The Catwoman Goeth
December 29, 1966
"Though Batman escapes the Sandman's trap, Robin is left to wander in a
deadly maze. A clue leads Batman to Catwoman's lair, where he informs
her of Sandman's plans to elope with J. Pauline Spaghetti and keep her
fortunes to himself. Enraged by the Sandman's trickery, Catwoman sets
out after him. Batman, with the now-rescued Robin, also follows, and the
group meet up at Spaghetti's old deserted pasta factory."
49 minutes
RD: Big Fan of Childish Claptrap. Is that a new villain?
Vince is still feeling his cold from earlier in the day but he's pushing on regardless. He's saddened that Jeff Lane hadn't sent him any gifts before he started recording with RD.
RD won't apologize for Beaver Cleavage. He also doesn't understand Lou Albano. He did find that Michael Rennie was Klaatu (Barada Nikto) in The Day The Earth Stood Still.
Narrator: "For you, of course, some time has passed. For the Caped Crusaders, mere seconds!"
Elsewhere as Batman struggles to be hit by falling needles which keep missing, Robin awakens to Sandman gleefully saying he killed Batman. Robin, not Sandman.
Robin: "You fiendish quack!"
Sandman: "To the medical eye, such childish claptrap means only one thing, young man: you need some sleep."
So he throws enough sleeping powder to make Robin look like a drug addict. Vince: "Like a wrestler." Sadly he does not name names. RD: "You gotta pay extra for that."
Sandman tells his goons to take Robin's body to the Batmobile to dispose of at Catwoman's lair.
Meanwhile Batman's trap is so useless one of the needles breaks him free of his restraints, allowing him to use his utility belt to pull a release lever. (:09)
Catwoman is told of Batman's "death", which strangely doesn't faze her despite her last appearance almost leading to her dream goal of a kiss. She sends Robin off with one of her goons.
Catwoman: "How did things go with J. Pauline Spaghetti?"
Sandman: "It shouldn't be long before her entire fortune is in my control, Catwoman."
Catwoman: "Your control?"
Sandman: "Our control."
He goes to discard the Batmobile and plan to "have the last word, which will be the word that counts."
Catwoman: "For such a highly respected criminal, there's something insidiously untrustworthy about Sandman. Whereas he has only one life, I wonder if he realizes that a cat has nine."
A sign by a third grader gladly tells us of "Catwoman's Amazing Maze".
Narrator: "What do we have here in the depths of the newly-renovated catacombs? A maze?"
Robin awakens again as Catwoman gloats that Mooney is also stuck inside it. He hesitates so she has to pull out her gun.
Catwoman: "This Catamizer contains deadly catasonic acid, Boy Wonder. Which do you prefer? Taking a chance on getting out of the maze in an hour, a week, a year? Or being catalyzed here in a matter of seconds?
She then flips on a clearly labelled "High Voltage" switch as Robin zaps himself on a cheap chain link fence.
Robin: "Holy voltage!"
Vince is reminded of TNA's perhaps worse attempt at an electrified cage, which for once was not his idea (or so he says).
Meanwhile Batman has to resort to calling Gordon from a pay phone. "I know Robin too well to believe he'd ever betray me and embrace a life of crime. I'm certain Sandman has turned him into a sleepwalker." However he does not the Undynamic Duo to help find him, knowing their uselessness, so he asks them to instead protect "billionaire noodle queen" Spaghetti.
Batman: "I must get to the Batcave as fast as possible."
Gordon: "Let me send a police car."
Batman: "A needless waste of taxpayers' money, commissioner. Gotham City's transit line is the world's most rapid."
Now I'm seeing Batman in full outfit patiently standing in the middle of a crowded subway car being completely ignored by everyone else.
Gordon (to O'Hara): "With Robin kidnapped, the Batmobile missing, J. Pauline Spaghetti somehow in dire danger, and both Catwoman and Sandman deeply involved...I've never said this before, Chief O'Hara, but for once, it looks as if our side has fumbled the ball."
Batman Batwalks his way from Wayne Station into the Batcave where Alfred is polishing the Batcycle.
Alfred: "Sometimes I can't help wondering if the hazards of crime-fighting are really worth the goal."
Batman: "That, Alfred, has never entered my mind."
They use the Batmobile Tracking Graph to find it is a run-down factory area.
Cut to a sign displaying "Run-down factory area" as Sandman is driving the Batmobile. "It won't be found too soon in this run-down factory area." RD wonders how he managed to get to drive it. Perhaps he put the car's security system to sleep.
Alfred suggests Batman request Gordon's help, but he declines since the vehicle is his personal responsibility rather than just stating Gordon is hopeless. So he is offered the Alfcycle. "A wise solution."
At the run-down factory area (:22) James Brolin reappears as a police officer finding the parked Batmobile. At least Catwoman is not disguised as an old woman this time.
Other officer Dan: "That's funny, that looks just like the Batmobile."
Reggie (Brolin): "All the new cars look alike this year."
Dan: "Maybe they all look alike to a rookie cop, Reggie, but when you've been on the force longer, you'll see some difference."
Reggie: "Registered to a guy named Batman, all right. With no street address. And he left the keys in the ignition. Two traffic violations right there. Vehicle code numbers -"
Dan: "It's not like Batman to do that."
Just then Batman runs up from "citizen" Alfred's cycle. Reggie asks for an ID while Dan tries telling him to relent: "He's got pull with Gordon and O'Hara."
Reggie: "I say impound the car and run him in."
Dan is willing to let Batman go (once they return his keys to him). He asks if they also saw Robin.
Reggie: "Who's Robin?"
Dan: "Oh you've really got a lot to learn, Reggie."
RD wonders on the police's hiring practices. "Where do they find these nitwits that would not even know who Batman and Robin are?"
Meanwhile Robin is still "lost and confused" as he finds Mooney "in the inescapable center of Catwoman's torturous trap." They bemoan the situation as Catwoman looks on from above in yet another sensuous manner.
Regardless of outcome this is the last we see of Mooney for some reason. (:27) There's also not much information on actor Jeanie Moore and her sporadic work to be found...unless you're as persistent as RD, who found she was Ernie Hudson's first wife. (Also he looks way younger than than he should be in his mid-70s. Perhaps he is a god.) Regardless Vince was not impressed, giving her a "nice" 3 Batpoles. RD gives a 6.
That diversion aside, in Gordon's office Batman calls to inform on the Batmobile being found by somewhat nitwit officer Dietrick and his even worse rookie sidekick Hogan. "A credit to your department, commissioner!"
O'Hara was assigned to Spaghetti, so of course he's also incompetent enough to let Sandman drug him and take her away, as he manages to relay in another phone call.
Gordon interrupts him for a third phone call, a Mr. Tuthill of Gotham City Security Trust, a bank. Apparently an hour ago some Dr. Somnambula entered his branch with Spaghetti of whom he's eloping with (to her own island), and gave him Catwoman's address to relay to Batman.
Gordon: "It's grand larceny, that's what it is. Not to mention fraud, swindle, extortion, and a vicious and sinister plot."
Vince wonders what is the crime of being genuinely smitten with someone.
Batman goes to Catwoman with a plea to help her catch Sandman. She agrees.
Batman: "Where's Robin?"
Catwoman: "Who?"
They go back in forth in their flirtatious combat, which makes RD think of her as moist for some reason (and which offends Vince for some reason). She directs him to her maze and tells her goons to prepare to leave for the Canary Islands - just as the Undynamic Duo and some officers come in to just...arrest her?
The police actually doing something? At this time of year, at this time of day, in this part of the country, localized entirely within a lair?
It's probably just the Northern Lights or something.
O'Hara: "Where ever there's a cat, Catwoman, there's usually a back alley."
And of course Batman finds handling the maze and rescuing Robin so easily it is done in the space of a Narration. ("Yes." "May I see it?" "No.") Instead we need the stock footage from the Movie of the Batboat being clearly driven by their stunt doubles.
The island is where Pauline's previous husbands are all buried. "J. Peter Spaghetti, he fell into a kneading machine. And my second husband, J. Phineas Spaghetti, he dried to death on a vermicelli tray. And my third husband, J. Patrick Spaghetti, cut. You know those revolving knives that cut noodles into bite-size pieces? And J. Paul Spaghetti, he stumbled into a steam cylinder. He expanded to three times his size. Not a bit pasty."
Sandman, finding out his wife to be is a black widow, then sees a plague for a fifth plot. "Oh, doctor dear, a wise woman must look ahead. ... I wonder what's happened to the minister I called."
Sandman: "He probably stumbled into something."
The Dynamic Duo show up on time for the fight, including Batman punching a really obvious Sandman stunt double in the face. The goons are dumped in spaghetti sauce and Sandman is dropped into a giant pot attempting to "escape" water hose noodles like he's in an Ed Wood movie. "Noodles," he states in defeat. All throughout Pauline has been naturally asleep.
That finally done, Bruce and Dick return from their "camping trip" to Stately Wayne Manor. Aunt Harriet has commissioned an architect who wants to make a maze in the garden. Alfred thinks it may be hard to solve.
Bruce: "Actually, not so tricky, Alfred. You see, most mazes are based pretty much on the same pattern. Upon entering, you turn to your left. On the first two occasions where you have a choice, you keep right, thereafter you keep to your left."
Dick: "Is that how you found - I mean, uh, is that how it's done?"
Bruce: "For some unknown reason, they attract cats by the thousands. They're also strangely sleep-inducing, undoubtedly due to the hypnotic effect of the irregular pattern."
Harriet decides for a regular lawn instead.
One benefit to a video progrem is actually seeing gifts being opened. (:44) Vince had sent a '66 Batbook. RD had sent a (Headknockers) Bobblehead of the Dark Knight.
- Special Guest Villain: Sandman (Michael Rennie)
- Extra Special Guest Villainess: Catwoman [5] (Julie Newmar) [4]
- Brown Hornet Escapes: 2. Needles literally missing the point. Escaping a maze within one off-screen.
- SPEAKING OFs: 1. Barbara Streisand
- (Soon To Be) Window Celebrity: 1. James Brolin
