The Impractical Joker
November 16, 1966
"The Joker pulls off a string of key-related pranks throughout Gotham
City, then with his magic box, proceeds to snatch a priceless jeweled
key right under the noses of Batman and Robin. The Dynamic Duo wise up
to his ways and thwart him at their next encounter. However, the Joker
has more devious plans to do away with them both before his final caper."
64 minutes
RD: Not a well known hypnotist. He probably doesn't even own any apartment buildings!
Vince watched Orange Cassidy and Jade Cargill appear on the MLB Network, since it's also owned by Turner. Excuse me, Time Warner. Excuse me, Warner Bros. Discovery. He wonders if there could have been other wrestlers more appropriate for the appearance, regardless of availability. Like me RD loves Cassidy's lazy character.
Vince wrote six pages from watching. RD couldn't find anything noteworthy on the original air date.
"Another bright, brisk morning" is a good time for the Joker to rob a bookstore, a music store, and "the ultra-conservative" Gotham City Key Club. This prompts Vince to be confused between microfiche and microfish.
At Stately Wayne Manor Bruce is teaching Dick...something about the Rock of Gibraltar.
THEN cut to Gordon's Office. (:12) The two stumble onto uncovering that "the malevolent mischief maker" is behind the "capricious capers" including defacing the Keystone building. As incompetent as the two policemen are, you can't help but enjoy the two actors trying their hardest not to break out laughing at their lines.
O'Hara: "You still don't think we should call the Caped Crusader?"
Gordon: "When books, records and files are involved, Chief O'Hara, I think that
we should try to tackle the problem ourselves, but...when it comes to
tampering with the buildings of our fine city...we have no other choice."
THEN cut to Stately Wayne Manor. Alfred wants to cover for his employer while he's having a reprieve from crimefighting. "Let me answer [the Batphone] for you. I can always think up a bit of a 'taradiddle'." But Bruce decides to help anyway. Vince wishes he could cut a promo on Gordon when he hears what he wants this time.
Gordon has all the HQ building keys on his desk, along with a skeleton key shaped like an actual skeleton.
Robin: "Holy vertebroth!"
Batman: "A macabre little opener."
There's also a little handwritten rhyme from Joker. O'Hara thinks it has to do with their case. Batman gives him a polite little clap for using his brain ever so slightly. He thinks there is a connection to billionaire Angus Ferguson and his valuable key collection. RD wonders if he is jealous since he just a boring multimillionaire. Gordon pretends that he was also thinking the same thing.
Robin: "Holy keyring!"
In his lair Joker is trying various keys to open up a music box while his lady Cornelia looks on in a proto-Batgirl outfit annoying him to no end. (:19)
Vince: "He seems to be very smitten with his box and not so much with hers."
Joker says he made the box from some very random stuff. His goal is one of Angus' keys and all its jewels within.
Angus is at Gotham Tower in the midst of a gathering in progress to prove to the Dynamic Duo that he is in fact Scottish, but not a true one: "Help yourself to a dochan doris! It's a breath of heather from my Brewster, by golly!"
Usually D&Ds are offered when leaving (as literally a drink of the door) not arriving.
Batman politely declines, telling Robin wondering who "Doch and Dorris" are that it can also mean stirrup cup. Thus he figures something is up.
Walking amongst and standing out from the other guests in their outfits, they see the "key for the Bastille cell block" of the Man in the Iron Mask. Robin wonders where Angus got his wealth from. Batman: "A golden key opens every lock."
The McGuffin Key is a huge one left behind a curtain and unattended, perfect for the Joker to come up, put it in his box, and leave...as the Duo just watch him do it.
Vince once worked with George Kennedy and got along very well with him. RD's uncle Burt Reynolds loved being in Wrestlemania.
The Duo go back to the Office where Angus also is, threatening to sue the City for $8,000,523 "and a threepenny bit". To the Duo: "You'll hear from my law agent before you can say Jack McRobinson, you two muttonheads! After I'd even offered you a wee dochan doris!" Vince wondered if he should have called the Undynamic Duo muttonheads instead...after he looks up the meaning of the word 'mutton'.
Gordon: "Gotham City still holds you in great esteem, Dynamic Duo. The word 'muttonhead' was quite unfortunate."
At Wayne Manor the news reports are all over the Duo fucking up despite Gordon saying they were just "merely ineffective". Even worse: Bruce and Dick can't watch The Green Hornet because Joker intercepts the airwaves to taunt and give them a clue. So they go to the Batcave.
Batman admires Joker's "twisted honesty" and for once being a "well known hypnotist" who was able to pause their movement with his box. Even among his origins being multiple choice/Red Hood, this aspect has never been seen before or after this story. RD finds the 20k member strong National Guild of Hypnotists.
The Duo hypothesize he will next Franchine's Fancy Fur Salon, where Cornelia is trying some.
"I'll take three or four of these, and a couple of gorilla's."
Joker: "I think you mean chinchilla, Cornelia. One of the rarest and most costly of furs."
The Duo try to "hide" behind mannequins while observing then leap out to attack. Joker's box doesn't work since they took their "Counter Hypnosis Batpellets" (so caffeine then?), so he has to call in his goons (Latch and Bolt among others) for a short scuffle with his obvious stunt double. He manages to flee but his box is broken.
Back at the Batcave Alfred offers the Duo breakfast. (:43) Batman is inspired to check a massive phone book in the Batcomputer. This leads them to...an apartment.
RD has never had spam before. The food, not bad emails. The wife does not like cherries for some reason.
Cornelia compliments Joker's apartment. He complains she is only looking at the mirrors.
Joker: "Vanity is a waste of time. I never look at myself in the mirror."
Cornelia: "Well I'm younger! And a girl!"
He sees the Duo's stunt doubles pull up and wall climb.
The Co-Bros have no idea at first who the window celebrity is. Howard Duff's Sam Stone (a play on when he did Sam Spade on the radio) was the main character in the concurrently running crime drama The Felony Squad.
Stone: "Sometimes a fast gun has the edge on a fast Batrope."
(Duff would later appear in Season 3, but not as the same character.)
The Duo jump in the apartment surprising Cornelia: "May I ask who's calling?" She goes to check for her "uncle."
Robin: "I'm afraid this could be a trap, Batman."
Batman: "He who know how to fear, Robin, knows how to proceed with safety. A translation from the Latin."
Then she opens the trapdoor beneath their feet, sending them down a giant slide.
Joker has Batman in a vice in the process of becoming a human key. (:56)
Batman: "A grown man like me should be prepared to meet his maker at any time. But not a boy like Robin."
Joker plans to have Robin sprayed with wax like he was the Batmobile.
Joker: "Have you a last word for posterity?"
Batman: "Only this, Joker: Evil sometimes triumphs temporarily, but never conquers!"
Joker: "If I have time, Batman, I'll see that that is properly engraved on your tombstone."
The Bros wonder if Cornelia will change so they can better judge her on their Batpoles.
Vince: "Who's on top of the leaderboard? Jolene? Is it Jolene?"
WWF Magazine Vince's young son Will once played a young Undertaker.
- Special Guest Villain: The Joker [5] (Cesar Romero) [5]
- SPEAKING OFs: 2. Our show, straying way out of where they should be
- Screen Captures: 3. RD, RD, RD
- Window Celebrity: 1. Howard Duff
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