fort Baxter, ten years earlier. Possibly a bit typecast.

We only see Marsha very briefly in this one, looking for elderly toads for a potion with her loony witch Aunt Hilda.

2:44 Penguin's Disastrous End

Batman and Robin avoid being crushed to death by using a bat air pump - presumably from Batman's utility belt - to create a pressurised space withn the scrap metal as it's crushed. They escape using cutting torches, presumably from the same source.

The Penguin and his gang hide their precious chainmail armour in Aunt Hilda's vault, in her cave. What she usually uses it for is unclear.

In any case it's not long before the Dynamic Duo turn up there - some of Hilda's lizards have escaped. They've been seen by members of the public to have emerged from a man hole. So the two crime-fighters descend into it and find themselves in Hilda's lair. They find the missing chainmail armour.

Meanwhile, Marsha and The Penguin break into the sub treasury building. Marsha demobilises the guards by the judicious use of one of Hilda's love potions, and by performing a dance of the seven veils. They're transfixed. I must say I liked this scene a lot.

But from the usual unlikely logic, Batman's deliberations lead him to catch up with Marsha, The Penguin and the rest of the crooked gang just after they've lifted a huge quantity of gold bullion. But they haven't escaped - they've locked themselves in the vault with it!
(https://i.ibb.co/wZ4p5FHd/duolookon.jpg)

The Dynamic Duo and police wait patiently for them for to emerge. But the crooks have taken food and tanks of compressed fresh air in there with them. They're in there for days! Exactly what they're doing in lieu of toilet facilities is not discussed.

Eventually, we find out what they were up to. The Penguin's men have built a tank out of the gold bullion, using the plans they've stolen from The Hexagon. The feathered fink and his associates, including Marsha of course, break through the side of the sub treasury building and out into the streets in their new solid gold tank. How can even Batman and Robin stop them?

Well - fortunately Robin's pretty handy with a Bat-zooka, that's how. The Dynamic Duo give chase in the Batmobile and a well-aimed shot brings the precious metal tank to a stop.
(https://i.ibb.co/vCrNQzGm/goldtank.jpg)

It's Game Over for The Penguin and Marsha. Again. Although knowing how Gotham City's justice system works, you have to assume they'll both be out in a few weeks, even with multiple repeat attempted murder offences on their records.

Well - this was the second and final three-parter. If the producers felt that the stories hadn't quite been strong or coherent enough to sustain three episodes, they were definitely right. Nonetheless the third part of this one does elevate it a bit. I especially liked a scene in which O'Hara attempts to block the golden tank with a squad car. The car gets completely, literally flattened. Batman and Robin look absolutely horrified (first pic), until he's found to have escaped down a manhole. Somehow.

One thing irked me - I like Marsha but this whole story has very little to do with her diamonds gimmick.

Just googled it - the tank is a Stuart Light Tank. Used by both the British and Americans in WW2. I wonder where they got it from?

2:45 Batman's Anniversary

The Riddler's back! Sort of. This time he's played by John Astin, of Addams Family fame.

The pernicious puzzler kicks off proceedings by stealing a golden calf full of cash, being presented at an anniversary celebration for Batman at the Gotham Plaza Hotel. He sets off some smoke bombs, then he and his men come and snaffle the loot dressed as firefighters.

His next caper is to flood a bank, then steal the cash from the vault. He and his men are kitted out in diving gear. Following a clue based on one of his puzzles the Dynamic Duo catch up with them there, wearing underwater respirators. There's an underwater punch up. It doesn't exactly look convincing, but that (of course) is all part of the fun. Using the underhand trick of pulling Robin's respirator out to distract Batman, the arch-criminal and his gang get away. Oddly there seems to be a manhole cover that leads directly to the bank vault.

It seems that The Riddler needs the cash to purchase a demoleculariser weapon from a wacky and unethical German professor, whom we meet later on. With this, the enigmatic egotist and his crew will have control of Gotham City. But he doesn't yet have the cash he needs. So far the proceeds of his crimes have netted him $1.5 million. He needs $3 million. It's a plot element we've seen a few times before, of course.

(http://bikediary.uk/images/astinriddler.jpg)

First (and as usual), he plans to make sure the Dynamic Duo won't get in his way. They're due to visit Gotham City Bakery, to pose for two marshmallow figures to be placed atop a gigantic cake. They arrive there and obligingly pose at the top of the giant cake. But the pink icing is 15 ft of quicksand! The Riddler mocks them from the ground as they sink into the goo.

I have to say they're remarkable passive about it - either of them could easily make a dive to the edge of the cake when they're still only ankle-deep in the stuff. But no doubt there'll be some inventive escape at the beginning of the second part.

From the viewer's point of view - I don't think having John Astin in the role of The Riddler works very well. He tries hard to conjure up the same manic energy - actually he tries too hard - but it doesn't come naturally to him. He's not really sinister either. I think he could have been a decent arch-criminal. But not this one.

From the producers' point of view though, probably an excellent way of annoying Frank Gorshin, who was still holding out for more money.

Decent villainess eye candy, though we don't see much of her.

2:46 A Riddling Controversy

The two beleaugered crime-fighters escape a grim, gritty end by activating their experimental "heel to bat rockets". They fly upwards and out of the pink quicksand. You can see the strings, but hey. How do they land exactly? We don't find out.

The Riddler is of course incensed to find that they're still alive. His next caper is to steal from the safe of an Anthony Aquila, an exiled dictator from South America who's taken up residence in Gotham City. He looks a lot like Fidel Castro, probably not coincidentally. The Dynamic Duo find the pernicious puzzler and his gang there, but the crims have the upper hand - they've placed the unfortunate foreigner in a puzzle cage with a bomb! So the two crime-fighters have to decode it while they walk off with the loot.

It turns out that it's not a bomb at all, it's just a loudly ticking alarm clock in a box. With a puzzle of course. Can't help thinking that The Riddler would do a lot better if he could get out of the habit of leaving clues deliberately.

So along with $1m that he's stolen from a charity, the arch-criminal now has enough cash to persuade the unethical German professor to part with his molecular disruptor device. It simply makes things vanish into thin air.

I was fascinated to find that the device is rechargeable. I think of rechargeable things as having their origin in the 1990s, but they did exist, in a crude and much less efficient way, in the '60s.

(https://i.ibb.co/fdFcbdgs/heeljets.jpg)

So the riddle-obsessed rascal makes a priceless statue disappear in Gotham Part as a demonstration. Then he demands that all criminal statutes are rescinded in Gotham City. Unless the authorities agree to this by 5pm, he'll make Gotham Police headquarters disappear. The sneaky villain has actually left the demoleculariser in Commissioner Gordon's office, on a timer.

Wouldn't it disappear with the building? Or at least clatter on the ground from a significant height? It's cost him $3m.

Batman and Robin foil the dastardly criminal's plan by seeding the clouds above Gotham City with sodium dichloride from the Batcopter - accurately enough to cause a lightning bolt to strike the building, and neutralise the effect of the fiendish weapon. Yeah.

Anyway they must have landed the Batcopter pretty quickly because at the very moment The Riddler's plans are quashed, the the two turn up at the arch-criminal's secret hideout, which they've found by following the usual contorted and incredibly unlikely logic from one of his puzzles.

There's a lively punch up - then it's Game Over. And a happy ending when a conscience-stricken unethical but brilliant German professor returns the $3m proceeds from The Riddler's crimes.

I'm afraid John Astin wasn't a good Riddler, but I guess he was compromised by having to, or trying to, reproduce some of Frank Gorshin's natural extrovert mania. They should have given him his own arch-criminal.

2:47 The Joker's Last Laugh

Not The Joker again so soon? But I suppose the TV audiences of the 1960s didn't watch Batman as frequently as I am at the moment.

In this one, the Clown Prince of Crime has developed some lifelike, super-strength robots to assist in his initiative to distribute counterfeit money that's only printed on one side. The first time Batman encounters one - at a bank, where it's been employed to distribute the fake cash - he destroys it by twisting its nose. The top of its head blows off and it emits copious quantities of smoke through the hole. It's very impressive. I would have loved that as a kid.

The Dynamic Duo take it to the Batcave in the Batmobile, but Joker follows them in his "Jokemobile". He's put a tracking device in the robot. Fortunately the two crime-fighters detect this, and deploy a Bat deflector to lead the giggling ghoul astray.

Careful forensic examination using the Batcave's integro-differential robot analyser leads the crimebusting duo to The Joker's secret hideout - a comic book printing business called Penthouse Publishers, that has recently changed hands. It's now owned, suspiciously, by a Mr Whiteface. The Joker, of course.

(https://i.ibb.co/ZzLFB0fJ/bruce.jpg)

But the two have insufficient evidence to go there and "pounce on the blighter", as Alfred points out. So the Caped Crusader concocts a plan. Instead, Bruce Wayne goes there. He's distraught. He's bankrupt, wiped out. Could Mr Whiteface please print him up a batch of counterfeit currency? He's foolishly succumbed to the temptation of speculation with the funds of the Wayne Foundation. The results were catastrophic.

Tomorrow is the annual accounting, and unless he has $1m in cash, he's up the river without a paddle. In return, he offers to make Mr Whiteface vice chairman of the Gotham National Bank (which he owns of course). But the distressed millionaire insists that Mr Whiteface runs off a sample of counterfeit cash first. The malevolent master of mirth gladly agrees.

But as he does so - who should burst through the window but the Boy Wonder, on routine crime patrol - he's caught The Joker in the act of printing fake money.

(https://i.ibb.co/xKsLMhj8/robinpress.jpg)

The clever arch-criminal activates his robots. Robin has a punch-up with them, but loses. The hapless Boy Wonder ends up strapped to a conveyor belt, about to be stamped by a comic book press - and Bruce is helpless to intervene! Worse still, the two robots are going to force Bruce to operate the machine, to ensure against being double-crossed.

Will Robin be flattened?

Pretty good one this, the plot unfolds a bit more sensibly and coherently than most.

2:48 The Joker's Epitaph

Alfred, dressed as Batman, is on hand below The Joker's hideout, where Robin is about to be flattened by a printing press. The old boy manages a bat climb up the side of the building and throws Bat gas once he's in through the window. It's a sort of smoke bomb; clearly not the same Bat gas that the Caped Crusader uses to render people unconscious for a trip to the Batcave.

The mirthful malfeasant runs off with his robots down a secret elevator. But he has the document that makes him - officially, or at least as Mr Whiteface - vice chairman of the board of Gotham National Bank.

The Dynamic Duo investigate the giggling grifter's conduct at the bank once he turns up there, but it's flawless.

The arch-criminal goes to pay Bruce Wayne a visit. He's recorded their earlier conversation, in which Bruce confesses to speculating away the Wayne Foundation's funds and attempting to procure counterfeit cash. It's blackmail. The clownish crook demands that Bruce lures Batman into a trap, and kills him.

(https://i.ibb.co/kVKcCwBC/robotcontrol.jpg)

But when Bruce refuses, he settles for Plan B. He demands that Bruce marries his villainous sidecutie, with a settlement of $3 million.

Back at the Batcave, the two crime-fighters ponder their options. They examine the dead robot they brought there in the first episode. If they can find out how it works, they can gain control of The Joker's other robots. And it's not long before they have the robot back to life. Holy Frankenstein!

But when Commissioner Gordon hears of this monstrous misalliance - Bruce Wayne is of course an upstanding pillar of Gotham City society, whereas his bride-to-be has an impressive criminal record - and on taking advice from a psychiatrist - he insists that Chief O'Hara has the millionaire arrested by Gotham Police's Anti-lunatic squad, to be committed to a mental institution in a straitjacket.

(https://i.ibb.co/27mKf5Wx/brucekiss.jpg)

Fortunately Alfred and Robin track down the Anti-Lunatic van and free Bruce using some remote control jiggery-pokery from the Batmobile. He's into a spare Batsuit in no time. Then it's off to Gotham City Bank, in time to see the reprogrammed robots causing a bit of mayhem.

The robot restored to working condition in the Batcave arrives there, claiming to be married to the cutie who's supposed to be getting hitched to Bruce. Bigamy! The other two start pointing guns at the customers. Just the pretext the two noble upholders of law and order need to nab The Joker.

(https://i.ibb.co/0RHJsQwt/loonysquad.jpg)

Well, the giggling ghoul orders his robots into action against the Dynamic Duo, overriding their previous instructions. As Batman wisfully reflects, robots lack even the most minimal sense of loyalty. And that, finally, is all the justification that's needed to send the loathsome arch-criminal back to the penitentiary - following the usual punch up, of course.

Bruce submits to a psychiatric examination, and happily a clean bill of mental health is declared.

This was actually a pretty good one with a decent plot - not just the usual sequence of ridiculous clues leading to repeated encounters. Interesting that the cutie sidekick in this one doesn't remorsefully change sides, or fall for Batman as some do. She looks as sweet as anything. But she's bad to the bone.

2:49 Catwoman Goes to College

Catwoman's appeal for parole has been granted - on condition that Bruce Wayne assumes the responsibility of being her parole officer. She's being given another chance.

She declares that she will immerse herself in education, and signs up for Gotham City University.

It's soon clear though that the vile villainess has no intention of going straight. I'd guessed that was probably the case. Her behaviour is highly suspicious.

She has Batman framed for a supermarket robbery by having him impersonated by one of her henchmen. Of course the Caped Crusader extricates himself from that situation in no time at all, but she organises a huge student demo in Gotham City's 'Chimes Square'.

(https://i.ibb.co/M5yQXLSB/catstraw.jpg)

With a bit of help from the technology in the Batcave, the two crimefighters identify a number of potential crimes that she might be plotting. As it happens she's planning to steal some priceless cat's eye opal jewels, and the Chimes Square demo is intended as a massive diversion.

Batman and Robin catch up with her and her stooges atop the Chimes Building, where she's just given an address to the assembled huge crowd of students. There is (of course) a punch up. But the defeated Catwoman feigns tearful remorse. She dabs her teary eyes with her catkerchief (then wrings about 100ml of tears out oif it - hilarious). But when she extracts her atomiser, she aims it at the Dynamic Duo - not herself! And they collapse in a sort of drunken stupor.

(https://i.ibb.co/JFHySmxR/coffee.jpg)

Next thing you know - the two crime-fighters have been tied up and dumped in a huge cup that's part of a coffee advertising display. Normally a massive coffee pot dispenses coffee into it every minute. But she's substituted sulphuric acid!

Really a very good one. Any Catwoman episode is a good one. Interesting that she's in prison at the beginning of the episode - last time we saw her, she was missing presumed (possibly) drowned. Bit of a discontinuity.

(https://i.ibb.co/SDCMLyxm/chimessquare.jpg)

I especially like a scene in which Catwoman and Batman share a soda with two straws. She steals his straw. He grabs it back.

The crowd scenes at Chimes Square (third pic) are actually Piccadilly Circus, I suspect taken on VE night.

2:50 Batman Displays His Knowledge

With the first trickle of sulphuric acid, before the spout tips and pours the lot onto himself and Robin, Batman manages to burn through the rope tying his hands. He then uses a Batarang to operate the lever controlling the power supply to the coffee cup display.

"I don't know how we do it, Batman. The way we get into these scrapes and get out of them. It's although someone was dreaming up these situations .. guiding our destiny", Robin observes. But the Caped Crusader reminds him that things like that only happen in the movies. This is real life.

Catwoman and her criminal gang turn up at the premises of the Forever Jewel Company where the sale of the cats-eye opals is taking place, and of course they steal them. The feline feloness takes them to her favourite fence, French Freddy.

Freddy is a fence not merely in the sense that he knowingly offers money for stolen goods. He's a fencing instructor. He also loves spaghetti in huge quantities, which he strains through a fencing mask. A nice touch that. No bearing whatever on the plot, but a bit of colour.

Anyway he declines to accept the precious jewels from Catwoman. There's a $3 million reward for their return. Too hot.

Batman visits Commissioner Gordon. Awkwardly, he wants to call Bruce Wayne for a moment while Batman is present. Bruce is, after all, the catty criminaless' parole officer.

Fortunately, Batman has an answer to the problem. He discreetly calls Alfred in the Batcave and has him use the Bat syllable device.

When Gordon calls Bruce, Alfred is on hand to type out responses, which are then heard as Bruce's voice over the phone. It is what we would called a "text to speech" facility in the present day. Commonplace now, but pure sci-fi in the 1960s of course.

(https://i.ibb.co/B21M4GPZ/batsyllable.jpg)

The actual Bat syllable device prop looks a lot like an electric typewriter next to a reel-to-reel tape deck. I love that.

Next, Batman has Alfred consult the Batcave's Well Known Criminals File. It comes up with French Freddy as a likely recipient of the stolen goods.

After a brief, good-natured fencing match (Batman wins of course, cleverly flipping his opponent's sword into the ceiling), the two crime-fighters leave, none the wiser.

(https://i.ibb.co/bj1hZHxM/fredspag.jpg)

But Freddy has another idea. He suggests they turn the jewels in for the reward money. But on closer inspection of the goods, it turns out that they're fake! Near-worthless replicas!

An enraged Catwoman, realising that Batman must have anticipated her theft of the priceless opals, vows revenge. She has a letter delivered to Commissioner Gordon. She proposes to give herself up, promising to come alone to a model house (I think a "show home" in British English) at a new housing development - providing Batman comes alone as well.

Batman agrees to her terms. He goes there. The feline villainess is delightfully cutesy and seductive, once he arrives. I never get over how brilliant Julie Newmar was. She should have been a household name. Bigger than Brigitte Bardot. More popular than Raquel Welsh. More legendary than Sophie Loren.

Catwoman offers to become Batman's partner in life. What about Robin? Batman wants to know. Well she'll have him killed. Painlessly. He is after all a bit of a bore with his holy this.. holy that. But it seems her sentiments are a tad insincere. She's put on some poisonous perfume, and she's surprised the Caped Crusader isn't dead already.

(https://i.ibb.co/cczsjmQ1/catbum.jpg)

Of course the masked crime-fighter has taken the precaution of wearing Bat plugs up his nose. Unfortunately Catwoman has taken the precaution of bringing along her gang. They spring out of hiding. But Robin has taken the precaution of following Batman there! So there is - of course - a punch up. She tries to get away, but it's to no avail. And there's a hint of tragedy as she regretfully laments that they're fated to travel in different directions. He on the straight and narrow .. she on the crooked and wide.

As she's carted off to the pen, she confides in her parole officer - Bruce Wayne, of course - that her heart belongs to Batman. Odd that she's tried to kill him twice over the course of a single episode, then.

Very, very good. Odd location though for the punch up climax, a show home. No particular reason for it in the plot. Maybe just a spare set from a sitcom or something.

Sadly, this was the final appearance of Julie Newmar as Catwoman. Next time we see the feline feloness (in the third series), it'll be Eartha KItt.

2:51 A Piece of the Action

The Green Hornet and his trusty sidekick Kato are in town. A bit complicated, this one. The Green Hornet was a TV series broadcast at the same time (and on the same channel) as Batman; 1966-67. Similar thematically to Batman in that the titular hero is a crime-fighter with a secret identity. But dissimilar in that he and his trusty oriental sidekick Kato, played by Bruce Lee (no less) are - to the police - wanted criminals. In reality it's a pretence, so that they can infiltrate criminal gangs.

Anyway - The Green Hornet and Kato are investigating a postage stamp counterfeiting operation at the Gotham City premises of a legitimate businesswoman named Pinky Pinkston. She has pink hair, and a pink dog.

But their presence in the city comes to Commissioner Gordon's attention. Since he knows them as criminals, he soon has the Dyanmic Duo on the case.

(https://i.ibb.co/TDz8z4S5/gumm.jpg)

It's a complicated one this, with a few interwoven strands. For one thing Pinky is well acquainted with both Bruce Wayne and Britt Reid, the Green Hornet's secret identity. They appear to be rivals for her affection, but they've known each other since they were kids.

For another, Bruce seems to have an interest in collecting stamps, and he's bought a counterfeit rare stamp from a stamp dealer who's also the foreman at Pinky's stamp factory, and essentially the villain of the piece. Colonel Gumm. I think he's supposed to be British.

Batman wonders if the Green Hornet is after a famous, priceless stamp that mysteriously disappeared years earlier.

In any case, Pinky discovers that Gumm is making hooky stamps. So she gets kidnapped.

(https://i.ibb.co/qMtrGJrn/greenh.jpg)

The Green Hornet and Kato turn up at the stamp factory just before Batman and Robin, on the pretext that they want to be cut in. A "piece of the action". But they get thrown into an Enlarged Perforating and Coiling Machine. The Dynamic Duo wade in - there's a punch up, of course - but they end up stuck to an Undetachable Glue Pad, mounted on the wall - soon to suffer the same fate as the other two apparently-criminal-but-not-really crime-fighters.

Gumm is played by Roger Carmel, who (perhaps) more famously portrayed Harry Mudd in two episodes of Star Trek. The first would have aired a few months before this Batman episode.

The Green Hornet / Britt Reid is played by Van Williams. Didn't recognise him at all but he certainly was a handsome devil.

I think the Enlarged Perforating and Coiling Machine was repurposed, with minor alterations, from a similar contraption from a Penguin episode.

2:52 Batman's Satisfaction

So - believing that The Green Hornet and Kato have already been disposed of by the Enlarged Perforating and Coiling Machine, Colonel Gumm and his goons remove Batman and Robin from the wall-mounted Undetachable Glue Pad, so that they may suffer the same fate. But as soon as they're freed, the two crime-fighters simply start a punch up with the villains and overcome them. Probably the simplest (ok, dumbest) get-out from a cliffhanger that we've seen so far.

Next, Batman frees The Green Hornet and Kato from the machine. The reason they're alive is some of the most preposterous technobollocks imaginable, involving a "high velocity spectroboscopic range reflector mini unit" in the machine's internal workings.

Anyway, lacking tangible evidence, Batman lets them leave. The crims have got away as well, while Batman was freeing the other two masked men, with Pinky as a hostage. Fortunately, Pinky has left a clue in the bowl of alphabet soup she was eating. Batman realises this when he notices that the Js, Qs and Zs are missing. Holy uncanny photographic mental processes, as the Boy Wonder observes.

(https://i.ibb.co/hFhb7LsN/powercut.jpg)

When fed into the Bat Computer, the message becomes clear: "if anyone can decode this message, Gumm is taking me to warehouse as hostage. Watch stamp exhibition tonight". Unfortunately before the computer can be used to determine the location of the warehouse, it dies. Aunt Harriet's hair dryer has taken out the power to the half of the electricity in the whole house and Bat cave. This gives Batman a bit of a crisis. But Robin perks him up, and comes up with a few ideas. Lovely moment. Hilarious, especially when Robin puts a reassuring hand firmly on the Caped Crusader's shoulder with a "chin up, old chum".

Britt Reid (Green Hornet of course) visits Bruce to mention that he's worried about Pinky. They have an amusing competitive discussion about Batman and The Green Hornet. In any case Pinky escapes from the warehouse, once the villains have left for the stamp exhibition, by instructing her dog to bite through the rope round her wrist.

So the Dynamic Duo arrive at the stamp exhibition. They find Gumm (in disguise as a stamp collector) and his criminal gang there, as well as The Green Hornet and Kato. There's an almighty punch-up. Eventually only the four crime-fighters are left standing, throwing punches (or in Kato's case, Kung Fu kicks) at each other. Impressively, Robin decks Kato (Bruce Lee of course) a couple of times.

(https://i.ibb.co/V544HM6/britt.jpg)

But Gumm manages to take Pinky hostage (again), this time at gunpoint. Batman and Robin save the day by sneaking round behind him and disarming him, while the other two masked crime-fighters sneak off.

There's a bit of hilarity involving Pinky believing that Britt is Batman. And it's a wrap.

Interesting one. Gumm isn't a particularly interesting villain though he's a larger than life character. His only gimmick apart from being pompous and adopting disguises is that he likes alphabet soup. But this two-parter is more about the dynamic between The Green Hornet and Batman, and of course Britt and Bruce. Neither knows of the other's secret identity. One curious thing: there's a plot error. Late on in the episode, Gumm is assumed to believe that Batman and Robin are dead, along with The Green Hornet and Kato. But in fact they escape before Gumm and his gang flee the scene.

I recognised one of Gumm's henchmen, Alex Rocco. He was Moe Greene in The Godfather.

My favourite line from the whole episode, maybe the whole series, perhaps all of popular fiction: "I never knew there were no punctuation marks in alphabet soup" - Robin.

2:53 King Tut's Coup

Yale University's distinguished Professor of Egyptology is strolling through the grounds of that distinguished educational establishment with two prospective students. He humbly explains to them that he suffers from a unique combination of amnesia and identity transference. When he suffers cranial concussion, he's liable to imagine himself to be King Tutankhamun.

By a bizarre, uncanny coincidence, two plant pots fall onto the young students' heads from an upper storey window ledge, and it seems that they both suffer from a very similar condition. What were the chances? In the next moment, they're on their knees, transformed into Egyptian slaves. Another moment later, a plant pot falls on the professor's head! King Tut is back!

And no bad thing, because Tut is definitely one of the better Batman villains. In this one, he's determined to claim the daughter of a wealthy socialite called Lisa Carson as his queen, apparently because she's attending an Egyptian costume ball dressed as Cleopatra. Bruce Wayne is escorting her (of course).

The Dynamic Duo and Gotham City Police Department are already onto the pernicious professor, because of a theft of a valuable Tut-era sarcophagus.

(https://i.ibb.co/XxNhpKfQ/tutcutie.jpg)

There's a pleasingly surreal scene when Batman and Robin go to interview a pantomimist who's been assaulted and left hanging from a noose in a hotel with his hands tied. Neither the Dynamic Duo or the police bother to untie him until he asks nicely. Also, they arrive at his room by climbing up the side of the building. On this occasion, I can't imagine why the elevator wouldn't have been easier.

But anyway the purpose of this crime appears to have been to leave Batman a message, on an ancient scroll. The best villains always offer a clue, don't they?

So on the assumption that Tut would want to attend an ancient Egyptian ball, the Caped Crusader has Commissioner Gordon assign a cordon of police to the event, attired as Egyptians. Alas, it's to no avail. Using a clever deception involving the Deputy Mayor attired similarly to Tut and a number of the dastardly delusionary's men masquerading as undercover police, Lisa gets kidnapped anyway.

(https://i.ibb.co/CpPznYRL/pantomimist.jpg)

Fortunately Batman (or Bruce) has taken the precaution of installing a tracking device in Lisa's clothes, which leads the Dynamic Duo to Tut's lavishly appointed hideout. Where does a university professor get the cash for all the Egyptian paraphernalia? Anyway of course the two masked crime-fighters rush there. But Robin gets captured, and Batman is defeated in the obligatory punch-up.

He's placed in the stolen sarcophagus, which is slowly lowered into a large tank of water. Will Gotham City's noble defender suffer a death worse than Fate? What will happen to the Boy Wonder??

Didn't realise this until I just looked it up but Lisa Carson, whom we see attired as Cleopatra, is Lee Meriwether, who played Catwoman in the 1966 Batman feature film.
I recognised Tut's sidecutie immediately though - Grace Lee Whitney, best known as the delectable Yeoman Rand in Star Trek, made at about the same time. I also recognised the dangling pantomimist though I wasn't sure from where. Not a household name by any means, just one of those bit part actors who turns up in a lot of TV shows. Kojak, The Rockford Files, Charlie's Angels, Hill Street Blues, The Partridge Family among many others. Richard Bakalyan.

2:54 Batman's Waterloo

In the Batcave, Alfred receives a morse code signal. It seems that Batman, entombed within a sarcophagus submerged in water, has managed to reach his Bat transmitter. It seems to me that the obvious thing would be to call the police, perhaps anonymously - but no, Alfred makes his way over to Tut's hideout himself, makes his way into the room with the large water container via the skylight, and rescues the Caped Crusader himself. Tut and his gang have already left the premises.

It turns out that Batman was able to put himself in a sort of trance while submerged, to slow his heart rate and respiration to a crawl.

Tut has a sort of mobile palace in the form of a gold van - we saw it in one of the earlier Tut stories, although presumably it's not the same one. And he's off to some other location to oil Robin in oil. His queen, the kidnapped Lisa Carson, insists that he call her dad. So he does, and he demands $8,300,487.12 in cash in return for her safety (bit of a plot flaw this, since the intention to this is for her to become his beloved queen, not a hostage). Why $8,300,487.12? Well it's the amount he needs to pay off the mortgage on the pyramids.

(https://i.ibb.co/v6x8LNMv/cleorobin.jpg)

Then there's a really odd plot device in which the Caped Crusader and Tut communicate with each other by phoning in to a radio show. Just a bit strange. Admittedly it's a bit of fun, but it has nothing to do with the rest of the script. In any case - Tut wants Batman to meet him alone with the cash from Lisa's father at the oil-boiling location, an abandoned boiler works. It's a trap, of course. But Batman has a trick up his sleeve. He's concocted a substance that has the effect of transforming boiling oil into foam rubber instantly.

Lisa and Robin have been tied up there, but they have an unexpected ally - Tut's sidecutie is jealous of the attention his "queen" has been receiving, so she wants to help her get away. After all - Tut may be fat, lazy and extremely rude - but he's all she has. She surreptitiously unties the two captives. Unfortunately this doesn't go unnoticed. They get recaptured immediately, and for her treachery, the cutie gets condemned to the boiling oil as well.

(https://i.ibb.co/b5DyKHQ4/batram.jpg)

But first, it's Robin's turn. Luckily, just as the Boy Wonder is about to be hurled into the oil, Batman arrives. Through the wall, courtesy of a Bat-tering ram mounted on the front of the Batcycle. He hurls the substance he's concocted into the huge vat of oil, transforming it immediately into foam rubber. Robin bounces off it and the two noble crime-fighters help themselves to a punch up. They're necessarily victorious of course, because there's only a couple of minutes left. And Tut gets knocked on the head, neatly restoring his mental faculties. When he comes round, he's a mild-mannered and contrite Egyptology professor, once again.

I was amused to see a large pink box labelled STAMPS at the second hideout, supposedly an abandoned boiler works. Clearly a prop left over from the previous story, involving Pinky Pinkerton's stamp factory.

There's a rather suggestive closing scene in which Bruce walks Lisa to her door after a date, and she seductively asks him to come in for "milk and cookies". Bruce breaks the fourth wall, explaining to the viewer that "man cannot live by crime-fighting alone".

Victor Buono (as Tut) is always good value. Very funny one.

2:55 Black Widow Strikes Again

An old bird has been going round Gotham City's banks, stupefying their staff with a "cerebrum short circuitor" which critically impairs their judgement, and asking nicely for them to hand over large sums of money. Commissioner Gordon recognises the modus operandi immediately - it's The Black Widow!

Following a rather obvious clue (she seems to be going through the banks in alphabetical order), Batman and Robin catch up with her just as she's attempting to rob the Gotham General Bank. She turns the cerebrum short circuitor on the Caped Crusader - but to no avail. He and the Boy Wonder are wearing anti-short-circuiting brain bat electrodes. So she resorts to a nerve paralyser spray. That works nicely. Batman is rendered incapable for a few minutes while she strolls out of the bank. Oddly, Robin just looks on, dumbfounded.

But once he recovers, they follow her in the Batmobile. The arachnid arch-criminal gets around in the sidecar of a motorbike driven by one of her wicked henchmen. There's some agreeable techno-nonsense about the Bat-radar being attuned to the exact oil and gas mixture of her exhaust.

So the Dynamic Duo follow her to a suburban house, but find nothing there except two old folks on the porch. The old folks haven't seen anything. But the old folks are rubber dummies fitted with speakers and remote-controlled lip activators, being controlled by The Black Widow from the basement as she watches on via a periscope (I love that Batman villains always use periscopes instead of CCTV).

(https://i.ibb.co/qM9PB5XV/widow.jpg)

So the two crime-fighters return to the Batcave empty-handed, but when the Caped Crusader goes to the trouble of analysing a tape he's made using the Batmobile's ultrasomic recorder, he realises they've been duped.

They return there, make their way into the basement lair - there's a punch up with her henchmen of course, in which the Dynamic Duo prevail easily - but then following a bit of sinister dialogue, the mad old bird presses a floor switch and a large spider's web descends to trap them. Her henchmen recover from the beating they've received at their hands, and, at her bidding, release two black widow spiders the size of cats to climb over them.

I really liked The Black Widow. Something a bit different. I wasn't familiar with Tallulah Bankhead, the actress who plays her and I was alarmed, after doing a bit of reading, to find that she was younger than myself when this was filmed. But perhaps this, from Wikipedia, explains her frailty:

"Bankhead was an alcohol and drug user; she reportedly smoked 120 cigarettes a day and talked candidly about her vices". She died in November 1968, this was one of her last TV appearances. She seems to have been a bit of a character; Wikipedia also remarks that "she had a series of sexual relationships with both men and women".

2:56 Caught in the Spider's Den

Batman manages to free one hand from the super-adhesive spider web and he reaches the mini-charge (why not the Bat mini charge?) in his utility belt. He zaps the spider's web with 5,000 volts, killing the two spiders that by now have nearly climbed up to their necks. The Dynamic Duo themselves are somehow unharmed.

So they go to confront Black Widow, who's counting ill-gotten cash in her vault. She responds by giving Batman another zap with her Cerebrum Short Circuitor. He's still wearing his protective anti-short-circuiting brain bat electrode. But she's reversed the polarity of her device, rendering hsi countermeasures useless. In seconds, he's a pliable, compliant schmuck.

Robin is tied up while the old bird has a chat with Batman. She wants to use the Bat computer, to suggest a bank she could rob. The Caped Crusader gladly operates it for her by remote control, and it suggests the Heritage First National bank.

Then she comes up with a clever scheme. She gets one of the decoy dummies from the first episode made up as Batman - the Caped Crusader somehow has a spare Bat costume on him - and she has herself made up and clothed as Robin. The transformation is uncanny. She looks exactly like the Boy Wonder. Then she's off to rob the bank in the Batmobile, which she's worked out how to drive from the passenger seat. The dummy in the Batman suit is placed in the driver's seat.

She gets away with $40k and, fearing that the Dynamic Duo have broken bad, Commissioner Gordon orders their arrest. A plucky young police officer tries to apprehend the two - really the dummy and Black Widow disguised as the Boy Wonder - and ends up using his weapon. The poor lad believes that he's shot Batman!

(https://i.ibb.co/nsY27CXj/batspider.jpg)

I must say it's hilarious hearing Talullah Bankhead's croaky old voice (bless her) dubbed over Burt Ward's lip-syncing.

While Black Widow and her gang are out, the real Robin manages to free himself. He makes a modification to the Cerebrum Short Circuitor, which she's left lying around her hideout, to make it work in reverse. And he uses it on Batman, to restore his partner's mental faculties to normal.

When the bad guys return, of course there's a punch up. The Dynamic Duo prevail. And Batman uses the Short Circuitor on Black Widow - which I thought was a bit unethical, given that she's already bang to rights. Gotham City's finest turn up - Alfred having traced the source of the Bat computer remote control signal to the precise address (somehow) and tipped them off.

In the final scene we see the criminaless and her gang in prison, having their brains decriminalised by rewired Bat brain analysers. I'm sure a human rights lawyer would have something to say about that nowadays, but hey - it's the 1960s.

Well - the second part was a bit of an anti-climax but overall I found old Talullah quite endearing. But really the only spidery thing about The Black Widow is the decor at her hideout.

2:57 Pop Goes the Joker

Alfred is browsing an art gallery, with a view to purchasing some tasteful art for Wayne Manor. Alas, who should turn up but The Joker, armed with two impressive looking paint weapons? The mirthful miscreant proceeds to ruin a number of valuable paintings by splattering them with brightly coloured paint. Holy Just Stop Oil!

But .. are they ruined? One of the notable artists present at the gallery thinks that he's improved them. He's delighted with the arch-criminal's work (I think this is supposed to be a satire on modern art).

Batman and Robin have already turned up for a punch up having been tipped off by Alfred, but they're forced to let The Joker go when they concede that he's increased the value of the paintings he's attacked.

The Joker is invited to join an international art contest, to compete against such luminaries as Jackson Potluck, Leonardo Davinsky and Vincent Van Gauche. It's to be hosted by a wealthy young socialite named Baby Jane Towser.

(https://i.ibb.co/v48NMCpt/babyjane.jpg)

Each of the artists has three minutes to create a work of art, from the moment Baby Jane (literally) fires the starting pistol. Bruce and Dick are attending, discreetly. Apart from The Joker, all of the competitors create ridiculously abstract and vulgar splashes of random paint, apart from Leonardo, who has his pet monkey throw fruit at the canvas. But The Joker leaves his canvas entirely blank. Symbolism, you see. The emptiness of modern life. His creation is called Death of a Mauve Bat.

Baby Jane is incredibly impressed by this and The Joker is announced the winner. Satire!

The arch criminal's next move is to open art classes for millionaires at the Joker Art Institute. Only the filthy rich need apply. Baby Jane signs up immediately. And so that he can keep an eye on him, so does Bruce.

Needlessly to say, at the giggling ghoul's art classes, the students' various efforts are hopelessly inept. Bruce starts an argument with the arch-criminal. Enter two of The Joker's henchmen, to tie all of the millionaire students up, including Bruce. Ransom notes have already been sent to their families.

Robin gets wind of this via Commissioner Gordon and heads over to the laughing larcenist's art studio. Evidently he can't drive the Batmobile. He tells Alfred he'll catch a bus. And yet he seems to turn up there in about a minute. He enters through the window, and he and Bruce have a punch up with the villains.

Alas - it's only the first part, after all - the two are overcome. Bruce is tied to a chair. And Robin is strapped to an articulated art exhibit decorated with rotating razor sharp pallet knives, while a helpless Bruce watches on. A really elaborate prop, this. Quite a feat of engineering.

(https://i.ibb.co/MDVW1JsV/batpoles.jpg)

One really nice moment, typical of the occasional comic touches that make Batman special - in this one, when Bruce and Dick leap to the Bat poles, the usual signs labelled BRUCE and DICK are absent. They pause for a moment at the top of the poles. "What happened to the signs, Bruce?" asks Dick. "Alfred removed them to put a new coat of paint on the Bat poles", Bruce replies.

Interesting that Joker has no cute villainess sidekick in this one. Presumably Baby Jane, one of his victims of course, is this two-parter's eye candy. Works for me. Also, why The Joker is vandalising paintings in the first place is not established.

Joker's appearance here elevates him to equal first place with The Penguin in the appearances table. Seven each.

2:58 Flop Goes the Joker

Bruce manages to overturn the chair he's tied to, crawls over to the base of the spinning apparatus that's about to chop Robin to bits and manages to bring it to a halt. Simultaneously, Robin works a hand free from his bonds. He disengages one of the apparatus' knives and disconnects the drive belt with it.

Shortly, The Joker and his goons re-enter the room, to check the machine's handiwork. The Dynamic Duo are of couse expert knife-throwers, so they hurl four of machine's knives at two of the villains who happen to be standing in front of a wall, pinning them to it by their clothes.

(https://i.ibb.co/0R2kfVHn/robin-knife.jpg)

There's then a punch up with the remaining henchman. Bruce is careful not to throw too many punches himself, so that no-one works out that he's Batman.

The two then confront The Joker. Baby Jane, still inclined to believe that the cackling criminal is a misguided artist despite having been bound and gagged, tries to defend him. She's going to refuse to press charges. Her filthy rich father is influential enough for her to persuade the other victims not to complain either.

Not to dwell on a legal technicality here, but surely having attempted to murder the Boy Wonder with a spinning knife contraption renders that a bit moot?

But anyway to Robin's surprise, Bruce also refuses to press charges. He takes the view that it might invite suspicion that he's Batman.

(https://i.ibb.co/XxVFP2wC/knives.jpg)

The Joker goes to the Towser family mansion with Baby Jane. To the horror of the family butler, he wrecks a priceless antique dinner table and covers it with several colours of paint in the name of art. Then he reveals his plan. Using Baby Jane's dad's museum key - he's a patron you see, so he has a key to the "Towser Wing" - he's going to visit the museum late the same evening and replace the art there with his far superior modern creations. Baby Jane is completely supportive. It's clear that she's thicker than Angela Rayner.

So - the giggling ghoul and his gang do that. Baby Jane finally works out that he's a crook when he has her tied up. Friendship ends when real felony finally takes over, he tells her.

But Batman has taken the precaution of replacing the priceless art exhibits there with some rather amateurish efforts that he's had Alfred knock up. At the very moment the arch-criminal realises what's happened, he also finds that the Dynamic Duo are already on the scene. There follows a highly entertaining punch up, in which some of Alfred's paintings are used as weapons. Naturally (this is the second part) The Joker's gang are beaten to a pulp.

But the Clown Prince of Crime escapes. He heads straight to Wayne Manor, to thieve some cash so he can hide out for a few months - and get even with Bruce, who of course helped foil his initiative to kidnap a number of wealthy would-be artists. He takes Baby Jane as a hostage, turns up at Bruce's home and demands some cash from Alfred, at gunpoint.

But Alfred manages to disarm him with a poker, after distracting him by drawing his attention to an imaginary safe behind a painting over the fireplace. The giggling ghould picks up another poker and they have a bit of a fencing match. But after 30 seconds or so of it the arch criminal runs off, into Bruce's study. He stumbles across the switch for the Bat poles! He operates it! The bookcase slides away, revealing the Bat poles!

And now we know why the signs were removed in the first episode. The Joker doesn't realise he's found the entrance to the Batcave. He just thinks he's discovered a secret passage to Wayne Manor.

(https://i.ibb.co/gFbqkZfd/babyjane-t.jpg)

He slides down one of the poles, but Alfred catches up and activates the emergency bat pole elevator. As he shoots back up the pole, terrified, he exclaims "I can't breathe!", beating George Floyd to it by 53 years.

And that's more or less it, except for a scene in which we see that Alfred's impromptu paintings are being displayed at the museum. A nice touch of comedy.

Must admit I wasn't really keen on seeing yet another Joker two-parter but I liked the way this one leans into satire and the plot is cleverer than most. And the girl who plays Baby Jane does the extrovert dumb blonde thing to a T.

Jut did a bit of reading and it looks like her character is based on a real life person called Baby Jane Holzer, an art collector and real estate investor. Diana Ivarson, who plays her, seems to have disappeared without trace after 1973. She does have an X account with 63 followers interestingly, although she's only ever posted four or five times. I suppose it might be fake.

2:59 Ice Spy

That ice-blooded arch-criminal Mr Freeze is back. He's created a giant iceberg with a below-water-level hideout, and he uses it to kidnap an Icelandic professor named Isaacson who's created an instant ice formula. It's an incredibly elaborate kidnap plan. He lures the SS Gotham Queen onto the iceberg using ice magnets. Then as soon as his henchmen have grabbed the eminent scientist from the ship, he dismantles and abandons his secret iceberg base, then releases the ship. Then he takes the professor to Gotham City in his ice sub.

Sadly we don't actually see the ship being lured onto the iceberg, or released. Or indeed the ice sub. I guess the special effects budget was a bit tight that week.

Freeze's villainess accomplice is the world-renowned ice-skating star Glacia Glaze, who's appearing at the Bruce Wayne Ice Arena in Gotham City. Bruce takes Aunt Harriet to meet her backstage there. He's already worked out that she's working with the frosty felon with the help of the Bat Computer. Freeze's Gotham City secret hideout is right under the ice arena.

Freeze sends a seal (yes), to Commissioner Gordon's office along with a note outlining his demands. He wants Bruce Wayne to appear on a TV broadcast at midnight, to confirm that a large sum of money will be paid to him, by Batman and Robin in person. He'll only deal with the Dynamic Duo in person.

Gordon sets up a telephone call between Bruce Wayne and Batman. He holds the Batphone against another phone in his office. So while the commissioner and O'Hara listen in, Bruce and Batman talk to each other, by means of Bruce holding his own Bat phone and his regular phone to his ear alternately. It's very funny.

Bruce agrees (of course) to Batman's suggestion to prepare a package of dummy money, and to tape the TV broadcast an hour early.

Freeze's attempts to get Isaacson to talk come to nothing. Eventually he injects him with dry ice (we don't actually see this thank heavens, I was getting flashbacks from my COVID jabs watching him wield a large syringe). Curiously, the professor doesn't seem to suffer any ill effects from this, at least outwardly.

So Bruce tapes the announcement that he's entrusted a large sum of money to Batman and Robin, for delivery to the cold-blooded criminal. He urges Freeze to return Professor Isaacson once the transaction takes place. It's broadcast an hour later, at midnight.

(https://i.ibb.co/SS0wT5N/freezesyringe.jpg)

To Freeze's surprise, the Dynamic Duo turn up at his hideout as soon as the broadcast announcement ends. How did they know where his hideout is? It's not clear from the script, perhaps we'll find out in the next one. They hand over the money. Freeze inspects it and realises it's fake. Cue the punch up.

Alas - this is the first part after all, so the two valiant defenders of law and order are overcome, and locked in a sub-zero temperature vaporising cabinet as the villainous ice-skater cutie looks on, delighted.

I'm assuming that the way they discovered the location of the hideout will be revealed next time. Bit of a plot hole otherwise, or maybe something was lost in an edit. Usually it's a hint provided by the Bat computer, or a Bat tracking device or something. But the dummy money makes no sense at all. Hey ho.

So this is the third appearance by Mr Freeze, and Eli Wallach is the third actor to portray the frozen fiend. Much, much better than Otto Preminger, who did the honours last time. Eli injects a sense of fun into the role. Otto just came across as unpleasant (of course the script in which he'd kidnapped a young woman for his own, er, purposes didn't help). Also the orange caterpillar eyebrows on Otto's version seemed somewhat incongruous.

I'm convinced some of Freeze's comic touches in this one are ad-libbed. Eli was definitely having fun with the part. Also the (literally) ice-cold Germanic Mr Freeze is something like a polar opposite of the role he's probably best known for, the swarthy Mexican bandit Tuco from The Good, the Bad and the Ugly which was made only a few months before this Batman episode.

We do actually see the seal a few times. Definitely a real one. Cute. I recognised Professor Isaacson immediately - couldn't have put a name to the face (Elisha Cook) but the list of films and TV shows he's been in as transcribed by IMDB is a mile long.

2:60 The Duo Defy

Just as the glass in the vaporiser cabinet frosts over, Batman manages to find an emergency secret passage so that he and Robin can escape, although the viewer is left to assume that they've been vaporised for a few minutes. Of course since the Caped Crusader is also Bruce Wayne and they were being held under the Wayne Ice Arena, it makes sense that he'd know about it. But it's odd that security there is so lax that a villain's lair was allowed to be established there.

Under duress, and the threat of another dry ice injection, the professor finally divulges the secret formula for instant ice. Freezes and the gang take him back to their secret hideout iceberg, in Gotham City harbour. Its powerful ice magnets have attracted icebergs into Gotham's waters from the world's oceans, making it impossible to determine which one is the hideout.

(https://i.ibb.co/DHMCZXhh/icebeam.jpg)

The literally cold-blooded arch criminal sends a message. The entire United States will be returned to an ice age in a matter of moments, unless his demands are met. With the professor's help, he's developed a thermodynamic ice ray beam. He uses it to part-freeze Gotham City. It's oddly selective, for example the Bat Computer gets frozen, while the rest of the Batcave seems to remain at the usual temperature.

The ice ray beam weapon is quite a nice little prop. Looks to have been made in part from a toy M16 judging by the pistol grip. Painted ice blue.

Batman urges Commissioner Gordon to have Freeze's seal released in Gotham Harbour, with an echoing seal pulsator attached to one of its flippers. It's been languishing in a bathtub along the corridor from Gordon's office, since it was used to deliver a note there in the first part.

The Dynamic Duo then track the seal using the Batcopter. It's a homing seal of course, so it leads them to the secret hideout iceberg. There's some nice footage of the Batcopter and some great aerial views of, presumably, California somewhere. Don't know if it's just reused from the feature film. I must watch it some time.

(https://i.ibb.co/99h8p0pD/batcopter.jpg)

So the two valiant crime-fighters land the Batcopter (we don't see that unfortunately) and board the villainous iceberg base. Freeze's henchmen are defeated in the usual punch up. The frozen felon himself tries to escape, just as Gotham City's finest arrive - by icebreaker, we're told - and apprehend him.

One nitpick - at one point, not having heard from the Caped Crusader for a few hours, Commissioner Gordon invokes Shakespeare: "Oh Batman.. wherefore art thou?". But it means "why", not "where".

And that's a wrap for the second series! Sixty episodes broadcast between September 1966 and March 1967, which given the quality of the production seems an amazing achievement.

3:01 Enter Batgirl, Exit Penguin

Commissioner Gordon is excited, because his daughter Barbara is home from university. But when he goes to pick her up from her apartment to take her to the Opera with Bruce Wayne, he's devasted to find that she's been kidnapped - by The Penguin!

The feathered fink has audaciously had her bound and gagged in the vacant apartment next to her own. He intends to force her to marry him, in the expectation that he'll have immunity from prosecution as Gordon's son-in-law. What?

If his intended bride-to-be doesn't go along with it, The Penguin and his goons will shoot her dad. So, very reluctantly, she agrees.

The Penguin sends his henchmen off to grap a minister to perform the service while she's tied up. By an uncanny coincidence they happen to call on the home of a minister who's discussing plans for a church supper to raise money for summer camp for underprivileged children, when they turn up.

Alfred claims to be the minister, and is taken to the vacant apartment to perform the ceremony. But the quick-thinking Butler has operated his special emergency belt buckle bat call. The Dynamic Duo quickly identify his location as being one of the locations nominated by the Bat computer as one of The Penguin's possible hideouts.

Alfred is thrown into the room where Barbara has been bound and gagged to "coach her on her lines" for the ceremony. He finds that she's already freed herself from her ties, and is about to leave the apartment via the window. So she walks along the ledge to her own apartment next door. As soon as she's in there, she operates a secret switch, and .. what the ..

One of the apartment's doors revolves, to reveal a hidden room with some Batcave-ish tech and a Batgirl costume!

Just as The Penguin is getting ready for his wedding, the Dynamic Duo turn up through the window, ready for the inevitable punch up. The next moment, to everyone's surprise, certainly including Batman and Robin, Batgirl appears at the other window.

She acquits herself very well in the ensuing unpleasantries, generally preferring to climb onto furniture and kick people in the face rather than punch them. Classy.

(https://i.ibb.co/PzNnLrpr/batgirl.jpg)

The three are victorious, but as the Dynamic Duo work on the lock to the door behind which Alfted is still imprisoned, the enigmatic Batgirl disappears out of the window. And The Penguin recovers consciousness .. he manages to sneak up on the two crime-fighters and render them unconscious with a blast of knockout gas from his umbrella.

Alfred, Batman and Robin are tossed out of the window in bags, onto the back of a truck a few storeys below. But that's OK - there's a mattress in the back of the truck!

This doesn't escape Batgirl's attention. Back in her apartment, she mounts her Batcycle - she keeps it stored behind an entrance to a secret freight elevator - and she's off after them a minute later.

At The Penguin's hideout, Batman and Robin are suspended in large bags over a huge vat of boiling water, about to be dunked like teabags. But Batgirl makes a dramatic entrance! And she's kicking people in the face in no time. Alfred joins in. He decks the avian arch criminal while Batgirl is getting busy with the karate kicks. Then he frees the Dynamic Duo from their bags. They take over beating the villains senseless while Alfred and Batgirl have a quiet chat. He's the only person who knows her secret identity. She gets him to swear never to reveal it.

While Gotham City's heroic crime-fighting duo mop up, she sneaks back into the wedding dress Penguin forced her to wear while they aren't looking. The Dynamic Duo are none the wiser. She apologises to them for being so helpless, while Alfred raises an eyebrow.

And that's that! The first episode of the third series is the first ever one-parter.

It seems that the Batgirl idea was an initiative to boost declining ratings. The kiddy audience of the 1960s were still keen, but the adult audience was growing tired of the same plot ideas getting reused time and time again. I must admit that as a kid, I had no idea just how formulaic and repetitive Batman was. The show was cut down to one episode a week, and the budget was cut. There are no particularly elaborate sets in this one but it doesn't look cheap, fortunately.

What I really don't like, I'm afraid, is the whole Batgirl thing. She's due to appear to most of the 26 third series episodes, and while I've only seen this one so far, I have a strong suspicion that this is where the shark gets jumped. I have no memory of Batgirl at all from my childhood. I probably wouldn't have liked it then, either.

What I would say though is that a single 25 minute episode is just about enough to accommodate a Batman story. It's true that this one felt a little bit rushed; it didn't quite have the space to breathe that it should have. But usually, 50 minutes is too long.

There's no cliffhanger per se of course, but at the end we do get a teaser for the next episode, with The Riddler telephoning Commissioner Gordon with a riddle. We also find out that Dick has passed his driving test, so perhaps we'll see him driving the Batmobile.

3:02 Ring Around The Riddler

So The Riddler is back in his more usual form, ie played by Frank Gorshin. His hideout is a barely used boxing gym. He fixes boxing matches by drugging eminent boxers. He steals box office receipts from Gotham Square Gardens. And he's working with another arch-criminal called Siren - played by none other than Joan Collins - who has the power to mesmerise and incapacitate men (not women for some reason) by emitting sort of high pitched tone.

The Pernicious Prince of Puzzles has a villainous cutie called Betsy, who's the presenter of a boxing programme on TV.

One of the boxers is James Brolin - his third role so far in Batman.

The Dynamic Duo call on Commissioner Gordon's lovely daughter Barbara for help. Because she's a history student, and one of The Riddler's clues is something to do with Mesopotamia. They have no idea that's she's Batgirl of course. An Asian boxing champ called Mushi Nebuchadnezzar is due to appear at Gotham Square Gardens. The plot is all a bit confused and incoherent quite honestly, I wonder if they tried to cram too much into 25 minutes.

Batgirl decides to join in after the Dynamic Duo tell her that they're headed to Gotham Square Gardens after a boxer is found there, suffering from amnesia (because The Riddler drugged him). After seeing Betsy interview Mushi on TV, she becomes suspicious. Amusingly, Betsy has a ciggie on while she's doing the interview.

(https://i.ibb.co/KzRS66DN/betsyfag.jpg)

Batman and Robin find The Riddler at Gotham Square Garden. Curiously, he's able to vanish into thin air. This seems to be entirely superfluous to the plot, and at no other point in the script is it explained.

So anyway Batgirl follows Betsy to The Riddler's hideout. She valiantly attempts a punch up, but is overcome immediately and thrown in the steam room. She escapes, anyway. We don't find out how.

The Riddler challenges Batman to a boxing match with "Mushi", appealing to his ego by calling him a coward on live radio. An indignant Batman accepts immediately.

So Batman turns up at the ring in boxing togs over his usual costume, with a cleverly disguised Alfred as his second. Robin is there as well of course. Batman is not surprised to find that "Mushi" is actually The Riddler. "This is ridiculous, he's smaller than you are", he tells Robin.

But the riddling rogue has a trick up his sleeve. His boxing gloves have been filled with iron filings, and Betsy is under the ring, controlling them with a huge magnet. She also manages to make the Caped Crusader's boots stick to the canvas, though exactly how is not explained.

(https://i.ibb.co/B5MNNX87/riddlerhat.jpg)

Anyway Barbara Gordon is in the audience, so she rushes to the ladies and emerges as Batgirl. She confronts Betsy under the canvas and disables the magnet.

As soon as he realises he's no longer in control, a panicked Riddler legs it. The Dynamic Duo pursue him to his gym, where they find Batgirl and Betsy. There's a punch up, the forces of Law and Order are victorious. Batgirl discreetly disappears.

But at the end of the episode, Siren - the Joan Collins high-pitched-tone emitter villain - visits Commissioner Gordon and renders him insensible. So presumably she's next week's villain.

I didn't really like this one. For a long time I did think that the two part format was overlong to sustain the plots and ideas. But it turns out I prefer it to the single part format. The production does feel a bit cheaper as well. No outdoor shots. Simpler sets. Apart from that, the script seems poorly thought out. Bah.

Still - good to have Frank Gorshin return as The Riddler, he does have a wonderful manic intensity in the role. Supposedly the single episode story format is the reason his salary demand was able to be met.

3:03 The Wail of the Siren

The Siren enters Commissioner Gordon's office. She's a famous singer, who can bend men to her will by emitting an extremely high-pitched note, two octaves above a high C. I checked this, not sure which octave it is, but it's an F.

Anyway. Gordon welcomes her warmly, but seconds later he's a compliant imbecile. He'll do anything she asks. Her wish is his "ultimate command". And in this case, her wish is for him to call Batman and meet him at a neutral place. He chooses his daughter's apartment.

Batman goes there as requested. But he doesn't show up! He's been tasked by the sinister songstress of sneaking into the boot of the Batmobile, to find out the location of the Batcave. And the secret identities of the Dynamic Duo. The pernicious pitch-emitter believes that once the two crime-fighters are compromised, they'll be powerless to stop her criminal plans. And her first initiative is to get her hands on the Wayne fortune.

Well - as soon as Batman leaves Barbara's apartment, where Gordon had asked to meet him, the police commissioner's daughter decides it's time for Batgirl to do a bit of investigating. Using the most flimsy and ridiculous logic imaginable, she decides to check out the Grotto Arms, where The Siren - in her day job as Lorelie Circe, world-renowned opera singer - has been staying. She turns up there and listens to her plans, as she boastfully explains them to her minions.

Meanwhile, back at the Batcave, Alfred is doing a bit of housekeeping when Commissioner Gordon emerges from the boot of the Batmobile. "You're Alfred .. Millionaire Bruce Wayne's butler!" he exclaims. "Ergo .. Batman is Bruce Wayne! And Dick Grayson is Robin, the Boy Wonder", he goes on to say to a mortified Alfred. He adds "I must convey this information at one to The Siren", but Alfred picks up a handy can of Bat Sleep and gives him a quick blast.

Alfred brings him up to Bruce's study where he delivers the terrible news to the millionaire and his ward.

Next, The Siren gives Bruce Wayne a call. She mesmerises him over the phone with a blast of her high-pitched voice, then calmly instructs him to meet her at his office. As he walks off entranced, to do her bidding, Batgirl gives the Batphone a call from her dad's office. She warns the Boy Wonder that The Siren is capable of mesmerising people over the phone, and that the sonically-gifted scoundreless intends to ensnare Bruce. Robin instantly realises what's happened, of course.

(https://i.ibb.co/tT91NM9p/gordoncave.jpg)

At their meeting, Bruce meekly hands over his valuables from the safe, and signs over all his property. There's a very funny visual gag here - the safe is hidden behind a painting. But it's a painting of the safe! Batgirl and Robin arrive there, ready for a punch up. But The Siren calmly orders them to leave. She owns the place now. She's well within her rights. The two junior crime-fighters reluctantly withdraw, but Robin sneakily leaves behind a bugging device.

But The Siren intends to have the now penniless Bruce jump off the building!

Batgirl and Robin hear this. Clearly, they're now well entitled to have the punch up they came for. They're up on the roof in matter of seconds. They rescue Bruce, who's about to jump. Next thing you know, Batgirl is violently kicking villainous henchmen in the face and the Boy Wonder is punching them senseless. Marvellous.

The Siren orders Bruce to join in. Robin ducks his punches and decks him. As he falls, he inadvertently knocks The Siren over the side of the building. She clings on to the ledge and begs Robin to help her. "Why should I?", he wants to know. Dark. He'll only save her life if she can get Bruce out of the spell she's put him under. It turns out she can .. by emitting a note three octaves over high C, instead of the usual two. But it would ruin her voice .. "I'd rather die", she tells Robin. So he lets go of her wrists, leaving her clinging on by her fingertips. Very dark. But she soon changes her mind, and he helps her up.

(https://i.ibb.co/WNk1tPXk/dark.jpg)

She releases Bruce from his spell. It's actually not a C note, it's a G#. Or Ab if you prefer. We're left to assume that all the legal shennanigans involving his property and fortune are reversed as well, though this is not explicit.

Back at Commissioner Gordon's office, Batman wakes the commissioner with a quick blast of Bat Awake . To everyone's relief, he can't remember his adventure in the Batcave at all. It seems that The Siren's victims don't remember their time under her spell. How Gordon got released from his own submissive trance is not explained, there's no suggestion that The Siren was involved. Perhaps a brief indication in the script that the effects only last a few hours might have tidied up a loose end there.

His daughter assures him that Batman and Robin took care of everything while he was asleep. But actually Batman doesn't do anything particularly useful in the entire episode, which would be my main criticism of it. His main contribution is getting himself taken hostage as Bruce.

Apart from that, I quite liked it.

In the final scene in the Batcave, the Dynamic Duo's new Criminal Sensor Bat Indicator reveals that The Penguin has returned to Gotham City. So that's next episode's villain, then. He's already top of the Bat Villain leaderboard with eight appearances.

It's notable that a lot of Batman performers were also in Star Trek. Frank Gorshin (Riddler) had a prominent role in a classic episode called Let That Be Your Last Battlefield. Yvonne Craig (Batgirl / Barbara Gordon) was a green-skinned alien in another episode. And Joan Collins (Siren) starred in one of the all-time great Star Trek episodes, City on the Edge of Forever. Grace Lee Whitney (Tut's sidecutie from a second series episode) was Yeoman Janice Rand. Most likely there are a few others.

3:04 The Sport of Penguins

An old bird called Lola Lasagne is racing her horse Parasol at the Wayne Foundation Handicap at Gotham City Race Track. She's an old pal of The Penguin.

Meanwhile The Penguin tries to steal a priceless book about umbrellas and parasols from Gotham Library. Barbara Gordon, who's a librarian there, stops him. He leaves, but leaves behind an umbrella with a time bomb built into the handle. Batman and Robin race there to save the day. There's some very odd dialogue in which Batman tells Barbara that it was a practical joke - maybe a script gag that doesn't quite land properly. Either way the bomb does go off in some sort of controlled explosion (presumably) off-camera, but the Dynamic Duo are unharmed.

The Penguin and Lola come up with a fiendish plan. He's running a secret gambling operation from his hideout at a bookshop. They decided they'll switch her horse Parasol for a dud, but disguise them. Then they'll clean up by betting a large sum of money on Parasol disguised as an outsider.

So they go off to Glu Gluten's glue factory, to buy a dud horse. Hilarious.

By an absolutely inexplicable feat of logic, the Bat Computer tips the Dynamic Duo off about the glue factory. It may communicate using punched cards, but it's smarter than ChatGPT. As soon as they're headed there in the Batmobile, Alfred gives Barbara (Batgirl) a discreet call, to let her know about it. She wants to know how he knows .. he tells her that they mentioned it while visiting Bruce.

Anyway the two visit the glue factory, they find The Penguin and his henchmen there, and of course there's a punch up. Lola is there as well, and she sneaks off with the horse that she and the feathered fink have just acquired.

Batgirl turns up as well and joins in the violence, as usual. The henchmen get wrapped up in a huge roll of adhesive tape. But The Penguin escapes. On his way out, he applies some "library glue" (what?) to the Batmobile's wheels and seats. So of course as they try to leave, they get stuck.

(https://i.ibb.co/3980xFwJ/lola.jpg)

Lola and The Penguin complete the transformation of the two horses using Instant Horse Dye spray. But they're a bit short of cash to use as collateral for their scheme. So, late at night, the avian arch-criminal breaks into the library to steal the priceless book about umbrellas.

Alfred rescues the Dynamic Duo from their sticky predicament. Batman explains that the Batmobile's library paste Bat dissolving switch got stuck, which personally I thought was stretching a joke a bit too far.

Barbara's library prowler alarm goes off in her apartment. Not many librarians are equipped with one of those. She calls Commissioner Gordon, her dad of course. We see the Bat phone going off in the Batcave, presumably Gordon calling the Dynamic Duo.

And that's it for the first episode of a two-parter! No cliffhanger! The voiceover guy tries to inject a bit of drama into "Will Penguin and Lola succeed in pulling off the foulest race-fixing scheme of all time?" but it doesn't seem to carry the same weight as the Dynamic Duo being attached to some unlikely lethal apparatus about to murder them.

Lola is Ethel Merman. She was a well-known musical theatre singer as well as an actress. About twenty years ago I remember David Bowie saying that he listened to her stuff a lot, but I think he may have been joking. She does a decent job here I must say. Good comedy acting chops. She was a very powerful singer. Unbelievably she did an album of disco versions of old show standards about 12 years after this Batman episode was made. It's not for the faint-hearted.

3:05 A Horse of Another Color

The Penguin steals the priceless umbrella book (or "folio") at the library. But the Dynamic Duo - presumably alerted by Commissioner Gordon - arrive to thwart his plans. Before they can nab him though, he sets off a sort of firework umbrella weapon as a diversion, and waddles off.

Batman insists on letting him go. He's up to something much bigger. The Caped Crusader wants to see him play out his hand. Of course he has the priceless book, but Batman has prepared a counter move.

He's placed a Wanted ad in the local paper in the name of A. L. Fred, offering a substantial sum of cash for priceless folios of famous articles, partiuclarly parasols.

So Alfred hands over $10k to get the book back.

The Penguin is incensed when he hears, on the radio news, that the book has been returned to the library, despite having sold it for $10k. He blames Barbara and has a poison gas emitting clockwork penguin statuette delivered to the library. And he gets Lola to force the withdrawal of all the horses except for the two that have been switched from the Wayne Foundation Handicap, by going over to the racecourse and dosing them with itching powder.

But The Penguin enters the disguised Parasol in the race, as Bumberchute, to race against the glue factory horse disguised as Parasol.

(https://i.ibb.co/kVRTHmKF/penghorse.jpg)

Bruce insists that the race should go ahead. He's worked out that the horses have been switched. But he enters another horse in the race, his prize thoroughbred Waynebow. He gets Dick to ride the fake Parasol (the original jockey has been incapacitated somehow, by The Penguin. We don't find out how). And he decides that Batgirl should ride Waynebow. But - who is she? Where is she? How's he going to get hold of her?

Alfred sneaks off to the library to tip her the nod. The poison gas penguin goes off there, but no-one is harmed. It seems to be a pointless plot feature but hey.

So the race happens, with only three horses taking part. The Penguin is riding the real Parasol, Bumberchute. Dick is riding the glue factory fake Parasol. Batgirl is atop Waynebow. Lola has bet the $10k on Parasol.

Of course, Waynebow wins. The fake Parasol is last.

Fair play, the horse racing scene is really well done - proper location shooting at a racing track. I will say that Batgirl looks unusually flat chested during the racing scenes, though.

(https://i.ibb.co/P3NLk8T/batg-horse.jpg)

After the race, Batgirl catches up with the feathered felon and her henchmen in the changing room. Batman and Robin turn up just as soon as she starts dishing out the violence and help her to beat the crims senseless.

Of course, the race is declared unofficial so that the many punters who bet on Parasol don't lose out. And Lola and Penguin are off to the penitentiary.

I'm still not sold on the whole Batgirl thing but I did quite like this one despite its flaws, the most obvious of which is that The Penguin's main caper is to fix a horse race.

In the last scene, King Tut appears in Gotham Library.

I really warmed to Ethel Merman. Shame she didn't have a chance to sing a tune, like Lesley Gore did when she played Pussycat.

3:06 The Unkindest Tut Of All

King Tut is back, thanks to having been hit on the head by a brick at a "love in", and he's taken to making announcements to the press, predicting the time and location where serious crimes will occur from his palatial tent. he's trying to worm his way into the confidence of the police, in advance of commiting the "crime of the century". Come to think of it that century's over now - what was its most obvious crime?

Anyway he uses one of these cleverly staged crimes to have a tracking device planted on the Batmobile. He wants to learn the secret identity of the Caped Crusader. Well - he tracks it to Wayne Manor - the Batcave must be located under there, and Batman must be Bruce Wayne!

He gives Bruce a call to let him know he's going to announce his secret to the world the next day at a press conference.

Which he does. Bruce attends his press conference. But Batman rolls up in the Batmobile! Or does he? No, it's a clever dummy with remote-controlled lip synchronisation, and some very talented ventriloquism from Bruce. The Batmobile has been set to self-driving mode, another '60s fantasy that's possible in the present day.

(https://i.ibb.co/Q78Mw28x/bruceandbats.jpg)

Tut's next prediction is that a mass escape will occur at the penitentiary, or as Phil Lynott might have put it, "somewhere in this town". But his exact words when Bruce foils his plan to reveal Batman's secret identity, or vice-versa if you like, are "it is written: he how knows he has lost, has had it".

A priceless clue. For both Barbara aka Batgirl, an Egyptian bibliophile - and Batman, who sees to know everything - pick up on it straight away. His quote is from line 769 of Chapter 14, scroll 32 of the thirteenth section of the works of Ramases the Bald - a priceless artefact held at Gotham City Library.

"How could I have missed that?" asks Robin. So they're off to the library. They find the poor librarian tied up and rescue her.

Batgirl gets to Tut's makeshift tent palace first, but Tut's sidecutie knocks her on the head with a large vase. Fortunately the Dynamic Duo arrive a few moments later. There's a punch up. Batgirl recovers and delivers some well-timed kicks. It's Game Over for the deluded egyptology professor.

At the very end, we see a new crim roll into town, called Louie the Lilac - apparently a notorious gangster.

(https://i.ibb.co/4knGKCs/tutandcutie.jpg)

Well - any Tut episode is necessarily a good one. I will say that this one feels a bit like a two-parter wrapped up prematurely. The plot is paper-thin and a bit nonsensical, and Tut's master plan is very low-key. Nicking a valuable artefact from a library? It seems as though there's a policy to keep the criminality a bit mundane for the third series.

But this is a very funny script with some brilliant dry humour timed to perfection by Adam West. It could almost have been written by Michael Palin and Terry Jones.

There's an interesting subplot as well, which perhaps we'll see developed over future episodes. Bruce clearly likes Barbara. But she thinks he's a bit dull, and wishes he were more like Batman.

Liked the eye candy in this one. A bit of personality.

This is the 100th Batman episode. So it must be the 100th day of the year.

3:07 Louie, The Lilac

A mobster by the name of Louie The Lilac has cornered the flower market in Gotham City. Unfortunate, because the ciy's hippies are having a "flower in" in the park, and they have no flowers.

Louie's plan is to ingratiate himself with the flower children, on the basis that they'll be the leaders of tomorrow. He hopes to control their minds for his own nefarious purposes. I don't know how many prominent politicial leaders of the '70s and '80s were hippies in the '60s. There must have been a couple, I suppose.

So anyway the hippies are having a bit of disappointing experience at their flower in, or put another way they're "bummed out". Until Louie turns up dishing out lilacs. But he also zombifies the leader of the hippies, Princess Primrose, with a lilac in his lapel, that's a cleverly disguised "stupefying aromatic spray". She goes off with Louie and his henchmen.

There's a lot of this in Batman, this people being zombified and having their minds controlled.

Barbara Gordon, destined to appear in every remaining episode it seems, happens to be in the park and she realises that Primrose has been kidnapped. She goes off to see her dad. The commissioner waves off her concerns, but when he leaves her alone in his office, she gives Batman a call on the Batphone.

At Louie's secret hideout, which is a sort of small garden centre for flowers with a hothouse, Primrose tells the florally-obsessed fink that Barbara Gordon - the police commissioner's daughter - saw her being kidnapped. He gives another dose of the stupefier and has her put in the hothouse.

Louie tells one of his thugs to tail Barbara. And he tells another one to find the Batmobile while it's parked near Gotham Police HQ and leave a card in the Batmobile.

The flower children visit the police HQ to "make a little rumble down at fuzz town". Perhaps I wasn't paying enough attention but I have no idea why. But Batman and Robin, visiting Gordon following up on his daughter's call, fear they'll be mobbed. As Robin explains, "the flower children think we're cool man, like we turn them on, y'know?"

(https://i.ibb.co/gbmnwfHH/louie-lila.jpg)

So they leave down the side of the building, down a Bat rope. They find the card on the steering wheel. It's for a florist's, Lila's Lilac Shop. They go there.

Lila is Louie's criminal accomplice eye candy. Louie calls her and has her prepare a nasty surprise for the Dynamic Duo. Poison lilacs. And when they go there, she accidentally (on purpose) drops a bouquet of them, so that Robin picks them up. He's rendered unconscious, and while Batman leans down to assist him, Louie bangs the Caped Crusader unconscious with a flower pot.

Then the two noble crime-fighters are tied to a carnivorous lilac plant! It's a cliffhanger of sorts, except that since this is a one-parter, it will undoubtedly be resolved in the next few minutes.

Commissioner Gordon calls the Batphone. Batman was supposed to be consulting the Bat computer about Louie, but he got sidetracked by the card from Lila's.
A concerned Alfred consults the Bat computer himself. It comes up with Lila's Lilac Shop as a likely clue.

Meanwhile, one of Louie's thugs turns up at Barbara's apartment. She locks herself in her bedroom and sneaks round to the window, where she confronts him as Batgirl. He scarpers just as her dad turns up with some officers of the law in tow. She's back into her usual guise as Barbara just as he enters.

Shortly afterwards, Alfred visits Barbara - he knows she's Batgirl of course. And he tells her that the Dynamic Duo are missing, last seen at Lila's - but the Batmobile has been located near an isolated greenhouse. And yet she still doesn't make the connection that he's Batman's assistant as well as Bruce Wayne's. butler.

Batman manages to free himself from the man-eating lilac plant just as Louie, Lila and a couple of henchmen turn up at the greenhouse. There's a terrific punch up. Batgirl turns up of course, she always does.. and she joins in the fun. With the henchmen defeated, the Caped Crusaderess gives Louie a blast of a mildew spray. Anything it touches moulds and decays! Definitely including Louie. It's very theatrical. And a bit unecessary, given that the situation was already in hand.

(https://i.ibb.co/VYz4tZ48/mildew.jpg)

The flower people also turn up. Batman insists that Robin goes outside to calm them. "they'll mob me!" he protests. "Groovy", responds Batman.

In the final scene .. who should turn up but .. Egghead! Riding a donkey.

Louie is Milton Berle. I knew the name, recognised the face. He was America's "Mr Television" in the late '40s and '50s. There seems to have been something of a tradition for faded Hollywood / TV stars to turn up in Batman, years after their peak of success.

I didn't much like this one. Louie's master plan seems a bit vague, even if his methods are decidedly criminal.

3:08 The Ogg and I

Egghead is back, and he's teamed up with the Queen of the Bossarovian Cossacks, a lady called Olga. Their first act is to kidnap Commissioner Gordon, using a hot air balloon. Very impressive.

Egghead's demand is simple - he expects to be paid 10 cents for every egg eaten in Gotham City. The Gotham City Police are to do the accounting. And if his demand is not met, Commisioner Gordon will be mailed back to Police Headquarters in a pine box.

Batgirl asks Alfred for help. She has an idea .. her father wears a particular after shave with a pungent aroma derived from a curry root. She wants him to ask him to help search possible hideouts in Gotham City, using his sense of smell. She can't ask anyone else for help, otherwise they might twig her secret. I mean - how would Batgirl know about the commissioner's after shave, unless she was his daughter? And Alfred already knows.

Batman and Robin visit the Bessarovian embassy, for a chat with the ambassador. They assume that she's after the Brass Samovar of Genghis Khan, which is held in the embassy for safe keeping. It is a sacred symbol of power. But the Dynamic Duo have a plan. The ambassador gladly goes along with it, because his country is at war against the Cossack insurgency.

(https://i.ibb.co/8DvWFLH1/eggolga.jpg)

Late that night Olga breaks into the embassy with her Cossacks. They steal the samovar. It's a huge thing, about four metres high. It's taken to her secret hideout, where Commissioner Gordon has been imprisoned already.

But Batman and Robin climb out of it! They've secreted themselves inside, Trojan horse style. Unfortunately, Olga was expecting them. The ambassador is a sort of Cssack mole. The two crime-fighters are incapacitated with a knockout gas bomb. Robin is put in a cage with Commissioner Gordon. But Olga has taken a liking to Batman. She smooches up to him when he comes round.

This incenses Egghead, who argues that the Caped Crusader and Boy Wonder should be killed immediately. They're too tricky to play around with, he asserts. And he's not wrong, is he? They always seem escape from elaborate murder attempts.

But Olga doesn't want to murder Batman. She wants to marry him. And in a quaint Bossarovian tradition, she intends to have some wedding borscht made from their captured prisoners. Commissioner Gordon and Robin, in this case.

However, Alfred and Batgirl, touring possible hideout sites in Gotham City, detect the scent of Commissioner Gordon's after shave at the door of a deserted warehouse. They venture inside. It is indeed the right place.

So of course there's a punch up. It's odd that Batman was just standing around at this point, not attempting to free Robin or the commissioner. I suppose it could be argued that he's only just recovered from the effects of the knockout gas. But anyway he and Batgirl start to beat the Cossacks senseless. They're a bit outnumbered, but Alfred chins the ambassador, who was chopping vegetables into a huge vat also containing Commissoner Gordon and the Boy Wonder. He's also a chef, y'see.

Alfred frees them from their ties and Robin joins in the punch up. They overcome the Cossacks, but Egghead has a trick up his sleeve. He has a batch of eggs laid by hens fed on nothing but onions for six months. He throws them on the floor, in front of the three masked crime-fighters. Oddly they go off a bit like exploding tear gas grenades. They reduce Batman, Batgirl and Robin to tears, allowing the egg-obsessed evildoer and the Cossack queen criminaless to make good their escape.

This is a brilliant scene. The three really blubber helplessly, in the most theatrical manner possible. And that's it for part one .. no cliffhanger. Most of the third series stories aren't two parters, but for those that are .. I wonder what prompted the change of format?

Very nice to see Egghead again. You can't not like Vincent Price. But Anne Baxter as Olga is superb as well - she does the parody eastern European accent brilliantly. She's 43 here, but she'd been a Hollywood star in her 20s in the '40s and '50s. Also, and I've just realised this - she was Zelda the Great in the first Batman series. The only person so far to play more than one Batman villain.

3:09 How to Hatch a Dinosaur

Olga, her Cossacks and Egghead visit Gotham's radium centre. They threaten a technician with a sword, then demand two pounds of radium. There seems to be no security there.

Barbara delivers a paleontology book from the library to Professor Dactyl at Gotham's Natural History Museum. She notices a large fossil egg there. It's 40 million years old, a neosaurus egg. She warns the professor that Egghead might try to steal it.

And he does.

Batman has a hunch that the crimes are connected, so he has a think about it. Barbara has a think about it as well. Independently, they both remember an academic article written by a Professor Willis Grimes, entitled Revitalising Fossil Forms By the Use of High Energy Radioactive Energy Sources.

(https://i.ibb.co/j9cr78nY/zapper.jpg)

And of course that's exactly what Egghead intends. He's going to hatch the neosaurus egg by zapping it with radiation provided by the radium he's stolen. Neosauruses have 2,562 teeth - not counting wisdom teeth - so it should help him to take control of Gotham City.

Batman and Batgirl independently come up with the idea of using a geiger counter, tuned to the exact radiation signature of the stolen radium to hunt down the arch-criminals. So Batgirl and the Dynamic Duo arrive at Olga and Egghead's hideout at the exact same time.

Batgirl and Robin make the usual theatrical entrance. They're met by sword-wielding Cossacks, but they hold their own until Batgirl ends up with a sword held to her throat by Egghead. Robin is similarly restrained.

But where's Batman?

Egghead, who's been trying to hatch the neosaurus egg for a while, gives it a last blast with his radiation zapping machine. It starts to hatch! And (hilariously) out emerges a large and threatening neosaurus!

(https://i.ibb.co/pBWxQqx5/batneosaurus.jpg)

O'Hara and the Gotham police have turned up by this time. Olga, Egghead and the Cossacks run into the large police van waiting outside for their own safety.

Well - of course it turns out to be the Caped Crusader, in a neosaurus costume, lined with lead shielding, to protect him from the radiation.

But how did he get inside the egg? It's a question that O'Hara ponders over cake and a cup of tea with Bruce, Barbara, her dad and Dick later in the day. Unfortunately it's not satisfactorily answered. Commissioner Gordon merely quips that Batman must have "hatched his own little plot". An example, I suppose of a script acknowledging its own deficiency, but not actually correcting it.

Hey ho. In the last scene, we see that The Joker has turned up in Gotham City, yet again.

3:10 Surf's Up! Joker's Under!

Elite surfer Skip Parker is spending a day at the beach with Barbara Gordon at Gotham Point. Unfortunately The Joker has also decided to spend some time there. He has the owner of the Hang Five beachside caff, Hot Dog Harrigan, bagged and put in the trash so he can take over his establishment for his own nefarious purposes. Then he kidnaps Skip.

It seems that the Clown Prince of Crime wants to be a surfing champion. He has invented a "surfing experience and ability transferometer" device, which will transfer Skip's talent and vigour to himself. A bit like BIG RAT in Joe 90. But much smaller. The loathsome arch criminal clearly feels that status as King of the Surf and all the surfers will gain him huge power and influence.

Barbara calls her dad to let him know that she thinks Skip has been kidnapped. In turn, the police commissioner gives Batman a call on the Batphone.

So the Dynamic Duo go to Gotham Point in the Batcopter. Commissioner Gordon and O'Hara also turn up in their beach casuals, complete with straw hats and sunglasses.

The Joker has poor Skip tied down, then transfers the lad's surfing know-how and physical prowess to his own brain and body - anticipating the surfing prizes, honour, respect and adulation that will surely come with his new abilities.

A hint from the Bat Computer leads Batman and Robin to the Ten Toes surfing shop, which - sure enough - is The Joker's hideout. They pay a visit, but - as is so often the case - they're expected. The Joker's henchmen hurl toxic sea urchin spines at them as soon as they enter through the window (as usual). Needless to say they're incapacitated. The giggling ghoul then sets his henchmen to work converting the weakened crime-fighters to surfboards! We see them being liberally covered in resin. Or fibreglass foam, or whatever it is.

(https://i.ibb.co/8gCStZs5/beachcandy.jpg)

Next, we see two fibreglass surfboard blanks lying on the work bench. No more than 150mm thick. But as The Joker's henchmen apply a final coat of catalyser to the two boards, they start to smoke .. then there's an explosion .. then a pall of smoke, and Batman and Robin are standing there. Batman used his portable ultra-violet Bat ray to blow up the two surfboards in which they were entombed. Supposedly. It's not easy to see how he could have broken Robin out at the same time.

But anyway, the two find Skip Parker locked away in a cupboard, and he tells them what happened. And Batman comes up with a plan. He tells Robin to go the beach as Dick Grayson, in his own car, with a surfboard. Then the Caped Crusader goes to Hang Five, where he finds The Joker. He challenges the Clown Prince to compete against him in the Gotham Point World Surfing Championship. Given that the frivolous fiend has already attempted a double murder and kidnapped someone, perhaps some viewers might have been surprised that a punch up doesn't take place at this point.

Instead, the two arch-enemies put on baggy surfing shorts over their usual costumes, and they go surfing. It's just hilarious, especially when sharks appear in the water and Batman gives them a quick blast of shark repellent from a spray in his utility belt.

(https://i.ibb.co/F4bMkStB/batsurfer.jpg)

Inevitably, the judges award Batman the win. He's clearly a gifted surfer. And when Hot Dog Harrigan emerges from the trash can in which he was dumped by The Joker and his gang, the arch-criminal and his goons decide it's time to do a runner. They run into the Hang Five. Barbara and Dick do a quick change into Batgirl and Robin, and they join Batman for the concluding punch up.

I loved this one. Delightfully ridiculous and camp from the start with some genuinely laugh out loud moments. Plenty of 1960s swimsuit-clad eye candy as well, and you can't not like that.

3:11 The Londinium Larcenies

Batman and Robin are invited, via the President and Commissioner Gordon, to visit Londinium - to help Ireland Yard solve a series of unexplained crimes. But they aren't unexplained to the viewer, because we see Lord Marmaduke Ffog and his sister Lady Penelope Peasoup committing these foul deeds, the most brazen of which is to steal some priceless valuables from Chuckingham Palace. The two villains are of course outrageous caricatures of the English upper classes.

They get away with this because Lord Marmaduke has a special pipe, which once lit, produces voluminous clouds of smoke (or perhaps "fog"), under the cover of which the two aristocratic villains make their escape.

Commissioner Gordon is going to Londinium for an international police commissioner's conference, so he takes his daughter Barbara along. Bruce Wayne, Dick Grayson and Alfred are also off to London (sorry, Londinium), by coincidence (does nobody ever put two and two together?).

Weirdly, they choose to travel there by ocean liner. Once Batman and Robin arrive, they set up a temporary Batcave in a dungeon under a country manor rented by Bruce. It has an isolated entrance to the Queen's Highway, for Batmobile access.

Using some very dubious logic following a meeting with Superintendent Watson at Ireland Yard - he's an absolutely ridiculous stereotype of course - the Dynamic Duo are on to Ffog and Peasoup straight away, and they go to pay them a visit of Ffog Manor, out in the English countryside - on the (rather odd, I thought) pretext that Batman's friend Bruce has a similar "aftergrass lawn" (what?) and he wants to compare them.

(https://i.ibb.co/4g50msBT/ffogpeasoup.jpg)

They find Ffog and Peasoup to be gracious hosts. Lady Peasoup runs a "posh girls' finishing school" there, which of course is an excuse for a bit of eye candy mostly. But while showing him around the place, Lady Prudence, Ffog's daughter, lets Robin in on a secret. Lady Peasoup's finishing school is turning out "mistresses of shoplifting". Holy contributing to the delinquency of minors! It's a crime school!

Lady Peasoup shows Batman and Superintendent Watson round the grounds. She shows them Lord Ffog's African death bee hive. "One sting and you're finished", she says. So far they seem to be wholly superfluous to the plot but perhaps we'll get a sense of their purpose in the second or third part. Yep, it's a three-parter.

Ffog is clearly aware that the Caped Crusader and Boy Wonder are a threat, and he asks his butler to prepare two graves for them on the grounds of Ffog Manor. But Lady Peasoup invites Barbara to join her young ladies' finishing academy. She hopes to keep an eye on the "Batman brigade" through her, and potentially use her as a hostage.

Barbara gives Alfred a surreptitious call. How did she know how to get hold of him? Via the "temporary visitors registration office" of course. She gets him to meet her with her Batgirl outfit in a suitcase. The suitcase has the Batgirl emblem prominently displayed on the lid; perhaps a little indiscreet.

(https://i.ibb.co/v6Y7JpTM/roadblock.jpg)

So Batman and Robin head back to their temporary Batcave, but they encounter a road block in the English countryside. It's an ambush! A bunch of English thugs, including Ffog's footman, butler and chauffeur disguised in everyday clothes, jump out of the bushes and attempt to overcome them. Needless to say, a punch up occurs at this point. Equally needless to say, Batgirl appears from nowhere to start kicking the bad guys senseless.

Hilariously, Batman and Robin occasionally pick up rocks the size of beach balls and hurl them at their attackers. Once triumphant, Batgirl disappears as usual. And the Dynamic Duo return to their Londinium Batcave. But as soon as they arrive there .. they're enveloped in thick, choking fog. Or smoke. One of the thugs surreptitiously placed a fog emitting device in the glove box of the Batmobile during the fracas.

So: I'd thought that this third series of Batman had represented a jumping of the shark, but I can't deny that some of these later instalments have been a lot of fun, definitely including this one. I must especially give Glynis Johns huge credit. She was an English actress of course, I think best known for Mary Poppins three years earlier. But she does the ridiculous upper crust English accent brilliantly; hilariously.

There are some nice bits of stock footage of London. Lovely to see Regent Street and Piccadilly Circus especially, I was there on Thursday. But of course the English countryside scenes look nothing like the English countryside. Presumably filmed somewhere in Southern California. Nice that they put a British-style number plate on the Batmobile, though.

3:12 The Foggiest Notion

The Dynamic Duo are saved from the delayed action fog weapon planted in the Batmobile by its general emergency Bat extinguisher. They report to Superintendent Watson that Ffog and Peasoup are most likely the perpetrators of the crimes they've been called from Gotham City to help investigate. Watson is initially outraged by the suggestion that two of England's most venerable aristocrats are involved in criminal activities.

But a parcel is delivered to Watson's office while Gordon and the Dynamic Duo are present. It starts to smoke, then explodes. It contains three silver bells - a clue! Or a trap.

So the Dynamic Duo go to London's dock area - it's hilarious to think that impressionable Americans might have imagined that London's Docklands looked like this, a wooden pier - and they investigate the Three Bells pup there. Robin can't go in - not old enough.

A ship is due to leave the dock later the same day, carrying materials and patterns from Barnaby Street. Ffog and Peasoup intend to steal them, so that they can control Londinium's vibrant and lucrative world of fashion.

In the pub, Batman confronts Ffog. One of his crude cockney henchmen attempts to knock him out with a bottle, so a punch up takes place. Alas, after a spirited effort, he's overcome and tied up.

Meanwhile outside, by the Batmobile, Peasoup and her crime school girls capture Robin. It's not hard. He'd never fight a woman. But before he's overcome, he manages to grab a fire axe and cut the mooring rope of the ship with the Barnaby Street goodies aboard. It drifts away down the Thames, so they can't steal the stuff. You couldn't make it up! Oh wait, someone did.

Barbara meets with Alfred. She tells him that Ffog's daughter, Lady Prudence, may be playing all sides against each other for her own devious purposes. She does a quick change into her Batgirl threads and asks him to take her to the cricket pavilion. Ffog allows no-one inside but his sister and himself, which naturally has aroused her suspicion. She asks him to get her dad to alert Batman.

So she goes to the Forbidden Cricket Pavilion, and finds an Aladdin's Cave of stolen treasures! Including the Queen's collection of priceless snuff boxes. But Lady Prudence sees her there .. and covertly operates the pavilion's Emergency Paralysing Gas supply. Batgirl is paralysed! She's taken to the dungeon at Ffog Manor.

(https://i.ibb.co/PZd2hVh8/batrestorer.jpg)

Back at the Three Bells, Batman has been tied to a chair. Ffog is going to leave him there. But first the Caped Crusader's memory will be wiped by the malevolent aristocrat's handy portable amnesia device.

Later, Batman comes to his senses - sort of - in an empty pub. He leaves, in a confused stupor. Fortunately Alfred is on hand outside, to help. He drives the Caped Confused Crusader to the temporary Londinium Batcave in the Batmobile. Fortunately he's bacled the Recollection Cycle Bat Restorer for the trip. He attaches the electrode headset - it looks an awful lot like 1960s hi fi headphones - and a second later Batman springs to his feet, his old self, all memories intact.

But what's happened to Robin? The Bat Computer must be consulted, clearly. After a few seconds' deliberation, it comes up with the word WINCH. Clearly, Robin is being held captive at the winch room at Tower Bridge. Generally, I like the Bat computer. But I do think this was stretching its fictional abilities a bit too far.

So the Caped Crusader and his faithful assistant go over to Tower Bridge. Batman has already worked out - somehow - that Robin has been entangled in the cable of the winch, so that the next ship to pass through will wind him to death. So he operates his anti-mechanical Bat ray, rendering the mechanism useless. Then he goes in and frees the Boy Wonder.

Ffog and his henchmen, observing from outside, see that something is amiss when the bridge fails to operate properly. The consequences for approaching river traffic are not explored. But they go back inside. There is, of course, a punch up. It all goes very well for the Dynamic Duo, until Ffog lights his Pipe of Fog to make good his escape.

(https://i.ibb.co/Rp5gzN9F/ffogpipe.jpg)

And there we must leave it until next time .. Batgirl is tied up in a dungeon, but apart from that, no cliffhanger. I wonder why the third series dispensed with them.

So anyway apart from some bizarre script logic, I quite liked it. I'm especially loving Glynis Johns as Lady Penelope Peasoup. The exaggerated Queen Elizabeth voice is just delightful. I like the earthy cockney villain accents of Ffog's henchmen as well. A couple are portrayed by English actors. A couple definitely aren't, and even Dick Van Dyke would wince.

The "winch room" at Tower Bridge as imagined in this Batman episode is quite different from the real engine room there, which used steam engines and hydraulic pistons rather than a winch. Amusingly, some of the machinery as portrayed here is painted pink.

3:13 The Bloody Tower

Robin, now rescued from a grisly fate at the Tower Bridge winch room, tells Batman and Alfred that Batgirl is being held at the Ffog Manor dungeon. In fact the situation is a bit worse than that. Ffog and Lady P intend to dispose of her. From the steps leading down to the dungeon floor, they thrown some lethal fog pellets.

I doubt that it was an intentional reference to events twenty-odd years earlier involving Zyklon B but I must admit I found this a bit unsettling, especially when the pellets start to emit their lethal fog. Anyway fortunately the pellets have gone "stale" and lost their potency, and Batgirl survives. For the time being.

Robin drives to Ffog Manor and sneaks in there. Batman and Alfred travel separately, something to do with Alfred having borrowed a cab from his cousin. Presumably he wants to return it. It's not really clear why Batman has to go with him.

Alas, in what must be the single most surreally comedic scene of any Batman episode, Robin stumbles into a trip wire leading to Ffog's African Death Bee hive. The trip wire is about six feet long, in the middle of a huge lawn. And it's clearly marked DEATH BEE BEEHIVE TRIP WIRE. Careless.

A comedy prop bee emerges from the hive. And yet he just lies there, making no attempt to escape. Furthermore, Lady Prudence comes to join him. She seems very confident that the bee won't attack her. Why? A few moments later, the bee lands on Robin's glove. He doesn't try to kill it, with his other gloved hand. He just stares at it.

Batman arrives, and sneaks into Ffog Manor, oblivious to Robin's plight. He finds Batgirl chained in the dungeon. Alas, as he makes his way down the stone steps, Ffog and his wicked sister arrive there with some fresh lethal fog pellets. The larcenous lord pushes the Caped Crusader down the steps and chucks the new pellets.

Robin has been stung by the death bee. Prudence brings him inside. He seems to be in a sort of semi-paralytic stupor. Lady P asks Pru to take him to the girl's dormitory so he can perish quietly out of everyone's way.

(https://i.ibb.co/8ndM5BqC/beewire.jpg)

Ah, but Robin has taken an antidote pill! He's fine. The girls make a spirited effort to mob him - they think he's groovy - but he escapes. Presumably out fof the window.

Meanwhile, Batman has deployed his anti-lethal-fog Bat spray in the dungeon. He frees Batgirl from her chains with his Bat file. He's unable to open the solid oak door to the dungeon, but there is a grating in the ceiling. Alas - he's left his Batarang in the Batmobile. But Batgirl has some rope with her. Somehow.

So the Caped Crusader performs an Indian rope trick to get the rope to levitate to the grating. He utters a Hindi incantation to ensure the rope stays straight. The two crime-fighters climb the rope and emerge from the grating. The mechanics of how the rope ties itself to the grating, or indeed how the grating is opened from below while supporting their weight, are not explained or obvious.

But anyway - Ffog, Peasoup, the various henchmen and the young criminaless ladies are off to the Tower of Londonium, to thieve the Crown Jewels. As soon as they have them, they'll be off to Argentuela.

At the Tower, the criminal gang find the jewels guarded by a pair of Beefeaters accompanied by a guard in a bearskin. To Ffog's shock, the Beefeaters are Batman and Robin in disguise. Cue the punch up. The earthy cockney henchmen avail themselves of some lethal-looking mediaeval axes and swords, but of course the Dynamic Duo overcome them. Curiously, the guard just seems to disappear; he doesn't take part in resisting the would-be thieves, even though it's his day job. Neither does Batgirl, until Ffog, his scheming sister and the girls try to make their escape. She blocks their path, armed with a large ceremonial pole of some sort that she's picked up.

Naturally, Ffog resorts to his Pipe of Fog. But Batman has come equipped with a Pipe of Fog Bat Reverser. The fog reverses into the pipe (Interestingly, accompanied by the Star Trek transporter sound effect).

(https://i.ibb.co/ZzBpw5TZ/deathbee.jpg)

Plod arrive to apprehend the villains. Pru explains to Robin that she hoped to end up on top by playing all sides against each other. Robin, And apart from a welcome invitation to the Dynamic Duo to take a cup of char at Ireland Yard, that's that.

Batgirl disappears of course, but Barbara arrives moments later. She mentions that she just passed her on the way in.

Oh yes and at the very end, we see that Catwoman is back in Gotham City. She's a black woman now! It's Eartha Kitt! There's also a telephone call between Batman and the president (would have been LBJ at the time) in which the Caped Crusader is invited to Texas. I wondered if this was a reference to topical events, but it might just reflect the script having the President request Batman's presence in Londinium in the first part.

I really enjoyed this one. Nice to have a Batman story set outside Gotham City for a change. There's some nice stock footage of London, although the English countryside scenes are hilariously non-English looking.

Madge Blake (as Aunt Harriet) makes her final appearance here, in a scene that has nothing to do with the plot. She turns up at Ireland Yard inquiring after Bruce and Dick, on her way home from her North Cape cruise. Madge was in ill health and I think this was probably a sentimental gesture.

There's a visual joke in this one that I really liked. Superintendent Watson's office is exactly the same set as Commissioner Gordon's office. Desk, couch, steps, doors etc all in the same place. They just changed the carpet and put some ornaments on the wall and the desk.

The best thing about this whole three-parter though is Gynis John as Lady Penelope Peasoup. What an immaculate feel she had for comedy. She died last year at the age of 100.

Surprisingly, Ffog is played by Rudy Vallée, best known as a singer, saxophonist and bandleader in the '30s. Fascinating that these faded stars from a decade or two earlier keep turning up in Batman. He was an American. His exaggerated toff English accent isn't bad.

3:14 Catwoman's Dressed to Kill

Catwoman turns up at a posh private luncheon where Gotham City's top ten best-dressed women are being given awards. There's even one for Batgirl! But Catwoman is singularly unimpressed. She intends to be Gotham's best dressed woman herself. She throws a hair-raising bomb, which immediately ruins the hairstyles of the ladies present. Then she leaves.

Amusingly, the host is wearing the Pierre Cardin outfit that inspired the Spectrum uniforms in Captain Scarlet.

Naturally Batman and Robin are on the case immediately. They caution Commissioner Gordon about involving Batgirl, fearing that she might come to harm. But Barbara is present. So she knows already.

It seems that the feline, formerly-white-but-now-somehow-mixed-race arch-criminal intends to steal the legendary Golden Fleece from Queen Bess of Belgravia. It's a gown made of gold cloth, and a priceless cultural artefect. Her people would give anything to get it back.

Brazenly, she sends a telegram to Commissioner Gordon - telling him that she's going to plunder a fashion show, and that she's going to get away with it.

Most of Batman's arch-enemies do this, or at least leave clues. It's clearly a serious flaw in the criminal mindset. Gordon calls Batman of course. The Caped Crusader cautions him not to tell Batgirl. It might be a trap, he ponders. But yet again, Barbara turns up at her father's office, so she finds out anyway. She just can't keep away.

So the Dynamic Duo go there. They find Catwoman and her henchmen there, of course. Catwoman wants to steal all the clothes for herself. Naturally there's a confrontation. A nice bit of dialogue here:

Robin: how could a feline feloness like you also be a fashion model?
Batman: credit where credit is due, Robin. She may be evil but she is attractive, you'll know more about that in a couple of years.

But the catty criminaless' henchmen sneak up behind the two crime-fighters with a large net, and capture them. None of the bystanders attempt to help. Not so much as a "they're behind you!"

But that's OK because Batgirl turns up, as she always does. She frees the Dynamic Duo. Catwoman escapes into the hallowed and forbidden no-man's land of the ladies' changing room. Clearly Batman and Robin can't go in there. But Batgirl can, and she does - only to get knocked out by a whiff of the foul feline's knockout perfume atomiser.

When she doesn't emerge for a minute or so, the Dynamic Duo decide it's time to go in there themselves. They cover their eyes. It's really a hilarious scene, with them stumbling around in there. After about half a minute, the girls in there tell him that they're fully clothed. One of the girl extras has a huge grin, that I doubt was scripted. Nice moment.

(https://i.ibb.co/tPFMPmvG/catphone.jpg)

But Catwoman has escaped, and taken Batgirl with her. The crime-fightress has been kidnapped! Batman was right, she should have stayed out of it.

"Do you think she'll kill Batgirl?" asks Robin. "Or worse Robin .. or worse", replies Batman. But what Catwoman really intends soon becomes clear. She's going to attach Batgirl to a steel cutting machine in her hideout at an abandoned clothes factory in the garment district. Then she'll go and steal the golden gown at the embassy. The Dynamic Duo can't be in two places at once! So while they're rescuing Batgirl from the cutting wheel, she and her henchmen will have a free hand at the embassy.

So the formerly-white feloness gives Commissioner Gordon a call, to let him and Batman know what'll happen to Batgirl unless they intervene.

I mean - Gordon has a whole police department. Is Batman the only person who could go over there and turn the cutting machine off? But whatever - it's imperative that the theft of the golden gown is prevented. It's a cultural artefect of immeasurable importance. Belgravia could well declare war if it's stolen.

(https://i.ibb.co/Dg15SPBy/hippy-alf.jpg)

Robin rightly points out that it's a very small country .. the US would win in a few hours. But Batman explains that they'd have to support Belgravia for years. Satire.

Fortunately - there's a solution. The abandoned clothes factory is not far from Wayne Manor. Batman calls Alfred and tells him to get over there immediately, in disguise. Batgirl can't recognise him. She might work out Batman's secret identity. He goes dressed (and bearded) as an old hippy, and saves her. I did wonder how long it took him to get into his disguise, given that she was in dire peril of being halved by a cutting wheel.

Catwoman arrives at the Belgravian embassyy. She gasses the Queen of Belgravia and her entourage, and steals the gown. She's already in the gown by the time the Caped Crusader, Boy Wonder and Batgirl arrive. The usual punch up ensues. And the race-fluid rascaless is off to the penitentiary again.

I had wondered whether I'd seen any of the third series episodes as a kid but I definitely remember Eartha Kitt as Catwoman, and especially her throaty purr. Is she as good in the role as Julie Newmar? No, but no-one could be, and anyway she makes it a different role. Fair play to Eartha for putting her own stamp on the character. Her acting is a little bit wooden, but she makes up for it with charisma and force of personality. She was in her 40s when this was made, but she does look good in the lurex catsuit without a doubt. I think she had fun with this.

Interestingly this wasn't actually the first time she played Catwoman - one of the later episodes was shot before this one. No idea why they fiddled with the running order.

3:15 The Ogg Couple

Olga, her Cossacks and Egghead are back in Gotham City. It seems that Egghead got out of the penitentiary on a technicality, and Bessarovia refused to accept Olga and the Cossacks when an attempt was made to deport them there.

Their first criminal act on their return is to steal a precious silver scimitar embedded in a huge golden egg from Gotham City Museum. Legend has it that whoever pulls the sword from the egg is the rightful monarch of Bessarovia. Olga pulls it easily from the egg, assisted by a surreptitious drop of acid applied to the join by Egghead.

The gang's next crime is to steal 500 pounds of dehydrated caviar stored in a cold vault at the Gotham National Bank. It's worth $500 an ounce, a gift from the King of Samarkand.

Naturally, the Dynamic Duo have anticipated this crime. After all caviar is fish eggs. And Samarkand is right next to Bessarovia, albeit it isn't in real life.

Surprisingly, Batgirl gets to the bank before Batman and Robin. She's too late to prevent the crime. Olga and her band of Cossacks have already left with the caviar. But she does manage to apprehend Egghead. In fact she saves his life; the manager of the bank was about to have him shot in cold blood by his security guard!

(https://i.ibb.co/7tzkvt9K/anneandvince.jpg)

She rescues him on condition that he'll lead her to the bonkers Bessarovian's secret hideout. They go there on her Batcycle. It's an ice house. The Batmobile arrives moments later. The bank manager explains that Batgirl has gone off with Egghead to find the caviar. The Dynamic Duo follow. Fortunately Batgirl's bike has a turbo engine with a radioactive spark plug, so they're able to home in on her with a Bat geiger counter.

By the time they arrive there though, the bat-themed crime-fightress has already been overcome. Olga threw a few thousand dollars worth of caviar at her feet, so she slipped up. But it could have been a lot worse. Taking on several large men armed with sharp instruments was never a good idea, was it? Once her hands are tied, Olga forces the poor girl to perform a sabre dance, surrounded by her Cossacks fluorishing their swords in her general direction.

Of course when the Caped Crusader and Boy Wonder arrive, there's a punch up. Olga, Egghead and the gang manage to escape by chucking Batgirl, still tied, into the large vat of caviar to drown, forcing the Dynamic Duo to rescue her while they make for the exit.

For this reason, and because we're in the last couple of minutes of the episode by this time, I assumed that this must be the first episode of a multi-parter. But we cut to a scene where O'Hara describes how he and his men rounded them up outside the building. It's oddly abrupt. Curiously, it seems that this episode was indeed originally intended as the second instalment of a three parter. I assume that the previous Egghead and Olga story, which is a two-parter, was cut down. If so, I'd guess they were filmed first, then patched with short scenes to restore a bit of coherence.

One thing I don't understand - why the caviar has to be "dehydrated". It's kept in a cold vault at the bank, and an ice house once stolen.

In any case - Anne Baxter and Vincent Price are quite brilliant as Olga and Egghead respectively.

3:16 The Funny Feline Felonies

After a sustained period of commendable behaviour, The Joker is released from prison. Even Bruce Wayne is convinced he's a reformed man. But who should pick him up from the front gates, but Catwoman? The cackling criminal tries to pretend he's been kidnapped, but of course they're up to something.

As the Dynamic Duo discuss the matter with Commissioner Gordon, Catwoman decides to send a message. From the sleazy hotel across the street (it's actually called Sleazy Hotel), she fires a special capsule bullet into the commissioner's office. It contains a slip of paper, warning Batman that the next one will be "between your eyelids".

The Caped Crusader quickly works out the location from which the bullet was fired - from its trajectory, and the wind speed and direction. He and Robin go there. It's a hotel room obviously. Batgirl turns up a minute later. She finds a clue, a scrap of paper.

Using some sort of analysis involving microfilm records in her guise as a mild-mannered librarian, she discovers that the piece of paper is part of an old poem.

Catwoman explains her plan to The Joker. She's stolen an old poem, handwritten over 200 years previously, from the library. In its text are clues to the whereabouts of a huge cache of gunpowder, somwhere in Gotham City. It asserts that clues to the location can be found in the hem of an old nightshirt, and some writing on the side of a crib. The catty criminaless needs the gunpowder to blow a hole you could drive a truck through in the federal depository building. Then she's going to drive a truck through it. She's also going to purrrrrrge her arch-enemies Batman, Robin and Batgirl from Gotham City, of course.

Batgirl gives Batman a call on the Batphone, from her dad's office. She tells him to meet her at the apartment of Little Louie Groovy, an up-and-coming young (and wealthy) record producer. It turns out that the old nightshirt is owned by the groovy record man.

(https://i.ibb.co/5X2xKq26/jokercats.jpg)

Of course Joker, Catwoman and their gang get there first. But the Dynamic Duo catch them there, and of course there's a huge punch up. Very little regard is paid to Louie's very expensive, trendy furniture. But his groovy revolving bed platform makes for a very interesting punch up.

Alas, at the moment that the two crime-fighters appear to have the upper hand, the giggling ghoul offers a conciliatory handshake in defeat. He incapacitates them with his lethal joker buzzer. Then he, Catwoman and their loathsome criminal henchmen are off with the nightshirt, leaving them to die a grisly death from collapsed lungs. Fortunately (and of course) Batgirl is there moments later, and administers an antidote.

Then she explains about the cache of gunpowder, the poem, and the location of the remaining clue. The crib is at the home of Karnaby Katz, a devil-may-care clothing designer from Londinium.

The three caped crimefighters go there, of course. But they're too late. The dastardly criminal pair have beaten them to it. They find Mr Katz bemoaning the state of his ransacked home, but at least the only thing that's been taken is the crib - he'd found it at an antique store.

But Joker, Catwoman and the gang are lurking outside, waiting to ambush the three noble defenders of law and order! It's a cliffhanger of sorts, I suppose. We're halfway through a two-parter.

It's difficult to understand how Catwoman has had the insight to work out from a poem in Gotham City Library that there's a large cache of gunpowder somewhere in the city, when no-one else has. I worked out that it would cause a 0.45 kiloton blast, if ignited. Definitely one for the bomb squad.

Joe E Ross has a small part in this one, ten years after he was a regular in The Phil Silvers Show as Sgt Ritzik. He plays an associate of Little Louie. His brief speaking part (he even does the trademark "ooh! ooh!") has nothing to do with the plot so definitely just a sentimental cameo.

I wonder if Cesar Romero had a bit of a thing for Eartha Kitt? Joker seems unusually handsy with Catwoman in this one.

3:17 The Joke's on Catwoman

The Joker, Catwoman and their vile henchmen wait for Batman, Batgirl and Robin to emerge, outside Karnaby Katz' residence. They let Batman and Robin leave in the Batmobile. Then they emerge from the bushes as Batgirl attempts to start her bike. They've nicked the spark plug! She's overcome remarkably easily. Doesn't even get a kick in.

Catwoman has her bound by the throat in a "cat's whisker" twine she's developed that will contract when exposed to body heat - then they leave her to die by strangulation, on the lawn! Fortunately she manages to reach and operate the lawn's sprinkler system, cool the twine, unbind herself and escape.

Batgirl then gives Batman a call at the Batcave. She asks the Dynamic Duo to meet her at the intersection of Cat's Tail Lane and Nine Lives Alley - the location of a manufacturer of novelty goods. How the Caped Crusaderess knows about the location is not explained, unless I missed something.

Catwoman and Joker are already there. They decode the clues from the crib and the nightshirt. A location on Phony Island, at the southern tip of Gotham City. Interestingly the clue on the crib is written in French; Eartha reads it out very naturally. She was fluent. Despite that, Catwoman still has to refer to her French dictionary.

The three crime-fighters observe the gang leaving their secret hideout and follow them surreptitiously, in the Batmobile. At the island, the clue leads Catwoman, Joker and the gang to a lighthouse maintained by an eccentric couple. The Terrific Trio aren't far behind them, and they burst into the lighthouse to apprehend them.

Joker is alarmed to see them - "No! You're kaput! fini! defunct!" he cries, obviously believing them to be dead. But apart from Batgirl, why? Batman and Robin were allowed to leave the Katz residence unhindered. No attempts have since been made on their lives. Just sloppy writing, probably.

In the ensuing struggle, Joker grabs a knob at the bottom of the spiral staircase. Part of the wall slides away to reveal large sacks and barrels of gunpowder. So we're asked to believe that, within five minutes, Joker stumbles across something that the lighthouse keeper couple hadn't managed to find the whole time they'd been living there.

Hilariously, Joker lights a match to examine the situation. Then he drops it. There's a huge explosion, but not to worry - Batman had given the room a spray with anti-Bat blast powder in the split second before the detonation.

(https://i.ibb.co/v60gdpQT/jokecats.jpg)

Catwoman demands to call her lawyer, a request which the Caped Crusader graciously allows. She calls Lucky Pierre. He's never lost a case.

Lucky Pierre seems to be a sort of 1960s Saul Goodman. There's a portrait of Nixon on his desk. This episode was broadcast about a year before Nixon took office as President. I assumed this was a bit of general political satire, but later discovered that Pierre is played by Pierre Salinger, who was a fairly well-known Democrat politician. He was LBJ's press secretary and had been a Senator. Why he turns up doing a spot of comedy acting in Batman I have no idea, but he's pretty good.

There then follows a court room scene in which Batman himself, due to his familiarity with the situation, handles the prosecution. Batman presents a damning case for robbery, assault, attempted murder, mayhem and overtime parking. Pierre doesn't even bother to cross-examine the witnesses.

And yet - to the judge's shock and disgust, the jury returns a verdict of not guilty. The jury is in fact composed entirely of middle-aged white men and I wondered if a subtle ahead-of-its-time gag about diversity was being indulged here. But no - when the Foreman of the Jury's fake moustache slips, Batman and Robin twig that they're all former criminal associates of Catwoman. The trial's been rigged!

As soon as he's been rumbled, Marvin the Moose - the foreman of the jury - gets out a Tommy gun and aims it at Batman. A Batarang soon takes care of that. Naturally there's a punch up at this point. Conveniently, the Gentlemen of the Jury are prevented from taking part by one of the court guards. Would have been very difficult to choreograph a punch up with all twelve taking part in addition to Joker, Catwoman and the rest of the accused.

Of course the forces of Law and Order are victorious - the judge even takes part by clonking Joker on the head with his gavel - and it's off to the penitentiary with Catwoman, Joker and their misguided criminal helpers.

In the final scene, we learn that Louie the Lilac is back in town.

Well - I quite liked this one, but it does have a critical flaw. There's just no reason whatever for The Joker to be in it. I can't see any reason whatever for Catwoman to involve him in her plan. He does nothing useful. She's got the whole thing thought out herself, whereas he mostly seems bewildered by it. He does, admittedly, help by overcoming the Dynamic Duo with his lethal handshake buzzer at Louie's place. But she couldn't have anticipated that.

I believe this is Eartha's final appearance as Catwoman; she only appears in three episodes.

Eartha was mixed race and supposedly suffered as much alienation and rejection for her skin colour from the black community as she did from white America. She never knew who her white father was, supposedly because her mother had been raped and his identity was protected. She married a white man herself and her daughter, Kitt Shapiro, is fair-haired and blue-eyed. For this reason she's been criticised for "white passing", when in fact to all intents and purposes, she's just "white".

3:18 Louie's Lethal Lilac Time

Bruce and Dick are kidnapped by Louie Lilac and his loathsome gangster hoodlum henchmen from Bruce's beach House at Ambergris Bay. Barbara Gordon is present. Before long, the Batphone goes off of course - Alfred answers it and hears the terrible news.

Bruce and Dick are tied and taken to a defunct fragrance factory where Louie's associate, a Japanese cutie named Lotus who's an expert perfumier, is preparing lilac-based perfumed products. Louie intends to corner the market in lilac-scented cosmetics, perfume and soap. She tells Louie that she needs the body parts of musk deer, beaver, muskrats and civets to complete her work.

So Louie has his men raid Gotham Zoo. He intends to have Bruce, apparently an expert in these matters, remove the scent glands from the animals. He's also going to extort a million dollar ransom in return for Bruce and Dick's lives.

Barbara visits Alfred at Wayne Manor. She tells him that Bruce and Dick have been kidnapped by Louie.

After she leaves, Alfred uses the Bat computer to determine the location at which Bruce and Dick are being held. I think that Bat Computer is a bit like the sonic screwdriver in Doctor Who, it's a sort of lazy script writer's all-purpose Swiss Army knife. Anyway the ever-resourceful butler claims that he found out the location via an anonymous tip when he lets Barbara / Batgirl know.

Batgirl makes her usual dramatic entrance, but she's overcome immediately by Louie's lapel flower knockout gas atomiser. She gets imprisoned in a large glass vat. Louie's going to have Lotus pump boiling oil into it unless Bruce agrees to perform the operation on the animals, now delivered to the hideout's basement.

(https://i.ibb.co/KxxWsdyv/nobu.jpg)

Bruce has no intention of doing this of course, but he asks for two glasses of warm water. Then once he and Dick are in the basement, he pops two instant unfolding Bat-costume capsules into them. The Dynamic Duo change into proper crime-fighting apparel, break out of the basement, then break in the front door with O'Hara and his men.

Louie had no intention of freeing Batgirl from her grisly fate, but fortunately she breaks out of the vat just as the Dynamic Duo arrive. There's a formidable punch up and, as always, the forces of Law and Order emerge victorious. The Dynamic Duo sneak off and are back into their Bruce and Dick apparel before anyone notices.

I still think Louie Lilac is a poor arch-criminal but he's a bit more unpleasant in this one, especially with the gruesome details about wanting to have animals' scent glands removed in a basement, and boiling Batgirl alive in oil. So I was a bit more invested in seeing him defeated. Actually I think all that's a bit too dark for Batman.

A couple of odd scenes in this one. A maintenance man turns up at Batgirl's flat, and she has to surreptitiously press a secret instant transformer button to transfer the Batgirl space behind the wall into an ordinary closet. And there's a scene in Commissioner Gordon's office when, unable to reach Batman and Robin (because Bruce and Dick have been kidnapped), they decide to watch a few brief scenes from previous Batman episodes. I mean .. who would have been there with a camera when (for example) Robin nearly got eaten by a giant clam?

Lotus, the Japanese perfumier villainess, was Nobu McCarthy. Had a few film parts. Died in 2002, sadly.

3:19 Nora Clavicle and the Ladies' Crime Club

Bruce & Dick are present at a luncheon to celebrate Commissioner Gordon's twenty-five years of service to Gotham City. But when Mayor Linseed arrives, the first thing he does is to discharge the long-serving police commissioner and appoint his wife's friend Nora Clavicle in his place.

Nora is a prominent champion of womens' rights. The mayor simply had no choice. His wife had coerced him into doing it by refusing to cook, clean or wash his shirts. And Mrs Linseed is rewarded by being made Chief of Police in place of O'Hara.

Nora's first act as police commissioner is to call Batman and tell him his services will no longer be needed. The women are in charge now. And she has all of Gotham's male police officers fired and replaced by women. As you might expect, Nora has a wicked criminal plan up her sleeve. She starts by sending her two henchwomen, who for some reason wear very elegant gold gowns at all times, to rob a bank.

Unfortunately, Gotham City's all-female police force turn out to be a bit inadequate. The police officer present inside the bank is too busy touching up her lipstick to notice the robbery. The two officers outside are too preoccupied with discussing a new recipe to notice. And the young police officer on the emergency switchboard is more interested in using the police radio system to inform her colleagues of sales at department stores and shoe shops than in keeping them abreast of crime developments.

Fortunately, Batman, Robin and Batgirl do their best to take up the slack. They turn up at the bank, and use the Batmobile's portable Bat computer to determine the whereabouts of the villains. Increasingly, the Bat computer seems to be a simple way for a scriptwriter to get from A to B without thinking about it. Some sort of clue and process of logic might have been nice.

But anyway they go to the premises of Dropstitch and Co, knitting needle manufacturers. There they find Nora and her two lovely henchwomen. Alas, the feminist felon and her two larcenous lovelies overcome Batgirl immediately. Nora holds a razor-sharp knitting kneedle to the brave young crime-fightress' throat. Then the Dynamic Duo and Batgirl are entangled together into a Siamese human knot. We don't actually see this of course, we just see them all knotted together. Hard to imagine how the three women could force Batman, Batgirl and Robin into a human knot. Perhaps if one of the villainess women was shown holding them at gunpoint it might make sense.

But anyway, the three crime-fighters are in a precarious position. The slightest movement could cause strangulation, or crush bones.

Before Nora departs the scene with her criminaless associates, she boasts of her plan, as all good arch-villains do. She's had Gotham City insured for $10m. And she's going to destroy the whole city! But she doesn't explain how.

And naturally she hasn't counted on Batman's resourcefulness. He remembers the method to survive a Siamese knot. He wiggles his ears, and has Robin bend the fourth finger on his left hand - just a fraction - and very cautiously. It's not long before the whole thing unravels.

(https://i.ibb.co/wFM6DWky/siamese.jpg)

I bet Adam and Burt quite enjoyed that scene. Perhaps they insisted it was rehearsed thoroughly. And who knows? Perhaps Yvonne quite liked it as well.

Shortly after the three leave the building, Batman notices two hysterical policewomen hiding up a lamppost from a mouse. He goes to their rescue, and discovers that it's no ordinary mouse. It's a mouse bomb. Nora has released thousands of them into the streets of Gotham City, to burrow into holes in the sides of buildings, drain covers and other assorted nooks and crannies. When they all go off half an hour after sunset, there'll be nothing left of the city.

Batman disappears for a moment, but has Robin call the new Chief of Police, the mayor's wife. She knows nothing of the new police commissioner's evil scheme. Robin wants her to mobilise the entire police force to try to retrieve the mice. But she already knows about the mice. She and another police officer are standing on her desk, frightened out of their wits because there's one on the carpet! Before Robin hangs up, they've both fainted. Amusingly, the other police officer looks a bit like Angela Rayner.

(https://i.ibb.co/9mQWWdZf/flutes.jpg)

Clearly, Nora has a brilliant criminal mind. Even Batgirl points out that you can't expect police women to help you catch mice.

But the Caped Crusader has a brilliant idea. He returns with three tin flutes. He hands two of them to Batgirl and Robin. Then he plays a fetching little melody on one of them. A nearby exploding mouse appears to be hypnotised, transfixed .. summoned by the flute's melody.

He tells Batgirl to take the East Side. Robin is to take the West Side. The Caped Crusader himself will take Midtown. So the three stroll through the streets playing the flutes. Legions of mechanical mice emerge from their hiding places, drawn to the hypnotic melody. The three masked musicians meet at the dockside, where, drawn by their surprisingly harmonious flute playing, the little beggars continue their march to the edge of the docks and into the water.

Phew!

Batman explains that the robotic mouse guidance system is based on high frequency radar. The right combination of flute notes caused them to zero in on the source of the sound. Seems legit.

Finally: ex-Commissioner Gordon, O'Hara and (inexplicably) Alfred turn up in a lorry, with Nora and her two henchwomen tied up in the back. They've performed a citizen's arrest. It's Game Over for the wicked womens' rights advocate.

(https://i.ibb.co/Wpn1fcgp/likelemmings.jpg)

I think this may be the only Batman episode to date not to feature a punch up. And certainly, that would be a bit unedifying, wouldn't it?

One minor nitpick. The explosive mice are seen to contain electronic circuitry and they're obviously capable of travelling for miles. But when Nora sets the first of them off, she winds it up. Like clockwork. Also, the set used for the dockside is extremely rubbish.

So: on the face of it, an episode that could almost have been explicitly intended to annoy feminists. Or perhaps it literally was intended for that purpose. Looking around the various discussion fora, I see that it's still performing that function admirably in the present day.

I prefer to see it like this though: Batman, especially in this third series, is very absurdist. It's clearly a joke. It could even be seen as a parody of sexism. In any case, I did find it very funny.

Nora is played by Barbara Rush, who died a year ago.

3:20 Penguin's Clean Sweep

The Penguin turns up at Gotham City Mint. He subjects several of the employees to a dose of his trademark knockout gas, then he, his villainous sidecutie and his henchmen leave.

It later transpires that he didn't steal any of the cash in there. He even turns up at Commissioner Gordon's office to gloat, while the Dynamic Duo are discussing the matter with him. Of course breaking and entering and gassing people are felonies, but Batman advises against arresting him for those. They're minor charges. They couldn't have held him very long.

Batgirl turns up. Batman and Robin take her with them to the Mint. They scrutinise the cash there under a microscope. All of the notes have been infected with a sleeping sickness bacterium usually carried by the Ligerian Fruit Fly. The feathered fink must have slipped a culture of the bacteria into the banknote ink. Tragically, a large number of the notes have already been passed into circulation.

So the Dynamic Duo race to Gotham City Hospital, which carries the country's only supply of a vaccine for the sleeping sickness. Batgirl races to the bank that's taken a consignment of the notes, to try to prevent them from being circulated.

But by the time the Caped Crusader and Boy Wonder arrive at the hospital, Penguin and his gang are already there. They've had themselves jabbed, and poured the rest of the vaccine supply down the sink. They're the only people in Gotham City protected against the Ligerian sleeping sickness.

The two noble crime-fighters confront them, of course. But the beaked buffoon releases three deadly Ligerian fruit flies from a small container. And Batman has left his insecticide Bat bomb in the Batmobile.

(https://i.ibb.co/MkxJ5dg0/robinfly.jpg)

Fortunately, the Caped Crusader manages to kill two of them with a Bat swatter. He carefully retrieves the third one from Robin's nose, with a pair of tweezers - and carefully puts it in a sealed container.

A fresh supply of vaccine is ordered from Ligeria, but it won't be available for twenty-four hours. And $13,000 of the infected notes have already been distributed.

Batman has a message broadcast on all of Gotham's TV and radio stations - warning Gotham's citizens not to touch their banknotes, in case they contract a deadly tropical disease.

So the people of Gotham City start throwing their money away. Before long the streets are awash with cash. And finally we understand the genius of The Penguin's plan, when we see him collecting the cash from the streets with two industrial vacuum cleaners.

Batgirl confronts the gang, but she's very quickly incapacitated with a blast of knockout gas from the waddling wrongdoer's umbrella weapon. Meanwhile Bruce Wayne phones round the world's financiers, warning them against accepting The Penguin's cash.

Pretty soon The Penguin, despite being surrounded by mountains of cash at his secret hideout, realises that his newly acquired wealth is worthless. It's effectively piles of worthless paper. He decides on the nuclear option. He's going to release his remaining Ligerian fruit flies. The whole of Gotham City will be rendered unconscious for years, leaving him and his conscientiously vaccinated gang to loot it for all its worth.

But Batman has carefully examined the fly recovered from Robin's nose. He's carefully examined the weather forecast. He gets Commissioner Gordon, O'Hara and Batgirl to meet Robin and himself at the bank. How he's anticipated that Pengy and the gang wil turn up there I don't know, but they do. And after briefly feigning sleeping sickness (what a tease), the three crime-fighters help themselvelves to a spirited punch up. Well strictly speaking, Batgirl never actually punches the villains. She high-kicks them in the face. Much more genteel.

(https://i.ibb.co/Fk9D41Hc/pengcandy.jpg)

So how on Earth were Batman, Robin, Batgirl, Gordon, O'Hara and the rest of Gotham City spared sleeping sickness from the deadly fruit flies? Well - Batman had calculated that Gotham's 45F temperature, as forecast, would cause an inversion of air layers - which in turn, raised the atmospheric pressure and crushed the flies to death. Yes, sounds plausible.

O'Hara suggests to Penguin that he's likely to spend about 20 years in the nick. I have to say, I'm not convinced. This was The Penguin's tenth appearance in the annals of Batman. He always gets caught and sent down, despite having committed attempted murder several times. And yet, in the Batman universe, it's still the 1960s. He'll get three weeks, if that.

It's not a bad one, has more of a story arc than most one-parters. I wasn't too impressed with the villainess eye candy though. Sounded a bit foreign. Monique van Vooren. Belgian, apparently.

3:21 The Great Escape

Shame is back. I didn't think he was a brilliant villain first time around but anyway, here he is. His girlfriend Calamity Jan and her mum Frontier Fanny spring him from Gotham City Penitentiary by driving a tank through the wall. Crude, but effective. I assume it's the same tank that The Penguin drove through the streets of Gotham City in the second series, but this time it's bright red! We later find that Jan and Fanny got it from Madman Otto's used tank lot.

Of course the services of Batman and Robin are called upon. Shame helpfully sends a message in the form of a handwritten note to the Dynamic Duo, via Commissioner Gordon. He's going to perform a Great Train Robbery. More specifically, he's going to steal "rock and roll", from the "Gotham City stage". He closes his mystifying missive with "I dares yew to figger it out".

Ah, when will Gotham's arch-villains ever learn?

Anywyay Shame and his cohorts are "holed up" at Gotham Park's stables. They've enlisted the service of a Mexican bandido called Fred, who despite being browned up and moustachied with a sombrero, speaks over-articulate English with an upper class English accent. They've also recruited the archetypal, dour "red Indian". At one point he turns to Fanny and says "you make um good squaw". But usually he communicates in smoke signals using a cigar. Try getting that past a script editor at the BBC!

Back at the Batcave, Batman figures out one of the clues. The "rock" must refer to diamonds. A "roll" might be a bankroll. But where is the "Gotham City stage"? Meanwhile, Batgirl calls to say she's worked out where the stage is. But she has no idea about the rock, or the roll.

So they decide to combine forces. The Caped Crimefightress has worked out that the "stage" is Gotham City Opera House. A Western-themed opera will be taking place there the same evening. And it makes perfect sense, because one of the singers always wears her priceless 283 carat diamond pendant (the "rock") and the other one always keeps $20,000 in his pockets for luck (the "roll"). Surely the Bat computer could have worked that out? But anyway they go there, to find the Western-themed wrongdoer and his gang in the act of robbing the two opera performers at gunpoint.

(https://i.ibb.co/RnG30Qm/shamegang.jpg)

There's a punch up. Even though three of the villains have guns. They don't fire them. But just when the three crime-fighters seem to have the upper hand, the despicable Fanny and Jan appear with fear gas aerosols. The Dynamic Duo and Batgirl are reduced to shuddering, fearful wrecks. Batgirl is taken away as a hostage.

Back at the Batcave, Batman and Robin are still nervous and fearful. Hilariously, they become highly distrustful of each other. But Alfred brings them back to normality with some chicken soup dosed with Bat antidote powder. Then Commissioner Gordon calls. In addition to Batgirl being kidnapped, Barbara is nowhere to be found. Come on, Commissioner! 2+2!

Reasoning that Shame is happiest around horses, the Caped Crusader and Boy Wonder decide to look for the gang at Gotham Central Park stables. Right across the street from the Opera House. So they go there, but the villains have already left. Except for Fanny. The horseshoe nailed above the door for good luck fell off and knocked her out just as she was leaving, behind the rest of the gang.

What's Shame up to? Well he did send Fred out for an acetylene torch and a drill. I'll find out tomorrow.

I wasn't really looking forward to another Shame two-parter, but I must admit I warmed to the character a bit. Cliff Robertson's cowboy parody is quite amusing.

Frontier Fanny's American accent is not convincing. I checked, and as I thought, she's played by a British actress - Hermione Baddeley.

3:22 The Great Train Robbery

Calamity Jan persuades Shame to trade Batgirl, now in the trunk of his car, for her mum, now in police custody. So the Red Indian chief in the gang visits Commissioner Gordon's office. Batman and Robin are present. "I come talk um peace treaty", the noble native American says.

Commissioner Gordon declines the offer, but Batman insists that Shame's terms are accepted. They can't afford to lose Batgirl.

So the Dynamic Duo take Fanny to the agreed rendezvous location, the Central American Pavilion at Gotham's World Fair. Inevitably, it's a trap. Shame and his gang have come armed, and intend to shoot them. Fortunately, Batman has a solution - in his utility belt he has a small bomb-type weapon which gives off a cloud of chemical gas. It makes metal objects exposed to it twenty times heavier. He throws it and of course the gang drop their guns.

Of course, there's a punch up. In the melee Batgirl manages to free herself by rubbing her ties against a nearby sword (presumably placed there as an ornament), so she enthusiastically joins in. The fear gas has worn off now. The three caped crime-fighters overcome their opponents. But from a prone position, having been punched to the ground, Shame manages to shoot some ornaments hanging over their heads - knocking them senseless for a minute. The demented desperado and his loathsome gang escape.

Batgirl tells Commissioner Gordon, O'Hara and the Dynamic Duo that she overheard Shame referring to a "great train robbery" while she was his captive. After a bit of conversation and deliberation, Batman works out his plan. It's the day that old banknotes are delivered by train to the Treasury to be destroyed. He's planning to rob the train!

It was at this point that my suspicion was confirmed - this Batman story is based on (or at least partly inspired by) the infamous heist committed by Ronnie Biggs and friends, some five years earlier.

So the Dynamic Duo and Batgirl race to the train, but they arrive too late. Shame and the gang have already stolen all the cash. They cut through the tracks with the acetylene torch and used the diamond they stole as a drill tip to break into the carriage with all the old banknotes. They overcame the train staff and armed guard with fear gas.

(https://i.ibb.co/JTqt0gj/batgsword.jpg)

Batman hands out some bravery pills to the poor, cowering train staff before he leaves, as an antidote to the fear gas. Why couldn't he have taken one himself, when he was suffering from the effects of the gas? Perhaps he was frightened it would get stuck in his throat.

So it looks like the villains have won. But the Caped Crusader has one more trick up his sleeve. He decides to appeal to Shame's ego. He uses a skywriting drone, launched from the Batcave, to invite him to unarmed combat - man to man - in a derelict district of Gotham City. At high noon of course. And Shame accepts.

So the rest of the episode is really a parody of a Western. In an emotional scene at Commissioner Gordon's office, Batman reflects that "this town's gotta be cleaned up". And of course the confrontation between Batman and Shame is in essence a Western-style duel, without the guns. They face off at a distance in an empty street.

Of course Shame, being a despicable criminal, has brought his gang along. They have instructions to shoot the Caped Crusader once the two enemies are twenty feet apart. But (very predictably) Batgirl and Robin sneak up behind them. They round them up with Batarang-powered ropes.

Amusingly, Shame offers a few insults, as he paces toward Batman in the centre of the street. "Your mother wore army shoes", he says. "Yes she did .. as I recall she found them quite comfortable", Batman replies.

Once Shame realises his gang aren't going to help him, and once his crime-fighting nemesis disarms him of the derringer he's sneakily hidden in his hat, he loses it. He's a coward! He cringes at Batman's feet. The Caped Crusader orders him never to cry on his tights again.

Somehow though, he musters the courage for a punch up. It's a spirited effort, but - inevitably - Batman emerges victorious.

This was the very last Batman two-parter. I didn't mind it. I did enjoy Cliff Robertson's comedy stereotypical cowboy villain. Quite enjoyed the incongruously patrician Mexican as well. Less said about the native American character the better.

3:23 I'll Be a Mummy's Uncle

King Tut escapes from the hospital where he's undergoing psychoanalysis. It's not difficult - the doctor examining him has fallen asleep in his chair.

His first act once free is to rob a local business of exactly $47,000, with the aid of his minions. How he's recruited them is not explained. But his intentions soon become clear - he's discovered that a reserve of nilanium, a rare metal once found only in the Nile basin, is located in Gotham City. Under the grounds of Wayne Manor, no less. It's hte hardest metal in the world, so he'll make a fortune making indestructible objects and machines.

Fortunately for the erratic Egyptologist, a plot of land has been put up for sale adjacent to Wayne manor. So he's going to dig sideways. Even more fortunately, there's a disused mine on the plot of land. Very contrived plot this, but I didn't mind.

Speaking of plot contrivances, Barbara Gordon happens to be visiting a real estate broker when Tutu and his entourage breeze in to buy the land. So she lets Bruce Wayne know. Bruce promises to let Batman know.

But in the next moment, the Bat computer comes up with a snippet of information. Wayne Manor is sitting on a priceless reserve of nilanium, it says. Furthermore, it announces that Tut has started mining operations, and that said mining operations are likely to emerge in the Batcave. I think that for these one-parters, the Bat computer is used as a plot-shortening device, but it does feel like lazy writing.

There's a nice ad lib from Burt Ward - at least I doubt it was scripted - when the Bat computer prop is a bit slow to spit out a punched card. He says "it seems a little uncertain, Batman!". Very well done.

(https://i.ibb.co/n8VyVDy0/tutbatcave.jpg)

So Batman has Batgirl meet Robin and himself at the abandoned mine entrance, where he assumes the operation is taking place. They'll have to nab the villains there. But when they confront Tut and his minions, they run into the mine and onto one of the trolleys. They're off down the tracks at high speed.

At the end of the track, the trolley breaks through the wall of the Batcave. Tut can't believe his luck! He recognises it immediately. He's overjoyed. Bruce Wayne and Dick Grayson must be Batman and Robin. He's learned Batman's secret identity, and the location of the Batcave.

The Dynamic Duo catch up with him there. They've left Batgirl to guard the entrance so she doesn't find the Batcave. Tut taunts them. He knows who they are. There is, of course, a punch up. The pernicious professor's henchmen are beaten unconscious and given a whiff of Bat-nesia gas. The villainous cutie eye candy gets a dose as well.

But Tut evades the two crime-fighters and runs back up the mine shaft. He runs very quickly for an obese and unlikely Egyptian pharaoh. He meets Batgirl, Commissioner Gordon and O'Hara at the entrance. But even the prospect of being locked up can't diminish his joy. Batman and Robin catch him up there. But before he can blurt out his precious secret, as he raises his voice, a loose rock from the ceiling of the mine lands on his head.

And once again, he's a mild-mannered and law-abiding professor of Egyptology, with no memory of his transgressions as Tut. The secret of the Batcave is safe. There's some nonsense about Batman predicting that a rock would land on his head once he raised his voice. I think it would have been better left as a random bit of good luck.

Any Tut episode is a good episode, although this wasn't as good as some. Quite an original idea though, the Batcave being compromised.

Quite liked the eye candy in this one, a bit Raquel Welch-ish.

3:24 The Joker's Flying Saucer

Really a very bonkers one, this. With the aid of his criminal associates, one them named 'Verdigris" made up as an alien, The Joker has managed to arouse the Gotham City general public into a state of hysteria over flying saucers. It's completely out of hand. Commissioner Gordon has been inundated with calls from concerned members of the public, some of them troubled by the prospect of an imminent invasion from outer space.

The commissioner calls Batman, of course. The Caped Crusader and Boy Wonder rush to his office. They interview a lady who claims to have met a three foot tall Martian. Barbara rushes in - she had an encounter with an alien at the library! While they're there, Verdigris, still in green makeup, plants a time bomb in the Batmobile. I'm always disappointed by the security protocols in place for the Batmobile. They even leave the doors unlocked although admittedly, it's an open top car. Perhaps something with a roof and locking doors might have worked better.

The giggling ghoul has taken over an abandoned launching pad factory (yep) where he intends to manufacture a flying saucer, using plans he's completed in prison - with the help of his cellmate, a mad scientist. I prefer the term "launch pad" myself, but the script consistently refers to "launching pad" so hey. Once he has the saucer, he'll be able to terrorise Gotham City. Spread panic. Then he'll issue his demands. Complete capitulation.

Back at the Batcave, Batman sees a pattern. He recognises the lady he's just interviewed as an associate of a known criminal. As he suspected, someone is perpetrating a hoax. He puts the Bat computer's new Current Criminal Activity Bat-Disclosure Unit to good use. It spits out a punched card. "Joker at large, manufacturing a flying saucer". More very lazy writing.

What might the cackling criminal use to make his flying saucer? Probably one of the lighter metals, Robin reasons. Titanium, or beryllium. Well, titanium is in limited supply but as it happens, the metals research wing of the Wayne Foundation has an abundant quantity of beryllium. Perhaps Joker is planning to steal it, the Caped Crusader muses. He's not wrong.

The Caped Crusader asks Alfred to go over there to check on the situation. He and Robin will follow fifteen minutes later, at midnight. They don't want their presence known until The Joker plays his hand. He gives Commissioner Gordon a quick call to keep him informed.

Handily, Barbara is hanging round her dad's office - as she so often does - just as the commissioner updates O'Hara on the situation. So Batgirl goes off to investigate.

Unhappily, Batgirl and Alfred both get overcome at the Wayne Foundation metal research facility, and taken - along with the beryllium - to The Joker's hideout at the abandoned launching pad factory.

(https://i.ibb.co/9HcKCgxL/batgrocket.jpg)

Even worse, the time bomb in the Batmobile goes off just as Batman and Robin are about to leave the Batcave. It causes huge damage and leaves the Dynamic Duo unconscious for over eight hours. But they aren't seriously injured, thanks to the anti-thermal Bat t shirts they'e been wearing under their costumes recently. There's a bit of a hole in the plot here. The Joker's green skinned associate Verdigris gleefully reports to the cackling criminal that the two crime-fighters are dead. But he has no way to know, or even suppose that they'll be in the Batmobile at midnight.

Anyway since he found Alfred at the Wayne Foundation Metals Research lab, The Joker assumes that he's a mad scientist, and enlists his help, under duress of course, in manufacturing a flying saucer from his plans. Another tiny plot problemette, because The Joker has met Alfred several times, and knows him to be Bruce Wayne's faithful assistant.

In any case, by the time the Dynamic Duo regain consciousness, the viewer is asked to accept that The Joker's flying saucer has been manufactured, with Alfred's help, and is ready to go. What do do with Batgirl? The mirthful miscreant decides to dispose of her by sending her into orbit, tied to a large rocket that somehow seems to be operational in the abandoned launching pad factory.

Alfred manages to contact the Dynamic Duo at the Batcave using his communicator, discreetly concealed in a handkerchief. He lets them know about The Joker's plans to place Batgirl in orbit. And he warns them that the loathsome laughing one is about to launch a flying saucer.

(https://i.ibb.co/GftQFhyX/saucer.jpg)

The rocket to which she's securely attached is lit by a fuse. But this heinous misdeed fails, because of the auto fuse extinguisher in her utility belt. She actually gloats about this, which seemed to me to be an invitation for her captors simply to remove the belt, and have another go. Instead, The Joker decides to take her along for the ride with him, along with Alfred, in his newly manufactured flying saucer. He operates the sliding roof of the abandoned launching pad factory, and launches successfully. Really a very remarkable achievement, when you think about it. His alien-disguised green friend knows how to fly it as well.

Alfred and Batgirl sit calmly at the rear of the cockpit, unrestrained but at gunpoint , with the rest of The Joker's crew. But as the Clown Prince of Crime prepares to broadcast his ultimatum over Gotham City, Alfred discreetly communicates with Batman. The Dynamic Duo are already airborne in the Batcopter. Head straight for Flying Circus Hill, Alfred tells the Caped Crusader. The saucer is just entering the sub-stratosphere over Gotham City, he goes on to say. And he's managed to put some "homing beryl" in the material the vehicle is made of. It should return to its launch point.

The saucer does indeed stop responding to the controls, and returns to the abandoned factory. There, the Dynamic Duo are waiting for its crew and hostages, as they emerge from the remarkable craft. And of course, aided capably by Batgirl, they help themselves to a punch up. It's not long before the vile villain and his henchmen are beaten senseless. O'Hara and his men have turned up by this time, and take them away.

(https://i.ibb.co/8gMQGNby/cockpit.jpg)

Back in the Batcave, now restored and tidied up following the explosion, Batman reflects that Joker will likely get five to ten years. But if Joker had got five years for every serious crime he's committed in the Batman universe, he wouldn't be released until about 2020.

Really quite an insane episode. Clearly Batman often leans into the surreal, but this one goes a bit too far. Given that there are only two episodes left, this was no doubt The Joker's final appearance.

There's a nice stunt at the Batcopter airfield - the Dynamic Duo approach it on the Batcycle, and at the last moment it detaches the sidecar - which rolls to the passenger side door as Batman pulls up to the pilot side. Perhaps that was footage borrowed from the film. I must watch that soon.

I was very impressed with the set at the abandoned launching pad factory; the saucer especially. If the budget was cut for the third series, it doesn't show in this one.

I wonder if the idea to construct a flying saucer overnight came from the same scriptwriter who had Penguin's men construct a working tank out of gold bullion? I haven't checked.

Mrs Green, the lady who claims to have met a three foot alien, is Grandma from The Waltons.

One really interesting thing about this episode - when Alfred refers to "Flying Circus Hill", I'm sure was a slip of the tongue on the part of Alan Napier - because earlier in the script the location is referred to as "Flying Saucer Hill". Clearly it wasn't caught in time. Later in the episode Batman refers to "Flying Circus Hill" in some vocal overdubs superimposed over footage of the Batcopter in flight, so clearly they made the best of it.

Emerald, Joker's villainous sidecutie, is played by Corinne Calvet, a French actress whose career in film had faded somewhat. She was 43 by the time this episode was first shown. She had a delightfully colourful personal life. Fifteen years earlier she had sued Zsa Zsa Gabor for claiming that she was "a cockney English girl who couldn't even speak French a few years ago". And from Wikipedia:

In 1967 her boyfriend of six years, Donald Scott, sued Calvet to recover $878,000 in assets that he had put under her name in an effort to hide them from his wife in a divorce battle. A two-week trial resulted in which Scott claimed Calvet had used voodoo to control him. The suit was settled with Calvet returning all but $200,000 of the disputed sum.

3:24 The Entrancing Dr Cassandra

Gotham City has a new arch-criminal to contend with - Dr. Cassandra, in her own words a world-famous alchemist, occult science practitioner, and all-round evil-doing swinger. She and her villainous husband Cabala perform audacious robberies under the influence of invisibility pills - her own invention. The pair rob the Alchemical Bank and Trust - a bank so conservative it pays no interest at all. It's very easy for them - once they take the pills, they vanish from sight immediately.

Cassandra calls Batman from Commissioner Gordon's office to gloat. She tells him she's going to put Gotham City in a trance. Later, she tells the commissioner exactly where and when she's going to steal a priceless diamond. Gotham's arch-criminals are always a bit too arrogant for their own good, aren't they? So Batman consults the occult sciences books at Gotham Library. In Who's Who In Alchemy he finds that Cassandra is the offspring of the Spellcraft Clan, a group of ne-er do well alchemists who "couldn't even make the grade in girls' pharmacy school".

As Robin adroitly observes, "Holy unrefillable prescriptions".

Anyway the Dynamic Duo and Batgirl turn up at the jewellers' at the appointed time of their crime. But the two criminals don't even bother with the invisibility pills. Cassandra aims a psychedelic ray gun at them. "The kickiest weapon you ever dug", she tells him. Both of them have an annoying habit of talking in beatnik / hippy style slang.

But it certainly is kicky. In seconds, the three are transformed into flattened, two-dimensional versions of themselves. And there's a mischievous reference to Batgirl's perky, pointy tits. "I think I'm going flat!" the crime-fightress exclaims. "What a pity.." replies Cabala.

The three flattened crime-fighters are delivered to Police HQ, where they're received by a horrified Commissioner Gordon and Chief O'Hara. When O'Hara detects a pulse, he realises that the three flat objects he's received are the actual Batman, Batgirl and Robin.

The situation seems hopeless. But O'Hara has an idea. What about the English bloke who answers the Batphone sometimes? Could he possibly help?

Alfred receives the news with disquiet. It is, as he suggests, a "sticky wicket". But he asks to have the two-dimensional Terrific Trio delivered to the main Gotham City post office. He'll see what he can do. Fortunately, after a session in the Batcave's Three Dimensional Bat Restorer, all three are returned to robust, three-dimensional health. Alfred returns the Batmobile to the Batcave by remote control. He makes himself scarce before Batgirl comes round. Batgirl submits to a whiff of Bat-sleep before being driven away (on Robin's lap!) of course. And there's a nice moment when the Boy Wonder comments that she looks pretty when she's asleep. "I thought you might eventually notice that", Batman replies. "That single statement indicates to me the first oncoming thrust of manhood, old chum".

(https://i.ibb.co/6cnPpTpJ/threed.jpg)

We soon learn that Cassandra won't be content with merely pulling off the occasional lucrative crime. She wants to lord it over Gotham City. So she and Cabala break into the penitentiary, under cover of invisibility, of course - and after taking the invisibility antidote, they threaten Warden Crichton and a guard with their 2D ray weapon. Then the self-declared evil-doing swinger operates the release switch to unlock the doors in the penitentiary's arch-criminal wing. The next instant, Joker, Penguin, King Tut, Catwoman, Egghead and Riddler are free!

Its a lovely moment as we see them emerge from their cells, even though none are portrayed by the original actors. We don't see their faces up close, of course. But what's this .. Catwoman's white again?? Yep, it's the Julie Newmar version of Catwoman, not the Eartha Kitt variant. They did a pretty good job of finding a Julie Newmar lookalike. But I wonder why? Personally (and sentimentally) I'm glad they did this because Julie is undoubtedly the classic Catwoman, with considerably more appearances in the role than Eartha. But from a third series continuity point of view, getting an Eartha lookalike in would have made more sense.

Cassandra holds a meeting at her hideout with the six newly-released super-villains. Her offer is simple - they'll conduct their criminal enterprises under cover of the invisibility pills she'll supply to them, one at a time. She gets 50% of the proceeds, they get another invisibility pill. She warns them that if they get knocked unconscious, the invisibility wears off.

Unfortunately for Cassandra, Cabala and the assembled infamous arch-criminals, Batman, Robin and Batgirl are well aware of their whereabouts - thanks to the Bat Computer's Escaped Arch Criminal Bat Locator. I really preferred it when the Dynamic Duo used to work out these things on their own, using the available evidence and logic - even if their reasoning was usually risible.

So the Terrific Trio descend on the basement hideout to confront their various arch-enemies, to Cassandra's horror. She'd thought they'd been permanently compromised by being flattened. Perhaps she shouldn't have delivered them to Commissioner Gordon!

The villains give themselves a huge advantage in the ensuing conflict, by taking invisibility pills. It's a beautifully choreographed punch up against invisible opponents. Very funny. Of course the three crime-fighters are at a huge disadvantage, until Batgirl comes up with an idea to even up the odds. So Batman shoots out the lights with some sort of zapper, then no-one can see what they're doing. Much fairer. And the Boy Wonder, Caped Crusader and Batgirl emerge victorious (of course).

(https://i.ibb.co/nMyYJ8mb/archvillains.jpg)

It's lovely to see the six arch-criminals, even though none has a speaking part and none is portrayed by the original actor. Except that .. well I don't think King Tut was an appropriate choice here. He's definitely one of the most entertaining Batman villains. But he'd never lower himself to a life of crime merely for profit. He commits his heinous crimes in the pursuance of his grand plan to take his rightful place, as he sees it, as the eternal and supreme pharaoh-king of Gotham City.

Furthermore, he never actually gets sent to the pen. He recovers his mental faculties and resumes his vocation as a mild-mannered and law-abiding professor of Egyptology. Maybe Mr Freeze would have been a better choice.

There's a scene in which Batman is seen using a "portable batphone" from his utility belt. It looks like a miniature red 1960s telephone. Another example of something being a lot more futuristic and other-wordly back then than it is now.

Cassandra is Ida Lupino, another faded Hollywood star. Not a brilliant villain but it's an original idea and I did like the idea of Batman, Robin and Batgirl being flattened by a 2D ray. I did think, given the quasi-cameos from the classic crims, that it might have worked better as the final Batman episode than the penultimate instalment, which it is. And oddly, the text THE END is displayed at the, er, end - which is a first.

One left!

3:25 Minerva, Mayhem and Millionaires

Bruce visits an establishment called Minerva's Mineral Spa, for a massage. He passes up the offer of one of Minerva's famous scalp massages, as he's short of time. But when the elegant proprietress overhears Bruce talking to an old friend who's also visiting the spa about a priceless diamond exhibition to be held by the Wayne Foundation, her interest is piqued.

For Minerva is of course not merely the owner of a gentleman's spa. She's a master criminal. She has a Deepest Secret Extractor device, which she uses to extract sensitive information from the many millionaires who visit the spa - like the whereabouts of their valuables, for example. It's surprising how many very wealthy people hide valuables in in their own homes. A stash of cash in a TV set. Emeralds in a cookie jar. Negitiable securities in a grandfather clock.

The Extractor itself is a fascination invention. A hairdryer-style headset is placed over the victim's head - Minerva's customers willingly submit to this, as a legitimate feature of her head massage. Then she surreptitiously throws a switch, they go into a sort of wide-eyed trance and she listens to their thoughts using an earpiece.

So Minerva is keen to get Bruce to submit to a scalp massage. To this end, she steals his watch on the way out - then gives him a call, tells him she's found it and asks him to come over and collect it, so she can offer him a brain-interrogating scalp massage session.

Of course a spate of thefts orchestrated by Minerva and her henchmen doesn't go unnoticed by Gotham Police. In each case the victim is a millionaire who had hidden items in a secret place supposedly known only to himself. Inevitably, Commissioner Gordon reaches for the Batphone. And since Bruce is familiar with the spa, Batman is well aware that the victims are all Minerva's customers.

Bruce decides to go there as himself, to investigate. He has Robin go there in the Batmobile, with a spare Bat-suit. Unfortunately Minerva extracts the combination to the safe at the Wayne Foundation very easily as soon as his head is under the scalp massage / secret extractor machine.

A few minutes later, Batman and Robin arrive at reception, requesting the "full treatment". But they decline to disrobe. Unusually, they're going to keep their costumes on, to protect their secret identities. It's an opportunity for a nice visual gag when the two crime-fighters put on their towels. But Minerva is suspicious. She thinks Bruce might be on to her, and she knows Batman is a close friend .. so she tells her boys to provide some "extra pressurising" in her "persimmon pressuriser".

(https://i.ibb.co/2YcRbW5y/extractor.jpg)

So they get overcome and bundled into a large pressure cooker device, while Minerva raids the vault at the Wayne Foundation. Security is remarkably lax there. She resets the dial on the vault so it won't be noticed that the priceless stones have been taken.

Sadly, the Dynamic Duo's escape from the mid-episode pressure cooker cliffhanger is very lame. Minerva and her goons enter the room. They're gone. But she believes that they've been steam-pressurised out of existence. In fact, we later learn (we don't see them escape) that the Caped Crusader and Boy Wonder popped steam-neutralising Bat pellets.

Anyway Minerva doesn't want to run off with her loot just yet, because a wealthy English gentleman named Lord Easystreet has an appointment for a scalp massage later that afternoon. After Batman lets Commissioner Gordon know what's happened, he interviews her in his office. She's surprised when the Dynamic Duo arrive of course, but not overly concerned. But she's allowed to leave, because Batman has hatched a plan. Alfred looks a lot like Lord Easystreet, conveniently. So it's time for the faithful manservant to do a bit of undercover work, again.

It's not long before the Wayne Foundation's head of security finds out that the vault has been tampered with. Batman goes over there of course. He has a Bat vault combination unscrambler, so he's able to determine that the precious jewels have been stolen.

All of a sudden, sending Alfred to the spa doesn't seem to have been such a good idea. He has secrets he must never reveal! So the Dynamic Duo race to the spa.

Predictably, Batgirl gets there first, just as Alfred is about to spill the beans. He's already divulged, via the brain-scanning secret extracting device, that he's not really Lord Easystreet. Unfortunately the crimefightress is overcome very quickly, and she gets thrown into the pressuriser with Alfred.

So Batman and Robin arrive. There's a very spirited punch up. I'm always impressed by the way Robin is able to deck men twice his size. Alfred and Batgirl are released from the pressuriser, and they both join in as well. Needless to say - they win. Minerva nearly makes a run for it, but Commissioner Gordon and O'Hara turn up and of course, she's apprehended.

Freddy the Fence, seen previously in the 50th episode of the second series as an associate of Catwoman, appears in this one as well. Don't really know why, his participation adds nothing to the plot. At least in the Catwoman episode he was mildly entertaining, straining spaghetti through a fencing mask.

(https://i.ibb.co/Fb34gHPH/towels.jpg)

Sorry to say that this final moment of what is surely a very culturally important TV series is pretty dismal. It's comfortably the least interesting instalment of the third series episodes. Probably of all 120. It really feels perfunctory, half-baked, phoned in. The way the Dynamic Duo turn up for the concluding punch up is emblematic of this .. they don't smash through a window, they just enter through the door. The sets and the props are minimal.

I was very curious to see Zsa Zsa Gabor as Minerva. I would suppose that few people under 50 or so would have heard of her, but she and her sister Eva were household names when I was a kid. I always thought they were twins, they looked so alike. They seemed interchangeable. But Zsa Zsa was two years older. A fascinating character. She had nine husbands. She was sued for $1m by the eye candy in the last episode but one, the French actress Corinne Calvet.

But as Batman villains go, Minerva is pretty dull. She doesn't have any villainous foibles. She doesn't have a costume. She's just a bit eccentric and foreign. And there's no explanation for her possession of a mind-reading device, no suggestion that she's a mad scientist in her spare time. Poor. And I feel like Zsa Zsa pretty much went through the motions here.

Anyway: I loved Batman as a child. I feel a curious sort of fulfilment in having watched all 120 of them this year. I did not remember the storyline of a single one of them. The only moment I definitely recalled seeing before was Catwoman's proposal of marriage to Batman, in the last couple of minutes of a second series episode.

Felt a bit emotional when the final frame of this one faded, even though it wasn't a fitting finale. I shall return to this thread in a few days, for a few reflections about the series as a whole. One thing I can say very confidently though: Catwoman, specifically the Julie Newmar variant, is the best villain.

I miss my daily excursions to the mid-to-late '60s. What a time. Anyway, the final villain appearance table looks like this:

(https://i.ibb.co/3mWwDtfJ/villaintable.png)

As you might expect, Joker and Penguin are the most frequently-used villains, with Catwoman close behind.

I'm really surprised that the Eartha Kitt version of Catwoman only has two outings (three episodes) because I remember her well from childhood, especially for that throaty purr she brought to the role when pronouncing words like purrrrrrrfect.

Only one act{or,ress} plays more than one villain - Anne Baxter plays Zelda (not that interesting) and Olga (brilliant). Not counting Liberace who plays twin villains Chandell and Harry in one of the better episodes.

My own favourite villains league table looks something like this. Some of them are inspired, some just dull. Of the villains that were invented for the series rather than adapted from the DC comics, only King Tut really works well.

Catwoman (Newmar)
King Tut
Riddler (Gorshin)
Egghead
Joker
Olga
Penguin
Catwoman (Kitt)
Mr Freeze (Wallach)
Ma Parker
Ffog & Peasoup
Chandell & Harry
Mad Hatter
Mr Freeze (Sanders)
Marsha
Shame
Bookworm
Mr Freeze (Preminger)
Riddler (Astin)
Black Widow
Sandman
Zelda
The Minstrel
Clock King
Cassandra & Cabala
Siren
Louie The Lilac
Puzzler
Nora Clavicle
Colonel Gumm
Minerva
False Face
Archer

I've separated the characters where played by different performers because for example Frank Gorshin's Riddler is exceptional, whereas John Astin's is poor. Still - he was a terrific Gomez Addams. Still alive at 95.