To The Batpoles! Batman 1966

One question on our minds almost since the beginning of To the Batpoles! has been: Just how much did Victor Buono , as King Tut , ad lib on the show? In this episode, we answer that question by comparing the final script to King Tut's Coup/Batman's Waterloo to what was broadcast, helping us to see the difference between Buono's sense of humor and Stanley Ralph Ross 's, and to gain a keen appreciat...

When something becomes popular, it's likely to get parodied somewhere. In the 1960s, the parodier-in-chief was MAD Magazine . Meanwhile, at Marvel Comics , a new parody comic series began in 1967, Not Brand ECHH , which followed the lead of MAD's 1950s incarnation as a comic book. In 1966, MAD published "BATS-MAN", followed about a year later by ECHH 'S "The Aging Spidey-Man! Peter Pooper vs. Gnat...

In The Penguin's Clean Sweep , Burgess Meredith 's final appearance on "Batman" (but not the last time as the Penguin !), Stanford Sherman 's script has its moments, and so does Meredith, but… if you look closely, something just isn't up to snuff. And if you scratch the surface, there are way more inconsistencies and goofiness in the script than meets the eye. We're joined again by our childhood f...

Without a doubt, one of the most maligned Batman episodes is Nora Clavicle and the Ladies' Crime Club . The episode's sexist portrayal of women obviously wouldn't fly today, but do the men in this episode fare any better? It seems to have been another of Stanford Sherman 's satirical Batman episodes, arguably a failed one. But every episode has its fans, and this time we review Nora with a fan of...

Batman and Robin are "duly deputized agents of the law." Law comes up on the '66 show on a number of occasions, including two courtroom scenes. The very first episode features the Riddler filing a lawsuit against Batman. But, you might ask, how accurately is the law portrayed on Batman? In this episode, lawyer Jim Dedman is here to fill us in. How good of a prosecutor is Batman? Does he behave pro...

What's this? An episode of To the Batpoles that isn't about Batman? Well…on the surface, no, it isn't. But in Ahoy Comics' series The Wrong Earth , Dragonflyman and Stinger act an awful lot like the '66 versions of Batman and Robin , and the Dragonfly seems very similar to Frank Miller's Dark Knight ! Liberated of the copyright owner's limitations on how Batman and Robin can be used, what are writ...

In 1965, as production of Batman was starting to get rolling, Lorenzo Semple was having some difficulties in getting across to writers his vision for the show. Leonard Stadd 's "The Secret of the Impossible Crimes," a script that Semple rejected, shows Stadd's take on Semple's vision after reading the script for "Hi Diddle Riddle." The result is a funhouse-mirror version of Batman '66 : it's recog...

One of the reasons often given for the quality dropoff in Batman season three has been that, in one-part episodes with so many characters, time is tight. So how to account for Louie's Lethal Lilac Time , a one-parter that seems not to even have enough story for 22 minutes!? And yet, we seem to be missing things, as scenes are cut off before they appear to be over. Meanwhile, should Yvonne Craig be...

We all have our favorite characters and actors from Batman , but how many of us are fanboys for Executive Producer William Dozier ? Well, for one, there's Oscar Lilley , proxy researcher at the American Heritage Center in Laramie, Wyoming. In the process of working with Dozier's papers, Oscar has grown intrigued with Dozier's backstory and impressed by how he did his job. In this episode, he tells...

A double-header for our 4th anniversary (and, we forgot to mention, Batman's 80th !). First, we review the recent six-issue series Archie Meets Batman '66 . How does the Caped Crusader end up joining forces with America's favorite teenager? Then, listener Chris Cavanaugh joins us to talk about his Bat-fandom growing up, fueled as much by Silver Age DC comics as it was by Batman on TV! Plus, the Re...

Stanley Ralph Ross 's treatment, draft, and final scripts for The Funny Feline Felonies two-parter reveal a number of surprises: inconsistent concern for not doing the same gags twice, the death of the budding Batman-Batgirl romance, Ross errors that sometimes made it to the screen, a Ross gag that was, er, stubbed out like a cigar, and much more. The Batcave Podcast 's John S. Drew joins us once...

In the Funny Feline Felonies , Joker fakes getting kidnapped by Catwoman , only to then let her lead him around by the nose. He seems more childish than evil. What's wrong with season three Joker? That's one issue on our minds as we go through this two-parter. We also explore the provenance of the " Kitty Car ," the ways in which this arc displays both male chauvinism and feminism, and the numerou...

In 1992, Batman returned to movie theater screens, more Tim Burton -y than ever! His faceoff with Penguin and Catwoman contains numerous hallmarks of a Burton film, from the themes to the camerawork. Childhood friend Kyle joins Tim and Paul to (once we've wallowed in reminiscences quite enough) give Batman Returns the To the Batpoles treatment, including the lack of Robin , various cats and pengui...

Bring your Coleman stove! Grab your sleeping bag! "Go to the creek and brush your teeth!" It's time for a serious "Camping Trip"! Back in episode 12, we took time to examine the idea of "camp" and why Batman '66 is often described as "campy." Producer William Dozier and others involved with the show rejected that label because of its "gay" associations, and instead maintained that it was an exampl...

In what we promise will be our last Egghead and Olga episode (maybe), we dig into the script for the original three-part version of their third-season story featuring Vincent Price and Anne Baxter . Because of an apparent aversion to running a three-part story (besides Londinium , that is), Batman 's producers chopped part one, The Ogg Couple , and ran it six weeks AFTER broadcasting the second an...

Back again for the first time, Egghead and Olga , in The Ogg Couple , originally meant to be the first of three parts. Did the producers do a good job of changing direction in midstream, or are the seams showing? In addition to containing a raunchy joke the censors seemingly overlooked, this Batman episode inspires several musical ruminations, related to the source of the name of the Silver Scimit...

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What better topic for our 100th episode than the star of our favorite show? We watched the Television Academy's 2006 interview with Adam Wes t, which does overlap somewhat with Adam's Back to the Batcave , of course, but still gives us some new insights. Then we realized that there's someone else we haven't given enough credit for the good things in Batman '66: Executive Producer William Dozier ....

With Julie Newmar off (reportedly) filming Mackenna's Gold , Eartha Kitt was recruited to play Catwoman in season three. In this episode, we dig into her first appearance, Catwoman's Dressed to Kill , an episode that seems to exhibit a lot of misogyny — but is that primarily on the part of writer Stanley Ralph Ross , or on the part of Batman himself? Meanwhile, of course, the casting of an African...

In 1966, Signet released the novel Batman vs. Three Villains of Doom by Winston Lyon . Like most Batman '66 tie-in merch, it was released very early in the show's run, which means that its ability to ape the show is limited. Lyon sometimes borrows from the comics to augment what he doesn't know about the show, and sometimes simply has to make stuff up. The novel deals with a contest between Pengui...

Dick Carr 's first draft of The Silent Film Capers — which Bat-fans know as Death in Slow Motion — was submitted in November 1965. It went through numerous revisions before becoming the story we know and love. In this episode, we go through the first three drafts of the script and find the original form of the giant book , a cut subplot about chocolate cake , the reason Mr. Van Jones doesn't seem...

In spite of having three whole episodes to tell the story of the Terrific Trio 's visit to Londinium , the show nonetheless leaves plenty of plot threads hanging, important moments unshown, and basic villain motivations unexplained. As Batman and Robin don "beefeater" uniforms, a certain old Wendy's fast food tagline comes to mind… There might not be much beef , but there is at least a bee . Of so...

We remain in Londinium , where Batman seems oddly bored by a bomb scare, and Lord Ffogg proves able to be in two places at the same time. Also, in spite of having three whole parts to work with, this story still seems to be running short of time and leaving important story points to the imagination of the viewer. Our own imaginations were stoked by hours of play as kids with the Mego World's Great...

Double-header episode! First, we tackle The Londinium Larcenies — yes, only part one — including the original treatment by Elkan Allan (two parts, no Batgirl , no Penelope Peasoup ), the sets, the music, the appeals to the Dirty Old Man Market , and more. Treatment for The Transatlantic Terror (the basis for the Londinium trilogy) by Elkan Allan Then, at last, we examine Paul's video taken at the...

As we saw a few episodes back , in 1965 Peggy Shaw turned in a script called Fashions in Crime , based on the 1948 comics story of the same name, and beset by script elements that would work in a comic but would be tough to film. Shaw's script was apparently handed to writer Stephen Kandel to rework. The resulting 1966 work, The Cat's Tale , solves many of the problems of Shaw's script, in part by...