I'd agree Riddler was "fresh" but not in the overall minds of readers re-established as a big player in the Bat universe. It was the show and Gorshin himself who was responsible for that.

The Riddler had appeared just once in fifteen years in the comic books so he was about as well-known to comics readers as the likes of Mr. Polka-Dot (to name one of the many villains that appeared once in the same span over the years). And yes, Gorshin was prolific on variety shows, especially Ed Su...

Starting out with the character of the Riddler itself was a risk. We need to remember that in 1965 the Riddler had just been reintroduced in the comics after an absence of more than 15 years and was not a well-established rogues gallery figure (Gorshin is the reason the character became an iconic pa...

The 75 ABC TV broadcast is a truncated version of the original Broadway script, eliminating one character and subplot (the lab assistant of Dr. Sedgwick who falls for Lois Lane) and also changing the henchmen from Chinese acrobats to standard Mafia types. So it isn't a completely faithful version bu...

A couple early thoughts on the treatment. 1-Odd that Joker is *really* kidnapped. That frankly is way too complicated. We had enough "Penguin goes straight" episodes but it's really not credible to think of a "Joker goes straight" episode (if he were he'd be taking off his makeup...

The reason Lee wasn't CW in Season 3 I think comes down to one basic point. She simply wasn't a "focal point" guest star villainess. This is the point that I think gets lost in the shuffle regarding both her appearances on "Batman." Both times, she was basically called on as an e...

But Mister Freeze wasn't born with a superpower, he was the victim of an accident that altered him etc. And that alteration doesn't give him the capability to harm others just because he is that way now in contrast to Siren having a power that can cause direct harm potentially to others.

I have always found it easier to envision Gleason in some variant of his "Hustler" role just in terms of looking dapper with the flower in the lapel etc. And can you also envision him being hauled off to jail and angrily vowing, "One of these days, Batman, POW!"(and a graphic goe...

Still looking great! She, Julie and Glynis are part of a very rare group left among us.

One bio point about Karen Huston (Queen Bess). Her husband, John Ericson was a semi-big name in TV from the 50s to 70s whose most famous role was Anne Francis's co-star/partner in "Honey West" (1965-66) which was the first American network TV show to give us a strong, action-oriented femal...

I haven't heard that either. It's certainly wasn't impossible that such a scenario *might* have happened. On "The Big Valley" the actor who played the seldom-scene youngest member of the Barkley family, Eugene (who was attending Harvard which was to explain his only occasional appearances)...

Joan has been on record as saying how the wig gave her a headache so I'm sure she was glad to skip it for a day!

Strange that the script already calls for the character in what was originally Part 2 to be named "Gilligan". Were they planning from the get-go for this to be an Alan Hale cameo scene or was it just a pure coincidence that the character was called that so they figured, "Hey, let's ge...

As I recall in that episode, that was Samantha pretending to be Serena! (and they even ran a reprise of that song over the end credits in place of the regular "Bewitched" theme)

Appreciate that! Thanks.