Batman: King Tut's Coup & Batman's Waterloo

 King Tut's Coup

"Friends, Romans, Eyptians, lend me your ears. I come to bury Batman, not to praise him."

This episode has the beat opening set-up scene ever. Our mild-mannered Egyptology professor is quizzing two new students on their enthusiasm for the subject, suspecting them of being American football players looking for an easy course, when they are both hit on the head and begin with "all halo Tut"... and then our prof is hit on the head and says "The gang's all here." Perfection.

The story that follows isn't quite up with the very best, but it's marvellous fun, with n Egyptian maked ball giving us a bit of a face early on as Tut kidnaps wealthy heiress Lisa Carson, dating Brude Wayne,  as his bride, Cleopatra- and it's Lee Meriwether, in a different role. She's quite superb, much to the jealousy of that Janice Rand off of Star Trek. We even get an amusing window cameo from Suxy Knickerbocker, whoever she may be, calling Bruce Wayne "one of the hippies".

It's amusing how deliberately vague this programme is on Egyptian history, cheerfully making it up while never being less than accurate on Greek or Roman stuff, and we gloss over the fact that a pharaoh of the 13th century BC would see Cleo as a Greek interloper. But it's all hilarious, and even the cliffhanger is good.


Batman's Waterloo

"Man cannot live by crime fighting alone."

Yes, I know the cliffhanger is resolved in an absurd way- Batman holds his breath for an hour because he learned how to hold his breath from an Indian fakir. Just as eyebrow- raising is that it takes Tut the whole episode to heat the oil enough to boil Robin in it- and the boy wonder isn't in this much; behind the scenes stuff?

Interestingly, we get a random mention by the Commissioner of his young daughter Barbara. We get lots of plot over a ransom until our Caped Crusader arrives by Batbike to save the day. And Tut suddenly goes back to mild mannered prof again- I'd love it if it were to be revealed that the crafty professor was just putting it on.

We end with Bruce again dating Lisa until he invites her in for "milk and cookies" but he demurs because it's late, "almost 10.30". He explains he could never marry her but she continues plying him with cookies until he disappears behind the door for some, er, milk and cookies. Oo er.

Batman: The Movie (1966)

“It approaches a climax...”

"Nyet, not so fast. Be more slow."

I had to watch this before embarking on Season Two, but I’d forgotten what an absolute riot of fun it was. I don’t care if they’ve recast Catwoman, or if the Joker is a bit of a spare part throughout. This is awesome.

Obviously, this being a film, we have a much bigger budget. Hence the big set pieces with the Batcopter, Batboat and even the Batcycle- all now available for use in the TV series. We have much location filming, much of it at sea. This is certainly cinematic. We can even afford the big three- the Penguin, Ridder and Joker in order of relative importance according to the script. We even get a second appearance from Catwoman, this time Lee Meriwether. And it's great to see the four felons together, wasted though Cesar Romero is. None of which takes away from the awesomeness of both Adam West and Burt Ward here.

Oh, and there’s also lots of action and spectacle for the kids. But those are not the things which make me love this film. No; those are things such as the Bat-ladder, the shark-repellent bat-spray, and the selfless porpoise which heroically gives its life so the Dynamic Duo may live. It's how nuns, prams and sucks conspire to make it so difficult to get rid of a bomb. It's the ridiculous, utterly nonsensical riddles where we're solemnly told that there's "only one possible meaning". It's Robin telling Batman that "Drink is sure a filthy thing, isn't it?" and Batman saving the lie even of (gasp) drinkers because there is yet hope for them to be "salvaged". I'll certainly have yet another drink to that.

Best superhero film ever. Oh yes it is.