“An Egg Grows in Gotham” / “The Yegg Foes in Gotham”
Written by Edwin Self and Stanley Ralph Ross
Directed by george waGGner
Season 2, Episodes 13 and 14
Production code 9717
Original air dates: October 19 and 20, 1966
The Bat-signal: We open at City Hall. (Amusingly, they use a shot of the New York County Courthouse on Center Street in Manhattan rather than New York’s City Hall for the establishing shot.) A tour comes into an exhibit hall that includes the original Gotham City charter, which is vacuum-sealed in a burglar-proof case. However, on the tour are Egghead, his two henchmen (Benedict and Foo Young), and his moll (Miss Bacon), who proceed to put the lie to the “burglar-proof” part by gassing the room and stealing the charter by using an egg-splosive.
Cut to GCPD HQ, where Gordon and O’Hara conclude, as ever, that only one person can aid them in their time of need.
Cut to Wayne Manor, where we get a hint as to why Egghead targeted the charter in particular. Gotham City (Bruce explains to Dick) was founded by three families who landed on Gotham Rock: the Savages, the Tylers, and the Waynes. They leased the land from the Mohican Indians for the cost of nine raccoon pelts. According to the very same charter that Egghead stole, the lease must be renewed every five years, and tonight is the night when a member of each family—on this occasion, Bruce, Pete Savage, and Tim Tyler—gives the leader of the Mohican tribe, Chief Screaming Chicken (yes, really) three raccoon pelts each. Apparently Bruce acquired his pelts by buying the raccoon coat off a 1920s musician who’d fallen on hard times, and cutting it into thirds. Because that’s totally in the spirit of the original charter. (A real man would’ve hunted the raccoons himself and skinned them. Bruce is such a wuss. (And yes, I’m being sarcastic. Honestly, his solution was actually pretty humane, given what he was charged with doing. (Not that it matters much to the poor raccoons… (Damn, this is a lot of nested parentheticals.))))
Alfred interrupts this history lesson with the news that the bat-phone has buzzed, and Bruce and Dick make their feeble excuses to Aunt Harriet and head to the phone, to the batpoles, to the Batmobile, and to police HQ.
Batman, Robin, Gordon, and O’Hara try to figure out why Egghead stole the charter. O’Hara also comments that Egghead is the smartest man in the world, only amending it with “present company excepted, of course” when Robin tartly says, “second-smartest.” (For his part, Batman says nothing, save that Egghead is certainly the smartest villain they’ve ever faced.)
Robin hypothesizes that Egghead wants to start a war between Gotham City and the Mohican tribe—but it turns out that Screaming Chicken is the last of the Mohicans (a joke the script rarely passes up an opportunity to make). Wouldn’t be much of a war, really.
Batman hypothesizes that it might have to do with the raccoon ceremony. Gordon asks where the three millionaires are. Peter Savage is in his Gotham home, though he spends most of his time in Paris. Tim Tyler is probably watching the baseball team he owns, while they speculate that Bruce Wayne is probably off doing something inconsequential with his youthful ward. (Phrasing!)
Cut to Egghead’s lair at the Ghoti Oeufs Caviar Company, where Egghead egg-splains himself. He’s looking for a loophole in the charter that he can egg-sploit to gain control of the city—and he finds one! If the nine raccoon pelts aren’t paid on time by the scions of the Wayne, Tyler, and Savage families, control of the city reverts to the Mohicans and/or their legal representative.
Batman and Robin head to Screaming Chicken’s Roadside Teepee, which sells blankets, souvenirs, tacos, pizza, and blintzes. Batman provides the traditional Mohican greeting, which starts with the recitation of questions (“How?” “What?” “When?” “Where?”), then continues to turning around twice, hitting each other on the left shoulder, and a pinky swear. Batman wishes to be sure that Screaming Chicken will be at the ceremony that evening, and despite the fact that the price is a bit too low—he thinks it should at least twelve pelts, since the cost of living has gone up—Screaming Chicken says he’ll be there.
After they leave, we find out that Egghead has gotten there first. He has secured an agreement with Screaming Chicken for the lease on Gotham City—but only if the three millionaires fail to pay the nine raccoon pelts. Egghead’s deal is for $100 a month, plus all the eggs he can eat. Egghead even throws in the import/egg-sport concession on all genuine American Indian blankets made in Japan.
Batman checks the Batfile for any new egg-related companies, but there aren’t any since the last time they tussled with Egghead. But then Batman hits on the idea of a fish-egg company, and they find Ghoti Oeufs, which opened recently. “Oeuf” is French for “egg,” but Robin doesn’t get “ghoti.” Batman explains that “gh” is “f” (as in tough or rough), “o” is “i” (as in women), and “ti” is “sh” (as in ration or nation). Robin is suitably impressed, which puts him in a class by himself.
They head to Ghoti Oeufs to find that Screaming Chicken is working alongside Egghead, Bendict, Foo Young, and Miss Bacon. Fisticuffs ensue (during which both Vincent Price and Burt Ward’s stunt doubles are egg-stremely obvious). Egghead manages to get off an egg grenade filled with laughing gas, which covers their escape. Batman and Robin manage to counteract the laughing gas with a sad pill, then head back to the Batcave. Since Screaming Chicken is now working with Egghead, Batman figures that Egghead’s scheme involves breaking the lease to Gotham.
He calls Pete Savage and Tim Tyler, who both reassure Bruce that they’ll be at the ceremony—but both are under threat from Egghead and his thugs. Bruce and Dick, meanwhile, dress up in tuxedos and take their three pelts to the ceremony. The limo picks them up, along with Tyler and Savage—but Egghead is driving the limo, and he gasses the four occupants.
They wake up in Egghead’s lair. Egghead has deduced that Batman must be a millionaire, as crime-fighting is a time-consuming and egg-spensive hobby. The three present are the only ones who fit the bill, aside from a few aging rock stars (cough) in terms of age but Tyler is left-handed, and Savage speaks with a French accent. (You would think there’s also the fact that Savage spends most of his time in Paris, but whatever.) So he figures it must be Bruce. To prove it, he’s put Bruce in a thought transferer which removes all thoughts from one person’s brain into another’s. It leaves the victim a vegetable—so even if Egghead is wrong, Bruce will be a mindless fop. (Egghead passes up the opportunity to say that that wouldn’t be much of a change from Bruce’s rep.)
However, everyone’s staring at Bruce and Egghead, so nobody notices Dick messing with the electricity, causing the machine to go boom. Only a tiny bit of information trickled into Egghead’s brain, but it was all useless trivia—Egghead finds it inconceivable that someone with that much useless info in his head could be Batman (Bruce managed to compartmentalize his thoughts so that was all Egghead got). He fends off the millionaires with a “radar egg” that will explode at the slightest vibration—and then he rolls it across the floor. Right. But it covers his and his henchmen’s escape. Besides, it’s almost midnight, so the lease will egg-spire.
There’s an incredibly convenient pipe running across the top of the room, which enables the foursome to get out of the bomb’s range. Bruce uses his skills as the former junior marble champion of Gotham City (because of course he was) to set off the bomb so no innocent bystander will accidentally trigger it, then they pootle off to the ceremony.
Sadly, they’re three minutes late. Screaming Chicken now owns Gotham and all its suburbs. Not only that, he’s followed through on his deal with Egghead, so the villain now runs the jernt. He fires Gordon and Mayor Linseed and has Batman and Robin egg-spelled from the city.
Felonies are no longer felonies in Gotham, with Egghead instructing the cops to ignore his people committing such crimes, but to punish misdemeanors, resulting in tons of tickets given out for jaywalking, littering, and not fastening seatbelts. Since Batman and Robin have been banned from the city, it’s up to Bruce and Dick to save the day. Figuring that there must be some fine print that everyone overlooked, he also steals the charter from City Hall (apparently it’s okay when good guys break the law). However, Egghead was egg-specting that, and has a personal alarm go off when the charter is stolen. He sends the cops to City Hall where O’Hara is following his orders to find Batman and Robin and shoot them on sight. However, he just sees Bruce and Dick and lets them go on their merry way.
They bring the charter back to the Batcave, and sure enough, there is fine print. Yes, if they miss the raccoon payment, ownership of the city reverts to the Mohicans, however Mochians cannot then turn around and lease the city to anyone with a criminal record. They deduce that Egghead will go after the city treasury now that he’s in charge, so they head there. Meanwhile, Egghead and his minions are already there, reveling in their newfound—and tax egg-zempt!—cash.
Batman and Robin show up at Gordon’s office, where Gordon is packing his things, and Linseed is pacing miserably. Linseed informs them that Egghead has put a $50,000 bounty on Batman’s head. Batman tells them about the loophole, and so Gordon informs the police over the radio that they don’t have to take any more of Egghead’s guff. (That is exactly how he phrases it!)
The Caped Crusaders arrive to find that Egghead has already cleaned out the treasury. However, they do find that they left Screaming Chicken behind. According to the chief, Egghead’s plan is to take the money and run to Venezuela. (No word on whether or not he’s also changing his name to “Matilda.”)
Robin alerts Gordon to guard all possible ways of leaving Gotham City, then he and Batman head back to the Batcave, where we find out that somehow, off-camera, the citizenry of Gotham City has forgiven Screaming Chicken. Batman figures that Egghead will be stocking upon AAA eggs, which is what his diet consists exclusively of, before his trip to Venezuela. The only egg farm big enough to satiate him would be Old MacDonald’s Chicken Ranch, and so they head there, to find that Egghead is, in fact, stealing Old MacDonald’s eggs.
Fisticuffs ensue—and also a good deal of egg-tossing, because why the heck not? Our heroes win, of course. The visiting criminals who were taking advantage of Egghead’s reign have all been captured by the police, and everyone lives happily ever after.
Fetch the Bat-shark-repellant! The Batfile has all kinds of useful info, including what egg companies might have opened recently. Batman carries sad pills in his utility belt in order to counteract laughing gas, because of course he does.
Holy #@!%$, Batman! Robin expresses his theory as to why Egghead stole the charter with the exclamation “Holy Bill of Rights!” When Batman explains the etymology of “ghoti” for “fish,” Robin mutters, “Holy semantics, Batman!” After Batman explains his mnemonic for remembering phone numbers (involving transposing numbers to letters and women he used to date—don’t ask), Robin waggles his eyebrows as he says, “Holy IT&T” (thus dating the episode…). When Linseed informs Batman that there’s a $50,000 price on his head, Robin cries, “Holy recompense!” and when they discover that Egghead has already looted the treasury, the best Robin can do is, “Holy banks.” (Seriously, dude?)
Also William Dozier says, “Holy hypothesis!” with regards to Egghead’s deducing that Bruce is Batman in the recap at the top of “The Yegg Foes in Gotham.”
Gotham City’s finest. As soon as Egghead takes over, the GCPD follow his orders to the letter, including apparently agreeing to shoot Batman on sight if he reenters Gotham City, and also ignoring felonies and focusing on misdemeanors. This means that either they have no ability to think independently, are dogged followers of law and order, regardless of what that law might be, or they’re really enjoying the chance to get Batman the hell out of town for a while…
Special Guest Villain. While horror master Vincent Price continues the streak of famous actors coming in to play a new villain in season two, he breaks the streak in one important aspect: he’ll actually come back! Price will return as Egghead several times in the third season, alongside Olga Queen of the Cossacks, starting in “The Ogg and I.”
No sex, please, we’re superheroes. Egghead insists that Miss Bacon call him “Egghead” in public rather than “Eggy-baby,” as she apparently calls him in private. Wah-HEY! Of course, she just switches to Eggy-pooh after that…
Na-na na-na na-na na-na na.
“‘Kemosabe’? I thought I heard just about everything, but—”
“Yeah, Screaming, what’s that mean?”
“Me no know. Me hear it once on radio. Very old word.”
–Miss Bacon, Benedict, and Screaming Chicken taking the piss out of The Lone Ranger.
Trivial matters: This episode was discussed on The Batcave Podcast episode 25 by host John S. Drew with special guest chum, author, editor, designer, educator, and podcaster Dr. Arnold T. Blumberg.
For those of you not up on your outdated slang, “yegg” is a term for a thief or burglar that dates back to the early part of the 20th century, but has fallen out of use in the five decades since this episode aired.
Screaming Chicken is played by Edward Everett Horton. While best known for his narration of “Fractured Fairy Tales” on The Adventures of Rocky & Bullwinkle, this role in particular was a sendup of his just-as-offensive role as Roaring Chicken on F Troop.
The window cameo this time ’round is Bill Dana playing his character from The Steve Allen Show, José Jiménez. In addition, Ben Alexander, who played Sergeant Frank Smith on Dragnet, interviews a littering suspect by asking her for “Just the facts, ma’am,” which was Sergeant Joe Friday’s trademark query of witnesses on that show.
Byron Keith returns as Mayor Linseed, with the character finally named (after New York City’s Mayor John Lindsay) for the first time after brief cameos in “The Joker Trumps an Ace” and “The Bookworm Turns.” He’ll be back in “Hizzoner the Penguin” / “Dizzoner the Penguin.”
During the climactic fight scene in “The Yegg Foes in Gotham,” Vincent Price apparently played a prank on Burt Ward that made it on camera, as instead of smashing one egg on Robin’s head, Price went and smashed a dozen. The yolk and shell remain in Robin’s hair for the rest of the scene, and apparently it was all because Ward was being kind of a douche, so Price took egg-straordinary measures to egg-zact revenge.
Pow! Biff! Zowie! “That’s the way the wigwam watusies.” While this episode isn’t nearly as egg-cellent as it could be, it does have its good points. For starters, there are all the in-jokes to various bits of pop culture, from José Jiménez to riffs on Dragnet, F Troop, The Last of the Mohicans, The Lone Ranger, and the song “Matilda.” There’s all the egg puns.
And, of course, there’s the egg-straordinary performance by Vincent Price. Really, what makes this episode is Price, as he is simply magnificent in the role. Price’s voice, his tone, his arrogance, his gleeful delivery of all the many (many!) egg puns, they all add up to a superlative villain.
Plus, he actually figures out that Bruce Wayne is Batman! And his deductions make sense! Batman would have to have serious financial resources and lots of spare time. I like the fact that he figures it out, rather than stumbling upon it, and only Dick’s quick thinking gets him out of having his secret revealed (I suspect that Bruce’s vaunted mental discipline wouldn’t have held out forever if the machine could really do what Egghead said it could do (though if he had such a thing, why didn’t he just sell it to the government or something? It probably would’ve netted him more than robbing the treasury did (of course, you could ask that about most of the gadgets in this show (some people have no sense of capitalism (what is it with me and the nested parentheticals in this one?)))).
Still, the episode has its share of head-scratchers. The whole egg-schequer thing, the “ghoti oeufs” thing, Batman’s mnemonics for remembering phone numbers involving women he’s dated, plus having Bruce Wayne sitting in a chair while Egghead sits in another chair is pretty low on the suspense-o-meter for a cliffhanger.
More problematic is Chief Screaming Chicken. There’s a fine line between satire and offensive stereotyping, and this episode just keeps dancing all over it. Mind you, there are some brilliant moments. The genuine American Indian blankets made in Japan bit is hilarious, and Batman’s story about Screaming Chicken’s time as a bottlewasher when someone told him to go back where he came from, and Robin sadly notes that this country is where he came from is a biting bit. But there’s the egg-scruciating thing where Screaming Chicken talks like a not-too-bright five-year-old. The fact that it was, at this point, pretty well entrenched in screen portrayals of Natives (especially in comedy) doesn’t make it any less horrible.
Still, it all comes back to Price’s awesomeness. His performance is egg-cellent, egg-straordinary, and egg-citing, and he’s the first of the let’s-get-a-famous-person-on-our-popular-show villains to actually go that egg-stra mile to stand out and be a worthy addition to the pantheon.
Egg-celsior!
Bat-rating: 7
Keith R.A. DeCandido plans to have an egg-cellent time as the Author Guest of Honor at Treklanta 2016 this weekend, alongside egg-stravagant actors Carel Struycken, Tracee Lee Cocco, Jack Stauffer, Java Green, and Lynn McArthur; egg-straordinary fans Bjo & John Trimble; and numerous other egg-citing authors, performers, and fan film folk. (Okay, okay, I’ll stop now…)
For a second there, KRAD, thought you were trying to write a Lisp program…
Oh, so much fun, but so problematical. When Hasbro’s The Hub network (which is no longer called that) reran Batman, they refused to show this one, presumably because of the stereotyped “Indian chief” played by Edward Everett Horton. So it’s been ages since I’ve seen this one, and I can see why they left it out. Even understanding that it was a different time, and even given that it was somewhat deconstructing the stereotype (I loved the “go back to your own country” line), it was still wince-inducing from time to time.
But the rest of it is enormously fun and clever, and it’s a nice change of pace to get to see so much of Bruce and Dick in civilian guise. Egghead is a terrific villain — he’s an intellectual match for Batman, he has a nice visual and pun-laden gimmick that works well for the show, and also he is Vincent Price. His caper is on an epic scale, control of Gotham City itself (although it degenerates into the usual simple heist at the end), and he actually deduces Batman’s secret identity, which always impressed me. (Though ruling that other guy out just because he has an accent is a bit naive — he couldn’t be putting it on?). And did I mention that he’s Vincent Price? I like the gimmick that he has bald henchmen — and it’s particularly thrilling to see perennial Adventures of Superman henchman Ben Welden resume his henching ways one more time (one last time, in fact — this was his final role before retirement, although he lived another 31 years). And for some reason I’m still laughing at his moll being named Miss Bacon.
It’s a shame, though, that this is Egghead’s only really effective turn as a villain. In his third-season appearances, he’s reduced to a cowardly second banana to Olga, one of the many mediocre third-season original villains.
By the way, I’m struck by how dark the Jose Jimenez window gag was. “Leave the rope”?
Man, the Gotham criminal justice system will let the Joker and the Riddler and the Penguin out of jail after serving six-week sentences for kidnapping and attempted murder, but this jury is so bloodthirsty that it doesn’t even want to wait to hang the defendant? Also, why is a jury deliberating inside police headquarters?
There was also that bit where the woman was complaining about getting a traffic safety lecture from a cop while “murderers and thieves” were roaming the streets freely. How many murders were committed while Batman and Robin were banished from town? Is ’60s Gotham really that close to degenerating into No Man’s Land levels of chaos and brutality every time the Dynamic Duo are gone for even a single day? What if Bruce and Dick went on vacation? There’d be nothing left when they got back! (And if Gotham’s cops are the best in the world, the rest of the world must be in a terrible state.)
Also, I’m uneasy with the implications that Batman and Robin carry downers in their utility belts. Do they have “happy pills” too? Man, the sixties…
By the way, I only recently figured out the meaning of the second episode title, “The Yegg Foes in Gotham.” I knew that “yegg” was an old slang term for safecracker, but the title just seemed like a nonsense construction, because I was looking at it in context with “An Egg Grows in Gotham” and assumed it had the same noun-verb pattern. Once I noticed it began with “The” rather than “A,” I realized that “The Yegg Foes” is a plural noun phrase — the foes who are yeggs. The title is another way of saying “The Safe-cracking Adversaries in Gotham.” It’s a description of Egghead and his gang, who actually do become safecrackers as the climax of their plan. All this time, what I thought was a gibberish rhyme actually makes sense and is relevant to the plot!
Uh-oh, my comment isn’t showing up again… (Edit: Yep, there it is. Sometimes a comment doesn’t appear until another comment is posted. Somebody please fix this board software!)
“what is it with me and the nested parentheticals in this one?”
THEY’RE LIKE EGG SHELLS, MAYBE.
Yeah, great actor and a good villain, but alas marred by changing sensibilities (though this was probably pushing the envelope a bit, even then). Vincent Price is absolutely marvelous, but then he could be entertaining reading the phone book. I had the pleasure of seeing him lecture in the early to mid 80s and it was a terrific evening.
But Burt Ward must have been truly terrible. By all accounts, Price was a gentle, sweet man, so it must have taken a lot to get him to smash a dozen eggs over Ward’s head.
And thanks for the earworm, krad. Matilda was bad enough, but my brain also went “sad pills = downers” and that somehow evolved into the Who’s “5.15”. And man do those two songs not go together.
Shouldn’t the Batfile have found the “Oeuf” company on its own, translating from French? I’m disappointed, Batfile. Bruce stealing the charter is breaking the law, under Egghead’s rule.
@2 – Chris: Yes, ruling out the guy who spends most of his time in Paris is ridiculous, since he could, y’know, be faking that too. And the ” murderers and thieves” run free in Gotham not only because Batman and Robin have been banished from the city, but also because Egghead has declared felonies are no longer felonies.
@6/lordmagnusen: Yeah, sure, but what does it say about Gotham that it’s so close to degenerating into absolute chaos the moment two guys in capes are no longer around? What kind of savagery and violence was bubbling just under the surface of this bright, cheerful, bustling metropolis? So many other episodes have told us that most citizens of Gotham are honest, law-abiding people who pay their taxes and follow the rules and support their local police and so forth, and the only exceptions are small groups of supercriminals, henching professionals, poor deluded females led astray by bad influences, and your occasional pocket of juvenile delinquents led similarly astray. Yet here, Gotham is implied to be a festering pit of decay and depravity just a hair’s breadth away from descending into hellish anarchy — a surprising tinge of Frank Miller in a Silver Age Bat-universe.
Gotta say, that’s a pretty crazy situation to run a city under. If three of the same families don’t provide raccoon pelts every FIVE YEARS, the last Mohican can just give control over it to anyone else (as long as they don’t have a criminal record, which doesn’t necessarily mean “isn’t a criminal”), and that person can apparently set any ridiculous rules they want. If one of those families dies out, or just is sick that day, well, there goes the neighborhood!
By the way, the Mohicans are a fictional tribe invented by James Fenimore Cooper for The Last of the Mohicans. They were a composite of the Mahican culture from the Hudson Valley and the Mohegan culture from eastern Connecticut. Although I doubt very much that Chief Screaming Chicken resembles anyone from either of those cultures.
I knew what “ghoti” meant when I was a kid, having read it in a puzzle book. How did Dick/Robin manage to miss it completely until now? I would have egg-spected that with the egg-squisite environment in which he grew up, this would be egg-zactly the kind of mental egg-sercise that Bruce would have given him early on.
@10/richf: My original source for the “ghoti” gag was this episode, I’m pretty sure. So I suppose it’s possible to grow up unaware of it.
There was also that bit where the woman was complaining about getting a traffic safety lecture from a cop while “murderers and thieves” were roaming the streets freely. How many murders were committed while Batman and Robin were banished from town?
People in mild amounts of trouble with the law whining about how law enforcement can’t handle the “real criminals” is a time-honored tradition. I wouldn’t interpret “murderers and thieves” literally, any more than somebody talking about Wall Street “getting away with murder” is actually suggesting that bankers are committing unprosecuted homicides. Even this version of the Joker is polite enough not to actually kill anyone.
(And if Gotham’s cops are the best in the world, the rest of the world must be in a terrible state.)
Perhaps what makes Gotham’s cops the best in the world is that they’re well-aware that, on average, the more the cops participate in the plot the darker the story is– contrast, e.g., this show with the relentlessly grim Gotham. Comically ineffectual cops only work in a light-hearted show with relatively harmless villains. Therefore, by being comically ineffectual, Gotham’s finest ensure that the show is light-hearted and has relatively harmless villains. If they were gritty and determined, then suddenly we would be in an entirely different subgenre and get something like the Joker from The Killing Joke or The Dark Knight and that’s bad for Gotham. Therefore, Gordon and O’Hara are the real protectors of Gotham, utilizing their genre-savviness and self-discipline to prevent the appearance of any truly dangerous antagonists.
But … Egghead is a _Marvel_ villain. (He’s Ant-Man’s arch enemy. Really.)
I don’t suppose there was ever a response from the Bullpen?
@12/dunsel: “Even this version of the Joker is polite enough not to actually kill anyone.”
Except for trying to kill Batman and Robin roughly halfway through his every caper.
Anyway, the comics’ Joker hadn’t been a killer for quite a while at the time the show came out. He had been a serial murderer and thief in his first few appearances in 1940, but as early as 1941, the stories began emphasizing the thieving more, and by 1944 he was consistently being portrayed as just a flamboyant thief, kidnapper, and extortionist, aside from occasionally trying to kill the Dynamic Duo. So the show’s version of the Joker is pretty true to what the comics’ version of the character had been for the previous twenty-odd years. It wasn’t until the ’70s that the comics reverted the Joker to the serial murderer he’d been at the beginning.
Is the general public’s opinion of Bruce Wayne really that he’s an idiot playboy? He may be romancing women offscreen, but what we’ve mostly seen of Bruce is someone who’s a dedicated sponsor of cultural and charitable events, and an attentive tutor of his ward. This would have to give him a fairly good reputation in Gotham.
@7 – Chris: More proof that, while a parody, this show is so deep.
@9 – Chris: As I understand it, Cooper used elements of both tribes, but the Mahicans are indeed called Mohicans too, because their own name for themselves is “Muhhekunneuw”. In Spanish, for one, the word “mohicano” is used exclusively, “mahicano” doesn’t exist.
@16/lordm: Even so, the Mahican people still exist today, so neither Uncas nor Chief Screaming Chicken warranted the title “Last of the Mohicans.”
Oh, that’s for sure.
Also too, KRAD: I’m billing you for a refill on my cholesterol meds, after all those egg puns!
@19/rickarddavid: What’s the matter, can’t you take a yolk? ;)
I’m sure Krad won’t mind shelling out a few bucks.
You’re all fired……
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
@22: Don’t you mean fried?
GUARDS! SEIZE HIM!
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
I think @24 is feeling a bit scrambled this morning.
All of you, traitors! Like that Benedict guy…
Hey folks! As those of you who read the TOS Rewatch know, my grandmother died last week, and the funeral was Monday, which is also my birthday. That has kind of set my writing schedule all a-quiver, plus I’m on vacation in Key West. I’d intended to work on the Bat-rewatch while here, but it’s just not gonna happen with all the other stuff I need to get done. So Liberace’s Bat-debut as Chandell (a.k.a. Fingers) will have to wait until the 29th.
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
Don’t worry about it, Krad.
Vinnie is so good as Egghead that they should find a mountain somewhere and carve his image into the face of it. If anyone nails the eggs-act tone of the series, it was him.
But why couldn’t the Dynamic Duo have realised that the best way to stop him might have just been to leave him alone – that his diet consisted of purely grade AAA eggs meant that it would have been a waiting game for a coronary to hit. It was the route cause of death for Marty Feldman, who only ate eggs, and the cholesterol in his arteries prevented him from surviving a bout of food poisoning.
@29/WilsonBros: Was the health risk from cholesterol understood yet in the ’60s? In fact, I think I’ve read that recent studies have called that risk into question.
Hi Krad,
Just watched this on MeTV. I did not realized there was a Batman rewatch! Thank you for the Star Trek rewatches. I am looking forward to the return of Disco. Happy New Year.
Some trivial matters that were missed:
Gene Dynarski – in 2 Star Trek Episodes: Mudd’s Women and The Mark of Gideon
Mae Clark – Cagney pushed grapefruit in her face in Public Enemy
George Fenneman – Groucho Marx sidekick on You Bet Your Life
The raccoon pelts may have been an allusion to the Astor family whose fortune was made with beaver pelts
The Watusi – a popular dance craze in the 1960’s
Perhaps the titles are punning A Tree Grows in Brooklyn and Egg Foo Young. My dad used the word yegg when I was a kid and although I thought it was funny, I never quite understood it but then again he was born in 1914 and your definition may explain it. He also use the expressions “good” and “bad” egg common WWII era expressions I am surprised I did not hear in these episodes.
AHWalt: Thanks for joining us in the rewatch. :)
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
“Batman and Robin show up at Gordon’s office, where Gordon is packing his things, and Linseed is pacing miserably.”
What I’ve never understood is: Why are Gordon and Linseed there, unattended? They both had been fired, and the last time we saw that room in the episode it was occupied by Egghead and his gang monitoring the egg-shaped alarm. Why would Egghead have allowed them back in, much less left them there by themselves? (And how, exactly, did Batman and Robin know to find them there? (For that matter, how did Batman and Robin get there without being seen? (Especially if they got there in the Batmobile (which they must have (Holy punctuation! These nested parentheses are contagious!)))))
Egghead’s method of deducing Batman’s identity is remarkably similar to that of Ra’s al Ghul a decade later.