He Meets His Match, the Grisly Ghoul

He Meets His Match, The Grisly Ghoul
Writer(s)	Lorenzo Semple, Jr.
Director(s)	Murray Golden
Season	1
Episode No	16
Series Episode No	16
Air Date	March 3, 1966
Special Guest Star Villain(s)	The Joker

Plot

The Joker has Batman and Robin restrained in a pair of electric chairs in the back of a mobile slot machine torture van. The Joker starts the slot reels spinning; if three liberty bells come up, the Dynamic Duo are freed and win $50,000; if three oranges come up they are only freed, but if three lemons come up (which according to Batman is the more likely), the Dynamic Duo will be instantly dispatched by 50,000 volts of electricity.

Though the Joker swears the slot machine itself has not been rigged, the first two reels both turn up lemons. However, just as the third reel stops on the lemon, the entire city goes dark--Gotham City has suffered a massive blackout!!! As the police approach, the Joker escapes with Susie and the Bad Pennies, leaving Batman and Robin still tied up in the back. The two patrolmen stop near the truck and find Batman and Robin inside, whom they cut loose before the power comes back on.

Back in the Batcave, they listen to the secret audio-recording they made and discover that Susie is a member of the Joker's Bad Pennies gang. Robin is heartbroken, but Batman sees it as a break and sends Robin undercover as Dick Grayson in an attempt to trick Susie into leading him to the villains’ hideout.

Now dressed as a hoodlum, Dick goes to the Easy Living Candy Store, where Susie and Nick are hanging out. Susie notices Dick, but Nick is immediately suspicious. Dick plays up being looking for a way to make a fast buck, but when Susie points out that he lives with Bruce Wayne, Dick blows it off, calling Bruce a skinflint and saying that he would even lack cigarette money if not for Alfred, so Nick gives Dick one of his own cigarettes and even lights it up, causing Dick to cough violently, but he tries to play it off claiming he had already smoked two packs today. Susie suggests that Dick could be a great help to them and very nearly drops the Joker's name before Nick interrupts her and then tips Dick off, saying that he may make a few bucks if he shows up at a certain time at the same bar with the trick jukebox. Satisfied, Dick leaves, and then Nick rebukes Susie for her ignorance, saying that he could tell right away that Dick was a phony.

The Dynamic Duo arrive at the bar at the appointed time and come under fire from the shotgun-wielding jukebox, but Batman destroys it. Robin realizes that Batman knew that the Joker was going to try and kill them, and Batman points out that Robin (as Dick) betrayed himself in the candy store by the mere fact of not being a smoker, and that Nick had to have figured out that Dick was working undercover for the police. When Robin figures out that they were pressing Susie because they knew she was part of the Joker's gang, Batman adds that once the Joker knows that they are on to her, he will waste no time disposing of her, and permanently so at that.

Unfortunately for Susie, Nick had already tipped the Joker off; the Joker instructs Susie to plant the printed answers to an important nationwide pre-college exam inside the gym's milk machine. He then gives her some perfume to put on as soon as she is finished, to which perfume, unbeknownst to Susie, he has already added a fast-acting deadly poison--NOT his customary venom. The Joker then places a large wager with a Las Vegas-based bookmaker known as "Pete The Swede;" fifty thousand dollars on Disko Tech to beat the heavily-favored WRHS in the big basketball game that night. The Joker is delighted that he stands to win a million dollars from the wager.

At the high school, the basketball team is practicing while Susie and the other cheerleaders are rehearsing. The girls take a break and Susie secretly removes the 'out of order' sign from the freshly-rigged milk machine. Batman and Robin catch up with her outside the locker rooms and try to warn her that her life is in danger, but Susie ignores them and opens the bottle of poisoned perfume and dabs some onto herself, and when she takes a deep whiff of the contaminated cologne, she immediately falls unconscious into the arms of the Dynamic Duo; Batman quickly deduces that Susie's perfume was poisoned.

Later that night at the Joker's lair, Two-Bit informs the Joker and Nick that he saw Robin crying inconsolably as Susie's body was being driven away in a coroner's ambulance. The Joker (seemingly) is, and his two minions DEFINITELY are, momentarily saddened at Susie's (apparent) death. The Joker then gives Nick a memorial cigar, which promptly explodes when he lights it. The Joker quickly returns to his old self and, along with his Bad Pennies, he heads to the high school gym, where his scheme is about to reach its finale.

At the gym, the starting five for Woodrow Roosevelt's basketball team are finishing their warm-ups for the big game. They know of Susie's seeming fate and are determined to beat Disko Tech as a tribute. On their way to the locker room, one of the teammates notices that the 'out-of-order' sign is gone from the milk machine. One of them deposits a coin, but instead of milk, out drops a scroll of papers. They look over the sheets and quickly realize in disbelief that they are the Nationwide Pre-College Exam papers with the answers written in already; stunned, they show no signs of knowing what to do next.

At that moment, a camera flashes, and the team looks up to see the Joker, Nick, and Two-Bit with a camera having just snapped a picture of them with the incriminating evidence. The Joker and the Bad Pennies pretend that they just happened to be on school property, which they support with their taxes. The players begin to despair of disqualification, and also that the team doesn't stand a chance if the "scrubs" are forced to replace them. But Batman and Robin show up and reveal that they replaced the real exam papers in the machine with phonies, and saved Susie's life using Universal Antidote Pills in their utility belts; in turn, Susie revealed the Joker's entire scheme to them. As the ball players run for cover, the Duo take the Bad Pennies out of circulation, and when the Joker tries to escape, Batman knocks him out with his Batarang.

Epilogue

At Wayne Manor, Susie is about to be driven (by chauffeur-driven limousine, per Bruce's instructions) to the Wayne Foundation Home for Delinquent Girls, which is more like a Girls' Town than a prison. The mercy shown by the court system and Bruce Wayne causes Susie to be emotionally overcome with remorse over what she has done, but Dick reminds her that it wasn't all her fault as she had a miserable childhood having been raised in a broken home. As a gesture of deep appreciation, Susie gives Dick a tender kiss on the cheek; Dick promises he will stay in touch, and Susie is on her way to the Home.

NEXT WEEK

Batman battles False-Face!

Appearances

Individuals

• Batman / Bruce Wayne
• Robin / Dick Grayson
• Commissioner Gordon
• Chief O'Hara
• The Joker
• Cheerleader Susie

Organizations

• The Bad Pennies

Trivia/Fun Facts

• The blackout in this episode (which aired in March 1966) pays an ironic homage to the Northeast Blackout of 1965 from the previous November, during which time over 30 million people in eight US states (and most of Ontario in Canada) were without power for upwards of thirteen hours.
• The exact same electric chairs to which Batman and Robin are strapped inside the moving van are used again in a season-2 episode #9707-Pt. 2, "Ma Parker". The truck is reused in the season-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 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.
• When Dick Grayson goes undercover to gain information on The Joker, inside the candy shop that doubles as The Joker's lair, there is a West Virginia University banner seen on the wall.
• When conversing loudly in the bistro, Batman and Robin provide several clues as to Robin's true identity, to which the nearby diners somehow remain completely oblivious.
• In 1981, Brazilian friends Antônio Camano and Fernando Pettinati decided to redub this episode with indecent and profane lines. The video, nicknamed "Bátima: Feira da Fruta" ("Batman: Fruit Fair"), after the song that plays in the video's background, became one of the most popular Internet memes for Brazilian audiences since it was released online in 2003. "Feira da Fruta" even earned a webcomic adaptation in 2012, and a 2014 book where the friends recalled how the dub came to be.

External links

• "He Meets His Match, the Grisly Ghoul" at IMDb

Batman Episodes

Season 1: Hi Diddle Riddle • Smack In The Middle • Fine Feathered Finks • The Penguin's a Jinx • The Joker Is Wild • Batman Is Riled • Instant Freeze • Rats Like Cheese • Zelda the Great • A Death Worse Than Fate • A Riddle a Day Keeps the Riddler Away • When the Rat's Away the Mice Will Play • The Thirteenth Hat • Batman Stands Pat • The Joker Goes to School • He Meets His Match, The Grisly Ghoul • True or False Face • Holy Rat Race • The Purr-Fect Crime • Better Luck Next Time • The Penguin Goes Straight • Not Yet, He Ain't • The Ring of Wax • Give 'Em the Axe • The Joker Trumps An Ace • Batman Sets the Pace • The Curse of Tut • The Pharaoh's in a Rut • The Bookworm Turns • While Gotham City Burns • Death In Slow Motion • The Riddler's False Notion • Fine Finny Fiends • Batman Makes the Scenes Season 2: Shoot A Crooked Arrow • Walk the Straight and Narrow • Hot Off the Griddle • The Cat and the Fiddle • The Minstrel's Shakedown • Barbecued Batman? • The Spell of Tut • Tut's Case is Shut • The Greatest Mother of Them All • Ma Parker • The Clock King's Crazy Crimes • The Clock King Gets Crowned • An Egg Grows In Gotham • The Yegg Foes In Gotham • The Devil's Fingers • The Dead Ringers • Hizzonner the Penguin • Dizzoner the Penguin • Green Ice • Deep Freeze • The Impractical Joker • The Joker's Provokers • Marsha, Queen Of Diamonds • Marsha's Scheme of Diamonds • Come Back, Shame • It's How You Play the Game • The Penguin's Nest • The Bird's Last Jest • The Cat's Meow • The Bat's Kow Tow • The Puzzles Are Coming • The Duo is Slumming • The Sandman Cometh • The Catwoman Goeth (A Stitch in Time) • The Contaminated Cowl • The Mad Hatter Runs Afoul • The Zodiac Crimes • The Joker's Hard Times • The Penguin Declines • That Darn Catwoman • Scat! Darn Catwoman • Penguin is a Girl's Best Friend • Penguin Sets A Trend • Penguin's Disastrous End • Batman's Anniversary • A Riddling Controversy • The Joker's Last Laugh • The Joker's Epitaph • Catwoman Goes to College • Batman Displays His Knowledge • A Piece of the Action • Batman's Satisfaction • King Tut's Coup • Batman's Waterloo • Black Widow Strikes Again • Caught In The Spider's Den • Pop Goes the Joker • Flop Goes the Joker • Ice Spy • The Duo Defy Season 3: Enter Batgirl, Exit Penguin • Ring Around the Riddler • The Wail of the Siren • The Sport of Penguins • A Horse of Another Color • The Unkindest Tut Of All • Louie, the Lilac • The Ogg and I • How To Hatch A Dinosaur • Surf's Up! Joker's Under! • The Londinium Larcenies • The Foggiest Notion • The Bloody Tower • Catwoman's Dressed to Kill • The Ogg Couple • The Funny Feline Felonies • The Joke's on Catwoman • Louie's Lethal Lilac Time • Nora Clavicle And The Ladies' Crime Club • Penguin's Clean Sweep • The Great Escape • The Great Train Robbery • I'll Be a Mummy's Uncle • The Joker's Flying Saucer • The Entrancing Dr. Cassandra • Minerva, Mayhem And Millionaires Other/Tie-In Media: Batman: The Movie • Batman '66 • Batman: Return of the Caped Crusaders • Batman vs. Two-Face