“The Impractical Joker” / “The Joker’s Provokers”
Written by Jay Thompson and Charles Hoffman
Directed by James B. Clark
Season 2, Episodes 21 and 22
Production code 9723
Original air dates: November 16 and 17, 1966
The Bat-signal: We open with the Joker in the Keyborn Bookstore taking a book called The Keys to the Kingdom and tearing it up, then going to the Keynote Music Shop and smashing the record You’re the Key to My Heart. Then he sets fire to the Gotham City Key Club’s confidential membership list and messes with the sign on the Keystone Building.
At Wayne Manor, Bruce is helping Dick with a geography paper, about the Rock of Gibraltar and how it’s the key to the Mediterranean, and how that should be the keynote of his paper.
Gee, I wonder what the theme of this episode is going to be…
Gordon is willing to have the GCPD handle all this when it’s destroying books and records and files, but once O’Hara reports the vandalism to a building, then he decides that it’s time to call in Batman. (Just go with it.)
As the Dynamic Duo arrive, a new prank is discovered: they’re changing all the locks in GCPD HQ, and in amidst the shipment of new keys is one in the shape of a human skeleton: an actual skeleton key. And it comes with a note: “Latched or mastered, skeletoned or passed, spot the Scot before you’re outclassed.” As it turns out, Angus Ferguson is in Gotham with an exhibit of his collection of keys, and it’s pretty obvious that that’s the Joker’s target, particularly the priceless Key of Kaincardine, which has been handed down from generation to generation in Ferguson’s family.
Elsewhere, Joker has just cut a key that can open a box he has created, which he says is the key to victory over Batman and Robin, to the confusion of his two henchmen and his moll Cornelia.
Batman and Robin show up at the exhibit and browse a bit. When they check out the Key of Kaincardine, Joker also appears, opens his box—which seems to hypnotize the Dynamic Duo and leave them frozen in place—and then makes off with the key. Our heroes come to, dazed, to discover both Joker and the key to be gone.
Ferguson and his comedy Scottish accent are livid. He intends to sue the city for $8,000,523 and a three-penny bit. He also calls Batman and Robin “muttonheads.” Batman can’t bring himself to argue with that particular assessment, as he has no idea how Joker immobilized them.
That evening, Bruce and Dick watch the news, then switch over to The Green Hornet. (Subtle, Dozier, very subtle…) But the adventures of the Hornet and Kato are interrupted by the Joker, who barges in on the TV signal to taunt Batman for being foiled, failed, and frustrated, and to give him a hint as to his next caper: “don’t give a hoot for the hobnailed, but look for a bow and bobtails.” Bruce and Wayne forego the adventurous stylings of Van Williams and Bruce Lee to head to the Batcave.
Focusing on the second half of the clue (since he opened the first half with “don’t give a hoot”), they deduce that a bow refers to the loop in a key, and that the “bobtails” refer to a bobtailed lynx of a type used at Franchin’s Fancy Furs. The Caped Crusader and the Boy Wonder arrive to find Joker and Cornelia raiding the furs therein. Fisticuffs ensue, but Joker and Cornelia get away, though Joker’s little black box is smashed.
They return to the Batcave, where the Bat-computer spits out various things that the word “key” is used in. Alfred suggests that Joker may be using a false name that employs the same key-related wordplay as everything else in this caper, and Batman immediately lets his fingers do the walking (wonders who reading this is old enough to get that reference) and has the Bat-computer scan the phone book for key references. They settle on Clavier Ankh, and head to his address.
But the Joker was counting on that, as he’s ready for them. They enter Ankh’s apartment (through the window after a bat-climb, of course), and find Cornelia, who leads them to a trap door that drops our heroes to the basement. Batman is placed in a human key duplicator that will grind him into a giant key, while Robin is placed in a wax spray cleaner that will cover the Boy Wonder in wax.
The Joker leaves to take care of other business, and while the henchmen are busy gabbing at each other (talking about how the Joker killed their parole officer, kidnapped the jury in their trial, and also threatened the family of the judge—all much nastier things than this iteration of the Joker generally does on camera…), Batman takes a spare house key out of his utility belt and uses it to gum up the works of the human key duplicator, freeing him. Fisticuffs ensue, and Batman takes the henchmen out, and frees Robin. He brings the wax-covered Robin to the Batcave and sprays the Boy Wonder with wax solvent—luckily, his underwater diving lessons allowed him to hold his breath.
Joker is philosophical about Batman and Robin surviving his deathtrap, especially since he has apparently been able to create a time machine. (Just go with it.) He plans to stop time unless the city gives him ten million dollars. He plays with the box, making things move faster and slower or stopping time. Gordon calls Batman, and they’re all remarkably casual about Joker having made the greatest breakthrough in scientific history. Joker sent a note to Batman via Gordon in the shape of a key. It reads: “Thanks to the work of a single sphere, you saw what happened to time right here! Now regard with care my final o-ho… I’ve a gargoyles key and away I go-go!”
Batman and Robin seem to think that “o-ho” symbolizes H20, or water. (Never mind that water is two H’s and one O.) That leads them somehow to the conclusion that the Joker wishes to poison the water supply—especially since a night watchman at the reservoir spotted someone “resembling” the Joker there two nights ago. (“Resembling”? He’s got white skin and green hair, who else would it be????? And why wasn’t this investigated two nights ago???????????????)
Alfred’s cousin Egbert is night watchman in question, and so, at the butler’s own urging, Alfred replaces his cousin on his shift while Batman and Robin stake the place out. Sure enough, Joker, Cornelia, and the henchmen show up to poison the reservoir. Alfred has fallen asleep at Egbert’s post. He’s awakened by the Joker’s entrance, and discovers that the Joker bribed Egbert last time (with a mere five bucks). Joker pours Alfred a glass of nice fresh water (from a sink that has a sign over it that says “GOTHAM CITY NICE FRESH WATER”) and puts a couple of his poison pills in it.
Alfred insists that the others also have some water, which Joker refuses—so Alfred pulls Egbert’s gun on them. He also gets Joker to hand over his little black box, and he uses it to freeze all four of them in time. After summoning Batman and Robin, he makes the mistake of removing the key from the box, which unfreezes the bad guys. They threaten Alfred, but our heroes show up in time to save the butler. Fisticuffs ensue, and Batman and Robin are triumphant again.
Harriet runs out of gas near the reservoir, and goes to the night watchman for help—and recognizes him as Alfred. However, he continues to act as Egbert, convincing Harriet. Then Batman and Robin show up to give Alfred a midnight snack, and offer to giver Harriet some of the spare gas in the Batmobile. And so all’s right with the world.
Fetch the Bat-shark-repellant! The Bat-capsule dispensary includes counter-hypnosis bat-pellets, which our heroes take to counteract the Joker’s little box. The Bat-computer input is big enough to fit a phone book, which Batman unceremoniously tosses into it; the computer then instantly scans the whole thing, which means Batman has OCR tech in 1966 that’s even better than what we have today…
Alfred also gets into the act, with his Alf-cycle and his two-way Alf-radio.
Holy #@!%$, Batman! When shown the Joker’s literal skeleton key, Robin mutters, “Holy vertebra.” “Holy key ring” is Robin’s utterance upon learning of Ferguson’s collection. When he first sees the Key of Kaincardine, he whispers, “Holy keyhole.” Upon being informed of Joker’s past as a hypnotist, Robin grumbles, “Holy mesmerism.” “Holy pseudonym!” is Robin’s cry when Alfred suggests a nom du plume for the Joker. After “deducing” that “o-ho” symbolizes water, Robin cries, “Holy hydraulics!” and adds “Holy floodgate!” when they realize that Joker will poison the water supply.
Gotham City’s finest. When Batman suggests that Joker is after Ferguson’s key collection, Gordon totally tries to say that he thought of that, too, even though he so totally didn’t.
Special Guest Villain. Cesar Romero makes his first second-season appearance as the Joker, having last been seen in the feature film. He’ll be back in the show’s first three-parter, teaming up with Burgess Meredith’s Penguin in “The Zodiac Crimes”/”The Joker’s Hard Times”/”The Penguin Declines.”
No sex, please, we’re superheroes. Cornelia explains to the Joker that she’s a woman and not old like him, so of course she spends all her time staring at herself in the mirror…
Na-na na-na na-na na-na na.
“Oh, I know diamonds are supposed to be a girl’s best friend, but I could get real chummy with some mink or ermine. Ooh! I’ll take three or four of these, and a couple of gorillas.”
“I think you mean chinchilla, Cornelia. One of the rarest and most costly of furs.”
“Oh, well that’s exactly what I mean.”
–Cornelia fur shopping and Joker correcting her.
Trivial matters: This episode was discussed on The Batcave Podcast episode 29 by host John S. Drew with special guest chum, Gary Mitchel of the The Revcast and Dragon Con’s American Sci-Fi Classics track.
The window cameo is Howard Duff, in character as Detective Sam Stone of The Felony Squad, who says he’s in Gotham following a lead. And he looks back inside to tell “Jim” that Batman and Robin are brave men, referring to Stone’s partner, Detective Jim Briggs, who was played by Dennis Cole. Duff will return in the third season’s “The Entrancing Dr. Cassandra” as Cabala, one of the villains, alongside real-life wife Ida Lupino in the title role.
Kathy Kersh plays Cornelia. She and Burt Ward hit it off almost immediately, and Ward got a quickie divorce from his first wife and married Kersh the following February. Their marriage only lasted a couple of years.
For the first time, Part 2 opens, not with scenes from Part 1, but instead with William Dozier saying, “When last we left our heroes…” and summing up the cliffhanger only before rolling the credits.
Alan Napier plays a dual role in this one, playing Alfred’s cousin Egbert with a working-class accent.
Pow! Biff! Zowie! “There should be more fine, upstanding men like the Joker.” The Joker invented a friggin’ time machine!
I mean, yeah, okay, other stuff, but the Joker invented a friggin’ time machine! Why is everyone so casual about this? And why is the Joker’s endgame to hold up the city for money when he could patent and sell the time machine technology for probably a lot more than ten million bucks?
I know, I know, it’s the logic of superhero stories, particularly Silver Age ones, but it’s one thing to suspend your disbelief regarding, say, the thing that sucks all the water out of you from the movie, but we’re talking a friggin’ time machine!
Sigh.
The rest of the two-parter kind of wanders around a lot. “The Impractical Joker” runs the key theme into the ground, but “The Joker’s Provokers” doesn’t do as much with it, preferring to let Alan Napier stretch his acting muscles a bit and let the producers show off the “reverse” function on their cameras while Joker plays with his friggin’ time machine!!!!!!!! Plus, since when is the Joker the one who provides wordplay related clues? It’s almost like this started out life as a Riddler script, but the contract dispute with Frank Gorshin that kept him away this entire season led to them rewriting it for the Joker.
Kathy Kersh looks really good in a purple bodysuit, which is pretty much all she has going for her—I suspect she and Burt Ward bonded over their mutual shortcomings as actors. Cesar Romero’s always fun to watch cavort. And it’s fantastic to watch Alan Napier as Egbert and as Alfred paying Egbert, and it’s especially awesome to see Alfred actually beat the Joker and his goons. But ultimately, this is a scattershot mess of an episode that stretches suspension of disbelief way past its breaking point.
Bat-rating: 3
Keith R.A. DeCandido‘s Stargate SG-1 novel Kali’s Wrath is now on sale as an eBook from Amazon, Amazon UK, Crossroad Press, and Smashwords. The print book will be available in June. In addition, check out Keith’s seasonal Stargate Rewatch right here on Tor.com.
For your listening pleasure while reading this rewatch, I recommend Mojo Nixon’s “Can’t Find My Keys.”
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
Or perhaps Eric Clapton’s lovely acoustic version of “Key to the Highway.” Or maybe the Rolling Stones’s “Keys to Your Love.”
Okay, I’ll stop now…………….
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
They did try to explain away the “time machine” as some kind of illusion using hypnotic suggestion rather than real time manipulation, but it was unconvincing.
I think you’re right about this being conceived as a Riddler script, because it’s the same kind of story the Riddler got in later season 1 where he had a secondary gimmick in addition to his usual schtick, like his wax/candle and silent-movie capers. Plus there’s the fact that the Joker is, well, leaving riddle clues. Alternatively, I’ve heard it conjectured that they wrote episodes like this for original villains, but wrote the big guns into them if they happened to become available. Had Cesar Romero not been free at this point, this story might’ve featured Batman and Robin versus The Skeleton Key or some such character. Indeed, the time-changing stuff in part 2 seemed more like a job for the Clock King than the Joker.
And man, that was awkwardly handled. Not only the absurdity of the Joker inventing a machine to alter time, but the fact that he could somehow show his henchmen the effects it was having miles away when they were in a windowless room.
Robin becoming “a key to a lock with many wards?” Was that a metatextual nod to Burt Ward?
Cornelia is hot. But what was with that line, “You’re so forceful when you demand things from fathers, Joker! What is it this time?” Given how young and pretty she was, I wonder if there was some kind of innuendo there.
And it’s the spectacular debut of the Alfcycle! And the first of two times that Alfred single-handedly defeats the Joker, although he fumbled the dismount.
Really weak tag scene, too. All in all, this is not one of the stronger installments.
There are people who don’t remember the Yellow Pages?
And KRAD: you seem to be having some problems with your keyboard–the question-mark key kept getting stuck.
Uh, the Yellow Pages still exist. Phone books are still printed. You haven’t gone that far into the future, brave time traveler. I think he meant that particular ad campaign the young-uns wouldn’t get.
rickarddavid: Pops is correct — I was referring to that old ad campaign, not the existence of phone books.
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
I’m willing to let the “H2O” thing slide, since you could hear it as “H-Two-Ohs”. That’s wordplay for you.
Also, I liked the part where the Joker’s henchmen discuss how he got them out of jail. The dissonance from what Romero’s Joker is usually seen doing makes for some disturbing dialogue.
Not much I can add to Keith’s excellent review, although I’ll ask this question–how can the time machine affect people in the same room sometimes, but not at other times?? And I won’t bother to ask how it can affect people miles away. Or how the Joker constructed it. Or why he doesn’t simply hold every nation hostage for a billions of dollars lest he unleash it on the world at large. Sigh.
Kathy Kersh certainly is hot in the costume, but a better actress could have done much more with the character. It’s an interesting one–a henchmoll so narcissistic that she almost forgets to lead Batman and Robin into a deathtrap…
Add me to those who think this started out as a Riddler story. The Silver Age Joker wasn’t above using the occasional clue to lure Batman into a trap, but they tended to be of the exploding cigar/whoopee cushion/ pie in the face sort of thing and weren’t as taunting as the Riddler’s clues.
The Green Lantern tie-in wasn’t terribly subtle, but gets downright weird when you consider the crossover later this season.
@9/DemetriosX: You mean The Green Hornet. And yeah, they really play fast and loose. Remember, we already saw the Green Hornet and Kato appear in a window cameo in “The Spell of Tut.” There, they were real people that Batman and Robin recognized as fellow crimefighters. Now, The Green Hornet is a fictional TV series watched by Bruce and Dick (and conversely Batman appears as a fictional TV series in TGH, creating a paradox in its own right). And soon, we see B&R encountering GH&K and believing them to be criminals. So we’re dealing with a pretty mutable reality here.
Clearly GH and Batman are in different parts of the multiversity, and ion storms are transferring them between the universes and, ummm, uh, hmm. Robin needs a goatee for that plot to work.
@10 CLB: DOH! Of course I meant the Green Hornet. I’d forgotten that they had already done a window cameo, too. The production and broadcast orders are so out of sync, one could wonder if the production order was this, then the crossover and then the cameo, but the crossover episode wasn’t aired until March and I can’t imagine they held it in the can that long. I could accept that in this universe there are fictional TV series based on the exploits of both Batman and Green Hornet, but you have to wonder what those shows would be like. The rights would be horribly complicated, though. Batman, of course, would see to it that all of his earnings went to a good cause, but they’d have to come up with whole new villains or wind up paying the Joker, et al. for the use of their likenesses.
@12/DemetriosX: There’s an issue of DC’s recent Batman ’66 comic, based on the show and set in a ’60s timeframe, in which there’s a TV show based on Batman’s exploits — but it’s a dark, gritty, ultraviolent Batman, which the clean-cut, law-abiding real Batman finds scandalous and which tarnishes his noble image in the eyes of the public.
This episode seems really confused about whether or not the Joker actually invented a time machine. All the technobabble about hypnotism and the fact that the denouement involves him trying to slip drugs into the reservoir would seem to indicate that it’s not an actual time machine, and instead works by essentially convincing people that time is freezing or moving backwards and forwards. And yet…that doesn’t explain Cornelia turning into a little girl or that random lady’s grocery bag refilling and repairing itself. Just a generally bad handling of the subject matter. It reminds me of that episode of The Wild Wild West where Ricardo Montalban mentally projects himself back in time to chance the outcome of the Battle of Vicksburg…but the writers can’t seem to remember how his powers work from one scene to the next.
Also: your suspicion that this script began life as a Riddler story is probably accurate. A whole bunch of scripts were written for Frank Gorshin and then hastily rewritten to feature other villains when he got into his contract dispute with the producers.
@14/Craverguy: The whole “time machine” thing is indefensible, but I suppose the idea was that the box merely hypnotized observers into believing that Cornelia had turned into a girl or that the groceries had gone back into the bag.