ORIGINAL AIR DATES: 4/13/1966-04/14/1966
EPISODE NUMBERS: 27-28, Production Code 8729
PLOT SUMMARIES:
The Curse of Tut:
The supervillain who calls himself King Tut is an ex-Yale scholar of Egyptology who sustained a head wound during a student riot and now believes himself to be the King of the Nile. He also plans to take over Gotham City, which he believes to be a modern-day ancient Thebes, and make it his own. Batman and Robin are called to the scene when an enormous Sphinx is plopped into the middle of Gotham's Central Park, from which Tut begins making his demands, including the demise of The Dynamic Duo! The Duo's attempts to break into the structure prove fruitless, and they become involved in a frantic fisticuffs with King Tut's "Tutlings".
In the guise of debonair Bruce Wayne, Batman pays a publicized visit to the Egyptian exhibit at the Gotham Museum in the hopes of trapping Tut and his sidekicks, Nefertiti, Vizier and Scrivener. During the tour, creepy signs of life from an ancient mummy cause the crowd to scatter. Wayne calls for a doctor but the ambulance that arrives is driven by Tut's henchmen. Tut turns the tables, Wayne is seized and substituted on the stretcher for the mummy, who was really Tut all along. Wayne is strapped to a gurney and loaded onto the back of the ambulance which maneuvers down a long, winding road. During a sharp turn, the gurney carrying Bruce breaks free, but his attempt to escape goes horribly awry: he winds up hurtling toward the edge of a 300-foot-deep precipice on the runaway stretcher!!
The Pharaoh's in a Rut:
Just as the gurney is about to go over the side, Bruce Wayne manages to save himself by brute force: freeing himself from the straps which bind him and grabbing onto a guardrail, preventing himself from certain doom. Back in his superhero garb once more, Batman makes an announcement on TV that he has saved Bruce Wayne's life and is heading to Egypt to conduct research. In a second kidnap attempt, Tut sends his men to Wayne Manor to carry out his ploy. Batman, aided by a lifelike Wayne replica (oh, the irony!), manages to trick The Tutlings into taking him to The Nile Nabob. Enroute to the hideout in The Royal Barque, Batman is discovered and, in a scuffle, is knocked out, along with the homing device attached to him. Later at the hideout, Tut subjects Batman and faithless ex-queen Nefertiti to the ancient Theban pebble torture, in which the victim is driven mad with pebbles dropped on their foreheads. Utilizing cunning and skill, Robin and the doughty Alfred guess that Tut's headquarters is at an abandoned Egyptian Exhibition Pavilion. Alfred drives the under-age (and driver's-license-challenged) Robin there.
Believing that The Pebble Torture has unhinged minds of Nefertiti and The Batman, Tut orders them to perform a mad dance to wild Batmusic! Unbeknownst to Tut, Batman, through sheer concentration (reciting the multiplication tables backwards!), renders himself impervious to the pebbles' effects and, with the help of Robin, subdues the gang — with the exception of Tut, who overpowers Alfred and races away in The Batmobile. The Duo and Alf give chase in Tut's Royal Barque. Using his Batcommunicator, Batman activates The Voice-Control Batmobile Relay Circuit in The Batcave in order to activating The Batmobile's ejection seat. However, just as he puts through his orders, the radio goes dead, and, as if this weren't bad enough, Tut has discovered the button for the deadly Batbeam, and he doubles back in an attempt to use it against its own originators: The Dynamic Duo! Fortunately for The Caped Crusader and The Boy Wonder, a short circuit causes The Batmobile's gadgetry to foul up a little, causing King Tut to be sprung high into the air by the Ejection Seat instead of activating The Batbeam and bouncing right off The Royal Barque, landing at Batman's feet and The Caped Crusader brings Tut back to his sane, scholarly self with a final uppercut to the jaw.
WRITTEN BY: Robert C. Dennis, Earl Barret
DIRECTED BY: Charles Rondeau
CAST:
Victor Buono (King Tut)
Olan Soule (Newscaster)
William Boyett (Policeman)
Don 'Red' Barry (Grand Vizier)
Frank Christi (Royal Scrivener)
Ziva Rodann (Nefertiti)
Bill Quinn (Board Member)
Emmanuel Thomas (Reporter)
INTERESTING NOTES:
- Olan Soule also played Aristotle "Tut" Jones in the Captain Midnight television series. He also provided the voice of Batman in the Filmation toons, and the Superfriends.
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The ambulance was latered used as the Ghostbusters car 18 years later.
- Emmanuel Thomas (Reporter) returned to play another Gotham news journalist in the 1966 Batman movie: Mr. Stanley of The Gotham Globe.
- The "Batman" cover issue of TV Guide announced that Robert Morely was slated to portray King Tut, which turned out to be completely unfounded.
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