¶ Batman
(male narrator) So far we have seen at the dedication of a new bridge.
Murder.
And spotted in the crowd, that sinister crook, The Bookworm.
Great Scott!
A Bookworm ploy.
A ruse to divert the Dynamic Duo
while a bomb was placed in the Bat-mobile.
Bomb detected.
Ejected.
A clue. He was going to blow up the bridge.
He did. he blew it up. Into a giant photograph.
Like moths, our heroes followed the light.
Into a Bat-trap.
Was this girl really a prisoner?
Was it a trick?
One way to find out. Put her gently to sleep.
Spirit her into the Bat-cave. Test her.
Counter plot. Pretend we fall for her game.
The tricky girl turned the tables.
And The Bookworm knew just what to do with him.
Bind him to the clapper of a giant bell.
Do not ask for whom this bell tolls.
It tolls for Robin.
In just one minute, a stroke of midnight doom.
[theme music]
¶ Batman
¶ Na na na na na na na na na ¶
¶ Batman
[dramatic music]
[theme music]
A few minutes earlier, even as Bookworm binds Robin
to the clapper of the giant bell
Batman races across Gotham City in the opposite direction.
Hot on a trail that's fatally false.
What's up, Chief O'Hara?
We've searched that hall from cellar to weathervane.
Not a trace of The Bookworm.
- But how can that be? - Oh, worse news, too, Batman.
You know that alley way where you said
we'd find The Boy Wonder?
- A-guarding Bookworm's ma? - Yes. Yes.
- Don't tell me! - You guessed it.
Great heavens!
I better try to contact Robin instantly
on the utility belt wavelength.
Robin.
Robin? Do you receive me?
Robin! Over.
The tricky devils.
They've turned the tables and caught Robin.
I'll call headquarters. Throw out the drag net.
No, wait a minute, Chief O'Hara.
Let me...turn my memory back.
"He strikes at midnight.."
...she said.
But we know the Bookworm's changed his plan.
Don't interrupt!
I'm trying to fathom the sub-conscience
of a deadly criminal!
"He strikes at midnight."
A metaphor..
...suggests a clock.
A clock called He?
Of course!
And there's only one clock in Gotham City that is called He.
Saints alive! Big Benjamin.
In the Wayne Memorial clock tower.
And it fits in with the plan.
"Do not ask for whom the bell tolls.
It tolls for thee."
You mean?
Exactly!
And if my surmise is correct..
...the ghastly fate that Bookworm planned for me
he's twisted to Robin.
Chief O'Hara, we haven't one Big Benjamin second to lose!
[dramatic music]
[music continues]
Mere seconds before he strikes.
I'll shoot out the works.
[gunshots]
Ah, didn't even dent it.
No time for a Bat-climb.
We have one last desperate chance.
Help me setup the Bat-zooka.
The lightning rod on top.
Fire!
Bullseye.
Second shot, the hands of that clock.
Fire!
Mother McRee. Done it again.
Quickly. Now, to get the ends of these two conductive lines.
What are you doing, Batman?
Attaching these lines to the nuclear power source.
Both lines to the positive terminal.
As you may recall from school
like charges of electricity repel each other.
Now, to rev up the power turbines.
I still don't get it, Batman.
Pray! Pray, Chief O'Hara..
...that the clapper and the bell will be positively charged.
And thus repel each other!
I hope so, Batman. I hope so!
[dramatic music]
Funny, all I hear is a nightingale.
[screaming]
Inconceivable, but true.
The precocious pest has escaped us.
But how could he, Bookworm?
- How could he? - How could he?
I can not conceive, but from Gill Blas
translated by Tobias Smollett book 10, chapter three..
...quote "Facts are stubborn things." Unquote.
Now the fact is..
...that our bats have flown the belfry
unaccountably still squeaking.
Gee. And us, with our super-crime not pulled yet.
[all sigh]
Ha!
[sighs]
Do not fret, my sweet Lydia. Oh, do not fret.
My brain drenched mind has done it again.
A most delicious Bat-trap.
[mumbles]
Mwah!
[sighs]
And in Wayne Manor, stately home of millionaire Bruce Wayne
and his youthful ward, Dick Grayson
the plot is about to take a strange new twist.
[clears throat]
Oh, what is it, Alfred?
It's a gentleman from the book mobile service, madam.
Oh, how nice? Bring him in.
This way, sir.
How do you do?
What do you recommend this week?
Something for reading before going to sleep.
Oh, well, I believe you will find this volume
extremely effective, Mrs. Cooper.
[chuckles]
Congressional record, March 1919?
Oh, it's the illustrations, Mrs. Cooper.
They are so picante.
Oh, you don't say.
Look, Alfred.
[laughs]
Hmm..
Oh.
[glass shattering]
[dramatic music]
Subject found to be member of..
[Bat-phone beeping]
Yes, Commissioner?
Uh, Bookworm has struck again, Batman. Brazenly.
'Where?'
The mansion of millionaire, Bruce Wayne.
He stole a single volume.
A priceless first edition cookbook.
Well, is anyone in the Wayne household hurt?
Fortunately, no one.
Goodbye, Commissioner, I'll be at Wayne Manor
faster than anyone can imagine.
- That's not the only thing. - 'What else?'
In the middle of the street at Cedar and Fifth
there's been a sudden monstrous apparition.
'The biggest cookbook anyone ever saw.'
Goodbye, commissioner.
- Aunt Harriet and Alfred? - They're not hurt, he said.
Our duty is to the public. Let's go!
[theme music]
What a twisted scale of events.
Typical...of the frustrated author Bookworm is.
Over plotting.
'Either the robbery or a giant cookbook'
would have attracted our attention.
Foolish amateur.
Has to try both.
[clamoring]
Holy toad!
Back, everybody!
Back! Back!
Take cover at the side streets.
Take cover at the side streets!
The recipes in this book could be explosive.
Stay back.
I bet it's hollow inside, Batman.
We'll soon find out. Let's probe it with our high energy radar.
Roger!
[beeping]
'Hollow, alright.'
Yes. Judging from the rate of reflection
the cover contains high tensile steel.
- Let's open it up, Batman. - Right you are.
If the cover contains steel we can do it from a safe distance
using the super powered Bat-magnet.
Great.
- I'll work the power supply. - Roger.
[electronic whirring]
Bat-pull, 1200 pounds.
Make it a ton.
Oh, poor puny little bat-brains.
I bet they think they opened that book.
But will they go in?
Of course, they'll go in.
In the words of the poet..
"Curiosity killed the bat."
Ordinary paper.
It must cover the hollowed out part.
I wonder what's on the menu inside.
Only one way to find out, Robin.
Let's take a bite.
[dramatic music]
[music continues]
Smells like soup.
Darn good soup.
Right you are.
Bat-soup.
'And in you go.'
Holy stew pot!
'Bookworm to Batman.'
He's got this place wired.
I'll bet he's watching and listening, too.
Well, of course, I'm listening.
(Batman) 'Bookworm, what are you up to?'
It's a curious old recipe I discovered
in the alchemist cookbook, Vienna, dated 1534.
'How to steam a bat.'
I think he means it.
'Of course, I mean it, Boy Wonder.'
'Watch now, while I turn up my radio controlled double boiler.'
Double for Dynamic Duo.
'Cook well, my bat-eared friends.
'While you are stewing down, I shall be pulling off'
'the crime of the century with the aid of your Bat-mobile.'
Happy juices.
Quick, let's fly.
Batman to Gotham City police. Batman to Gotham City police.
Red alert. Red alert. We're trapped inside a cookbook
at Fifth and Cedar. Red alert.
Do you receive me? Over.
No answer.
These high tensile steel walls
they're cutting down our transmission.
I'll get out my laser beam cutting torch.
Don't, Robin. No, no. It would super heat the steam
and boil us in a split second.
Holy pressure cooker!
Only way to crack this thing would be the Bat-beam
in the Bat-mobile and Bookworm has it.
We even left the engine running.
[both coughing]
'With all your might and mane, men. Let's go!'
[coughing]
They'll never get to us in time.
There's only one hope.
[clamoring]
- Well? - We're getting nowhere, Chief.
Oh, harder, fellas. Harder!
Oh, give me, give me that sledge, here.
Sounds like steam in there.
Drats ! That fine pair of crime fighters
boiled in the entrails of a monster cookbook.
Who could imagine a more tragic end?
Batman to Bat-cave.
What's the use, Batman?
It's just possible our own supersensitive antenna
may pick up the signal where the police receivers could not.
Do you think Alfred's there?
He's a creature of well disciplined habits.
It's his regular time for dusting the Atomic Pyle.
Batman to Alfred. Batman to Alfred. This is an emergency.
Might I be of some assistance, sir?
Quick, Alfred. Point me into the voice actuated circuit
of the master anti-crime computer.
Certainly, sir. At once, sir.
Bookworm to Bookmobile.
Do you read me?
'Devil to Bookworm. I read you.'
Rendezvous. The rear of the Morgan Bilt library.
Over and out.
The Morgan Bilt Library?
But that's uncrackable.
It's defied every burglar in the country.
Yes. Yes, yes, my sweet Lydia. Yes.
But they did not have the use of the Bat-beam.
Plans and views. Folio, 369.
Operate, cross-read.
I'm weakening, Batman.
Hold on, Robin.
Hold on, hold on, I'm getting the answer I expected.
Answer?
About the source of the steam.
Plans and views, cutout, feedback circuit three, operate.
Who's the best safe cracker in our files?
Uh, The Riddler.
Well, send a helicopter to state penitentiary
and have him brought here.
- Yes.. - Alright, everybody down!
Go on! Get them down!
Ready? Fire!
[explosion]
[all cheering]
Good grief!
We're too late.
Gone!
Consumed, I fear.
Totally consumed in this diabolical hell's kitchen.
The Morgan Bilt Library.
Unparalleled repository of literary treasures.
In an alley at the rear, there are little foxes in the vines.
Directly ahead through that wall, the air conditioned vault
containing treasures beyond imagination.
Oh, some hall, alright.
Seven Gutenberg Bibles.
Eleven First Folio's by William Shakespeare
Some wall, too.
Three feet of cement over 18 inches of steel.
Ah, to the Bat-beam.
But what if something goes wrong, Bookworm?
Oh, it won't, it won't. It won't.
"Best laid plans of mice and men."
I don't know where it's from. But I know it's true.
Schemes. Schemes. Schemes.
"The best laid scheme.."
Robert Burns, "To a mouse", stanza seven. Schemes.
You are graded C minus.
Now, for the Bat-beam.
[buzzing]
[explosion]
Oh! Melting.
Fantastic.
My fine twisty worms, follow me.
They'll follow you, Bookworm.
Right back into the woodwork of the prison carpenter shop.
- Impossible. - How did they escape?
Thought you had us cooked, huh?
We escaped through the manhole under your stove.
the one you used to introduce your murderous steam pipe.
It's an old mistake, Bookworm.
'Armoring the walls but leaving the floor unprotected.'
How did they discover our objective?
Your talk in the Bat-mobile was picked up by a secret mic.
It was relayed to us via the automatic feedback circuit
in our Bat-cave.
- Let's clean house, Batman. - Now, Robin.
Glasses off.
Alright. my fine twisty worms.
Attack!
[theme music]
Ho!
[music continues]
You should've learned much sooner, Miss Limpet.
The oldest plot, and still the best.
Crime..
...does not pay.
A check for $5000 for the state prison library.
This is very generous of you, Bruce.
I thought it was the least I could do after reading
about that dreadful business in the papers.
Uh, The Bookworm affair?
And I feel our prison libraries could use
some new uplifting titles.
Yes. Yeah, shocking.
A man of Bookworm's education.
How could such a fellow turn to a life of crime?
I'd say it's an example of the old precept.
"A little knowledge is a dangerous thing."
A wise observation, Bruce.
I'll remember that.
- Uh, would you like to see him? - Bookworm?
He's just outside waiting conveyance to the penitentiary.
Gosh, Bruce, I'd sure like to see a real crook in the flesh.
Well, I don't see any harm in it, Dick.
As long as he's under sound restraint.
- Get them, Chief O'Hara. - Yes, sir.
Them?
His female accomplice, too. A Miss Limpet.
Very sad case, that one.
Alright, bring 'em in. Come on, boys.
Alright, you crooks, and remember
be polite to Mr. Bruce Wayne, too.
"The world's 100 greatest crimes."
You abandoned child.
'Is there no hope for you?'
'As you can see, Bruce, your gift was sorely needed.'
May I keep that as a souvenir, Commissioner?
- Oh, yes, certainly. - 'Thank you.'
What are you smiling at, Bookworm?
Oh, I'm so much cleverer than all of you, you see.
Oh, as the poet says
"They who loose today may win tomorrow."
Wrong, Bookworm.
Not the poet.
That line's from Cervantes "Don Quixote".
Part one, book one, chapter seven.
Poof! That devil.
This fellow, he is almost as obnoxious as Batman.
Alright, alright, out, out out. Come on!
Next week, The Return of The Riddler.
[theme music]
¶ Batman
¶ Na na na na na na na na
¶ Batman