The Bat's Kow Tow
December 15, 1966
"Batman and Robin escape Catwoman's trap, but they are too late to stop
her from stealing the voices of Chad and Jeremy, the British singing
duo. Catwoman demands an 8 million pound ransom for their voices, or
else she will begin silencing the entire world. Things look grim when
the British refuse to pay. However, a background noise in a phone call
tips the Dynamic Duo off to Catwoman's hideout and the location of her
voice-restoring formula."
75 minutes
RD: One of Those Blighters. Cor Blimey to you too.
Vince: "I was thinking about you this weekend."
RD: "That seems random."
Before Vince can ask his "weird bird" friend what's on his mind he finds out he's live again. One of the attendees remembers B.M. Punk. Vince: "Interesting." He then starts getting donations. He asks for the URL to send to RD to share for some reason. RD agrees to take the blame for any complaints from Jeff Lane. Vince decides to keep things running for now since they have more than the regular 40 Watchers for their progrem.
Vince's actual query (:07) is about former Paige Soraya on AEW appearing on one show, then appearing on the next one immediately after discussing what she just did. This confuses him. RD just considers it regular behind the scenes stuff due to giving their wrestlers more freedom to act than the competition (TNA?).
Vince correctly guesses that the episode originally aired on the deathday of Walt Disney. RD grants him leave to self-applaud. (:13)
Anyway, the Dynamic Duo are in danger of having scrambled eggs for brains in the physically-impossible echo chamber. Batman shows the predicament he is in by crossing his eyes for a brief moment, then asking Robin to find the vibration frequency that will shatter the glass. He then instantly determines it is "F Sharp above High C" and starts humming very out of tune (according to RD). This works, allowing the Duo to untie themselves.
Robin: "I think I'll be hard of hearing for a while."
Batman: "WHAT?"
Robin: "I think I'm gonna be a little hard of hearing for a while."
Batman: "YOU'LL HAVE TO SPEAK LOUDER ROBIN! I THINK I'LL BE A LITTLE HARD OF HEARING FOR A WHILE!"
They secure Benton again, and Batman tells Robin to tell O'Hara to get this "bounder".
Batman: "All right, Belgoody, tell me everything."
Benton: "Well, I was born in Youngstown of poor but honest parents - "
Batman: "Come off it, Bellgoody, you're pulling my boot!"
For some reason the two are reminded of The Jerk (Navin R. Johnson), who was "born a poor black child" played by Steve Martin.
Benton tells Batman that Catwoman is already going to get Chad and Jeremy's voices. The Duo tie his arms behind him to a broom.
They then speed off to the Town Hall as the Narrator sounds jubilant for a song by "the music world's Dynamic Duo". (:29) Vince goes to get his Chad and Jeremy Greatest Hits record. RD trash talks him to the live audience.
Catwoman and goons appear wearing cat's eyes night-vision goggles and quickly steal the duo's voices. The Dynamic Duo appear but Eenie turns off the lights, covering the group's escape. Batman has to light a very strong match from his Batmatchbook so that he and Robin can save the 20 or so scared people at the show.
Batman: "Citizens! Citizens! [Waves hand] Hi kids!"
The next morning on The Allen Stevens Show (who can only be played by the incomparable Steve Allen) (:33) Batman asks the audience to have faith in the law to set things right.
Allen: "I understand that millions of the world's teenagers are in virtual mourning since last night's tragedy."
Batman: "On the plus side, millions of parents are delighted."
Robin: "Speaking as an average, ordinary, red-blooded, typical American
teenager, I think this is one of the worst things that could have
happened!"
Catwoman and goons then appear with "sonic beam blast guns" to threaten the audience while still attracted to Batman and his "baby blue eyes". She then interrupts Allen's attempt at promotional consideration by demanding a ransom of 8 million pounds "of European currency", or over 22 million dollars (again in 1966).
Catwoman: "Chad and Jeremy pay so much income tax to their native land that if it
were to stop, the whole empire might crumble and the British Pound would
be deflated!"
Batman: "The entire economic structure of the whole world would collapse! How dastardly! It's not as if they have other more popular things that can take their place, like the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, the Who, the Animals, James Bond, Mary Poppins, Lawrence of Arabia..."
Catwoman demands her payment of "the scratch" by the next day or she will silence the whole world, then silences Allen just because before throwing a sneeze bomb to cover her escape.
One attendee thinks it is the most pointless thing he's seen. RD: "That's what we're here for."
Batman then meets Sir Sterling Habits, the British Council General of Gotham City, who's so happy to meet him he loses his monocle. (:42)
Batman: "You're aware of the serious tragedy affecting your countries most popular export?"
Habits: "Have we stopped making those small sports cars?"
Robin: "We're referring to Chad and Jeremy."
Habits: "Oh yes, those blighters. Can't understand a word they say."
Suddenly "Parliament" calls, like the whole governmental body, and Sterling looks pleased as the Duo look on in annoyance. (He's suppousedly talking one-to-one to then Prime Minister Harold Wilson, which is admittedly a name more American than British.) Of course the government won't pay a single pence/shilling.
His butler, Rhett, announces that he don't give a damn there is a crowd outside for the Dynamic Duo. Sadly they don't have time for any meet and greets so they have to wall climb down.
This gives an appearance of a window celebrity in the original sense of the term, in this case Hawaiian singer Don Ho.Vince tries singing Tiny Bubbles as an example of his work and so he can self-applaud again.
Don Ho: "It's gotten me as far as your Batropes have gotten you. I think
I'll introduce Batropes in Hawaii. Pick coconuts more easy that way."
Batman: "I'd like to sit here and chat with you all day, Don, but..."
Robin: "The surf's coming up and we gotta catch a big one."
Gordon is still silent in his office as O'Hara remains stumped. "She has us licked!" Batman is still hopeful even as O'Hara whines and moans. However he did record the previous day's conversation where his boss got silenced.
Batman: "It's no wonder you've risen to the top of your department O'Hara."
He decides to use the Batsound Analyzer in the Batcave for the sake of the whole world. As he tells a skeptical Robin with his renowned Batlogic: "If we can't talk, there'd be no telephones. You see, there are millions of people who use telephones in business every day. Now they'd have to meet their clients face to face. That would cause enormous traffic problems. Further, all the people who work for the phone company would be out of jobs. There'd be no radio. Television and movies would go silent. That is a whole heaping helping of ramifications."
Robin: "You're so brilliant Batman."
The Analyzer detects three hair dryers, but there are over 2000 hair salons in the City. Wondering if the silence fades after a while, he sends Robin as Dick upstairs to see Chad and Jeremy, who are also with Aunt Harriet and Alfred who have attempted with their own remedies.
The saddened two still indicate they want their hair fixed at Mr. Oceanbring's hairstylist hands. Alfred: "Every rock and roll star goes to have his hair quaffed by this man." And he does this with just three hair dryers! Dick immediately runs out, leaving Harriet confused. Neither Bro checked if she was wearing an undergarment.
Of course Catwoman is at the salon contemplating her schemes. Oceanbring is actually cameoed by Jay Sebring, a legendary pioneer in men's hairstyling. He was also rather morbidly involved in a break-in including his ex-fiance Sharon Tate, where a group of wayward souls affiliated with Charles Manson were halted in their plans by the timely intervention of an aging TV actor and his stunt double.
Her goons wonder why she doesn't just kill the Duo, but she just can't. Batman saved her life once after all. (She doesn't care about Robin of course.) She also has the silence antidote of sweet basil, garlic, salt, and goat's milk "in the right proportions."
Vince does not do Italian stuffing for Thanksgiving.
Enter the Duo.
Catwoman: "Batman, why for art thou doing this to me?"
Batman: "It's my job, Catwoman."
Catwoman: "We could make such beautiful music together."
Robin: "You'll play a different tune when we're through with you! And all the notes will be sour!"
Catwoman: "Party pooper. Teenagers should be seen and not heard!"
Cue fight, although she wants Batman to not be beaten too much; it may damage his looks. Robin throws a goon into a bouffant hair dryer burning his face, as one does. Oceanbring troubles himself with trying to catch all the antiques around as they are thrown about - then accidentally drops one once the battle is over. Catwoman runs off, so Batman leaves his ward to secure the place while he goes after her.
Cue the Dark Knight exaggeratedly running, leading him into an alleyway.
Catwoman jumps off a ladder onto his back and aims her gun at him: "I can slice you like a hot knife through high-priced spread. Should I steal your voice or end your life?"
Batman: "Whichever you decide I'm sure it will be the wrong choice."
Catwoman: "You have a pretty sharp tongue for a man about to say goodbye to the world! Beg! Beg for your mortal existence!"
Batman: "I'd rather die than beg for such a small favor as my life."
Of course she can't go through with it: "Can't you see how I feel about you Batman? I can't kill you. You're the only man I ever - "
Of course even if she did try to kill him he would have deflected the shot anyway. He still praises her scheme though.
She then tells him the antidote by tightly whispering in his ear. "You see, my voice eraser electronically loosened their vocal chords and - you just spray it. And tighten them right back up. ... Batman? When I get out of jail, will you take me on a date?"
He will have to think on that.
Catwoman: "If I were to kiss you, would you think I was a... bad girl?"
Batman: "No, of course not, Catwoman. Kissing is one of the most natural things
in the world. Some people kiss almost every day, and - I'm told..."
Of course before they can actually kiss (or whatever it was in the 60's), Robin the Boy Blunder comes along to Holy Cock Block. Batman asks for a rain check (which would take 50 years). RD considers it payment for when Dick was also about to kiss (a girl) were it not for Bruce's summons. But the two walk off hand in hand. Batman and Catwoman I mean.
Robin (to the camera): "Holy Mush!"
The Musical Duo finally get to perform. Somehow Gordon is in the balcony with the Wayne Manorhold.
Alfred: "They certainly do sway, don't they?"
Harriet: "Very hep, Alfred."
Dick: "It's 'hip', Aunt Harriet, they changed it."
Gordon is around because of his grandchildren, despite later Barbara being his only descendant.
Bruce: "Every era has its own music Commissioner, its own art, its own manner of speech."
Harriet: "The essence of progress is change."
Gordon: "It's a point well taken, Mrs. Cooper. But there's only one pair in the public eye which I pray will never suffer the stigma of antiquity - it's Batman and Robin!"
RD thought Eenie was pretty and curvy for 7.5 Batpoles. Vince gives her 7, although she wasn't in the story much. RD found a MP3 of actor Sharyn Wynters singing a very soothing tune. She also transitioned to alternative and naturopathic health over 40 years ago.
Like myself the Bros loved the story. Vince wants to split the donated amount with RD. One of the donations was in Saudi Arabian Riyals. (It wasn't mine either.)
The Arcade is getting a (Sean Connery) James Bond pinball machine, one of 50 currently sold (out of a 1,000).
- Special Guest Villain: Catwoman [4] (Julie Newmar) [3]
- Window Celebrity: 5. Chad and Jeremy, Joe Flynn, Steve Allen, Don Ho, Jay Sebring
- Entertain The People: 1
