Batman (the TV series)

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

[Slim]

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?"

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

[Slim]

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.

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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!

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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.

[Slim]

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.

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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.

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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.

[Slim]

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.

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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.

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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.

[Slim]

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.

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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.

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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.

[Slim]

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.

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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).

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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.

[Slim]

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.

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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.

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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.