More Batman Humor That Went Over My Head as a Kid

Loren Ewing, Doodles Weaver (Sigourney
Weaver's uncle) and Art Carney
In the "Shoot a Crook Arrow" episode
of Batman

Shoot a Crooked Arrow/Walk the Straight and Narrow: The second, much campier season of Batman premiered with Art Carney as The Archer, a low-rent, wanna-be Robin Hood. Carney was inspired casting for this role since he was best known for playing the blue-collar, lovable sewer worker Ed Norton on The Jackie Gleason Show. Norton was the opposite of the debonair Errol Flynn image of the noble bandit. In fact, I remember Carney as Norton making a joke about a weirdly dressed fellow cruise ship passenger on the Gleason Show. "He looks like this week's Special Guest Villain," Norton quipped. I remember thinking Carney was a Special Guest Villain just a few weeks earlier. 

As the Dynamic Duo descend the side of police headquarters to pursue the escaping Archer, they encounter this episode's window cameo, Dick Clark, then host of the ABC music series, American Bandstand. (Although what Dick Clark is doing in police headquarters is never made clear.) There's also a reference to The Music Man with Bruce Wayne informing Dick Grayson, "we've got trouble, right here in Gotham City." Veteran character actor Sam Jaffe appears as Zoltan Zorba, the first poor Gotham City resident to receive a $100 bill from the Wayne Foundation (which turns out to be a counterfeit bill courtesy of The Archer). Jaffe was best known for playing Dr. Zorba on Ben Casey. There's also a corny lecture from a police officer who chides a complaining female motorist that Batman gets away with speeding through Gotham City without so much as a ticket. The cop informs the griper Batman is pursuing criminals but under normal circumstances he's the safest driver in GC. The other drivers applaud. Robert Cornthwaite appears as Allan A. Dale (get it?), the fussy, clench-jawed administrator of the Wayne Foundation grants and secret accomplice of the Archer. This character is coded-gay with a handkerchief tucked up his sleeve and creepy admiration of Batman's cowl.

Reconstructing the Carol Burnett Show: Part 16

It's been a while since I've viewed any episodes of the Carol Burnett Show on the various DVD collections received as Christmas or birthday gifts or on the various platforms that display chopped-up 22 min. versions of the originals. A few weeks ago, I attempted to view missing material at the Paley Center in Manhattan, but it's still closed for COVID. In the first 15 installments of this series, I just went after episodes that contained sketches that interested me, such as all of Carol's brilliant movie parodies or segments from the first five seasons previously unavailable. So, until the Paley Center re-opens, my only option is to go back to my DVDs and online and analyze the episodes I haven't gotten to yet, perhaps in chronological order. Maybe I'll find unexpected gems.

Season One
Sept. 11, 1967: Jim Nabors

Carol with Jim Nabors during 
one of his many appearances on the show

Carol's very first show in its entirety is contained on both the Best Of and Lost Episodes collections. There's nothing particularly outstanding here, expect, obviously, for a bunch of firsts. The debut of Jim Nabors' annual premiere appearance of each season, the first Carol and Sis sketch, the first Q&A with the audience, Carol's first awkward drooling over Lyle, etc. During the opening, we learn the show is on opposite I Spy and The Big Valley and Carol jokes that she might have Pearl Bailey on so they can do a take-off on I Spy's interracial casting. (This idea was done later with Carol and Barbara McNair.) Carol does the first of many VIPs mock interviews with Harvey as a newscaster. Here she is Shirley Dimple and there are gag references to the foray into politics of the real-life Shirley Temple and other show-biz has-beens like George Murphy and Ronald Reagen. The most interesting and revealing bit comes during Carol's Broadway duet with Jim. After partnering on songs from West Side Story, How to Succeed, and Annie Get Your Gun (with Carol imitating Merman), they switch gender roles and Carol warbles Billy Bigelow's Soliloquy from Carousel. Naturally, this leads to Jim holding his hands primly and intoning "When I Marry Mr. Snow." The audience laughs at the absurdity of big, tall Jim acting like a coy girl. But Nabors' gay sexuality makes the joke doubly significant. Especially when Carol then asks "What about Rex Harrison?" 

"Well, I guess he'll do if I can't have Mr. Snow," Jim replies. Were Carol and Jim winking at the audience and having a laugh between themselves about Jim Nabors' really wanting a Mr. Snow of his own?