Robert Bentley

            On Sunday morning I continued to rework my translation of the fifth verse of “Le petit Lauriston” by Boris Vian. I was trying to figure out what “gidouille” means and found that it’s another made up word by Alfred Jarry from his absurdist play Roi Ubu. Apparently it’s a spiralling symbol on the enormous stomach of King Ubu to represent his enormous appetite. There are two lines left to revise. 

            I worked out the chords for about half of the final joint scat in “Sacha Distel et Jean-Pierre Cassel’s Song and Dance” by Serge Gainsbourg. 

            I played my Gibson electric guitar during song practice and it stayed in tune up until just before the last two songs. 

            I weighed 86.45 kilos before breakfast. 

            Around midday I filled a lot of holes on the east and north walls of the bathroom. I also filled the gaps between the walls and the underside of the top shelves and top of the lower shelf, and where all the shelf brackets meet the shelves and the walls. I filled an enormous hole under the upper shelf on the north wall. Even if I never sand and paint it looks better now than before. I still have the area under the lower shelf to do, plus the inside of the bathroom door, the door frame, and a little bit of the southern wall. 

            I weighed 86.6 kilos before lunch. I had the usual tomatoes with avocadoes and lemon juice with a glass of Garden Cocktail. 

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride but it was misting heavy enough that if I’d gone all the way downtown I would have gotten wet. So I only went as far as Ossington and Bloor. 

            I weighed 86.8 kilos at 17:30, which is the heaviest I’ve been in the evening since March 19. 

            I was caught up on my journal at 18:30. 

            In the Movie Maker project to create a video for the studio recording of my song “Seven Shades of Blues” I imported all of the clips I’d gathered from “Lime Kiln Club Field Day” the first movie with an all black cast. I put them all at the end of the timeline and edited out the credits and the people talking about the movie. The one clip that Total Video Converter wouldn’t convert and that Cloud Covert did convert, just froze and so I deleted it. I have about 3.5 minutes of the movie now and I’ll try to edit it some more tomorrow. 

            I compared the videos of my acoustic song practice performances of “Sixteen Tons of Dogma” on September 6 and 9. On September 6 I look friendlier and I played the E flat chord a little better. I compared September 22 to September 6 and although on September 6 I play the E flat a little better, on September 22 I looked and played better in general. 

            I had a tomato, avocado, cucumber, and scallion salad with lemon juice and a glass of Garden Cocktail while watching episodes 23 and 24 of The Adventures of Batman. 

            In the first story, in the back room at Mother Appel’s Pies and Pastries, Simon the Pieman (who talks like WC Fields) is hosting a meeting with Joker, Penguin, Riddler, Catwoman, and Mr. Freeze. Simon flips a switch and they all fall through a trap door into an oubliette. His crime wave has five stages: Lady fingers, marble cake, graham crackers, pound cake and Napoleon. At the Gotham World’s Fair, in the House of Jewels the Wayne Diamonds are on display by beautiful models. During the show a giant pie with candles is delivered. A model named Cookie suggests to the designer that the candles be lit. This produces a blinding light so Batman and the cops are helpless, then Simon pops out of the pie and they steal the diamonds. When Barbara Gordon hears of the crime she changes to Batgirl and heads out on her Batgirl Cycle. She guesses that a Mother Appel truck might hold the crooks and follows it until she gets a pie in the face that causes her bike to crash. Then the Batmobile follows them to a carnival midway where Simon’s men are taken out with various game instruments like balls and mallets. The cook crooks get away but the diamonds are saved. Later Batman learns that Pieman has pulled off three more robberies at the fairgrounds. He’s stolen marble busts from the Greek Pavilion, cracked the safe at the Graham Trust Exhibit, and robbed 20,000 Pounds from the British Museum exhibit. The Bat Computer determines that Pieman might next go after the toll house receipts at the entrance gate or the painting of Napoleon at the French Pavilion. Batman and Robin split up to stake out both possibilities. At the museum, Robin sees Mother Appel plotting to take the painting but she sees him and reveals herself to be Simon the Pieman. This is the first cross dressing Batman villain and he’s never appeared in a Batman comic. She knocks Robin out with gas from her rolling pin. Robin is placed under the grindstone of a windmill. When the wind comes up he will be crushed. The wind begins and the stone starts to turn. Appel is now Simon again and he doesn’t allow any of his cronies to follow an order until he says “Simon says”. Meanwhile Batman is caught in a traffic jam. Robin manages to reach him with his utility belt radio. Batman calls for Alfred who arrives above in the Bat Copter. Batman climbs up and then Alfred climbs down to wait in traffic. Since there is a fair going on there must be lots of people in that traffic jam with cameras. If they saw the Batmobile they would want to photograph it and then would get pictures of Alfred in the Batmobile. Some of those pictures would have to get published and someone who knows Bruce Wayne and his butler would logically put two and two together and figure out Batman’s secret. Batman arrives to save Robin in the nick of time. They head upstairs to nap Simon but it turns out that the windmill blades are actually the propeller of a craft that takes off. The Bat Copter follows but the crooks dump flour out as a screen and they escape. back at Simon’s hideout he discovers that his men have captured Batgirl. She is put in the chocolate tank and chocolate syrup begins to pour in. Far at the top of the tank is a small air vent. Batgirl releases luminous powder that rises up through the vent and is noticed by Batman and Robin as they fly over. They land on the roof to investigate and Batman goes inside what seems to be a deserted dessert factory. He falls into a giant vat of batter. Robin enters and falls into a vat of butter. Simon turns on the heat to melt the butter and powers the mixer to blend the batter. Simon and Cookie dance the Cakewalk. Batman jams the mixer mechanism with a thrown Bat Hook, then he swings out. He frees Robin who tells him they have Batgirl in the chocolate tank but how would he know that? On emptying Batgirl’s prison, Batman sprays the chocolate through a hose at Simon and Cookie. The final fight begins. Robin frees Bat Girl and she joins in. The heroes throw a lot of pies into crooks’ faces. Batman sends them all down into the same oubliette where his main villains are being held. 

            In the second story, at the annual dinner of the Gotham Antique Society, the entertainment is provided by Chapeau Fedora and his crew. He pulls several rabbits from his hat and they begin to steal the priceless silverware. Batman and Robin are called and arrive just as Chapeau, who is really the Mad Hatter, escapes in his Hatmobile (This version of the Hatter talks something like Mr. Magoo). Seeing the Batmobile behind him the Hatter releases a lot of his trained rabbits to successfully block the road and so the Hatter escapes. Later Batman figures correctly that Hatter is modeling his crimes after the tea party in Alice in Wonderland. Hatter’s next caper is to steal a rare tea pot. In the Gotham Gallery a rare Chinese tea pot is on display. Above on a balcony, Hatter pushes Humpty Dumpty over and it lands to break and emit tear gas. The gas mask wearing crooks steal the pot. Batman and Robin arrive just as Hatter is leaving. The Hatter shoots goo from his hat that sticks the heroes’ feet to the floor. They use their Bat torches to free themselves. They pursue the Hatmobile but this time their way is blocked by Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum. Batman and Robin capture them and then take dirt samples from their shoes. Back at the Bat Cave the computer determines that there is only one locale with the same soil content. They head there in the Bat Copter and find a cave, which they investigate but fall down a trap door onto a revolving floor with walls studded with sword blades. Hatter speeds up the floor and the centrifugal force will pull them to the wall to be cut by the swords. Batman throws a Batarang with a rope that wraps around one of the swords with the other end at the hub of the turntable. It stops the wheel from turning. Batman and Robin escape and then easily capture Hatter and his gang. I felt very sleepy after dinner and decided to go to bed for a while. I think I slept for about an hour. 

            Some of the animation for these two Batman episodes was done by Robert Bentley, who started in 1929 as an assistant animator at the Van Beuren Animation Studio in New York. Later he worked for Les Elton on Simon the Monk. Then he became a full fledged animator of Porky Pig for Warner Brothers. He then worked on Gulliver’s Travels for Fleisher Studios. In the early 1940s he animated Andy Panda and Woody Woodpecker for Walter Lantz. In the 50s he worked at Hanna Barbera. In the 60s and 70s he worked for Filmation on Star Trek and Spiderman.

March 31, 1995: I posed for a drawing group where I didn't feel welcome

Thirty years ago today 

            On Friday I posed at the Ontario College of Art. In the evening I worked for Paul and Sarah’s drawing session. I was late and it was a weird night. I didn’t feel welcome or comfortable.

Bob Carr

            On Saturday morning I finished revising my translation of the fourth verse of “Le petit Lauriston” by Boris Vian. There’s just one verse left and so I should have it done on Sunday. 

            I worked out the chords for Cassel’s tap dance music and his scat in “Sacha Distel et Jean-Pierre Cassel’s Song and Dance” by Serge Gainsbourg. All that’s left is the simple final scat by Distel and Cassel together and I should have that done tomorrow. 

            I played my Martin acoustic guitar for the last of two sessions. Tomorrow I’ll begin a four session stretch of playing my electric guitars. 

            I weighed 86.35 kilos before breakfast. 

            Around midday I went to Freedom Mobile to pay for my April phone plan. From there I went to No Frills where I bought five bags of green grapes, two packs of raspberries, bananas, four bags of avocadoes, fifteen vine ripened tomatoes, mouthwash, lemon dish detergent, two jugs of orange juice, and two jugs of Garden Cocktail. I had the feeling I was forgetting something but couldn’t remember what. Walking down every aisle usually helps fix that but this time I didn’t bother. When I got home I realized it was vinegar for cleaning my humidifier that I’d forgotten. I don’t need it until Tuesday and so I’ll pick it up from Freshco on Monday. 

            When I left the supermarket my brakes were squealing and grinding very loudly. After I hauled my trailer upstairs I took my bike over to Metro Cycle. Gordon said disk brakes do that when they get wet and one just has to shake the water out by riding the bike and slamming the brakes a few times. He took my bike for a spin and shook the squeaks out. 

            I weighed 85.9 kilos at 14:30. I took a late siesta at 15:30 and woke up at around 17:15. It was too late to take a bike ride and it was raining anyway. 

            I weighed 86 kilos at 17:45. 

            I was caught up on my journal at 18:48. 

            I downloaded all of the video clips I could find of the 1913 film Lime Kiln Club Field Day, which was the first movie ever made with an all black cast. 4K Downloader downloads everything in MP4, which won’t work in Movie Maker and so I used Total Video Converter to convert all but one to WMV. It rejected that one file as did my WinX converter but Cloud Convert online did the job. 

            I reviewed the song practice videos of my performances of “Sixteen Tons of Dogma” on October 14 and 15. On October 14 I played it on my Martin acoustic guitar and the take at 31:30 wasn’t bad. On October 15 I played it on my Kramer electric guitar and the take at 8:15 in part B wasn’t bad but the E flat seemed off. I now have eleven acoustic and nine electric takes of the song to compare and to decide which was the best of each. 

            I had a tomato, avocado, cucumber and scallion salad with lemon juice and a glass of Garden Cocktail while watching episodes 21 and 22 of The Adventures of Batman. 

            In the first story, a young stowaway on a freighter arriving in Gotham City is, except for his blond hair, a dead ringer for Dick Grayson. When the crew see him he jumps ship and swims to shore. On the docks he sees the Catwoman being chased by cops but doesn’t recognize her or them. All he knows is that a woman is in trouble and so he throws a knife to drop a net on the cops. Then the ship’s crew grab him, Catwoman decides to return the favour as she sends her men to take out the sailors. She learns that he has amnesia and then notices that he looks identical to Robin so she takes him on as a protegee (If she recognizes this boy as looking like Robin without a mask, why hasn’t she ever done the same with Dick Grayson?). She dyes his hair, dresses him as Robin and begins training him until she’s sure he can fight like Robin. Because she saved him he’ll do anything she asks. She plans to replace Batman’s Robin with her Robin. Catwoman stages a robbery to attract Batman and Robin to the scene. She lures Robin apart from Batman where he is pulled into the back of a van and knocked out. The van is driven away while the fake Robin pretends to be unconscious on the street. When Batman finds him he says he was hit from behind. Catwoman drives the van towards a construction pit and jumps out at the last minute, sending the van with Robin in it crashing below. The fake Robin pretends to faint and so Batman takes him home where he is put to bed and cared for by Alfred. Meanwhile the real Robin is inside the van that is buried in rubble. He manages to push open the back doors only to have more rubble rush into the van. The fake Robin pretends to have amnesia and asks Alfred to show him the way to the Bat Cave. When Batman sees him in the Bat Cave he orders him back to bed while Batman goes after Catwoman solo and thwarts her robbery of a fashion house. Meanwhile Robin continues to try to dig his way out. The fake Robin tries to call Catwoman to tell her Batman’s secret but Alfred stops him. He says the real Dick would not disobey an order. The fake Robin steals the Bat Copter and awkwardly flies it to try and reach Catwoman. Meanwhile the real Robin finally reaches the surface and makes his way to the Batcave. He takes a mini helicopter after the Bat Copter. The Bat Copter crashes and the real Robin confronts the fake one. They fight but the real Robin is weak from digging. Catwoman arrives and the fake Robin runs to her to tell her Batman’s secret but one of Catwoman’s men thinks he’s the real Robin and throws a rock that hits him in the head. The real Robin reunites with Batman. When the fake Robin regains consciousness he remembers that his real name is Christopher Collins and that he ran away from home to seek adventure. But now he doesn’t remember anything that has occurred since before he met Catwoman and so he’s forgotten Batman’s secret. 

            In the second story, the Maharaja of Taipoor is about to land at Gotham airport. When the Maharaja’s plane lands, a jeep drives in front of it with a sign on the back reading “Follow Me”. The plane taxis after the jeep to a remote part of the runway. As soon as the Maharaja emerges from the plane he is abducted and transferred to Mr. Freeze’s black plane. The Maharaja thinks they are shooting a gangster movie and is enjoying being part of it. Batman and Robin take to the air in the Batplane but they are looking for a black plane. Freeze covers his plane in frost until it turns white, then doubles back to Gotham airport. Freeze’s plane lands and the Maharaja is transferred to a limo. The limo drives into the back of a frozen food truck. Batman and Robin see the truck from the Bat Copter and Batman is lowered to the ground in a small Batcar to go after it. Freeze ices the road behind the truck, causing Batman difficulties. Then freeze turns the fog bank solid so Batman has to eject before the Batcar crashes into it. The ladder from the Batcopter is still there and he returns above. The truck goes to Freeze’s hideout at the old ice house. Freeze encases the Maharaja in ice. Batman and Robin descend to the roof on the ladder. They take out Freeze’s men easily and Freeze’s cold gun has no effect because they have the thermal power turned up on their utility belts. Freeze is arrested. The whole reason for all of this was for Freeze to get the Maharaja’s crown jewels but the Maharaja reveals he never goes out wearing his real jewels. 

            Some of the animation for these episodes was done by Bob Carr, who got his BA from the California Institute of the Arts. After graduation he became an assistant animator at Walt Disney. After that he worked freelance, animating for Hanna Barbera, Filmation, and Ralph Bakshi. He also did book illustrations for McGraw Hill. For Filmation he worked on Superman, Batman, Super Friends, and Scooby Doo. For Hanna Barbera he worked on Huckleberry Hound, Yogi Bear, The Flintstones, Quick Draw McGraw, The Harlem Globetrotters and Space Ghost. For Bakshi he worked on American Pop.

March 30, 1995: The open stage at The Cactus was canceled

Thirty years ago today

            On Thursday the open stage at the Cactus Club was cancelled.

Lenn Redman

            On Friday morning I went to bed at 2:15 because I wanted to get caught up on my journal as I’d fallen asleep again earlier on Thursday night. I wanted to do some work filling holes in the bathroom wall today and so I sacrificed some sleep so I wouldn’t be catching up on my journal during my renovation project period between breakfast and lunch. 

            I continued to rework my translation of the fourth verse of “Le petit Lauriston” by Boris Vian. I was trying to find out what “rastrons” means, and it seems to be another made up word by Alfred Jarry. As near as I can tell without extensively studying Jarry’s absurdist work, rastrons seem to be porkchop holders. 

            I worked out the chords for the antepenultimate scat segment and about half of the tap dance in “Sacha Distel et Jean-Pierre Cassel’s Song and Dance” by Serge Gainsbourg. 

            I played my Martin acoustic guitar during song practice for the first of two sessions. It continues to go out of tune but I can’t try to get it fixed until the heat goes off, and that won’t be for at least a few more days. 

            I weighed 86.35 before breakfast. 

            Around midday I removed my bathroom mirror from the wall. It didn’t come off as clean as I’d hoped since one of the adhesive Velcro strips came off with it. I filled the holes on the eastern wall behind and around where the mirror goes. I covered the big hole that I used to hang the mirror from, but I’ll have to cover it again because it’s now an indent. I left the mirror off for a few hours until the compound was dry. I had to use a new adhesive Velcro strip for the top of the mirror before remounting it. I’ll have to remove it again when I sand and so I might lose more strips and have to buy a new pack. 

            I forgot to buy tomatoes yesterday so before lunch I walked over to Queen Fresh and got three vine tomatoes. 

            I weighed 86.05 kilos before lunch. 

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride but only made it to Brunswick and Bloor before it started raining and so I headed south to Harbord, west to Ossington, south to Queen, and home. It was a first real rain I’ve driven through with the new fenders. I got wet but my ass didn’t. 

            I weighed 85.9 kilos at 18:38. 

            I was caught up on my journal at 19:38. 

            In the Movie Maker project to create a video for the studio recording of my song “Seven Shades of Blues” I added the clips I made from the movie Wings of Desire to the main timeline. To correspond with my line “Man wants to be the angel that desires to be a man” I added clips of the trapeze artist wearing angel wings followed by the angel with his wings fading away. The next line of the song is “Freedom marries slavery and their child transcends them both”. I looked for the earliest movies featuring black people and found the very first film with an all black cast. It's a 1913 silent picture called Lime Kiln Club Field Day. I found clips from the movie and I also found the whole film but that file has a Museum of Modern Art watermark for most of it. I think that I can harvest what I need from some of these files. 

            I had a tomato, avocado, cucumber, and scallion salad with lemon juice and a glass of Garden Cocktail while watching episodes 19 and 20 of The Adventures of Batman. 

            In the first story, in Gotham Park a replica of a small French castle has been erected to house an exhibit of the crown jewels of Charlemagne. The alarm system is so state of the art that it would be impossible for a thief to break in. So Catwoman has decided to steal the whole castle. She uses three helicopters to grapple and then carry it away. Four would make more sense since it’s a four cornered object. She just happens to have a mountain hideout with a crater into which the castle can be lowered and then a false mountain peak is placed on top as camouflage. When Batman investigates the theft he finds a note from Catwoman saying she’ll deal with the highest bidder. Robin alerts all of Batman’s underworld contacts that Bruce Wayne wants to bid for the jewels. Meanwhile Joker is jealous of Catwoman’s ingenious crime and plots to steal the jewels from her. That night at Wayne Manor Catwoman sneaks into Bruce’s library for her scheduled appointment with him. He offers her $1 million for the jewels and gives her a $100,000 down payment. But the cash contains a homing device so Batman can track her. Later Joker blocks Catwoman’s way on the road and asks her to take him in as a partner. She flatly turns him down but he only really stopped her to plant a homing device in her vehicle. He arrives outside of her hideout shortly before the Batmobile gets there. The Joker uses trained mice to carry a message to Catwoman to warn her about Batman. She readies an ambush for Batman and Robin but while she’s dealing with them the Joker is stealing the stolen jewels with the help of his trained mice. Catwoman causes a cave-in to trap the heroes. When she discovers the jewels gone she knows it was the Joker so she has her pet cheetah track his mice while she follows from above in her Cat Copter. Batman and Robin free themselves with explosives from their utility belts. Cheetah finds Joker’s car and Catwoman descends on it, clamping and lifting it. She flies it to a river where she begins dunking it until Joker agrees to give her back the jewels. Finally Joker gives in and she lowers him a ladder. Batman and Robin arrive below and use their Batapults to hurl themselves towards the Cat Copter. They catch hold and climb inside. It doesn’t show how Batman beats Catwoman but in the next scene the helicopters are taking the castle back to Gotham Park with the jewels inside. There is no explanation as to how the castle came out of the explosion intact. 

            In the second story, a ritzy rooftop charity bazaar takes place in which dolls are the prizes. Suddenly a police doll comes to life, grabs the generous donation box and drops it off the roof where it is caught in a net extending from a van that drives away. Batman is summoned with the Bat signal and Commissioner Gordon shows him the police doll, telling him that Doll Man is back in action. This is the first time this cartoon series invented a Batman villain. Up until now they’ve used comic book established adversaries. Dollman sends his banker doll for his next caper. It climbs into a bank’s night deposit box and then unlocks the door from inside to let two more dolls in. The dolls are preparing to blow open the vault when Batman throws a baterang to knock the explosive away. The dolls put up a fight but they are defeated easily. The Dollman gets away in his van. The next day at the Gotham Museum Gordon shows Batman and Robin the three penny blue stamp that’s worth a million. That night Dollman’s postman doll is already inside the museum in a display case. It steals the stamp and is leaving when it is stopped by a suit of armour with Batman inside. The postman throws a grenade that briefly stuns Batman but Robin catches the doll. Later Dollman plants two Batman and Robin dolls in the glove compartment of the Batmobile when it’s parked outside of police headquarters. When the heroes are driving, suddenly the compartment flips open and the dolls fire darts, but the heroes eject from the car just in time. Batman programs the dolls to return to Dollman and Batman and Robin follow. Dollman sends his whole doll army after the heroes but they defeat it easily. Dollman explodes but he’s just another doll controlled by Dollman who is caught. 

            Some of the animation for these episodes was done by Lenn Redman, who was a caricaturist at the 1933 Chicago World’s Fair. He was also a caricaturist on the You Asked For It variety show. In his career he created more than 100,000 caricatures. He was an animator of early Porky Pig and Oswald Rabbit cartoons. He drew the Mary Worth comic strip for the Chicago Tribune. He was an animator for the Sorcerer’s Apprentice segment of Fantasia, The Archie Show, Aquaman, Superman and The Cosby Kids. He wrote How To Draw Caricatures. He created the socially activist “What Am I?” poem and illustrated book series. He taught cartooning at the Lenn Redman Commercial Art Studio.

March 29, 1995: I spent the day writing and then performed at Fat Albert's

Thirty years ago today

            On Wednesday there was no work and so I probably spent the day writing before heading downtown to perform on the Fat Albert’s open stage.

Ann Guenther

            On Thursday morning I continued working on my translation of the fourth verse of “Le petit Lauriston” by Boris Vian. In trying to find out what he meant by “Une Chandelleu Verteu” (a green candle) I discovered that it’s a reference to Alfred Jarry’s absurdist play Ubu Roi. The light from his green candle is the light of what he calls pataphysics, the light of the science of exceptions, or the light of the science of imaginary solutions, or light on the fact that every event in the universe is extraordinary. In later life Jarry began behaving more and more like the characters in his plays and often used the oath, “By my green candlestick!” At least once he painted his face green and rode through Paris on his bicycle in praise of absinth. He used a revolver to take target practice and when a neighbour complained that her children might be killed he reassured her that if they were he would help her make new ones. 

            I worked out the chords for all but the last line of the final verse of “Sacha Distel et Jean-Pierre Cassel’s Song and Dance” by Serge Gainsbourg. All that’s left are the scat parts, which I might work out tomorrow. 

            I played my Kramer electric guitar during song practice and it stayed in tune most of the time. Tomorrow I begin a two session stretch of playing my Martin acoustic guitar, which will go out of tune a lot. I’m hoping in another week or so the heat will go off and it will be humid outside and inside so I can carry my guitar to a luthier who can fix it. 

            I weighed 86.25 kilos before breakfast. 

            Around midday I worked a little more on editing a video of the third appearance of Batgirl on the Batman TV series. 

            I weighed 86.85 kilos before lunch. 

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride downtown and on the way back I stopped at Freshco. I bought six bags of red grapes, two packs of raspberries, three bags of avocadoes, three individual avocadoes, bananas, and a bunch of scallions. 

            I weighed 86.5 kilos at 18:45. 

            I was caught up on my journal at 20:00. 

            In the Movie Maker project to create a video for the studio recording of my song Seven Shades of Blues I edited out most of the clips of the trapeze artist. I only kept the parts when she is horizontal on the trapeze and swinging towards the viewer while wearing the angel wings. Some of the later parts froze while I was editing and so I had to restart a couple of times. 

            I had a tomato, avocado, cucumber, and scallion salad with lemon juice and a glass of Garden Cocktail while watching episodes 17 and 18 of The Adventures of Batman. 

            In the first story the world’s most impregnable bank vault is robbed during the 32 seconds every day that the security system is shut down to reset the combination. A dirigible inserts a tube into the wall and the money is sucked out. The Penguin is responsible. Batman says the crime is Penguin’s style but he must have had help with such precision planning. We see that he’s right when the Penguin enters a cave containing a super computer and its creator. The computer planned Penguin’s crime. Penguin pays the professor to let him use his inventions. His latest is an electromagnetic ray. Penguin asks the computer to plan a robbery utilizing the ray and including all of Batman’s likely counter measures. So Penguin uses the ray gun to lift an armoured car high in the air and shake the money and the guard out. The driver sends a distress message and Batman is called. They see the Penguin and ready their baterangs but the ray knocks them from their hands. Then Penguin starts to fly away in his upside down umbrella Robin uses the Batapult to shoot himself up to grab him but when he’s back on the ground they see it’s only a dummy. Meanwhile across town, Penguin is in his dirigible robbing a safe from a high rise office building. The Bat Computer determines that Penguin must be using a computer. The next day Penguin learns that Batman is bringing all his computer tapes and cards to police headquarters for a lecture. Penguin asks the professor’s computer what it could do with Batman’s computer records. The machine says there is nothing it couldn’t do. Penguin uses a smoke screen and infra red glasses to rob Batman’s computer records during the lecture. But the professor’s computer warns Penguin he’s been tricked by one of Batman’s microcircuit punch cards and tells him to switch to channel X. Penguin tells his computer to feed Batman information that leads him to the sulphur pits. Batman and Robin go to the sulphur pits and collapse from the fumes. But professor Billingsley rescues them for his own purposes and takes them back to his lab. He programs his computer with their brainwaves so it can predict every thought that enters their minds. Batman and Robin are released in the marsh without knowing what happened. Penguin sends hunters to shoot them down but Batman and Robin ambush two of them. Penguin’s computer anticipates the ambush. It knows the heroes now have a communicator and so different signals will be used. Meanwhile at Wayne Manor, Alfred is worried because his employer and friend has not returned. He decides to use the Bat Computer to find out what to do. Batman and Robin come across a crocodile nest and aren’t surprised to see crocodiles in America. Batman saves Robin by lodging a baterang in the croc’s mouth, then ropes it and suspends it by its tail. They are attacked by hunters but defeat them. Meanwhile Alfred learns that Batman has gone to the marshlands and so he heads there in the Bat Boat. Batman and Robin infiltrate the cave where Penguin is with the computer. But Billingley shoots them with his new paralyzing ray, then Penguin shoots them with it again and opens up a vat of acid in front of them. The computer says Batman’s secret identity is recorded in its memory bank. So Penguin asks “Who is Batman?” It says “Batman’s secret identity is B…B…B…I have been tricked with a self destruct card”. The computer is about to explode. Penguin escapes while Batman and Robin escort Billingsley free of the blast. Despite the loss of his life’s work the professor thinks Batman’s trick of planting the self destruct card for Penguin to steal was brilliant. From the Bat Copter they see that Alfred has captured Penguin. Nobody seems concerned that Billingsley sees Bruce Wayne’s butler working for Batman. 

            In the second story, at the annual Halloween ball a valuable painting is to be auctioned for charity. Commissioner Gordon is officiating while wearing a Scarecrow costume. Gordon is called away to a phone call but Batgirl follows him and sees him being attacked. She manages to kick one of the thugs but is gassed and captured by the real Scarecrow. I was beginning to think that this series was only going to use Joker, Penguin, Riddler, Catwoman, and Freeze or combinations of those for the whole series but after 18 episodes they’ve brought in Scarecrow. His men kidnap Batgirl while Scarecrow pretends to be Gordon and steals the painting. Later we find that Scarecrow has taken Batgirl’s belt so she can’t call Batman. Scarecrow and his men rob the Farmers Market but Batman and Robin are waiting and take out his men. But Scarecrow knocks some crates down on the heroes and he and his crew escape. Batgirl is being held in the loft of a barn. She startles a hanging bat to make it fly and as her guards see the shadow of its wings she shouts “Get em Batman”. They are startled and fall from the loft. Batgirl runs from the barn and jumps onto a riding mower. They capture her again but it turns out she wasn’t trying to escape but wrote “SOS” in the grass. Batman and Robin see it from the Bat Copter. They land and enter the barn. Scarecrow is about to catch them in a net when Batgirl kicks over a bail of hay and they jump out of the way. There is a fight and even though Batgirl is tied up she joins in. She is untied and tries to help by giving Batman some eggs to throw but they are Scarecrow’s gas eggs and they are all knocked out. Batman and Batgirl are locked in a shed while Robin is tied to a conveyor belt moving towards a thresher. Batman uses junk that’s been stored in the shed to make a makeshift crossbow and arrow on a rope, which he shoots and jams the thresher. The machinery pulling back on the rope tears the door off the shed and they escape. They take out Scarecrow’s men. Scarecrow tries to escape in a balloon but Batman throws a pitchfork and pierces the balloon, causing it to plummet into the trees where Scarecrow is dangling like a scarecrow. 

            Some of the backgrounds were done by Anne Guenther, who was only the second woman in ten years to work as a background artist at Disney when she started her career in 1956 as an inker on Sleeping Beauty. She worked on the Fresh Up Freddie 7-Up commercials. She worked for Hanna-Barbera and Filmation. Her first TV work was on the Fantastic Four animated series. In the 70s she worked for Disney again. She did backgrounds for Robin Hood in 1973, then Winnie the Pooh and the Mad Tiger, and The Adventures of Bernard and Bianca. She was a voting member of the Academy.