EPISODE NUMBER: 08, Production Code 108

PLOT SUMMARY:

At the opening of a grocery store, a celebrity finds himself unable to cut the ribbon when two midgets dressed as vegetables attack him and toss him into a garbage bin. They leave in a garbage pickup truck, the kidnapping successful. At a concert, Bruce is attending as a donor when a pianist is kidnapped. Batman dons his uniform and goes off in pursuit but the same two midgets lose him during the chase. Bruce determines there's a link between the two - both victims worked together on a game show 30 years ago. Bruce reviews the tape of how an obnoxious undefeated winner, Artie Brown, finally lost to Yelena but got a lifetime supply of Kremelos. Brown's mother filed a lawsuit but it was covered up, while Yelena became a champion chess player.

At the auditorium where Yelena is playing against a computer, the woman is kidnapped but Batman intervenes when more of the midgets overwhelm him long enough for them to get away with Yelena. Brown, now overweight from years of eating a lifetime's supply of Kremelos and calling himself "Cluemaster," reveals he's the kidnapper and challenges them to a "rematch." If they don't win the quiz show, they'll be dunked in acid.

Batman goes to Brown's mother, who reveals Artie is down in his basement room. Bruce fights his way past the midgets and arrives just as the kidnap victims "lose." Cluemaster offers him a bonus round to save his victims - Batman can ask him any one question. Bruce asks him, "Name the true identity of the Batman." Frustrated, Brown activates the acid trap but Batman deactivates it in the nick of time. In the ensuing fight, Batman manages to entangle and capture Brown, and Bruce gets a chance to experience a childhood game with Alfred.

WRITTEN BY: Steven Melching

DIRECTED BY: Brandon Vietti

CAST:
Rino Romano (Bruce Wayne / Batman)
Alastair Duncan (Alfred Pennyworth)
Glenn Shadix (Artie Brown / Cluemaster) Kath Soucie (Yelena Klimanov / Young Artie)
Fred Willard (Ross Darren)
Edie McClurg (Mrs. Brown)
Udo Kier (Herbert "Bert" Ziegler)

QUOTES:
Cluemaster: Money will not take away the pain that you have caused me, not even my lifetime suplly of Kremelos! Even though they are creamy and delicious.

Mrs. Brown: Are you one of Artie's friends?
Batman: Uh ... yes.
Mrs. Brown: My, you're a big one.

INTERESTING NOTES:
- Cluemaster was not in any other animated Batman series.

SCREEN GRABS: