“Louie, the Lilac”
Written by Dwight Taylor
Directed by george waGGner
Season 3, Episode 7
Production code 1710
Original air dates: October 26, 1967
The Bat-signal: All the flower-children in Gotham City are gathering in the park for a flower-in—but there are no flowers! Turns out that Louie the Lilac has cornered the market on Gotham City’s petaled flora. He intends to control the minds of Gotham’s young people, since they’re the future leaders of the city.
Meanwhile, the hippies are having themselves a party in the park, led by Princess Primrose—real name Thelma Jones, Barbara’s former college chum—and Louie shows up and tosses flowers to them all. He uses his boutineer to hypnotize Primrose and take her off in his Flowermobile. And then it turns out that the flowers are all fake! Louie then finds out from Primrose that the commissioner’s daughter was there, so he has one of his henchmen find and tail Barbara while he locks Primrose in his hothouse.
Barbara reports the kidnapping to her father, who is singularly uninterested in the kidnapping of a hippie. So Barbara grabs the Bat-phone and calls Batman—it turns out he and Robin are to be guests of honor at the flower-in. Batman and Robin head to GCPD HQ, where they promise to investigate Louie. They head to the Batmobile, where they find a lilac-colored card for Lila’s Lilac Shop. Our heroes arrive there, where Lila—who works for Louie—hits them with poisonous lilacs. Batman figures it out in time, but then Louie hits him over the head with a flower pot. Louie then traps them amidst man-eating lilacs to be eaten alive.
Gordon calls Batman, but Alfred says he hasn’t been seen since he went to GCPD HQ. Gordon says that he was heading to the Batcave to check the Bat-computer for info on Louie. Alfred decides to go through with that search, and the computer spits out Lila’s Lilac Shop.
Louie’s henchman follows Barbara to her apartment and attempts to kidnap her. She locks herself in the bedroom, and then sneaks out to change into Batgirl. Before she can stop him, Gordon shows up, and the henchman takes a powder while Batgirl quick-changes back to Barbara and reassures her worrying father that she’s fine living on her own and shouldn’t move back home, even though she’s already been kidnapped twice and had her library nearly blown up…
Alfred then shows up and lets Barbara know what’s happening so Batgirl can get in on the action.
Louie’s attempt to get Primrose to recruit the flower children for his side fails, as Primrose shakes off his hypnosis. Louie beats a hasty retreat. He arrives at his hideout just as Batman and Robin manage to escape the man-eating lilacs by kicking a flower pot through the hothouse door, the colder air killing the lilacs.
Batgirl also shows up, and fisticuffs ensue. She hits Louie with a mildew spray that makes him all gunky. The flower children followed Louie, and they take care of the henchmen. But even as they clean up after Louie, Batman and Robin hear hoofbeats, and see that Egghead is back in town, alongside Olga Queen of the Cossacks…
Fetch the Bat-shark-repellant! The Bat-computer is used by Alfred to track down where Batman and Robin may have gotten to. Batman’s utility belt is eaten by the man-eating lilacs, thus forcing him to actually use ingenuity to escape the deadly flora.
Holy #@!%$, Batman! When trapped by man-eating lilacs, Robin grumbles, “Holy purple cannibals!” followed by “Holy Luther Burbank!” which is one of his cleverer religious utterances. And when Egghead and Olga ride by on horseback, he cries, “Holy hoofbeats!”
Gotham City’s finest. The GCPD evinces no interest in solving the kidnapping of a hippie, which is actually a pretty accurate depiction of the police in 1967. Although they move heaven and earth to protect the commissioner’s daughter…
Special Guest Villain. Having previously done a cameo as a prison inmate in “Ma Parker,” famous funnyman Milton Berle returns in the title role. He’ll be back in “Louie’s Lethal Lilac Time.”
No sex, please, we’re superheroes. The henchman tries to convince Batgirl that he and Barbara are a couple, which wouldn’t have been convincing even if Batgirl wasn’t actually Barbara.
Na-na na-na na-na na-na na.
“The flower children think we’re cool, man, like, we turn them on, y’know?”
–Robin’s rather pathetic attempt to show that he’s down with the other kids.
Trivial matters: This episode was discussed on The Batcave Podcast episode 54 by host John S. Drew with special guest chum, Jay Smith, author, scripter, and creator of the Parsec Award-winning audio drama HG World (on which your humble rewatcher was one of the company of actors providing voice work).
Milton Berle was signed to an unprecedented thirty-year contract by NBC in 1951, but by the mid-1960s, NBC freed him from his obligations, due to his declining popularity (in 1960, he was reduced to hosting a bowling show). He started working for ABC, but his variety show for them didn’t last past its first season. He continued to make guest appearances on TV shows like this for the rest of his career.
Writer Dwight Taylor was a co-founder and past president of the Writers Guild of America, West, and also was one of the first editors of the “Talk of the Town” feature in The New Yorker magazine. This was the last script he ever wrote for the screen.
At the end of the episode, the Batgirl theme is played in full for reasons passing understanding (but probably because the script came up short).
Pow! Biff! Zowie! “I strongly suspect that this lilac-colored card could be—a plant!” Okay, I have a confession to make—I have never liked Milton Berle. I remember growing up and seeing him and Bob Hope and Johnny Carson and never understanding what the fuss was about. To be fair, I mostly saw them in the twilight of their careers, but even watching old clips, I was less than impressed. The only time I actually liked a Berle performance was when he appeared on The Muppet Show, specifically when he tried to do a standup routine and was mercilessly heckled by Statler and Waldorf. Of course, the whole routine is predicated on the fact that Berle isn’t funny… (Amusingly, one of the inspirations for Statler and Waldorf was Sidney Spritzer, a character played by Irving Benson on Berle’s variety show who heckled Berle from the balcony.)
So I’m not particularly predisposed to this episode anyhow, but even the biggest Berle devotee wouldn’t find a lot to like here. For one thing, aside from puffing on a cigar, there’s none of Berle’s trademark bits here, nothing that stands out aside from the comedian’s rather distinctive face.
There’s comedy gold to be mined by having a fedora’d, suited gangster straight out of the 1930s who has a thing for flowers and tries to suborn flower children, but while Dwight Taylor’s writing of the hippie movement isn’t quite as tone-deaf as, say, Arthur Heinemann in Star Trek‘s “The Way to Eden” or Jack Webb and his team of writers any time they portrayed the movement on Dragnet, it’s still pretty awful. Taylor does, at least, acknowledge that the movement is basically one of peace and love, and the flower children are no worse caricatures than the heroes, the cops, or the gangsters, at the very least.
But still, the episode just kind of bounces from scene to scene with very little rhyme or reason. Louie’s long-term plan sounds good when he’s talking about it, but the execution is so ham-fisted, you’re just staring at the screen wondering what everyone was thinking when they were making it.
I’m still wondering. The only performance that actually works is Jimmy Boyd’s incredibly earnest Dogwood, who commits far more to his flower child persona than anyone else does to their role.
Bat-rating: 2
Keith R.A. DeCandido‘s latest release is the Super City Cops novella Undercover Blues, the second of three novellas about police in a city filled with costumed heroes and villains published by Bastei Entertainment. The first, Avenging Amethyst, is also available. Full information, including the cover, promo copy, ordering links, and an excerpt can be found on Keith’s blog. The next novella, Secret Identities, will be released in February.
A-yup, quite a ways to fall from “The Unkindest Tut Of All”, but that’s the way Season 3 crumbles.
The plot isn’t all bad – I think this is the deepest look we get into Barbara’s personal life – but Berle just saps all the energy from the story, whether or not he’s actually on-screen. I still can’t believe this was America’s original TV star – Colonel Gumm has more presence than him!
(By the way, does anyone find it weird how reminiscent Louie’s tactics are of one Poison Ivy? I understand that just a few years ago, the digital comics gave them an explicit connection…)
Next week’s ep won’t really be better, but at least we’ve got Vinnie Price and Anne Baxter to look forward to.
If dozier, Horwitz et al were really mystified as to why their show had gone from Next Big Thing to yesterday’s news in under two years, they should have paid attention to the pervasive smell of Bengay on the set. Ethel Merman? Milton Berle? Those aren’t the sort of names one equates with hip, cutting edge entertainment, even in 1967. Louie the Lilac is a joke, and not in a good way.
Plus, this episode has one moment that’s absolutely horrifying: Batgirl’s bit with the can of instant mildew. Louie pleads with her not to use it on him, explaining that anything it hits decays instantly. In response, she sprays it right in his face – – and with obvious, sadistic glee, to boot. When it has exactly the effect Louie promised, she looks shocked and confused. In other words, she acts like a malicious child who’s incapable of understanding the effects of her actions even when they’ve been explained to her. Perhaps the clearest illustration that the show’s writers had no real idea what to make of Batgirl.
The episode’s one redeeming feature, as krad alluded to, is the degree to which it resists the hippie punching that was so typical of TV of the era. The flower children are depicted as largely sympathetic, even having a mutually respectful, even admiring relationship with Batman. He is not Herbert, and they reach.
Hey, we ought to enjoy the farsightedness while we can: that Nora clavicle episode is right around the corner.
What a mess. A really clumsy attempt to tap into ’60s youth culture, something that ’60s TV shows generally did a pretty bad job with (except for The Monkees, I guess). And not only is Louie the Lilac a pretty lame idea for a villain, but Milton Berle phones in his performance. Plus the episode suffers from the pacing problems and weak ending that resulted from the third season’s abandonment of the two-parter/cliffhanger format.
There were a couple of decent gags here, though, including the “plant” pun Keith mentioned (and one other I forget). And Lila was pretty hot.
You don’t understand the fuss about Milton Berle or Bob Hope? But people laughed at Bob Hope! They laughed at my wife when she wrapped herself up in greaseproof paper and hopped into the Social Security office, but that doesn’t mean that Pasteur was wrong!
I will admit that Berle’s shtick can wear thin, but I remember laughing at this episode. Maybe I wasn’t supposed to? Oh, well, we’ll always have It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World.
@Steve – to be fair, Louie shows up in a later episode totally fine (whoops, spoilers!), so I guess Barbara correctly figured he was lying his ass off about the instant mildew. Besides, if he had something that instantly lethal, why didn’t he just use it on B&R instead of going with man-eating plants?
@1 – rubberlotus: Yup, I was thinking of Poison Ivy. Gender bended, color bended Poison Ivy. :)
@5/rubberlotus: I don’t think anything was said about the instant mildew being lethal. This show wouldn’t have gone there, as a rule. It was more just sort of a generalized deterioration, going to seed, as it were.
Yeah, she totally doesn’t think he’s lying. She thinks he’s telling the truth, and is totally turned on by the prospect of putting a grotesque hurt on him. And then she’s horrified that it actually happens. Just awful behavior all the way around.
If nothing else, I think Louie gets extra points for being the first special guest villain this season to use an honest-to-God deathtrap.
This episode is definitely a great idea on paper brought low by Berle’s performance and Season 3’s general cheapness and poor pacing. For sure, that one word “Groovy” is hilarious.
@9/Craverguy: I think Penguin suspending B&R over a vat of boiling water in the season premiere counts as a deathtrap. And Siren mind-controlled Bruce into jumping off the roof — not as elaborate as a full-on deathtrap, but much more direct and very nearly successful.
Yeah, I agree. Of the three death traps we’ve gotten so far, this is the fourth best…….
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
Yeah, Berle has never really worked for me, either. He’s certainly no Sid Caesar or Ernie Kovacs. (OTOH, Carson at his best could be very funny and Hope was a fine comedic actor, just not much at stand-up.) I’m still trying to figure out if this might have worked better with a more traditional gangster actor and a full hour.
But the thing that puts me off most may be the solution to the death trap. Why would cool air hurt lilacs? They’re early spring flowers and can even hold up to a light frost. It shouldn’t, but that really bothers me.
@12/DemetriosX: On the other hand, normal lilacs aren’t carnivorous (as far as I know).
Sometimes it’s so bad it’s just … bad.
@13 CLB: True, and most carnivorous plants are tropical or subtropical. But like I said, it bothers me even though I know it shouldn’t.
@2/Steve Schneider You make two excellent points. I’ve always felt that Dozier and Greenway’s insistence on using such older villains hastened the demise of the show. The basic premise here isn’t terrible–but they needed a younger villain(ess) to more credibly tap into the hippie movement.
Your point about Batgirl also is well-taken. I’m not blaming Yvonne; the writing obviously wasn’t her fault. But the writing of the character tended not to make a ton of sense. She’s impressed enough by Batman to adopt his methods, dress, etc., but as a character, she often seemed interested in one-upping Batman and Robin, even to the point of withholding or stealing evidence.
I’m not sure how fair it is to lay any blame for the show’s declining popularity on the age of the villains’ actors. I mean, Burgess Meredith and Cesar Romero were both pushing 60 when the show began, and they were two of the most popular guest stars.
@17/Craverguy: Yes, many of the actors who played classic villains were on the older side. As Mark Waid has pointed out, one way to convince an audience that Burt Ward was a teenager was to surround him with guest performers three times his age. But there’s a difference between actors who were merely older and those who were absolute icons to older viewers, which is what the show started to pursue in the second season. I mean, Rudy Vallee, for God’s sake? That’s just telling the young adults in the audience that they shouldn’t bother, because this show is for their parents and grandparents now.
@18/Steve Schneider: “That’s just telling the young adults in the audience that they shouldn’t bother, because this show is for their parents and grandparents now.”
Well, it was still for kids’ benefit in a way. The older actors were clamoring to get onto the show so they could impress their kids or grandkids. Sort of the same reason The Simpsons got so many celebrity guests a few decades later.
A realization hit me today that undermines the story we’ve been told about the creation of the TV Batgirl and her comic book counterpart. I posted it as a comment on the entry about the Batgirl and Wonder Woman pilots, where it seemed most appropriate. Check it out if you’re so inclined.
@17/Craverguy Your point about Romero and Meredith is well-taken, and I’d add that Vincent Price resonated with younger audiences too. I would say that perhaps Dozier went too far in bringing in all these old actors for one-shot villains, such as Berle, Vallee, Merman, Tallulah Bankhead, etc. They simply didn’t resonate with younger viewers.
Milton Berle didn’t just fail to resonate with younger viewers. He didn’t resonate with older viewers either. If he had, NBC wouldn’t have canceled his big contract and he wouldn’t have been having problems finding anything more than bit parts. The age of many of the villains wasn’t really a problem. Cross-generational appeal was still a thing. Cultural appeal only to tight demographic boxes didn’t come along for another 10-15 years. (It was probably in its infancy at this time, but really only became significant in the late 70s, largely through changes in marketing.) Older actors who flopped utterly on the show were either past their sell-by date for anybody (Berle) or just horrendously miscast (Art Carney, for example).
I agree. The show’s main problem in Season 2 wasn’t that the guest stars were too old, it’s that there were too many of them. They just created too many new characters to order for big celebrities who, while fine actors usually, didn’t really grok (to borrow the lingo of the era) what made a good Batman villain. The producers thought they were going to goose the ratings by giving a lot of big-name stars guest roles, but it had the opposite effect because it turns out that (for example) Shelley Winters may have a bunch of Oscars, but she can’t ham it up as wonderfully as Julie Newmar.
The third season actually largely fixed this issue. Missteps with Berle, Rudy Vallee, and Barbara Rush notwithstanding, most of the villains this season are proven winners like Victor Buono and Burgess Meredith or newcomers who really nail the show’s style like Eartha Kitt and Joan Collins. Too bad by that point the format change and the incredible shrinking budget were creating even bigger problems.
I have often felt that the main reason why the show didn’t use that many younger actors to play guest villains was because the younger actors felt the show was beneath them or would hurt their careers. The older actors didn’t have as much to lose, IMO.
I have also often felt that if the show had gone with Poison Ivy, that Ann Margaret would have done a damned fine job in the role.
Really feels like this episode was crying out for Poison Ivy as a villain, but there was behind the scenes issues from higher-ups complaining she’d be too sexy, so they just had to create Louie as a replacement.
@25/James: As we’ve discussed in other episode threads, Poison Ivy at the time hadn’t yet come to be defined as “evil plant lady” yet, more of a seductress villain who used hypnotic lipstick to brainwash men and used trick beauty products as weapons. The original significance of her name, I suppose, was just as a metaphor for the “deadly seductress” angle, something whose touch is dangerous.
Poison Ivy apparently was going to be in the role that Lesley Gore played in the Catwoman 2-parter she was in; that’s why her character used a love potion on Robin.
I’m awfully late to the party, but I only recently discovered and read this series of Rewatches. (And I’ve thoroughly enjoyed every bit of it. They’re a blast!)
Anyway, I thought I’d add a little trivia no one has brought up: Jimmy Boyd (Dogwood) is best known as the singer of “I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus.” But more germane to this discussion: He was Yvonne’s ex-husband; they had been married from 1960 to 1962.
Finally, just an observation in relation to that discussion in the comments about Batgirl’s sadistic glee spraying Louie with the instant mildew: That’s not the only somewhat sadistic thing she does. Arbutus spots her during the bat fight and says, “You again?” and she responds by smiling broadly and kicking him right in the face.