Batman (the TV series)

[Slim]

1:14 Batman Stands Pat

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

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

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

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

[Slim]

1:15 The Joker Goes to School

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[Slim]

1:16 He Meets His Match, the Grisly Ghoul

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

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

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

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

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

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

[Slim]

1:17 True or False Face

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

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

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

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

[Slim]

1:18 Holy Rat Race

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[Slim]

1:19 The Purr-fect Crime

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

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

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

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

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

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

Very good one.

[Slim]

1:20 Better Luck Next Time

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

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

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

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

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

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

But of course, cats have nine lives.

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

[Slim]

1:21 The Penguin Goes Straight

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[Slim]

1:22 Not Yet, He Ain't

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[Slim]

1:23 The Ring Of Wax

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[Slim]

1:24 Give 'Em The Axe

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[Slim]

1:25 The Joker Trumps an Ace

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

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

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

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

[Slim]

1:26 Batman Sets The Pace

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

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

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

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

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

[Nickslikk2112]

1:26 Batman Sets The Pace

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[Slim]

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

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

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

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

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