We’re back for a look at the first two draft scripts for The Joker Trumps an Ace/Batman Sets the Pace. As usual, scripts bring to light connections that the filmed episode didn’t quite make, lines we never heard clearly, abandoned bat-turns and wardrobe business, an absent moll, and much more.
I always enjoy your podcasts but you guys ponder the strangest things-- the "with a forklift" line works fine as it was filmed, and that's probably why they left it in.
I really enjoy these early scripts that were written before any real filming had been done. By this point, Cesar was not openly known as gay so I doubt they would have thrown a joke in there. He never officially came out of the closet and kept his private life private. A very class act by all accounts.
It's also funny to think of a short Joker-- I can't imagine it. Cesar was the perfect choice. Jose Ferrer and Frank Sinatra would have never worked. While Ferrer had a great voice he's listed as being 5'10" which in Hollywood usually means closer to 5'8" and Sinatra was shorter putting them in Burt's height range but being dwarfed by Adam.
I had a chance to meet and shake hands with Sinatra, albiet he was probably 75 and he was no taller than 5'6".
I agree with Andy that "Gayfellow" wasn't likely meant as a nod to Romero's orientation.
From what I've read, the word started gaining traction for self-identification among gay men during the 1960s, but in 1966 was still understood by the wider public to mean happy and carefree—as in "we'll have a gay old time" in the theme to The Flintstones (which coincidentally ended its original run less than a week before "The Joker Trumps an Ace" first aired).
In that light, Gayfellow is as appropriate (and transparent) an alias for Joker as W.C. Whiteface would be in The Joker's Last Laugh, or as K.G. Bird was for Penguin in Fine Feathered Finks.
