The Duo Defy
March 30, 1967
"Back in his iceberg headquarters, Mr. Freeze persuades the kidnapped
Professor Isaacson to build him a thermodynamic ice ray beam. He issues
an ultimatum that he will begin freezing the entire country if his
demands are not met, then gives a demonstration of his weapon. As the
villain works out just what his demands are, Batman and Robin track his
seal, Asoulda, through an ice-packed Gotham Harbor to locate the
villain's hideout."
57 minutes
RD: Celebrating 100! At 723 days (and just shy of two years) this is 250 shorter than the previous radio progrem. Remembering the episode numbering also helps. It also fits with the second season ending.
Unfortunately besides the Beatles posing for the cover of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, nothing of note happened on the original airdate.
In his autobiography, Eli Wallach wrote about once complaining to his beloved wife Anne of the millions Arnold Schwarzenegger was making as Mr. Freeze in Batman & Robin while he was only paid...$350. She just told him to gain some muscles. When Arnold heard about this he sent him miniature gold barbells.
Narrator: "When last seen, the Dynamic Duo was trapped in a large vaporizing pipe in Mr. Freeze's frosty hideout beneath the Bruce Wayne Ice Arena. With his hand on the controls, Mr. Freeze was in the process of lowering their temperature and then vaporizing them into the Bruce Wayne Ice Rink above. Did he? Has he? Will he? In one chilling moment we'll find out!"
Freeze watches with Glacia and goons for the moment he can use his "vaporizing pipe pump" on the Duo. Thankfully for a panicking Robin, Batman has given them "reverse thermal Bat-lozenges."
Robin: "Will it keep me from vaporizing?"
Batman: "I doubt it. Under the right conditions, and with the right temperature, even solid matter, the human body can be vaporized in a split second."
Robin: "That's not very long. Batman, I feel like I'm evaporating right now!"
Freeze flips the switch despite Glacia's second thoughts and "cold feet".
Freeze: "One moment Masked Meddlers, the next moment Cold Crepes! Pumped like any other freezing mixture right into the ice rink upstairs!"
He orders his goons to retrieve Isaacson, although since he's been stuck 200 degrees below zero he's dead "I think you've frozen my memory" is his response. But he will try to retrieve the formula rather than be injected with more dry ice. He gets to doing so as Freeze flips through the very one-sided counterfeit money.
As Freeze berates Bruce for his double-crossing, Glacia remembers he and Aunt Harriet had come to visit backstage and had seen her secret communicator. Freeze of course is angered at the prospect of Bruce finding out their lair. "Bruce Wayne is no idiot. I'm sure he's worked out some clever scheme so that Batman and Robin can bring the professor back without paying any ransom." So they decide to go back to the Iceberg again. This includes leaving Asoulda with the police, unfortunately.
Glacia: "But, darling, what about the ice revue and my famous waltzing arabesque?"
Freeze: "Glacia, take your choice. Your career or me."
Glacia (taking his arm): "I have no choice, darling."
Narrator: "But what's this? Something stirring in the seal house when we know Asoulda's in a bathtub at Police Headquarters? The es-Caped Crusaders? It's a cold fact all right."
Robin: "Holy escape hatch."
Batman: "Yes, Robin, most refrigeration systems as large as this one in the Bruce Wayne Ice Arena have emergency exits."
Batman then decides to call her Emma Strunk. "Glacia Glaze is far too charming a pseudonym for one of her chilling corruption."
Robin: "To the Batcave?"
Batman: "And up the Batpoles. Even crime fighters need their sleep, Robin."
Robin: "While those crooks just stay away from us?"
Batman: "Don't worry, Robin, Mr. Freeze will be frozen in his tracks before we're through with him."
Narrator: "But what's this? On the dawn of a new day, not just one iceberg, but a sea of icebergs off Gotham City Harbor." (:15)
Freeze has used an "ice" magnet to pull as many icebergs as he can to the harbor. RD wonders why he doesn't use that to use anyway instead of waiting for a formula.
Anyway Isaacson has finished with his formula.
Freeze: "How does this work?"
Isaacson: "How does what work?"
Freeze: "How does this formula work?"
Isaacson: "I don't know how it works. I worked out the formula, but I never did work out how it works."
For Freeze this will have to do.
Freeze: "Don't you see the potential? The Kremlin will be a cold water flat in a second. The White House an icebox. We would control everything from cold cream to cold wars, and all the lovely ice in the world will sparkle on your fingers and dangle from your ears."
Glacia: "You mean ice like in diamonds, darling?"
Freeze: "No, Glacia, I mean ice like in icing. That secret formula will be the frosting on the cake and the cake will be the universe."
So he has her try to seduce more information from Isaacson while he cheers her on.
In Gordon's Office he receives a call from Governor Stonefellow and from it relays to O'Hara that the situation they are in is "child's play, a brass farthing". You can tell it is serious because he almost breaks out laughing saying the lines.
Gordon: "The Chief Executive was just beginning an address to Congress. When he looked at his teleprompter what do you think he saw?"
O'Hara: "His speech?"
Gordon: "No. In some diabolical way, perhaps a thermodynamic ice ray beam of some kind, his speech on the teleprompter had become frozen. And in its place was a message from Mr. Freeze."
O'Hara: "Bless me suspender buttons!"
Gordon: "Saying that this city, this state, this country...would be returned to the Ice Age in a matter of moments, unless we capitulated to all his demands at once."
O'Hara: "Well, what about the Coast Guard, the...the Ice Patrol?"
Gordon: "Understaffed, overworked. The solution, as always, rests in hands other than ours, Chief O'Hara. Oh, Batman, wherefore art thou?"
Cue ringing Batphone.
O'Hara: "Whereforever he are, Commissioner, he heard you."
Gordon: "Hurry, Batman, hurry, time now belongs to Mr. Freeze. It no longer belongs to us."
Narrator: "But so does the Thermodynamic Ice Ray Beam constructed in his icy Noah's Ark under the direction of Professor Isaacson."
Glacia: "You are a genius to have made this, professor."
Isaacson: "Genius, Miss Glaze, is the talent of a man who is dead."
RD: "That sounds like something you would see incorrectly attributed to Abraham Lincoln."
RD then has to explain Buc-ee's to Vince. (:24)
Freeze uses a "small sample" of the Ice Ray on the city, even hitting the Batcave.
Robin: "Holy chill blades, look at the Batcomputer, Batman."
Batman: "I am, old chum, I am. Frozen to its very marrow."
He calls Gordon to ask Freeze for his demands.
Batman: "In the meantime, is that seal still in the bathtub in Police Headquarters?"
O'Hara: "Yeah, flipping merrily away."
RD: "Shouldn't they have taken the seal to the zoo?"
Batman: "Do you have the Seal Bat Signal I gave you?"
They attach the Pulsator to Asoulda so that they can track its wavelength to the iceberg in the Batcopter.
Cue the Duo being ADRed as other stunt doubles fly the Batcopter (assuming it's not just previously used footage).
Robin: "Picked up the seal's pulsator yet, Batman?"
Batman: "We're still over land, Robin, and a seal is an aquatic marine mammal."
Robin: "Gosh, yes, Batman, I forgot."
In the Iceberg, Freeze and goons discuss their demands including "complete guarantee of immunity".
Frosty: "I guess we can call them now the Vaporized Vanquishers, eh?"
Up above the Duo have to deploy the Batpontoons to enter their iceberg and contact Gordon on the location.
Unfortunately for Gordon, the Coast Guard does not have an icebreaker. The only thing O'Hara has is his "parker".
Gordon: "That's P-A-R-K-A, Chief O'Hara. It's a hooded Siberian and Alaskan outer garment. (To Bonnie) Bonnie, please call my daughter Barbara at college, ask her to take a later plane. I wanna meet her of course, but I have some cool facts to face before I get to the airport. (To O'Hara) Uh, okay, Nanook, let's go."
The goons are surprised when Asoulda returns, despite the being a homing seal. Freeze is happy at first...then turns sad knowing it's a trick. Finding the landed Batcopter he orders his goons to activate the ice magnet.
Batman (entering): "I doubt that, Mr. Freeze."
Isaacson: "Salvation!"
He steps outside unimpeded as Freeze wonders how the Duo found him.
Batman: "It was really quite simple, Mr. Freeze, thanks to ingenuity, your homing seal, our Ice Batarangs and our Ice Batropes."
Robin: "And our Reverse Thermal Bat-lozenges."
RD thinks there was a scene or two missing.
Freeze tries to shoot them, forgetting they still have their super-thermalized Bat-skivvies, so they instead have another fight. Five guys pile on Batman, leaving Robin to run and grab the stuffed polar bear (because of course there is one) and throw it at them.
Freeze tries to do his own unimpeded sneak out, only to be stopped by...the UN-Dynamic Duo? Shocking to be sure. "Don't touch the dials!" he randomly pleads.
Glacia is also arrested.
Batman: "To the world of the rich and renowned, such as millionaire Bruce Wayne, you may be known as Glacia Glaze. But to the world of the crime fighter you're known as Emma Strunk."
RD: "And both those names were terrible."
Glacia: "Batman, if ever you see Mr. Wayne and he asks about me and Mr. Freeze, would you tell him something Rabelais once said?"
Batman: "Rabelais, of course."
Glacia: ""To each his own," as the woman said when she kissed her cow."
Gordon: "I don't know how to begin to express Gotham City's thanks."
Batman: "In this case, Gotham City owes most of its thanks to a certain homing seal. In fact, she deserves more than thanks, she deserves a special reward." (He gives her a fish from his utility belt after shaking it to pretend it's still alive.)
Robin: "Where'd you get a live fish, Batman?"
Batman: "A true crimefighter always carries everything he needs in his utility belt, Robin."
Finally at Stately Wayne Manor, the household plays on a giant slot car track in the first and only use of the mansion's Game Room. (:40) Somehow this was all the work of Aunt Harriet, with Alfred's help (of doing everything while she watched). Harriet has named her car Glacia Glaze (once a fan, always a fan), Bruce is Emma Strunk (of course), Dick is Asoulda (once a sidekick, always a sidekick), and Alfred is Mr. Freeze ("Mine seems to have run into a bit of trouble, Madam.")
:43 Vince correctly guesses Leslie Parrish (born Marjorie Hellen) was 32 when she played Glacia Emma. She had quite the varied life including being Ms. Color TV to test color accuracy. She would continue to other activities and roles after, including environmental activism. She didn't do much acting, which included The Giant Spider Invasion, the MST3K favorite where the Packers won the Superbowl.
After some thinking Vince found her "attractive" for 7.5 Batpoles. RD is "very gracious" to eventually settle on 5.75.
Remember when NXT was intentionally bad?
- Special Guest Villain: Mr. Freeze [3] (Eli Wallach)
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