Penguin Is a Girl's Best Friend
January 26, 1967
"Penguin forms a motion picture company and teams up with Marsha, Queen
of Diamonds. He gets Batman and Robin to take part in his movie. Marsha
attempts to put Batman under her spell with drugged lipstick during the
love scene."
57 minutes
Vince: "You got that grin on your face bro."
RD: Boy Blunderhead: "Just happy to be here."
Chicago suffered its worst snowstorm on the original airdate.
Narrator: "An apparently peaceful day in Gotham City. BUT WHAT IS THIS? An armored-car holdup in broad daylight?"
As expected from the title, this is the work of the Penguin, who orders his goons with a trademark quack through a megaphone. The Batmobile is around closer than usual to intervene.
Robin: "We're going to be late for that lecture to the Crime Prevention League. Sounds like we may pick up new material for the lecture."
Batman: "There's nothing like a little on-the-job research, old chum."
The Duo's stunt doubles jump out in a bright glare.
Penguin: "What are you buttinskies doing here? ... This is legal, I tell you! It's legal!"
Batman: "Have you heard anything about legalized thievery, Robin?"
Robin: "Can't say that I have, Batman."
Penguin: "I'll wipe those silly smirks off your faces in court! I'll sue you for assault and battery and aggravated interference!"
Batman: " You're witnessing the final disintegration of a criminal brain, Robin. Years of outlawry have
taken their inevitable toll."
Robin: "But he's right about our being in court, Batman. We'll be the prosecution's star witnesses when they try you for armed robbery!"
All of a sudden O'Hara appears - to take the Penguin's side. The Duo have crashed straight into a movie shoot as directed by the (usually villainous) millionaire. Because you can do that after being arrested for the show's earlier three-part story.
Penguin: "This permit isn't a mock-up, Boy Blunderhead! It's signed and sealed by the Gotham City Motion Picture Commission. And I'm gonna sue the city for $10 million for failure to provide proper protection. Do you hear that, Batman? Ten million dollars! Do you hear that, Batman? Jail! But I'm willing to make a deal."
To the titles!
Vince wonders how they come up with the monetary amounts and why they keep fluctuating.
Gordon finds out post-hand in his Office that the Duo had signed a contract to star in the movie, and that he too knew about the movie shoot. (:11)
Batman: "Yes, I saw the movie equipment as we drove up. I didn't have time to explain, but I wanted Penguin to think that he'd trapped us. When someone like Penguin sets up a movie company, you can be sure it's not only film he's after."
He can use their involvement to keep an eye on the man and his plans. Vince thinks he was just lying about knowing about the movie to cover that for once he didn't know everything going on in the City.
Meanwhile Penguin is peeved that his co-star...in villainy!...Marsha (Queen of Diamonds) is two hours late. He then dials his phone.
Penguin: "Prop Department?"
Set Department: "No, Mr. Penguin. This is the Set Department."
Penguin (hits another button): "Prop Department?"
Publicity: "Sorry, Mr. Penguin. This is Publicity."
Penguin (hits another button): "Prop Department? (hits another) Prop Department? (another) PROP DEPARTMENT?"
Prop Department: "Yes, Mr. Penguin?"
Penguin: "I forgot what I wanted you for."
But then he remembers the 24,000 gallons of milk needed for Scene 12, which is coming in now. RD would become an arch-villain himself if he could get that much.
Also there was one pretty lady as his secretary, who only appears for three seconds, too short to be rated.
Marsha finally appears in a large white glare and diamond eye-shadow, and has to take his Pengymobile to reach him "across this football field you call an office".
Marsha: "You wouldn't have asked me here if you didn't want something."
Penguin: "I want to make you a millionairess.
Marsha: "How boring. I'm already a millionairess.
Penguin: "Then how would you like to be a billionairess? All you have to do is to become my partner in
this motion-picture company."
Marsha: "Oh, come, now, Pengy. You don't really think there's a billion dollars in filmmaking."
She agrees to join him and its obvious front. He wants some of her diamonds for her help. She wants to star in his movie.
Penguin: "Well, I was thinking of somebody with more...(He grabs phantom breasts on his chest.) With more "waaah.""
He actually means that she will be co-starring with Batman.
Marsha: "Does Batman have a love scene with the leading lady in your film?"
Penguin: "Why, of course. Who ever heard of a film without a love scene?"
Marsha: "Then I shall be your leading lady. Or no diamonds. I might even be able to get my Aunt Hilda
to whip up a love potion for my lipstick. ... I wouldn't mind winning an Oscar."
Penguin: "An Oscar? Heh! You don't want one of those. My dear, if you play along with me, you are liable to win the most coveted award in the entire motion-picture business. You are liable to win... (he pulls out a familiarly shaped gold statue) ...a Penguin!"
Vince is hopeful the Pengy (statue) is in storage someplace. "Thank God."
In the Batcave the Duo look over the script, "innocent enough" in ancient Rome.
Robin: "But holy miscasts, Batman! We play a pair of barbarian bandits sentenced to fight as gladiators in the Coliseum."
Batman: "Casting us as bandits would appeal to Penguin's warped sense of humor."
He then comes along something dubious in Scene 12, which may need a look over from the "Gotham City Film Decency League". Robin takes a while to be pulled out of his reading by his mentor to agree.
Vince still wonders why the Duo call each other Batman & Robin even when alone in the Batcave. RD wonders if his wife calls him by a different name if so. Also the Duo want to be cautious in case they call each other Bruce & Dick in public.
The Duo making their way to Penguin Studios Inc. the next day almost get run over by a chauffeur trying to give them a dirty red carpet to walk on. (:23)
Penguin: "Well, if it isn't my two ham actors."
Robin: "The only ham here is wearing a top hat."
Penguin: "Tut-tut, Boy Bungler, we can't all be great artists."
They're already going to start shooting the Scene 12, set in the Baths.
Penguin: "It's a fantastically magnificent scene. I wrote it myself."
Also all the cameramen are blindfolded, to keep them from seeing Marsha arriving fully nude but for a very short bathrobe. Penguin has her "outfit" of three diamonds carried in a suitcase for her to wear.
This is also the right timing for Aunt Harriet to appear (driven by Alfred), since she is a member of this League 'summoned' in protest. You don't say. "Could you point out someone called Mr. Penguin to me?"
Penguin: "This is outrageous. As the leading entrepreneur of Gotham City I will not submit to having one page of my masterpiece enfeebled. And we will not submit to such bullying tones. Kindly remove your Victorian mind from my set, Mrs. C."
Harriet: "Only when you remove this morbid scene from your film. Think of the children!"
Penguin: "I am thinking of the children, madam! Look at this. Twenty-three thousand quarts of homogenized milk here. Fortified with vitamin C. [Wasn't it supposed to be 24 thousand? Did Penguin drink a full thousand gallons of milk?] I tell you, this whole scene is bursting with minerals and vitamins."
Harriet: "This scene is bursting with other things as well."
Penguin: "I suspect this is your doing, masked meddlers. You're always poking your proboscis into other people's business."
Batman: "Decency is everybody's business, Penguin."
He acquiesces to their demands though. So he instead prepares to shoot Scene 43 - where Batman and Marsha share a kiss. Batman is so upset he sits down into a Thinker pose.
Marsha: "I trust you're going to enjoy this scene, Batman, darling."
Batman: "I made a bargain with Penguin, and I never break my word."
Marsha: "Bargain? Why, half the men in the world would fight to be kissed by Marsha, Queen of Diamonds."
Batman: "They certainly wouldn't have to fight me."
So - Action! She gives him a giant kiss.
Penguin: "Cut it! That's not good enough! Batman, I want you to put some "grahhh" into it! We'll do it again and again and again!"
Robin: "Once is enough, you feathered fraud!"
Penguin: "Tut-tut, Boy Bluenose!"
Marsha: "Penguin is a perfectionist. I'll do it a hundred times if it's necessary. And it will be necessary."
Cut to Stately Wayne Manor. Harriet wonders why pool-playing Bruce has some very chapped lips. (:29) He blames "windburn" when he and Dick visited the Wayne Animal Sanctuary. She pledges to get some salve for it. "Just in case a pretty girl wants to kiss you."
RD is allergic to poison ivy. The plant, not the villainess.
Dick: "Boy, I'll bet you'll never wanna kiss another girl as long as you live, Bruce."
Bruce: "I wouldn't go so far as to say that, Dick. You're jumping to a rash conclusion."
He thinks there was some "elixir" in the lipstick that needed "a great amount of concentration to combat".
As they will next be shooting in the Museum of Antiquities he had already placed Bat-homing devices on all the art, of which Alfred confirms that they are...still inside. Bruce counters by holding a golf club as his pool cue.
RD likes mini-golf instead of maxi-golf.
At the Studio the villains ride on a golf cart (speaking of golf) with an open umbrella at the back. Things are going as planned, but he needs more of Aunt Hilda's concoctions.
Penguin: "I never trust a woman with a secret. And if you're nothing else, Marsha, you're certainly a woman."
Marsha: "A woman with diamonds, darling."
They visit Hilda anyway, back at her giant cauldron with some random creature model inside it (named Mortimer).
Marsha: "Aunt Hilda, have you been robbing graveyards again?"
Hilda: "Oh, no, dearie. I left off that 20 years ago, when I was chemistry professor at Vassar. Until I quit."
Marsha asks for something stronger since the last attempt didn't do much to Batman.
Hilda: "Oh dear. I'm afraid I'm out of old toads too."
Marsha: "Can't you substitute some new toads?"
The Bros think she should have aged some new toads to older ones, like they're wine or something.
Cut to the Duo at the Museum, still confirming the objects are all still there. (:35)
Batman: "I'm still suspicious, Robin."
Penguin (overhearing): "Suspicious of what, Caped Codger? Don't tell me you're suspicious of the Penguin tampering with these priceless works of art."
Batman: "The thought did cross my mind."
Penguin: "What, a great filmmaker like myself stooping to a petty theft? Why, that's ridiculous."
Robin: "What's ridiculous is thinking you're a great filmmaker."
Penguin: "I write the lines around here, Boy Blowhard! You stick to the script."
Vince wishes he wrote some of these lines in the WWF.
The museum's curator appears, declaring some 15th century chain mail is gone. Batman suddenly realizes the metal alloy's magnetic field could have "blocked our homing transmission". Penguin responds by having the Duo go through a "light rehearsal" of a fight.
Penguin: "Skewer the scrofulous scullion. Spear him like a cucumber!"
The fight has some really bad swordfighting, including Robin butt-slapping a goon with the broad side.
Seeing the fight go badly (in general, not just with the swordfighting), Penguin cheats by blinding the Duo with a spotlight to trap them.
Thus the two are tied down in a giant catapult.
Penguin: "This catapult will hurl you through the sky and across Gotham City. I'm sure you'll make a big splash at the other end of your journey. And your last moments on Earth will be recorded for posterity by those two cameras that I've strapped to your legs. And I'll show the film at a special premiere for the Benefit of the Amalgamated Crooks of Gotham City. The In-Flight Motion Pictures Benefit of Penguin Productions Unlimited. Good flight, masked missiles! We'll watch from a better vantage point!"
Narrator: "The Caped Crusaders to end smashed flat? While Pengy's cameras record the splat? Eu tu, Pengy? Friends, Romans, Countrymen, find out next week! Same Bat Time! Same Bat Channel!"
:40 Vince was reminded somehow of watching old WWE Attitude Era of Sunny dressed as Marilyn Monroe singing Happy Birthday. He remembers when they did a photo-shoot with her that she had no recollection of doing.
RD is ambivalent to Girl Scout cookies. His mainstay is always his wife's oatmeal scotchies (without raisins).
Vince's cereal of choice is Life. RD's remains Peanut Butter Crunch.
RD still hates Subway.
Andre the Giant had some sometimes strange matches.
- Special Guest Villain: The Penguin [8] (Burgess Meredith) [8]
- Extra Special Guest Villainess: Marsha [2] (Carolyn Jones) [2]
- SPEAKING OFs: 1. Captain Lou
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