Hizzonner the Penguin / Dizzoner the Penguin
We have a slight change here. Penguin is the first on this list where I’ve chosen episodes that are not the villain’s debut. These ones come from season 2.
Yes, season 2 — where the phrase “If you’ve seen one episode of Batman, you’ve seen them all” really comes into play.
Being quite into my old TV (as you can probably tell), I’d love to defend season 2. But even I must concede we get formulaic here. We also get some different villain choices. Some are great, and some are clearly stand‑ins (sorry, Puzzler).
Many of these villains have since disappeared: foes like False Face, Colonel Gumm, The Archer, The Sandman, and Chandell.
Some of the new characters I liked, though. I remember enjoying Ma Parker’s story, and I thought The Bookworm made a decent villain too.
I digress — our main villains return here, apart from the Frank Gorshin Riddler. Riddler is recast as John Astin (known for playing Gomez Addams). Good as Astin is, the role doesn’t quite gel with him.
By this point in the series, we’ve seen Burgess Meredith play the Penguin before. The twist this time is that Penguin stops a robbery in the introduction. Naturally, it’s all part of a scheme. Penguin has aspirations of becoming the Mayor of Gotham City.
If that plot sounds familiar, it should. The 1992 Batman Returns film pays homage to the series by using this storyline. Reportedly, Burton wanted Meredith to return to the franchise to play Penguin’s father. By then, Meredith had to pull out due to ill health — a real shame, because I would have loved that callback. We did get the role filled by Paul Reubens, though (someone who will no doubt appear here in a reaction in the future).
As with the other villains, the broad strokes of what we recognise as the Penguin are all here: the crooked businessman. Later adaptations (after Returns) would tone down the gimmicked umbrellas. Returns redesigned the character, but the waddle, nose, and love of those gimmick umbrellas were all in Meredith’s Penguin — all of it dating back to the comic itself (around 1941).
This series was not only closer to the comic than a lot would like to admit — it was a vital building block in the making of the Dark Knight as he is today.