Episodes 81 & 82
The Joker’s Last Laugh/The Joker’s Epitaph
Plot:Joker using robots in a counterfeit scheme
Guest Stars:Cesar Romero as The Joker
Trivia:The Joker mobile is a reuse of the “Mongrel T” roadster created for “Easy Come, Easy Go”, an Elivs movie
Niitpick:We’re the creators out of ideas? We just did a counterfeit scheme episode! Oh but this is better. Penguin just copies signatures, Joker is using robot’s as tellers! Not enough repeating? We even get Bruce Wayne hauled away very similarly to what happened back in season 1. Once again Joker is refereed to as a former conjurer, sure why not?
Bat Silliness:Guess Joker is tired of stealing the Batmobile because he has his own Joker-mobile in this one. Alfred once again masquerades as Batman, even doing a bat climb.
Bat Gadget:Batman has a robot analyzer in the Batcave. Do they run into robots a lot?
Bat Trap:Robin on a huge comic book press with Bruce Wayne at the controls. Yeah they have comic books in this universe.
Final Thoughts:One of the reason I like “Zodiac Crimes” is that it was classic Joker story, rather Joker creating some insane gimmick that makes no sense. In this episode, Joker has an insane gimmick that makes no sense. A few days ago it was “time travel”, this time for some reason our henchman this week are robots, or androids as they would be called on Trek.. You’d think the writers were watching Star Trek’s “I, Mudd:” and thought “why can’t we do that??”Anyway we begin with Joker replacing money with counterfeit bills. He alerts the police that he is back because, that’s what he does now. At least this time he didn’t give the whole scheme away. So how does Batman realize the robots? He tells a joke and the guy doesn’t laugh, so he has to be a robot. Sure. I always did a get a kick of the scene where Joker is trying to follow Batman to the Bat Cave but instead finds a little miniature cave (thanks to Batman being on to Joker). That is a funny gag. Batman’s big plan is to pretend he’s broke as Bruce Wayne. As usual when he does things as Wayne, the villain sees right through it. I tried to figure out what the plan of having Robin drop in was but I got nothing. Robin barges in and gets beaten, until Alfred saves him (apparently Bruce was also taking super ventriloquism lessons from Superman since he throw’s his voice so Alfred can sound like Batman). Joker becomes vice chairman of the board at the bank and blackmails Bruce Wayne so he can trap the Dynamic Duo. Then Bruce is committed by the police, great planning Batman. Batman ends up reprogramming the robots and that’s it. We never even find out what the master plan was.
Grade:B-, Robots were lame (and pointless). As I said before I do like it when Batman plays the long game but this was one bad plan. Mental health wasn’t taken very seriously in the 60’s from what I can see in this episode. Wow! I could do a whole rant on that but will spare you. But Romero is a delight as always.
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