Batman (the TV series)

[Slim]

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!

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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.

[Slim]

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.

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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.

[Slim]

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.

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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".

[Slim]

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.

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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.

[Slim]

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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

[Slim]

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.

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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.

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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.

[Slim]

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.

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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.

[Slim]

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.

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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.

[Slim]

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.

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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.

[Slim]

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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

[Slim]

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".

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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).

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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!

[Slim]

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".

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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.

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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.

[Slim]

I miss my daily excursions to the mid-to-late '60s. What a time. Anyway, the final villain appearance table looks like this:

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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.