Episode 54: Holy Mitts!: August 21, 2022

The Dead Ringers
October 27, 1966
"Batman and Robin escape Chandell's trap. Once back in the Batcave, they deduce his plan to get the Wayne family fortune by killing Bruce Wayne and Dick Grayson, then marrying the rightful heir, Aunt Harriet. In order to trap the villain, Bruce and Dick fake their own deaths. However, Harry has also figured out his brother Chandell's scheme, and desiring the Wayne fortune for himself, concocts a plan to masquerade as his twin brother."
64 minutes

RD is sadly not deucedly attractive. Apparently "deucedly" is not an American word. 

Thankfully RD is mostly recovered from last week by watching a Woodstock miniseries. Unfortunately now Mrs. and Jr. have to handle it. RD: "I just farted all the time while her nose wasn't working." Vince suggests to pop the eardrums to get some taste back.

RD's old boss was a conservative for all the wrong reasons. 

The Narrator calls Chandell "Fingers" and music "dreadful" for some reason.

Robin: "Life: a cup full of surprises to the last drop." (:09)

To get out of their trap, Batman asks Robin to sing the same notes as he. Cue horrible noises from the two. RD: "These men did not sing." Once extricated, Batman explains that they shouted high and low enough to make the recording machine punch the paper around them instead of on them. They would also have to sing extremely high and extremely low beyond even most trained singers (and their own vocal chords). They're just that good!
Batman: "I visualized the chords in my mind."
Robin: "Holy perfect pitch!"
Batman (into the microphone in his hand): "Let's burst in and bag those birds!" 

They enter the room while Batman has a piece of paper stuck to his foot. As the women flee Batman immediately knocks Harry down with a Batarang. 

Harry is taken for interrogation under a lamp with most of its bulbs out. (:16)
O'Hara: "Alright canary, start talkin'!"
Harry accuses "Fingers" as the one who wants to rob Wayne before attorney Alfred Slye enters to ask for proper treatment of his client.
Gordon: "We only need apply patience and subtlety, the honest policeman's only aids."
So they turn the other bulbs on the "subtle interrogation lamp". Slye gives sunglasses and a helmet to Harry to wear. 
Gordon charges Harry with attempting to perforate the Dynamic Duo into player piano music rolls. In response Slye charges the Duo with damaging the perforating machine with foreign objects, "said objects being themselves." Then he and Harry just leave while Gordon questions the world's sanity.

In the Batcave the Duo are also mentioning Fingers who "fits like a glove". (:20) Batman theorizes that if they die then the entire estate will go to Alfred Aunt Harriet, since she is of course related to Dick instead of Bruce. ... oh wait.

Speaking of, Alfred not Slye is to take her to see Chandell again. Batman: "This Chandell is a deucedly attractive fellow. He could pull it off." He asks Robin to access his "super keen musical memory" by closing his eyes and forming a thought bubble of Chandell sitting at a player piano in order to determine his location.

Chandell is in his dressing room serenading Harriet and lays her on a couch, as the Duo eavesdrop in voyeuristic disgust.
Batman: "Self control is tough. All virtues are, old chum. That's why they're called virtues."
Then they return to Stately Wayne Manor before Fingers can do his namesake. 

At the Manor Dick causes an explosion in his darkroom (in a hall closet) scaring poor Alfred. RD has to explain what a darkroom is. (:30)

In the lair Chandell reads about a "tragedy at Wayne Manor" while his girls are all over him. He announces his plan to marry Harriet for her $5 million for Harry. "Imagine: farewell, Chandell. I'll cast off my criminal skin like a moulting butterfly." In response they complain about their lot and side with Harry. Alfred Slye also demands his fee of $100,000 by the end of the day or he will give them all up.
Harry: "A legal question. Say this boob marries that Cooper dame. How long until the will's settled and he gets the money?"
Alfred Slye: "Well, considering the current state of our courts, about eleven years."
Harry: "With the Dynamic Duo on our tail, we'll be lucky to last eleven hours!"
Then the ladies bagpipe Chandell and Alfred Slye.

Harry comes to Wayne Manor as Chandell to console Harriet: "they were enlarging a photograph of meeeee!" The Duo watch on the "Wayne Manor TV Circuit Closed" as Harry proposes, then asks her to sing with him before he leaves. After he does she shouts for Alfred: "I need a glass of blackberry brandy!"
Alfred: "This unprecedented request for strong spirits: is something amiss?"
Harriet: "That was not Chandell. There's an old saying: a girl can tell."

Cue Harriet "singing" backstage. (:36) RD wished she was deliberately singing badly. Harry tells her to take off her hat to sing better. Vince is stymied by the word "chapeau". Harriet takes off her hat - and pulls out her gun. "As they say in the movies, stick up your mitts!" He does so and the player piano continues on without him. He then tries to tell her that the bagpipers are behind her but she doesn't believe him. "You think I'll fall for that, you old chestnut?" RD think she was badly attempting to adlib. 

The women knock her out and put her in a chest. Harry has his own henchmen put it in a van as Alfred Slye watches. Then Harry pulls out a machine gun and just starts firing - but the Duo pop out with a Batshield. They had tracked her (and her "chauffeur" Alfred) in a planted radio in her handbag and had somehow managed to swap places during the transfer. Yes, without anyone noticing. Yes, while leaving her trunk just there on the side of the road. 

Batman: "Time to end this criminal symphony!" 

Cue a very quick fight where the folded up Batshield just vanishes. RD: "Well it folds up nicely." The women attempt to strike but with no effect.
Batman: "Poor deluded females!"
Women: "And you, nasty old man!"
This time he has Batgas of his own to knock them and Harry out, just as Chandell and Alfred Slye are about to be fed into the punching machine. 
Robin: "Gosh, Batman, maybe we don't know how to turn this machine off!"
Batman: "It is a thought, Robin. It's not much more than they deserve."
Robin: "A lawyer who mocks the law? And an artist who takes up a life of crime?" 

In Gordon's office he gives Harriet a "Citizen's Special Anti-Crime Award" for her action of holding a gun. (:44)
Harriet: "A person just does what he has to do. And that's what makes America great, isn't it?"
Gordon: "If only there were more like her!"
He has a note from Chandell breaking things off to leave on a "tour".
Gordon: "With good...performance, it will last about three years."
Said performance is in jail with everyone wearing pinstripes while Chandell plays The Prisoner's Song. 

Vince wonders if he can get the women "all at once".

• For redheaded Doe, Vince didn't find her too attractive but gives her a "generous" 7 Batpoles. RD thought she was too masculine and had too much makeup but gave her 6.5. Marilyn Hanold of Queens was a Playmate of the Month and was in The Brain That Wouldn't Die. RD: "She was far more attractive in that, maybe because it was in black and white." She would marry an oil tycoon not long after the series and resides happily in Salt Lake City.
• Brunette Rae is a "step up" for Vince to 7.5. RD gives her an 8. Edy Williams (from the aforementioned Salt Lake City) was known mostly for her work with Russ Meyer, and even being married to him for some time. The Co-Bros forget that she was also the hostess of Catwoman's restaurant-lair The Pink Sandbox. 
• Blonde Mimi is Vince's "top of the food chain" at 8, like RD. Sivi Aberg was Miss Sweden 1964. While her credits are scant, it does include an uncredited appearance in Mel Brooks' Silent Movie.
• Vince: "All these women that we've gone through thus far on this series; what percentage of them do you think, they thought this was their big break?"
  RD: "Oh, all of them." (Except Jill St. John.)

Vince enjoyed the story playing to the strength of Liberace's sincere flamboyancy. (:57) RD thought it was alright.

Next week is the return of the Penguin in a premise that is to be revisited in the Batman mythology. RD points his finger upwards. Vince: "Rectal exam?"

 

• Special Guest Villain: Harry (Liberace)
  

• SPEAKING OFs: 3. Clothespins, three, miniseries
• Brown Hornet Escapes: 1. Mask of the Phantom of the Opera
• RD Time Outs:  1 
• Screen Captures: 1. RD
  

Episode 53: Holy Fratricide!: August 14, 2022

The Devil's Fingers
October 26, 1966
"Chandell, the musical virtuoso, visits Gotham City for a piano concert. But unknown to the public, Chandell is being blackmailed into a life of crime by his twin brother Harry, who retains most of the profits. Chandell intends to buy off Harry forever, and he knows just where to get the funds - from the Wayne family fortune. With Batman and Robin out of town, he suspects the robbery will be a piece of cake. However, Batman has been listening to Chandell's concert remotely, and after detecting an anomalous chord, summons Robin back to Wayne Manor to investigate."
47 minutes

RD: Knows Nothing About Liberace. Mike Check would disapprove. However I will cut him some slack since he's doing this while lightly afflicted with Covid. Sadly he does not Penguin laugh, so perhaps he will need some slack back.

Also Sad News: Disco Inferno didn't know about Cheatum either.

Also Also: YouTube gave Vince a strike for "spam" for the actual name of Cheatum. RD: "You shouldn't have listened to me." Vince is awaiting their return to sort out the issue. RD: "They haven't kicked me off Vimeo yet."

:08 A "peaceful evening" at Stately Wayne Manor of a piano rehearsal has bra-ed Aunt Harriet talking to the pianist named Chandell, who compliments her "voice of a nightingale". Alfred being a man of culture of course gushes all about him. 

Vince tried to envision Liberace without his hairpiece.

Suddenly "a sexy trio of bagpipers" (RD) / "three female pied pipers" (Vince) enter the room. Chandell: "You fiendish figments of the imagination! What's the meaning of this?" They demand jewelry "due to your budding music...wheree'er you perform". They then knock them out with gas normal playing of their bagpipes.

Cut to - Stately Wayne Manor. The Undynamic Duo are questioning Harriet who fears when the Dynamic Duo will return. Bruce is with his hunting club while Dick is on school holiday. Gordon goes to call Batman through his office, not noticing Alfred answering from the study that he is unavailable.

Gordon: "Do you know what this means? The moment we've dreaded for years has arrived: this time... we're going to have to solve a case...ourselves." 

After the titles we cut to the Batcave where everything is covered while somber music plays. 

Cut to Gordon's office where he and O'Hara question Chandell on who would know what he was up to. (:17) He tells them it's in the society pages, which for sure neither "police officer" would ever read.
Chandell: "Now, are you going to call Batman, or do I have to call him myself... [he points to the Batphone] ...on that famous hotline I've read so much about?"
Instead O'Hara orders all the cops in the city to drop whatever they are doing to protect his concert, offending the musician to no end.
Chandell: "Good day sir...but will it be a good night?"
Gordon: "I'm frightened, Chief O'Hara. An echo haunts my ears. I wish I could hear the noblest, most inspiring words in the English language: "To the Batmobile Robin, let's go!""

Our lair is in the Parnassus Music Roll Company, where Chandell is in fact an "infamous criminal genius", with the trio - Doe, Rae, and Mimi - in silver outfits. He declares the initial infiltration of the Manor a success before Harry, his actual evil twin brother, comes in on a splitscreen. Harry is blackmailing his twin for 95% of the profits, but Chandell is willing to do one last job by stealing $5 million from Wayne. Liberace had not really acted before this (as anyone who had to sit through Sincerely Yours could tell you), but (like Elvis) he did have a stillborn twin. 

The police protection includes fingerprints, sandbags, and machine gun encampments around the venue. (:22)
Gordon: "There's a certain undefinable clumsiness to our procedures."
Alfred: "How very gauche, if I do say so!"

Also the trio are outside as impressive looking belly dancers.

Thankfully Bruce is not totally separated from the city he is sworn to protect. In what would definitely be in character for him today, he is able to listen in from his camping tent. He notices an oddly placed C-minor chord. He asks his chum to check on their muskrat traps.
Meanwhile Dick is at a soda shop getting lost in a young lady's eyes.
Dick: "Gee, Sal!"
Sally: "Gosh, Dick!"
Dick: "That about says everything, doesn't it?"
Sally: "Mmmhmmm."
His cockblock is his ringing book phone so he manages to get Sally away for a moment while he talks to Bruce on his fishing pole phone. Cue the saddest face Dick can muster as the Duo have to go do their job.

At the concert Gordon is informed that a Burmese import company was exploded as Chandell played a "Burmese number".
Gordon (pleading to the sky): "Batman, Batman where the devil are you in this hour of need?"

The Duo have returned to the Manor. Alfred is there by himself since Harriet is still at the concert. Or to be more specific, his dressing room.
Dick: "This isn't good. Chandell's a ladies' man!"
Bruce: "Really, Dick? I'm afraid some romantic interlude has fevered your imagination. Your Aunt Harriet is utterly above reproach."
Before they can descend the Batpoles they see the trio fleetingly outside the window. Bruce decides to go down after a moment without closing the curtains first.
Dick: "Holy apparition!"

Alfred: "Your deep excursion into the wilderness has sharpened your mind."
Bruce: "Gordon will be alertly marshaling all the forces of law and order."
Smash cut to Gordon with a desk full of drugs. The Batphone rings.
Gordon: "GASP! Batman! Batman! The answer to a policeman's prayers!"
He tells Bonnie to notify Chandell that the Duo are operational again.

Of course Chandell is not happy to hear it. He gives a smitten Aunt Harriet root beer and kisses her hand, almost making her sob (or wet somewhere else on the body).
Vince: The size of her caboose."
RD: "She's a large lady."
As soon as she leaves in ecstasy he rolls his eyes. He quickly consults Harry in the lair on what to do about the Duo. (:34) Harry decides to send for his own henchmen, the Piano Movers. 

Chandell hits himself with a bottle just before the Duo arrive.
Batman: "The poor devil, he's been assaulted with a root beer bottle!"
Robin: "Holy fratricide!"
He revives him with smelling salts.
Chandell: "Heavenly days, am I dreaming?"
Batman: "No, it's us in the flesh."
Chandell tells them this is Harry's doing, and gives them the lair's address with a zip code of 9999979. The code, besides being too long, also puts it on the western US, contrary to - again - Gotham City being traditionally in the east/New Jersey. 

The Duo find the "felonious phantoms" are already at the lair.
Batman: "From the looks in their eyes, I think they're victims of some kind of criminal hypnotism."
The Movers then appear, starting a "humorous" fight with their stunt doubles while the women try to distract them. Then Harry drops a giant roll of player piano music on their heads to knock them out.

Cue the stunt doubles tied onto conveyor belts.
RD: "It's in Adam West's contract, I think, that if he's going horizontal he has to have a lady with him. Otherwise it's a stunt double."
They're about to be fed into a cutting machine to be made into piano player music.
Harry: "Farewell, costumed clowns!"
He then puts a dime into the piano to start it up.
"And now: exit music for a pair of bats!"

Narrator: "How will this music end? Tune in tomorrow for the dire dreadful dirge!"

For some reason the Batmobile's start button was spinning in the credits instead of the logo. (:38)

RD is able to do more frequent things for the site instead of having to devote time and energy to a radio progrem with an unreliable co-host. One is about the Skyscrapers destroying the Ding Dongs. Another is about trivia from the WWF Magazine that Vince did not yet write about. 

RD: "Pen names are wonderful, says RD Reynolds."

• Special Guest Villain: Harry (Liberace)
  

• Screen Captures: 1. RD