Batman: How to Hatch a Dinosaur

"Think they can crack it, Commissioner?"

This second episode begins with a threat to undermine Egghead as much as the previous episode did, as we first see him riding that silly donkey all poised to play second fiddle to the increasingly annoying Olga.

Fortunately, this time those fears prove unfounded and Vincent Price gets the chance for a proper outing as the arch-criminal, with Egghead this time taking the lead. And his plan is gloriously bonkers: steal some radium, steal a dinosaur egg, and get the egg to hatch into a live dinosaur which will, for some reason not quite clear, fall under the control of Egghead and Olga and in no way turn agaist them. That it seems to do so is the most predictable and obvious trope ever. This is all very silly.

Except this is the right kind of silly. This is high camp, not low camp and, unlike the previous episode, this instalment has plenty of fun at the expense of its own tropes. So yes, the dinosaur is an unconvincing man in the suit- but this is completely diegetic, and the man in the suit is Batman.

We also have O'Hara noting that poisoning the water supply is a "favourite trick of Gotham City's arch criminals". Meanwhile we have Alfred. holding two phones, giving the same information to Batman and Batgirl in a splendidly silly bit of slapstick. And Robin even gives the fourth wall a knock ("Why didn't we think of this before, Batman?") when the Dynamic Duo find a way of using technobabble to track down the baddies at a moment convenient to the plot.

This is much, much better, and enormous fun- and Barbara is a surfer? I didn't expect that!