Joker Is Wild / Batman Is Riled
It was already cemented in the comics by this point: the Clown Prince of Crime was the ultimate foil for the Caped Crusader. The Joker’s first appearance on the ’66 TV show is a genuinely great TV introduction to the character.
We open with the Joker escaping prison using a giant spring during a gimmick prison baseball game. There’s no origin story — as with most of the rogues in the TV show — and this isn’t the Dynamic Duo’s first battle with him. The Joker and his henchmen somehow hide inside statues at Gotham Museum, waiting to strike when the museum closes. The Duo work this out, and the battle kicks off. All this happens in the first fifteen or so minutes of the episode. With Joker coming out on top, you’re led into a false cliffhanger halfway through. We even get the narrator asking the usual end‑of‑episode questions. In short, these two episodes break the Batman formula in the best possible way.
Batman foils that mid‑episode cliffhanger with his utility belt, leading to the Joker making his own:
“I swear by all that is funny, I shall never be foiled by that insidious unconstitutional device again!”
The story loosely adapts Batman issue #73 — The Joker’s Utility Belt.
The real cliffhanger comes when the Joker, disguised as an opera clown, captures the Dynamic Duo and plans to unmask them on live TV. If that mask looks familiar, I’m not surprised. Over forty years later, The Dark Knight would pay tribute to the series by having the Joker use the same mask in the film’s opening scenes.
Batman and Robin escape the scenario the next week, but it’s a great cliffhanger that kept me guessing.
Batman: “You’re trapped, Joker. As a duly deputised agent of the law I order you to surrender.” Joker: “As the Clown Prince of Crime, I decline.”
It’s all pretty poetic, really, for a “campy” TV series.
Before the curtain falls on the Joker, we get reactions from Gotham citizens via newsreels and newspaper headline flashes — all adding to the idea that the Joker has Batman’s number. This doesn’t feel like any other story that season.
Cesar Romero’s Joker became a template for the character. Decades later, Mark Hamill — the Joker in the ’90s animated series (we’ll get to it) — would credit Romero with laying the groundwork for everyone who followed.
So how do these episodes rank quality‑wise? They’re right up there with the Batman ’66 movie. It felt like you were getting a mini Batman movie with a new villain every week. These two episodes particularly stand out as being as good as — if not better than — the film. In many ways it’s a shame the series got stuck with licence‑agreement issues, meaning the home‑media release didn’t happen until 2014. But on the flip side, that might have helped keep “Batman in Colour” in syndication long into the ’80s and ’90s.
I hope my enthusiasm has sparked some interest and shown how faithful this series is to the Batman comics — and how its influence is still felt today.
If it has, and those DVDs are a bit of a barrier to entry price‑wise, take a look at your local TV listings. Usually, on a lower‑down channel in the guide, the Dynamic Duo are still in syndication. Still recruiting young fans. Here in the UK, as I type, Talking Pictures TV are re‑running the series.
Next Time: Playing Mario on Atari