BATMAN: "THE JOKER TRUMPS AN ACE" (1966)

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTIONS: *psychological, sociological*

The Joker’s third episode, scripted by Francis and Marian Cockrell, plays up the villain’s use of joke-clues more than did “Joker Goes to School.” In addition, there’s the added touch that said clues are meant, like the Riddler’s riddles, to mislead. Twice in the episode, Batman states, with small variations, that Joker “never means what he seems to mean.” The Cockrells’ version of the Joker also depends much more on illusion than did the previous versions.

First, Joker begins his new crime wave, raiding a socialite’s party and stealing only one item: a woman’s hairpin. The Commissioner duly informs Batman and Robin that the Hateful Harlequin also stole the hole from a golf course—an action I’m sure the director was glad not to film—and that he’s sent the police department a mysterious box. When opened, the box inflates a balloon painted to look like a Middle Eastern figure with a sword—possibly a rough analogue to a genie popping out of a bottle, though no one says so. After Batman deflates the balloon, he, Robin and the always-befuddled cops listen to the Joker give them more clues on a tapeplayer. If there was a further reference to the hairpin theft, I missed it, but the combination of the golf-hole theft and the Middle Eastern image send the Duo to a Gotham golf course, where it’s been announced that the visiting Maharajah of Nimpa is playing with solid gold clubs.

The heroes arrive in time to see Joker’s real target, as his hoods load the Maharajah himself into a van—a van which seems to vanish from sight when the Batmobile pursues. Joker leaves the duo yet another clue in a toy-sized version of the van, but this time the clue has a definite purpose: to lure the crimefighters into Joker’s hideout. Joker successfully hogties the crusaders with merry maypole bindings, and then offers them a chance for their lives. If they can stay afloat in a large tank when it’s filled, they can live. Joker has great fun revealing that he’s going to fill the tank with gas. This occasions grief for the villain’s gang-girl, who will continue the motif of ladies who become besotted with Batman’s firm jaw. However, Batman and Robin escape the trap with one of the series’ more inspired, not to mention more believable, maneuvers.

The heroes follow the Joker to another lair, where they seem to have their big end-fight early. But though the henchmen are captured, Joker gets away with his captive. The villain then teveals his complicated blackmail scheme. The Maharajah is released, but only after Batman promises to co-sign a check yielding a million dollars in blackmail money to the Joker. The villain apparently keeps his word, and the Maharajah shows up at police headquarters, only too happy to facilitate the payoff. But Batman makes a probing analysis of of the rotund ruler, and soon reveals that not only is the Joker masquerading as the potentate, the real Maharajah was never in Gotham at all. Plot-wise the resolution is weak—how could Joker have stage-managed the whole city’s belief in the foreign dignitary’s visti? But at least the scheme tosses in a few surprises along the way.