As we at TO THE BATPOLES! podcast attempt to write a book on Batman season one, which will include some notes about earlier versions of the scripts, we found we need to finish analyzing the first season scripts. So we're going to be kicking that off this month with THE JOKER TRUMPS AN ACE. We have two early versions here:
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/ ... drive_link
We're currently planning to record on January 17, 2025. As always, your comments on the scripts here may be read in the episode!
SCRIPTS: The Joker Trumps an Ace
Moderators: Scott Sebring, Ben Bentley
SCRIPTS: The Joker Trumps an Ace
"I'm half-demented with whimsical outrage!"
-- The Joker, in a line cut from "The Joker's Epitaph"
-- The Joker, in a line cut from "The Joker's Epitaph"
Re: SCRIPTS: The Joker Trumps an Ace
Thanks as always for sharing this.
Possibly too late for the podcast, but here are a few thoughts:
Based on time stamps, this script by Francis and Marian Cockrell was in development at the same time Robert Dozier was drafting “The Joker is Wild/Batman is Riled.” (You shared the Dozier script for an earlier podcast episode.) Dozier’s script, which Greenway reviewed about a week before they received the earlier of the Cockrell drafts furnished here, had the working title “The Joker’s Utility Belt,” borrowed from the comics story it adapted. As we see here, the Cockrell draft was originally titled “The Joker is Wild.” I wonder if Semple, Horwitz et al., recognizing a better title when it saw one, swiped the Cockrells’ title for the Dozier script once the decision was made to produce those episodes first. (I wonder, too, if the Cockrells chose a new title themselves, or if it was assigned.)
It was clear in Dozier’s script that he didn’t know who’d be cast as the Joker, and even more blatantly evident from their description of the Clown Prince of Crime as a short man disguised with stilts, that the Cockrells didn’t know Cesar Romero would play the villain. (Was Mickey Rooney in the running for that role as well as that of the Penguin?)
That description of Joker is so off-base that it suggests the Cockrells were unfamiliar with Joker (or anything else?) as depicted Batman comics. There’s a reference to “the pilot” in their stage directions for the opening credits of their first episode, so maybe their knowledge of Batman was limited to what they got from screening Hi Diddle Riddle/Smack in the Middle and/or reviewing its script?
For series that aren’t adapted from existing sources—Star Trek, e.g.,—I imagine watching the pilot and/or reviewing its shooting script would be standard “homework” for non-staff writers. Maybe the Cockrells felt no need to consult the comics? Their second draft is otherwise on the money, and, except for the end tag, was shot more or less as written, so maybe that was fine.
The tag scene, pegged to the 1966 California gubernatorial race, was a rare bit of topical humor, like LBJ’s call to Gordon’s office in The Contaminated Cowl. I’m guessing it was a last-minute add by Semple?
Possibly too late for the podcast, but here are a few thoughts:
Based on time stamps, this script by Francis and Marian Cockrell was in development at the same time Robert Dozier was drafting “The Joker is Wild/Batman is Riled.” (You shared the Dozier script for an earlier podcast episode.) Dozier’s script, which Greenway reviewed about a week before they received the earlier of the Cockrell drafts furnished here, had the working title “The Joker’s Utility Belt,” borrowed from the comics story it adapted. As we see here, the Cockrell draft was originally titled “The Joker is Wild.” I wonder if Semple, Horwitz et al., recognizing a better title when it saw one, swiped the Cockrells’ title for the Dozier script once the decision was made to produce those episodes first. (I wonder, too, if the Cockrells chose a new title themselves, or if it was assigned.)
It was clear in Dozier’s script that he didn’t know who’d be cast as the Joker, and even more blatantly evident from their description of the Clown Prince of Crime as a short man disguised with stilts, that the Cockrells didn’t know Cesar Romero would play the villain. (Was Mickey Rooney in the running for that role as well as that of the Penguin?)
That description of Joker is so off-base that it suggests the Cockrells were unfamiliar with Joker (or anything else?) as depicted Batman comics. There’s a reference to “the pilot” in their stage directions for the opening credits of their first episode, so maybe their knowledge of Batman was limited to what they got from screening Hi Diddle Riddle/Smack in the Middle and/or reviewing its script?
For series that aren’t adapted from existing sources—Star Trek, e.g.,—I imagine watching the pilot and/or reviewing its shooting script would be standard “homework” for non-staff writers. Maybe the Cockrells felt no need to consult the comics? Their second draft is otherwise on the money, and, except for the end tag, was shot more or less as written, so maybe that was fine.
The tag scene, pegged to the 1966 California gubernatorial race, was a rare bit of topical humor, like LBJ’s call to Gordon’s office in The Contaminated Cowl. I’m guessing it was a last-minute add by Semple?