He Meets His Match, The Grisly Ghoul

Infobox Television episode | Title = He Meets His Match, The Grisly Ghoul


Series = Batman
Season = 1
Episode = 16
Airdate = March 3, 1966 (ABC)
Production = 8715-Pt. 2
Writer = Lorenzo Semple Jr.
Director = Murray Golden
Guests = Donna Loren,
Kip King,
Greg Benedict,
Bryan O'Byrne,
Tim O'Kelly,
Cherie Foster,
Linda Harrison,
Sydney Smith,
Glenn Allan,
Donna Di Martino,
Dick Bellis,
Joan Parker,
Breeland Rice,
Jim Henaghan
Special Guest Villain: Cesar Romero as The Joker
Prev = The Joker Goes to School
Next = True or False-Face

"He Meets His Match, The Grisly Ghoul" is the sixteenth episode of the "Batman" television series, first airing on ABC March 3, 1966 and repeated August 11, 1966 in its first season. It guest starred Cesar Romero as The Joker.

Plot Synopsis

Just as the deadly one-armed bandit spins the third lemon, Gotham City suffers a massive blackout! The Joker and his gang beat a harried retreat, just as the cops arrive just in time to cut Batman and Robin out from the electric chairs before the power comes back on! After replaying the audiotape The Caped Crusader secretly made while in the van, The Dynamic Duo were able to make out Susie as one of the members of The Joker's criminal gang, much to Robin's shock and dismay. So Robin, in the guise of Dick Grayson, Undercover Agent, tries to trick Susie into leading him into The Bad Pennies and The Joker himself. Unfortunately, Bad Penny member Nick catches immediately on and sends Dick on his way....but not before tipping him off on an impending robbery at a local bar.

The Dynamic Duo enter the bar, trigger the gimmicked jukebox which spouts a double-barrel shotgun, deflect its bullets with The Batshield, and use a Batbomb to destroy the crooked machine! They then realize that Susie is in danger and rush to her aid, just as The Joker, realizing that The Dynamic Duo is on to Susie, gives her some Canadian perfume (called "Eternal Midnight"!), which he instructs her to use only after she has planted answers to some important Nationwide Pre-College Exam papers she stole inside one of the rigged machines, not telling her that the perfume has been poisoned!

In the gym, Batman and Robin confront Susie and warn her of impending danger, but she brushes them off. When she applies the poisonous perfume and slumps unconscious ("Eternal Midnight" indeed!), Batman and Robin save her life by using the Universal Antidote Pills in their utility belts, and she repays them by revealing the whole criminal scheme. Meanwhile, Joker, Nick, and Two-Bits arrive at the school in time to snap an incriminating picture of The Woodrow Roosevelt High School basketball team clutching the exam papers complete with written-in answers, which the team received from a rigged milk machine. The Joker then reaches a new low in crime: he plans to use the picture to disqualify and suspend the otherwise "innocent" team members for cheating, and stop them from playing Disco Tech in the night's big game, for he bet his cash on the opposite team and with the home players out of the game, the opposing team, Disco Tech would win from default.

The Dynamic Duo suddenly swing down from the rafters on their Batropes to inform the students that the exam papers were phonies which "they" planted, rendering The Joker's picture useless. The Caped Crusader and The Boy Wonder then proceed to deliver the punch line, putting The Joker and his Bad Pennies out of circulation! Susie, by the way, is sent to The Wayne Foundation Institute For Delinquent Girls.

NEXT WEEK:

Batman battles False-Face!

Trivia

* The exact same electric chairs to which Batman and Robin are strapped inside the moving van are used again in a Batseason-2 episode #9707-Pt. 2, "Ma Parker." The truck is reused in the Batseason-2 debut, episode #9705-Pt. 1, "Shoot a Crooked Arrow."
* The Joker's Las Vegas bookie is named Pete The Swede, an obvious lampoon of Jimmy The Greek.
* Kip King later provided the cartoon voices of Shecky on Hanna-Barbera's 1983-84 CBS Saturday morning series called "The Biskitts".
* Not for the first time, one wonders exactly where Batman keeps his Batshield. It folds into quarters, which still leaves you with a piece of flat plastic about a foot square. Conveniently Adam West vaguely tucks it back behind his back and then the camera cuts away.
* In 1981, two youngsters in São Paulo, Brazil, decided to dub over this episode, replacing the original dialogues with indecent, yet comedic, lines, and taping it. Years later, the video (known as "Bátima: Feira da Fruta", after the background music they rolled into the video) was released on the internet and became one of the most popular Internet memes for Brazilian audiences since then. The full video can be seen [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2vgI2BLTd_8 here] .