I'll Be a Mummy's Uncle
February 22, 1968
"While mining for a rare mineral found only under Wayne Manor, King Tut stumbles upon the Batcave."
46 minutes
RD: Wants a Moorish Castle. Vince wants one despite not knowing what that means.
Despite the actual airdate, the Co-Bros think the episode aired a week earlier. To be fair I would have taught that too. The number one song of the time is one neither is immediately familiar with. It's a real banger though. Vince has to take a while to find it on his phone.
Narrator: "Mount Ararat Hospital in Gotham City, where King Tut's psychoanalysis goes on and on."
Tut's impetus for returning to crime is that...his court appointed psychologist is bored asleep by his charge. Unable to escape through the window he has to get the door key from the man's body.
Dr. Denton (sleeptalking): "So I said to Daddy, "But I'm too young to get married, Pa. I'm only 12 years old.""
Tut: "You know, I always had a feeling you never really listened to me."
Narrator: "Meanwhile, at the offices of the Rosetta Stone Company..."
Like the previous Peter's Guns And Ammo this place has its own wacky sign: "Manufacturers of cornerstones, curbstones, cobblestones, and milestones."
The owner, also named Rosetta Stone, sits bored while being tied up as Tutt and his goons rob the store, but only up to $47,000. The goons title him the Don Juan of Aswan, which he likes.
Dr. Denton wakes up enough to call Gordon on the escape. He immediately reaches for the Batphone which cues the titles. The Batmobile speeds to the Office, then we cut to the primary cast-members all assembled (and Barbara in a very lovely bright green dress).
The group bemoans that Tut would have been fully recovered after...six or seven months.
Barbara: "Ah, yes, but as John Greenleaf Whittier said: "For of all sad words of tongue or pen, the saddest are these: 'It might have been."'"
Robin: ""Maud Muller," stanza 53."
Barbara: "Very good, Robin. I didn't know you were a student of the classics."
Robin: "Batman teaches me a little poetry in between remanding criminals to jail."
Batman: "Enough prose and cons, Robin."
The Duo go to check up on Ms. Stone, so that Gordon can suddenly tell his daughter he is thinking of moving to the suburbs. Barbara offers to find some brokers to help.
Narrator: "Shortly, at Florence of Arabia's, an intime boîte in the middle east side of Gotham City..." (:10)
The place is closed for "stomach flu". allowing Tut to eat giant turkey legs while watching the aforementioned Florence belly dance, who while very attractive is sadly not played by Peter O'Toole. She accidentally sprays grape juice into his eyes.
Tut: "No matter, Flo. Your assets far outnumber your liabilities. Oh, that this too, too solid flesh would melt -"
Goon: "Why don't you go on a diet, fatty?"
Tut: ""Why don't you go on a diet?" Why don't you mind your own skinny business?"
His plan is to look for "Nilanium, the hardest metal in the world", of which a large deposit is directly underneath Stately Wayne Manor, "ancestral home of millionaire Bruce Wayne and his youthful ward, Dick Grayson." He plans to buy some land right next to the Manor and drill from there to his metal. He goes to see the broker, a colleague of his by the name of Manny the Mesopotamian. RD questions if Bruce would leave any plot of empty land directly next to the Batcave, especially if he could easily buy it himself.
In the Batcave Alfred serves dinner as they discuss what Tut may be up to. With Batlogic they come to the same conclusion, of which the Batcomputer immediately identifies Bruce's northeastern property.
Batman: " I have put a 200-foot lot up for sale on the edge of Stately Wayne Manor estate to help alleviate the property shortage."
Alfred: "Jolly decent of you, sir."
Batman: "But I gave the real estate broker specific instructions to ask for a firm $48,000, not $47,000. This machine needs oiling."
Coincidentally, Manny just so happens to be one of Barbara's contacts, who she visits for her father's problem of the week. He also just so happens to be played by the legendary Henny "Take my wife...please" Youngman.
One of his other listings is a Moorish castle for the low low price of $250,000. He is selling that one particular non-Moorish lot for 47, waiving the $1,000 commission fee.
Barbara: "Is that legal?"
Manny: "Well, legal, yes, ethical, no, but nobody ever accused me of being ethical."
She leaves just as Tut and company come in, so she quickly hides to observe the proceeding. Tut signs the title deed without even using a middle initial.
Manny: "That's what I like about you fellas. No haggling."
Vince: "Bro, I haggle at the thrift store."
RD: "Wow."
Barbara manages to make it to the Apartment, calling Bruce as Batgirl to tell him what she saw.
Bruce: "Well, that should make a very interesting neighborhood, probably drive the real estate values straight down. I'm sure he has some diabolical scheme in mind."
Barbara: "I thought you should be made aware of it. I'm going to try and contact Batman now."
Bruce: "I may be talking to him shortly myself, Batgirl. Perhaps I can give him a message for you."
Time for another go at the Batcomputer.
Robin: "Maybe he wants to just settle down and build a house."
Batman: "No, I think not, Robin. Tut doesn't impress me as the be-it-ever-so-humble-there-is-no-place-like-home type of individual."
The Batcomputer then spits out that there is Nilanium under Stately Wayne Manor...and that Tut's mining is halfway to the Batcave.
Cue West's hysterics as he goes into a Bat-panic of a commercial break.
On return, Batman doubts the Batanium Shield will stop any drilling; they have to go above ground and stop him, perhaps in an abandoned mine on his property. They have to take the previously mentioned "subterranean blue grotto exit" to do so, after they call Batgirl.
The Batphone rings in the Office for her (as she was told to wait there for further instructions). Batman tells her to go to the abandoned mine. She puts the phone down and leaves - without telling either of the Undynamic Duo what was said. And no, they don't try to ask either. What a pair.
Vince: "They're way outta their element here, they don't even know where they are at this point."
Batman: "According to my Bat-compass, north by northeast is in a general north-northeasterly direction. Shouldn't take us more than three minutes to run the mile."
Robin: "Gosh, Batman, that's a new world's record."
Batman: "Breaking world's records is just part of crime-fighting, Robin."
Cue the expected Bat-running in front of a rear projection.
Narrator: "But will they be too late? For at this very moment, outside the abandoned cave from which Tut is operating..."
The villains are trying to figure out their royal roles until they get stopped by a big cave "lined with some hard substance", and no one has been commissioned royal dynamiter to blow through it. Tut decides to do it himself: "Danger is my middle name."
Before King Danger Tut can do anything "the Dynamic Dullards and the Dynamic Duenna" make their appearance to try and stop them.
Tut: "Not by the hair on my chinny chin chin."
The villains run deeper into the cave, risking a deadly explosion rather than a fight, leaving one guy to stall the Trio (for whatever seconds it gives) while they all get in a mine cart.
Robin: "Holy journey to center of the Earth. They won't stop until they -"
Batman: "BOTTOM! Until they reach the bottom!"
Batgirl: "But where is the bottom?"
Batman: "Batgirl, you stand guard in case they come back up. This time, we're gonna have to make the two-minute mark in the mile, Robin. Let's go."
Cue the expected Bat-running in front of a rear projection.
But it's too late: the cart crashes straight into the Batcave, and Tut immediately figures things out. "Oh, the world is my oyster! And everyone will be bringing me sauce!"
Batman (running, tired): "A little winded, old chum?"
Robin (running, totally fine): "It takes more than a two-minute mile to make me winded, Batman."
Searching around the Batcave, Tut finds a storage locker containing a Bat-dummy, which would have tied in to the last appearance if they didn't think of separating an original two-parter. For this writing injustice he starts punching and kicking it.
Batman: "It's always darkest before the dawn, Robin."
Robin: "I know, I know, and a rolling stone gathers no moss."
Batman: "And we shouldn't cry over spilt milk."
Robin: "Or waste time with old clichés."
Up above Batgirl gets the Undynamic Duo to the cave entrance.
Gordon: "Where is everybody, Batgirl?"
Batgirl: "Oh, they've all gone on a journey to the center of the Earth or something."
Gordon: "The center of WHAAAAAT?"
Trying not to count their chickens before they hatch, the Dynamic Duo step out to exchange more proverbs.
Tut: "Where's your feminine friend? Don't want her to know you're really Bruce Wayne, do you? Well, soon the world will know. You'll have to kill us to keep our mouths shut."
So we finally get our Batcave fight, where just about everything gets knocked down. Even the Bat-chemistry set! Tut's stunt double gets hit with two chairs, but he runs off while his goons are all incapacitated.
Batman (smirking): "I'll give them Batnesia Gas, Robin. Tell Alfred take them topside and deposit them on the lawn. They won't remember a thing."
Florence: "What about me, Batman? You'll have to kill me to keep me quiet."
Batman: "(Beat for humorous effect) No, I won't. (He sprays her)"
RD: "Word to the wise, to any women out there: whatever you do, whatever your deepest darkest desire is, never ever ever go into the Batcave. If you're lucky, you'll just wind up with amnesia and not remember anything. If you're not lucky, like the girl on the first couple episodes, you'll wind up dead."
That still leaves Tut running up the mine shaft while they're all out of gas.
Batman: "He moves quickly for an overstuffed and unlikely Egyptian pharaoh."
Cue Robin running even more exaggerated than usual as they try to catch the criminal, who has already made it out as he bumps into Batgirl and the other Duo. He doesn't care for his arrest, as he's too giddy from wanting to tell them what he knows - but then he stops himself.
Batgirl: "You appear to be breezy for a man about to be tucked away."
Tut: "I know. And so would you if you knew what I know. And if I know you, no doubt you know what I know now, no, huh? Why waste time with someone who knows? Gotta find someone who doesn't. You know?"
Batgirl: "No."
And then a rock lands on his head, knocking him back to being a totally normal Yale Egyptology professor named William Omaha McElroy, who of course has completely forgotten everything.
(The name is a reference to Executive Producer-Narrator William McElroy Dozier, born in Omaha.)
Robin: "Holy razor's edge. Was that a close shave."
Batman: "A calculated risk, Robin. The shale held up by those sagging timbers has been shifting for decades. All we had to do was taunt Tut with our silence. This caused him to raise his voice three decibels above high C, which caused the cave-in, which, of course, returned him to normalcy."
Robin: "But how could you be so sure?"
Batman: "I really couldn't, Robin. Earth movement is an inexact science at best. Matter of fact, yodels have been known to cause avalanches in the Alps. A mere sneeze was the cause of the 1923 Appalachian cave-in."
Robin: "But suppose something went wrong. Suppose Tut didn't raise his voice. What then?"
Batman: "I prefer not to think about those things, Robin. They depress me."
Back at the Office the president at Yale calls to inform that the professor is alright. For now anyway. (:38) Barbara enters to show off her bright orange dress. RD hopes the costumer was paid well if it wasn't actually Craig's own clothes.
Barbara: "Daddy, have you heard the latest rumors? All of Gotham City is buzzing about an imminent invasion of flying saucers."
Gordon: "Well, now, Gotham City is usually buzzing about something, Barbara."
To test this he offers her a look outside the window, surprisingly not using the excuse for another feel.
Narrator: "Look again! In this flying saucer the Joker is planning an incredible invasion of Gotham City!"
Joker (laughing): "As soon as the range-sweep radar scanner picks up the tracking pulse amplifier, we will spin back into the substratosphere, where I will issue my demands that will have not only all of Gotham City but the world at my feet!"
Vince guesses 25 years for Florence and gives her 9 Batpoles like RD, and both thinking her the best of the season, and in fact the best of all just behind Pauline. 23 years Victoria Vetri (credited here as Angela Dorian) was more known for being a Playboy Playmate of much renown, including for the year of 1968; a photo was even snuck aboard Apollo 12. In more recent and bizarre events in 2010 she shot her then fourth husband of 25 years, subsequently serving 7 of 9 years for attempted voluntary manslaughter. (They divorced before her release.)
RD is not used to WrestleCrap being 24 next year. "Do I deserve congratulations for that? I don't know that I do. I think I deserve people questioning what on earth is wrong with me."
- Special Guest Villain: King Tut [5] (Victor Buono) [5]
- Window Celebrity: 1. Henny Youngman
- SPEAKING OFs: 1. Haggling
- Brown Hornet Escapes: 1. The inexact science of earth movement.
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