Batman Humor That Went Over My Head as a Kid, Part 3

In honor of the 60th anniversary of the premiere of the Batman series (on Jan. 12), here are some more Bat episodes with humor than went over my head at 6 years old.

Ceasar Romero with Kathy Kersh,
later Burt Ward's wife.

The Practical Jokers/The Jokers' Provokers: This episode was ABC cross-promotion night! Bruce and Dick are settling into watch The Green Hornet, another William Dozier comic-book series, when the Joker interrupts to give Batman and Robin a clue to his next caper. Then when the Dynamic Duo are scaling yet another building, Howard Duff appears in a window. Duff was starring in ABC's Felony Squad (1966-69) and he appears in character as Sgt. Sam Stone. Interestingly, Ben Alexander of Dragnet was also a regular on this series and had earlier made a Batman cameo. (His commitment to Felony Squad prevented him from recreating his Dragnet role on Jack Webb's reboot of the series on NBC.) Duff would appear as the Special Guest Villain in Season 3 with his wife Ida Lupino. They played a pair of hippie-slang-spouting alchemist-scientists types Dr. Cassandra and her hubby Kabala. Interesting that Felony Squad has disappeared without a trace and its only remnant is the star appearing in a window on Batman for a few minutes. There are Felony Squad episodes of YouTube. I watched one for a few minutes. God, it was cliched and boring.

The obligatory gun moll in this episode was played by Burt Ward's later wife, Kathy Kersh, possibly the worst actress to play a villain's love interest/assistant. Terry Moore was pretty bad too as another Joker girl--Venus in The Zodiac Crimes three-parter. Kersh was hired for her gorgeous looks and figure, not her dramatic skills. Unlike Gail Hire (Egghead's Miss Bacon), Leslie Perkins (Minstrel's Octavia), Diane McBain (The Mad Hatter's Lisa), and many other more competent actresses, Kersh gave no depth to her character, the vain Cornelia. Ward divorced her after a few years and married two more times.

This is one of the weirder, sci-fi-ish eps with the Joker inventing a box which can stop, reverse, speed up or slow down time. Alan Napier gets to step out of his Alfred role, playing the butler's identical cousin Eggbert with a weird sort of Cockney accent. Only on TV are cousins identical such as on the Patty Duke Show, Bewitched and I Dream Of Jeannie.

Holy Matrimony, Batman! Marsha almost
traps the Caped Crusader at the altar.

Marsha, Queen of Diamonds/Marsha's Scheme with Diamonds: Carolyn Jones of The Addams Family plays a bewitching temptress who uses her witch aunt's potions to put Gotham City under her sway. This is a part of a pattern with female Bat-villains. Marsha, Black Widow, The Siren, Minerva, and on occasion Catwoman, have all used drugs, electronics, or magic to hypnotize male law enforcement to rob or dominate. Interesting that the message seems to be that female crooks must rely on drugs or magic to gain their ends rather than their brains (Catwoman, Dr. Cassandra, and Ma Parker seem to be the exceptions.) Batman himself has fallen under the spell only once (with Black Widow). He exerts his will power to resist Marsha's spell in a weird dialogue reminiscent of a comedy bit from the era which consisted of only the two characters saying each other's names John and Marsha. Here it's Batman and Marsha.

In an inconsistency, Batman informs Marsha he will never allow a stranger into the Batcave. But in previous episodes, he did admit the Penguin (in the 1966 movie), Commissioner Gordon, Lydia Limpet and Pauline, the latter two assistants to the Bookworm and the Riddler who were drugged for interrogation. (A violation of their constitutional rights.) Marsha wants to get into the Caped Crusader's lair to acquire the fabulous Bat-Diamond which powers the Batcomputer. Huh? A giant revolving diamond powers a super-computer?

The biggest twist in the episode is the cliffhanger is not the usual unescapable death-trap but a prison of another kind with Marsha blackmailing Batman into marrying her. Alfred and Aunt Harriet are his unlikely saviors with Alfred posing as a British solicitor representing Mrs. Cooper as Batman's supposed wife. They allegedly married in England. I'm trying to picture under what circumstances they would have met, the ceremony and what sort of relationship those two would have had. 

Guest stars include Estelle Winwood (who played one of Samantha's many aunts on several episodes of Bewitched) as Aunt Hilda and Woody Strode (veteran of many John Ford westerns) as the Grand Mogul, Marsha's henchman.

As a bonus for myself, I just received (from eBay) Batman 66 The Lost Episode: The Two-Way Crimes of Two-Face a comic-book version of an unfilmed episode based on a treatment that Harlan Ellison submitted before the series went into production. Ellison's TV scripts are reproduced in a series of books called Brain Movies but they are all out of print and terribly expensive. The treatment is reproduced along with the comic-book. The episode was written before the series solidified into its format we are all know: a crime is committed, Commissioner Gordon and Chief O'Hara moan about that week's super-criminal being too much for them, they use the Bat-phone. Cut to Wayne Manor. Bruce and Dick are doing something innocuous like playing chess, conjugating verbs or practicing the piano. They dash to the Bat-poles. Opening animated sequence. After the commercial, the same shot of the Dynamic Duo racing to the Batmobile and then to the city. That same lady looks at them with confusion as they race up the steps of Police Headquarters. 

Here things don't follow that same rigid pattern. Two-Face, a sort of Jekyll-Hyde criminal who was splashed with acid on half his face. He allows a coin to decide if he'll do good or bad deeds. It's interesting to imagine who would have been cast in the role and how it might have been filmed.

I also bought the first 4 issues of Batman 66 Meets Wonder Woman 77 which is a pretty good read. Catwoman makes a guest appearance but she changes from black (Eartha Kitt) to white (Julie Newmar) in the third issue. I'll have to get the last two.

I guess I've been thinking about Batman a lot lately because he made me feel safe as a kid. I don't realize the show as a joke, that it was making fun of comic book super-heroes conventions. Some of the episodes were almost serious, particularly in the first season. But by the third, it was looney tunes. Because I grew up with this iteration, Adam West has always been my favorite Batman.