Batman's Waterloo
March 9, 1967
"Though Batman escapes his watery trap, Robin is left in the hands of
King Tut. The deluded villain still believes that Lisa Carson is really
Queen Cleopatra, and calls Lisa's father to demand a ransom of
$8,300,487.12, the mortgage on the Pyramids. Using the Jolly Jackson
radio show to communicate, Tut negotiates the terms of payment with
Batman. However, the villain most likely intends to keep both the money
and Lisa, and has further plans to fry the Caped Crusaders in his royal
boiling oil."
49 minutes
Vince thinks RD: Very Unlike Indian Fakirs is up to something when he takes a selfie. He considers RD and his other podcast colleague Bin Hamin as his cleverest friends. He uses this as cover to make a dad joke about Tom & Jerry playing cat and mouse. He gives himself applause for this.
The Bros think the series is becoming more adult orientated.
Narrator: "As you may recall, we last left Batman sealed in an Egyptian sarcophagus five feet under water. For you, several hours have passed. For our heroes, not one second. We just may be witnessing the final chapter in Batman's brave life. Don't move an inch! The most incredible occurrences have yet to occur incredibly!"
Tut continues to gloat, though without a speech. "Don't work yourself into a flap, spunky!" he says randomly to Robin. "He's drowned, not even brat-to-bat resuscitation can help him now." Then he leaves. His other girl (Neila) still doesn't know what is appealing from "dame" Cleopatra Lisa.
Tut: "Well, whatever it is, she's had it centuries longer than you."
In the Batcave Alfred receives Morse Batcode on the Wireless Bat-Transmitter (For Bat-Emergencies only).
In Tut's throne room he is suddenly saddened he and Lisa are 'arguing'. He orders his goons to "gather up yon bird boy and bring the Tuttruck round to the front entrance."
Meanwhile Alfred has somehow managed to get on the roof to oversee this.
Tut: "We go now to the royal oil boiling room. A perfect place to make our nuptial arrangements. ... When we get to the royal oil boiling room, be sure to prepare some real boiling royal boiling oil to boil the boy wonder in royally."
RD needed a second take to read the line.
Alfred takes advantage of the group leaving to get the controls and lift up the sarcophagus.
In the Tuttruck Tut continues to flirt with Lisa despite her rejections.
Chancellor: "She speaks heresy, omnipotent one."
Tut: "Lord Chancellor, you don't understand women. Beneath it all, she's aflame with love for me."
Lisa: "Please, I beg of you. Next to Bruce Wayne, my father is probably the wealthiest man in Gotham City. ... I'll do anything if you'll call my father."
Meanwhile Alfred revives Batman by slapping him. "I came as soon as I received your Morse Batcode message. It was really most propitious that I happened to be dusting the Batcave when you sent it."
Batman: "I counted on your love for your work."
Alfred: "I don't understand how you managed to survive with no air, and for such a great length of time, sir."
Batman: "I put myself in a trance not unlike the Indian fakirs. It required extreme concentration. I was able to slow my heart and respiratory systems to a crawl."
Alfred: "But you were without air for nearly an hour, sir."
Batman: "Yes, I know of one fakir who was buried for three years."
They return to the Batcave in order to find Robin.
Meanwhile in the Tuttruck Tut relents to Lisa's pleading to call her father. (:17) "But I insist
that he stay away until after the wedding." She promises, and he puts his hand out. "Put her there!"
So Tut calls Johnny John E. Carson as "your future son-in-law. I'm sure you'll be happy to welcome me into your family. I come from good stock. My father was a king, grandfather before him, so am I." He lists Lisa's queen's ransom at the low price of $8,300,487.12. "I need it to pay off the mortgage on the pyramids. The interest rate over 3400 years is positively usurious." Because as any good pharaoh knows, Egypt doesn't have its own currency, especially not with historical references.
Carson agrees to pay up, but he needs an intermediary. "My company sponsors the daily Jolly Jackson Phone Jockey radio show. When I've collected that much money, I'll call in and I'll say, "The sleet in Crete is never very neat."" He hangs up - and immediately calls Ed McMahon Gordon.
In the Batcave the two nonchalantly discuss Tut's plan to boil Robin.
Batman: "Drawing upon my vast storehouse of chemical knowledge, I'm herein concocting an alchemist fluid which will neutralize the boiling oil."
Alfred: "What exactly does it do, sir?"
Batman: "I'm not quite sure, Alfred. It's the first time I've ever tried this experiment. But I think in the end it should produce foam rubber."
Alfred: "From a tiny capsule like that?"
Batman: "The size of the package, Alfred, is in no way any indication of the value of its contents."
Immediately Gordon calls, asking if Batman can talk to Bruce.
Batman: "I occasionally run into him commissioner. Why?"
Gordon: "I'm worried about my daughter Barbara."
This is the first time the future Batgirl is mentioned on the show by name.
Batman: "How is she involved in all this?"
Gordon: "Well, as Bruce Wayne knows, she's away at college, she'll be graduating shortly, and I'd hate to think that some of the dire happenings which have happened to that fine professor of Egyptology could also happen to my beloved daughter at her school."
Batman: "I rather doubt that your daughter Barbara is going to get conked on the head and turned into a long-dead Egyptian ruler, commissioner."
Gordon: "I know it sounds a little farfetched, but she's an only child and of course, my pride and joy. I just need a little reassurance."
Batman: "If I see Bruce Wayne I'll ask him to call you. He knows more about the present American collegiate scene than I do."
That important point out of the way, Gordon then tells him about the radio show.
Cut to the radio as Batman calls in.
Jackson: "You know, you're the eighth person that called today claiming to be Batman. ... If you're really Batman then you're a very brainy guy, right? Tell me who said, "Biography should be written by an acute enemy"?"
Batman: "Arthur James Balfour, born 1848, died 1930. He was quoted by S.K. Ratcliffe in the London Observer, January 30, 1927."
Jackson (suddenly a believer): "Friends, we have a very special guest on the line. A great and good friend of yours truly: Batman. He has a message for you. Fire away, Caped Crusader."
Batman: "This message is for King Tut only. I request all other citizens of Gotham City to comply with my wishes and shut their radios off for the next 30 seconds."
Of course all the city does so because they're easily led simpletons.
Tut (in his lair): "Curse you, Batman! May you fall down a flight of stairs and break every tooth in your head except one, and in that, may you have a toothache for the rest of your life which won't be very long."
So "Tutsy" has his turn to call in: "Tell that blue beanbag to bring the money to the royal oil boiling room in the abandoned boiler works in the old Boylston section of the city tonight. Alone. And you can also tell him to -"
Cut to Batman listening to what seems to be a whole range of swears. "Oh, such language!" But he has the location.
Alfred: "Holy steam valve! (Beat) Sorry, sir, it just slipped out. It must be because Master Robin's uppermost in my thoughts at the moment."
Batman: "And in mine, Alfred. You mind the store."
Vince thinks Alfred wants to be Dick's successor as Robin.
At the room of boiling, Tut is unhappy at the slow heat from not using vegetable oil. (:28)
"The Caped Conniver seems to have a penchant for escaping from tight places. He'll not escape this one. Before this night is out I shall revel in the sight of a big, crisp, polyunsaturated bat. And that goes for his sickening sidekick too."
Sadly Robin does not exclaim a "Hey! That's me!"
RD: "You know what they call fried bat? Chicken of the Cave."
Cut to Batman at Carson's TV studio house. Sadly as the banks were closed he could only get $6 million.
Batman: "For once, I just don't know. Do you think he'd accept a check for the difference?"
If it was written on papyrus it might work?
Carson: "This ransom will break me, but I don't care."
Batman: "Strange. I was under the impression that you were a multi-multimillionaire."
Carson: "Everybody thinks so. But all I have in the world is now in your hands. I had hoped to arrange a match between Lisa and Bruce Wayne. The combination of our fortunes would put me back on top and give me room to manipulate."
Batman: "A marriage of convenience, eh?"
Carson: "It goes on all the time among the upper classes. Normally, I wouldn't think of Bruce Wayne as a husband for Lisa. Well, he's a nice enough fellow, but he's just not marriage material for a girl like Lisa. (Beat) Actually, you're more her style."
Batman: "Me? I'm afraid not, Mr. Carson. My heart is already pledged to crimefighting."
Cut back to the boiler with Robin and Lisa tied up together. As they bemoan their fate, Neila comes over to free them, or at least get rid of her competition: "King Tut may be fat, lazy and extremely rude, but he's all I have. And with her here I don't even have that."
Unfortunately they're too late to evade Tut noticing the scene, who is so saddened at how everyone is against him he accidentally puts a hand on the oil, burning it. "As soon as Batman and Robin have been fricasseed you'll both join them in yonder pot!"
Robin: "You'll answer to Batman for this."
Tut: ""You'll answer to Batman for this." You big tattletale! Boiling in oil, one of my dear father's favorite spectator sports. Only you won't be a spectator, Batboy. According to my master plan, the cowled cornball should be arriving momentarily."
Sure enough Batman is seen coming in. The goons want to beat him up.
Tut: "No, no violence. I can't stand violence. (Beat) But I like torture. It's good, clean fun. He'll be joining his caped crony in a double birdbath."
The goons look silently at him.
Tut: "Didn't you find that funny? The king has made a yuk. Laugh now! Ha ha ha!"
He then suddenly has "slave girls" to bang a gong just as Batman breaks through a wall on his Batcycle with a Bat-tering ram. He throws his capsule into the oil to immediately foam it, bouncing Robin off from deliciously cooked doom.
Not even five seconds in to the fight Tut is taken out with a hit to the back of the head, and the stunt doubles easily handle the goons by throwing them into the gong.
This of course once again brings Tut back to his old self.
Tut (softly): ...Oh. Did I do it again?"
Batman: "You certainly did."
Tut: "...I hurt anybody?"
Batman: "Only yourself, professor. Only yourself.
Tut: "Oh, I hope the board of regents will understand that a criminal alter ego is not an easy thing to overcome."
Batman: "As a crazed criminal, professor, your alter ego would have been dealt with justly, but firmly, (to the camera) for surely no man is above the law and no man is below it."
RD wonders what will happen to the goons, if anything. What about Neila?
There's no time for that, as we immediately cut to Bruce taking Lisa back to her place as the Batman Love Theme is playing (and which RD is still looking for for his anniversary).
Lisa: "Would you like to come in for a glass of milk and cookies?"
Bruce: "I'm afraid it's rather late. Why, it's 10:30."
Lisa: "Oh. All right. Will you call me again?"
Bruce: "I wonder if that would be wise, Lisa; you're a very beautiful woman, and you'd make some
lucky man a marvelous wife. Unfortunately, I'm not that man. You see, the Wayne Foundation is my wife. You're just wasting your time with me."
He does however oblige her request for a kiss.
Bruce: "...Milk and cookies, did you say?"
Lisa: "I made the cookies myself."
They share another kiss, and then:
Bruce (to the camera): "Man cannot live by crimefighting alone."
Wrote RD: "He then goes in to get laid."
Vince thought 37 year old Lee Whitney was "long in the tooth" as Neila, and he was just being generous, but like me he recognized her as Yeoman Janice Rand. She was also a professional singer, including touring with Spike Jones, and was the first Chicken of the (non Cave) Sea Mermaid. Both agree on giving 6.5 or 7 Batpoles (I'll round up for them.)
Lee Meriwether (then 31 years for this story) of course has quite the career, not just Catwoman or her long tenure on All My Children or even her own Star Trek appearance. The Bros wonder if they can get her on the show. RD gives her 7.5 or 8. Vince thought she "looked good in the very last scene" and also gives her an 8.
Next time the Bros will watch series related commercials, PSAs, and how to properly apply the Heimlich Maneuver.
Vince had nothing to do with Hulk Hogan's last day with TNA or people riding the Dixie Train.
- Special Guest Villain: King Tut [3] (Victor Buono) [3]
- Extra Special Guest Non-Villainess: Lee Meriwether [2] as Lisa
- SPEAKING OFs: 1. Jokes
- Brown Hornet Escapes: 1. I held my breath.
- Window Celebrity: 1. Grace Lee Whitney
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