“King Tut’s Coup” / “Batman’s Waterloo”
Written by Leo & Pauline Townsend and Stanley Ralph Ross
Directed by James B. Clark
Season 2, Episodes 53 and 54
Production code 9755
Original air dates: March 8 and 9, 1967
The Bat-signal: At Yale University, a professor of Egyptology is talking to two students who ask about his past as the criminal King Tut. The professor sighs and with a muttered grumble about the damn school newspaper, explains his suffering from a case of amnesia and identity transference. Since it’s prompted by cranial trauma, he wears a bowler hat with heavy lining. He shows that lining to the students just as a klutzy window washer knocks three potted plants off a ledge. Two hit the students, one hits Tut, and we suddenly not only have Tut back, but he’s got two lackeys who pledge allegiance to him.
His first order of business is to steal a sarcophagus from the Gotham City Museum’s Egyptian section. The theft prompts Gordon to call—Bruce Wayne? Turns out he’s heading up an Egyptian ball for charity, which makes him apparently qualified to consult on matters of Egyptology. Sure. Bruce assures Gordon that the sarcophagus was from the time period of King Tutankhamun (and it actually was! the real Tut reigned from 1332-1323 BCE, and the sarcophagus is from ca. 1300 BCE), and advises that he call Batman.
(Making this whole thing hilarious is that Bruce, Dick, and Harriet were all in costume for the ball, Bruce as Caesar, Dick as a Roman centurion, and Harriet as a Roman woman.)
They slide down the bat-poles in costume in order to come out the other side in different costumes, and head to GCPD HQ, where Gordon gets a call that the Middle Eastern pantomimist Fouad Sphinx has been found beaten and tied up as if to be hanged. Batman has Gordon tell the cops on the scene leave everything as it is—which means Sphinx is stuck tied up until the Dynamic Duo arrive. And it never occurs to Batman to have him be untied until Sphinx himself mentions it. Nice job, hero.
He left a note for Batman in Tut’s “native” tongue, which translates to a declaration that he will claim his own. His own what is unclear, but Batman figures the Egyptian ball will be a target. Gordon has O’Hara send a bunch of cops to keep an eye on the ball undercover. Those cops see Deputy Mayor Zorty dressed as King Tut—which Tut knew about going in—and assume he’s the criminal, taking him away. Bruce and Lisa Carson—the daughter of multimillionaire John E. Carson—arrive as Julius Caesar and Cleopatra, and Tut himself arrives soon thereafter.
Tut’s thugs pretend to be the undercover cops and ask Bruce to convince Lisa to dance with Tut and move him discreetly toward the exit. Bruce falls for this, up until the real cops—having discovered that they arrested Zorty by mistake—return, but by then Tut has gotten away with Lisa.
In the Batcave, Batman and Robin track Lisa to Tut’s HQ, as Bruce put a tracking device on Lisa, which isn’t at all creepy. They head to the Pyramid Club, where Lisa isn’t thrilled to be queen to Tut’s king. Her stubborn insistence on being Lisa Carson rather than Cleopatra Queen of the Nile results in Tut throwing her in the dungeon.
The Dynamic Duo split up—Robin stays by the door while Batman goes to the roof. The two student thugs open the door right on Robin’s head and bring him, insensate and tied up, to Tut. However, Batman then comes in from the roof, and fisticuffs ensue. Batman is stopped by Tut crashing a vase over his head.
Batman is placed in a sarcophagus, which is suspended over what looks like a kiddie pool. Tut gives a speech that riffs hilariously on Marc Antony’s funeral speech from Julius Caesar, and then lowers the sarcophagus into the pool. If he stays in the sarcophagus, he’ll suffocate, and if he escapes from it, he’ll drown. Robin, still tied up, looks on in horror.
Lisa’s time in the dungeon has done nothing to make her more willing to be Cleopatra, so they adjourn to the royal oil boiling room to take care of Robin.
Alfred shows up, having received a transmission from Batman from within the sarcophagus, and frees Batman from his watery grave. He went into a trance to slow his metabolic rate enough to survive.
Lisa finally agrees to marry Tut, but only if he calls her father. He does and promises to keep her safe if Carson pays him $8,300,487.12—it’s the mortgage on the pyramids, thanks to three millennia of interest. Carson agrees, arranging to send a message to Tut via a radio show—but as soon as he hangs up, he calls Gordon. Gordon has Batman call the same radio show and provide a message for Tut, knowing that he’s listening for Carson’s message that the ransom’s together. We don’t hear Batman’s message to Tut for some reason, but Tut replies by telling Batman to bring the money to the royal oil boiling room, thus providing Batman with the location of same. He gets the money from Carson and heads to the royal oil boiling room.
Robin and Lisa are tied to a pole in the royal oil boiling room while Tut waits impatiently for the oil to heat up. Neila—who views Lisa as competition—frees the two of them, but they’re caught before they can escape. Just as Robin’s about to be tossed into the boiling oil, Batman bursts in, tossing a chemical compound into the oil that turns it into foam rubber. Fisticuffs ensue, during which Tut is clubbed on the head, reverting him to his professorial persona.
Bruce and Lisa finish their date that was interrupted. He walks her to her apartment, but declines her offer to come in for milk and cookies, which probably isn’t a euphemism. He explains that he isn’t really husband material for her, but she doesn’t seem to care. After one goodnight kiss, Bruce decides that man cannot live by crimefighting alone, and goes in for the milk and cookies, which totally isn’t a euphemism, honest.
Fetch the Bat-shark-repellant! The Batcave has an electronic translator, which is useful when you’re handed a note in an ancient tongue. Batman has a vast storehouse of chemical knowledge in his brain, though he also has no idea how the chemical concoction he’s putting together will actually work. Bruce placed a tracking device on his date, which isn’t at all creepy, and he tracks her on what looks like the Giant Lighted Lucite Map of Gotham City! Later, we see Alfred polishing what seems to be the same thing, but is labelled as the Batmobile Tracking Map. Very confusing. The Bat-cycle returns, this time outfitted with a bat-tering ram allowing Batman to crash into the royal oil boiling room. We also see the Wireless Bat-transmitter in action once again, with a sign indicating that it’s “FOR BATEMERGENCIES ONLY.” Batman has also developed something called “Morse Bat-code,” which is just weird, since either it’s Samuel Morse’s Code or it’s Batman’s code…
Holy #@!%$, Batman! Only one religious uttering from Robin this time: “Holy jet-set” when he thinks that they might appear in a Suzy Knickerbocker column.
When Batman learns the location of the royal oil boiling room, Alfred says, “Holy steam valve!” and punches his palm, picking up the slack for the kidnapped Robin.
Gotham City’s finest. The cops arrest the deputy mayor by mistake. Zorty forgives this first infraction, but warns that Gordon and O’Hara will be pounding a beat if they screw up again.
Also reference is made to Gordon’s daughter Barbara for the first time, setting up her appearing in season three as a regular.
No sex, please, we’re superheroes. Neila thought she was Tut’s girl until he started getting obsessed with Lisa, thinking her to be Cleopatra reincarnated. Meanwhile, Lisa and Bruce end their date by going into her apartment for milk and cookies, which totally isn’t a euphemism at all, no really, honest!
Special Guest Villain. Victor Buono makes his second appearance of the season as King Tut following “The Spell of Tut” / “Tut’s Case is Shut.” He’ll be back in the third season’s “The Unkindest Tut of All.”
Na-na na-na na-na na-na na.
“I guess millionaires aren’t so dumb after all.”
“Otherwise they never would have become millionaires.”
–O’Hara and Gordon assuming incorrectly that smarts always play a role in becoming a millionaire.
Trivial matters: This episode was discussed on The Batcave Podcast episode 43 by host John S. Drew with special guest chum, independent filmmaker Robert Long.
Leo Townsend, who co-wrote the original draft of the story with his wife Pauline, is the writer of Beach Blanket Bingo and How to Stuff a Wild Bikini. The Townsends’ original story involved Mayor Linseed, but Byron Keith was unavailable, so Stanley Ralph Ross had to rewrite the script. (Linseed’s excuse for being out of town was that he was visiting the Asian front.)
Lee Meriwether returns as Lisa, having previously subbed in for Julie Newmar as Catwoman in the feature film. Grace Lee Whitney, best known as Janice Rand on Star Trek, plays Neila.
Deputy Mayor Zorty is a play on Los Angeles’s mayor at the time, Sam Yorty. John E. Carson is a play on The Tonight Show host Johnny Carson.
The window cameo is Aileen Mehle, a.k.a. Suzy Knickerbocker, a well-known newspaper columnist, who also appeared regularly on the panel of What’s My Line? (including one episode where the special guest was her son).
Pow! Biff! Zowie! “When we get to the royal oil boiling room, be sure to prepare some real boiling royal boiling oil, to boil the Boy Wonder in, royally.” What an absolute delight of an episode. As usual, Stanley Ralph Ross can be counted on to get back to the basics: Batman being the straitlaced hero, the GCPD being spectacularly incompetent, and the villain being over the top and delightful.
Victor Buono was never not great as Tut, but this may be his best outing, as he goes full-on W.C. Fields here. He’s aided by a metric buttload of wordplay and snark, a constant barrage of lunacy that is a joy and a delight.
The wealth is shared, of course, as we get lots of people dressed in absurd Egyptian (or Roman) garb, including Bruce in a toga and Dick in centurion armor. Alfred gets to save the day, which is always fun, and he even gets a “Holy!” exclamation! The cliffhanger deathtrap is kinda weak, but overall this episode is huge fun, a welcome return to the grand insanity of the first season. Plus Lee Meriwether is excellent as Lisa, since her insistence on Tut calling her father is what leads Batman to be able to save the day. And at the end, Bruce actually gets laid! Woohoo! (C’mon, “milk and cookies” is totally a euphemism you guys!!!)
Bat-rating: 9
Keith R.A. DeCandido is not old enough have seen this episode in first run, but is old enough to remember Steve Martin’s hit song “King Tut.”
I love that shot of Bruce with his Caesar cape.
At first I thought the two college students were crooks planning to conk the professor on the head to change him into Tut on purpose. But somehow they suffered from the same condition when they were struck on the heads. Although that was basically to set up the “Hail, hail, the gang’s all here” gag, so I can accept it. (Except, if everyone goes Egyptian as a result of being hit on the head, how come smashing a vase over Batman’s head didn’t make him think he was actually the pharaoh Ramses or something? Maybe his cowl had a special Anti-Concussive-Egyptian-Delusion Bat-Lining.)
Interesting visual seeing Bruce and Dick slide down the Batpoles in Roman garb. Et tu, Bruce?
I guess they brought back Lee Meriwether as Bruce’s love interest because they liked the chemistry the two had in the movie. By the way, the recent Batman ’66 comic brings Lisa Carson back as a foe for Batgirl, when she decides she really is the reincarnation of Cleopatra after all.
Plus we also get both Grace Lee Whitney (Yeoman Rand) and Lloyd Haynes (Lt. Alden) as Tutlings. That’s three Star Trek guests in one episode.
This is one of those celebrity cameos by celebrities whose fame didn’t really survive the era. Suzy Knickerbocker? Holy lost to the mists of time, Batman!
Nice gag with the crime scene being left just as the cops found it — complete with the victim still hanging uncomfortably from the noose. By this point, the show was getting more jokey with its writing, with sight gags and punch lines like this.
I was wondering about the custom of the costume ball with the men wearing masks and the women simply holding them in front of their faces. Why the difference? Then I thought that maybe it’s because the women are wearing makeup and the masks would smudge it.
Weird to have Tut quoting Marc Antony’s Caesar eulogy over Batman when we earlier saw Bruce Wayne dress up as Caesar. Quite a coincidence, though maybe deliberate on the writers’ part. Also interesting that the closing narration to part 1 contains two of the series’ episode titles — “A Death Worse Than Fate” and “Batman’s Waterloo.” The former is not meant as an episode title in this context, but it still is one. I wonder if that’s the only time that’s happened.
It’s interesting how similar this version of Batman is to the modern version in some basic ways. Sure, it’s a goofier interpretation, but the modern Batman is just as prone to extreme feats of physical endurance like slowing his respiration to survive drowning, and just as utterly devoted to his crimefighting mission. It is basically the same character, despite the differences.
I’d forgotten that they seeded the idea of Gordon having a daughter Barbara before they introduced the character. Rather an awkward insertion, though.
And we get a surprisingly risque ending for ’67, with Bruce implicitly spending the night with Lisa. Milk and cookies, you say? Gee, I wonder if that might be a euphemism…
“Royal oil boiling room”: a hyphen, a hyphen, my kingdom for a hyphen! Is that a room owned by royalty where they boil oil? Or a room for boiling royal oil?
“Bruce placed a tracking device on his date, which isn’t at all creepy…” I wonder if Batman ’66 ran in the Kelvin ST universe, and (unconsciously?) inspired that Vokaya amulet Spock gave Uhura?
@3/rickarddavid: I parse it as the royal room for oil-boiling.
Is a metric buttload bigger than an English one?
Maybe Bruce didn’t want “milk and cookies,” he just had to recover the various tracking devices he planted on Lisa’s body?
dunsel: But he resisted the nightcap initially, remember. If he was concerned about retrieving the tracking devices (which were probably on the Cleopatra costume in any case), he would’ve dived right. Er, so to speak….
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
A Bat-battering ram? A Battering ram? Funny how Batman can trademark anything EXCEPT something that starts with
Funny how Lisa, who is the only female character outright implied to have sex in the series, because that’s so totally an euphemism, guys, got much later a semi-important role in the Batman XXX parody. Which, ahem, I haven’t watched myself. For real. I wouldn’t lie to you fellas. Ahem. Anyway.
I know you have said you’d review Return of the Caped Crusaders at some point, but what about the Legends of the Superheroes TV movies? Those were, after all, the last live action apparitions of West, Ward and Gorshin as Batman, Robin and the Riddler. Talk about going out with a whimper.
All that talk about Romans, through association, makes me sorry Maxie Zeus hadn’t been created yet by the time of this series. A Tut versus Zeus episode would have been awesome.
I figured Adam West’s Bruce really meant milk and cookies, and Burt Ward’s Dick wasn’t after milk and cookies.
MAxie Zeus always made me think of Tut.
I enjoyed Buono’s performance but didn’t like the scene with the noose. I thought it made Batman look uncaring, which is even worse than stupid, which is par for the course when Stanley Ralph Ross wrote the character.
I found the Grace Lee Whitney character odd. She wants Tut for herself, yet doesn’t seem to like him. Poorly-written, IMO.
I know this is late, but I just happened to remember it.
I liked the part where Tut is on the phone to Lisa Carson’s father, asking a specific and odd amount of ransom for his daughter. When Mr. Carson questions it, Tut responds with a remark about paying off the usurious mortgage on the pyramids and then grimaces to his off-camera Tutlings, as if mouthing the words, “He’s a banker and he doesn’t get that?” Priceless!
Didn’t quite know the script originally featured Mayor Linseed…I had thought maybe Zorty was supposed to more physically resemble Tut more than Linseed, or more likely than not, a contrivance for Stanley Ralph Ross to use the naming pun…Also the explanation for Linseed’s absence strikes me as a subtle reference to Vietnam (the Asian Front), marking one of the show’s rare references to real world events…
I just love Victor Buono. ‘The gang’s all here’. So funny in it.