Na Na Na Na Batman Batman.

[Inspector Abberline]

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Zelda needs Batman to escape the Doom trap that Eivol Ekdol, has made for her,(not even Eivol Ekdol knows how to escape this device.)so she can use it in her next stage show...It's kind of interesting seeing Robin going solo when the story requires the appearance of Bruce Wayne like it does here, the excuse here is that Batman is off finding clues, leaving the boy wonder, Commissioner Gordon and Bruce Wayne to appear in a live TV appeal for the return of a singed Aunt Harriet...It's not beyond the realms of improbability that if things had gone differently with the ratings we could have had a Robin spin-off along the lines Nightwing, (I know Dick Grayson Nightwing didn't come along until the 1980s) not sure if Burt Ward would of been up to the job though. One thing which I have started to notice, is that Batman does quite a bit of flirting with his females villains and with the female sidekicks to some of the male villains, and Zelda is no exception,she is quite smitten with the caped hero and towards the end warns Batman of some oncoming doom,in fact she makes no bones about the fact she has fallen for our hero. Highlight for me here is that there are two gangsters hiding in a couple of Egyptian mummies, waiting for Batman and Robin to escape the Doom trap, and blast them with machine guns,but due to a tip-off from Zelda the duo dive out of the way, and the dim-witted gangsters manage to machine-gun each other to death...Holy crossfire! exclaims Robin, yeah well-done Boy Wonder another gem...

[Inspector Abberline]

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Poor old Commissioner Gordon, he must have the worst police force in the country, headed by the thickest of them all Chief O'Hara, who whenever he is asked a question by Gordon, just usually mumbles and looks down at his feet hoping the answer will be written on his shoes no doubt, until Gordon finally bored waiting for O'Hara and decides to call batman,(his obvious buffoonery is just a stalling ploy until Gordon gets tired of is incompetence and grabs for the Bat phone). This time we see the return of The Riddler ( the marvellous Frank Gorshin in great form as usual) has kidnapped king Boris, of some unknown country, who is visiting Gotham City with a valuable replica of Queen of Freedom monument...It is not a brilliant plot if truth be told, but the whole episode bounces along quite well, The Riddlers gang are inexplicably called The River Rats,(ok they live in a sewer,but really what a name) and of course, they all love eating cheese, also Riddlers henchwoman is called Mousey played by Susan Silo, who has the squeakiest voice since Jennifer Tilly, at least Mousey has an excuse, never understood why Tilly's voiced changed,she sounded normal in Psycho 2..Episode highlight see's The Riddler stick the dynamic duo to a couple of large whirring wheels,also being as this was the sixties,we also have a beauty pageant which is gatecrashed by the Riddler, who manages to grab a tiara and a kiss form the winner, oh dear the Me Too movement would of been all over this..

[Inspector Abberline]

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When we rejoin the Riddler in the following episode, he's looking particularly smart in his green suit, covered in his trademark question mark symbols, although his green waistcoat looks like something a northern snooker player would wear on the telly...Like Commissioner Gordon and his incompetent men, most supervillains seem to suffer the same problem, and the Riddlers gang of rats are equally as dumb, although this may be done to make the said villain seem even more intelligent than he really is...Bruce Wayne gets to meet Batman (one of Riddlers henchmen, who sounds nothing like Batman or even acts like him,) at first we think Commissioner Gordon is fooled,but after a phone call to the Batcave later on, Gordons worst fear is confirmed, it was an impostor. The finale is well a little underwhelming as the Riddlers gang are amazingly inept at fighting, and are all pretty much despatched without much of a problem, a very nice touch has the duo crash through a rather large lifelike painting of the caped crusader and Robin. On the whole, a pretty average episode, but Frank Gorshin really has some nice touches to his character, something I'm sure that would have influenced Jim Carrey in his portrayal of The Riddler...I loved the ending where Bruce Wayne, reminds Robin about his algebra homework, much to Robins dismay.

[Inspector Abberline]

Well another episode and another new villain to the show, this time in the form of Jervis Tetch AKA The Mad Hatter, played by the marvellous David Wayne, who visually just looks like a plainer Penguin, but has that kind of moustache-twirling villain you use to get in the silent movies, only with a hat fetish. The main plot is just a revenge story, where Mad Hatter is going after the jury that sent him to prison and also Batman who was the main instigator of his downfall. Only the Hatter isn't killing the jurors he's stealing their hats and also them, obviously, his main prize is the Bats cowl of course...the Hatter has a great weapon in the guise of a Super Instant Mesmerizer, which pops out of his top hat whenever he needs to hypnotise anyone getting in his way, this is such a cool gadget one which just jumps out of the comic book pages...In fact, the whole story is a right rollicking yarn which captures the comic book roots nicely. The highlight for me in this episode is when The Mad Hatter has to impersonate a sculptor Octave Marbot, who is doing a sculpture of Batman, the Mad Hatter then proceeds to impersonate Marbot with one of the worst French accents since Allo Allo, in fact, he sounds just like the policeman Officer Crabtree from the show. also, check out the Acme style machinery in the Hatter's hat-making factory...

[Inspector Abberline]

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Well episode 14 wins the award for the funniest name of a character ever,(well nearly ever), in this case, we have Turkey Bullwinkle, the proprietor of the Bowl-O-Drome bowling alley, unfortunately, he's not a supervillain or anything, just a normal bloke who owns a hat. The follow-up episode is just as entertaining as the previous one, with Batman caked head to foot in plaster, Mad hatter see this as an opportunity to now get the caped crusaders cowl, unfortunately for Mad Hatter, Batman had held his breath while chipping away from the inside his plater coated tomb. David Wayne is marvellous in the part, he plays the role like a rather hyper Terry Thomas, moustache and all. By the end, we get more hat factory action as the whirling machinery blades nearly have our dynamic duo, out of all the villains you really do feel that the Mad Hatter is capable of actually dispatching our crime-fighting duo...A nice highlight has the duo crash through a window after climbing up the side of the building in their own imitable style...Overall a very good pair of episodes that really puts the comic book action into the series, and The Mad Hatter is now one of my favourite villains, just a shame that this character hasn't been used in any major motion picture, the idea of Christian Bale fighting the Mad Hatter would of been hilarious to say the least...

[bizarre_eye@Cult Labs]

The Mad Hatter is now one of my favourite villains, just a shame that this character hasn't been used in any major motion picture, the idea of Christian Bale fighting the Mad Hatter would of been hilarious to say the least...

The character features quite prominently later on in the Gotham TV series.

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

Originally Posted by bizarre_eye@Cult Labs

The character features quite prominently later on in the Gotham TV series.

Can't wait to buy the final series of Gotham.

It's been one of my all time favourites i think.

[Inspector Abberline]

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Who says crime does not pay? The Joker gets released from prison and immediately buys a vending machine company, also who is on the parole board at Gotham prison, they seem to have some sort of revolving door system whereby one crook gets caught and another is unleashed onto the poor folks of Gotham City or is this some sort of scheme to stop Batman getting bored?... And what does the Joker want with all these vending machines? to corrupt the youth of the day of course, instead of putting your money in and getting a nice cup of milk, you are instantly rewarded with silver dollars and stocks and bonds, you then become disillusioned with learning and all that stuff and crave instant gratification and instantly you are transformed into a greedy ner de well and your life of crime begins. all that from a vending machine, blimey...Of course, this is a recruiting drive by the Joker to indoctrinate the kids of today into his gang The Bad Pennies. In this episode, we get to see Dick Grayson at his college hanging out in the gym, while lifting what seems to be the smallest weights he could find, hardly surprising as spends most of the time ogling head cheerleader Susie and her friends. As per usual we have a slew of Holy this and that from Robin, but did we really need "holy cow-juice." from the narrator...Of course, The joker has an evil scheme for the duo, mainly whacking 50.000 volts into them when the machine which they are strapped into strikes three lemons...um not sure about the relationship between Joker and Susi, seems to be a bit of grooming going on here,but hey he is a villain...

[Inspector Abberline]

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Well we, at last, get to see young Dick Grayson hanging out with the cool kids, looking like Fonz's very smaller brother, Dick tries to act all mean, and tough, bragging about how many cigarettes he can smoke...Of course, no one is falling for this charade, as it is just a flimsy ploy to ingratiate himself into the Bad Pennies. (FFS Batman do not send a Robin to do a mans job)...even the gullible Susie was not going to fall for that old cobblers. In what can be called The Jokers rather callous and fickle side, he sees Susie as the weakest link, and tries to kill her with some poisonous perfume (do you think the Russian Secret service saw this episode.), for a fleeting second we get some recognition of sadness at having to kill her from Joker, but it does not last long. There is quite a bit going on in these episodes, The Joker's character is definitely getting more warped and certainly crazier, just like his hair.
I'm sure this has been pointed out before, but while Batman never uses any lethal weapons on his opponents, (lets be honest it's usually some sort gas that reverses whatever the villain has sprayed him with), he has no problem in beating people into unconsciousness or in this case throwing some barbells at them. A great episode all around, and who could not like a basketball team called the Disco Tech.

[Inspector Abberline]

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Commissioner Gordon phones Batman and exclaims, prepare yourself for a shock...now if I was Batman id be thinking, shocking the fact that Gotham police are less than useless, even against minor-league criminals like False Face and his henchwoman Blaze. I have to say that I'm not that impressed with False Face, he's sort of a combination between The Riddler and well someone who can disguise himself, in fact, I much preferred his sidekick played by Myrna Fahey, she would have made a much better villain and added to the female nemesis of Batman. It is hard to take False face seriously when all he does is where a perspex mask then miraculously he can change into pretty much anyone, even vending machine. Then again Blaze attractive woman manages to change into an old man, hey is it my fault that I want a bit of credibility with my villains. Even the cliff hanger ending is fairly mundane and quite trite, I mean being tied to a railway track, they were scraping the barrel this episode. It was nice to see diminutive actor Billy Curtis, probably most famous for his role in High Plains Drifter as Mordecai and not forgetting, of course, The Terror of Tiny Town, its a shame he does not do much more than yell abuse in the background. Dick Grayson yet again is whingeing about doing his homework, this time its botany, essential to crime fighters...