The Penguin (Burgess Meredith) is back in this two-part story written by Stanford Sherman. The first part, Hizzonner The Penguin aired on 2 November, 1966.

So The Penguin is back in Gotham City, and not only has he gone straight, he’s thrown his hat into the political arena to be mayor (Holy Shades of Batman Returns!). Commissioner Gordon (Neil Hamilton), Chief O’Hara (Stafford Repp) and the outgoing mayor, Linseed (Byron Keith) think there’s only one person who can run against Penguin and win, Batman (Adam West)!

Struggling with civic responsibility, Gordon, Linseed, O’Hara and Robin (Burt Ward) finally convince the Dark Knight that he has to run.

Intent on running a policy-based platform, Bartman seems to be flagging in the polls as Penguin pulls out all the stops to win over voters, wine, women and song (provided by Paul Revere and The Raiders).

Penguin runs a much more colourful campaign, and when Batman and Robin investigate his campaign headquarters they fall afoul of Penguin’s goons and end up in a cliffhanger, as they are slowly lowered into a vat of sulfuric acid.

Will they survive? Is Batman’s seemingly naive attitude towards politics and politicians correct? Those in office would never lie to the public and would always uphold the public interest, wouldn’t they?

Honestly, I wanted to smack Bats around a bit in this episode. I get that it’s camp, but he makes a speech early on in the episode, and my only thoughts were to wait until 45 comes along. Ugh.

Dizzoner the Penguin aired the following night on 3 November, 1966. Thanks to some augmented costumes, courtesy of Alfred (Alan Napier), Batman is able to plunge into the sulphuric acid and emerge unharmed and then frees Robin so the pair can escape, regroup and continue their political campaign against Penguin.

Batman remains convinced that the people of Gotham will vote for him and his platform, even if he doesn’t throw in any entertainment and keeps it just to the facts.

He and Penguin even have a televised debate, which Penguins goons ruin with some pre-recorded music to play over Batman’s speech.

In fact, Penguin is willing to use every dirty trick in the political playbook, making him a respectable Republican/Conservative representative. Still, Batman’s faith in the public remains unshaken, and polls can be wrong.

Still, it’s all going to come down to fisticuffs even after Batman is declared the winner, and the Dynamic Duo are able to put Penguin and his gang away (again) and the Dark Knight is able to step down from his role, and turn it over to his running mate, Linseed.

That doesn’t stop Bats from receiving countless calls and offers to run for mayor, governor, and even president!

Definitely a fun, civic-minded episode, it reminds us that there was a time when opposing viewpoints could have a healthy discussion and could be neighbourly while doing it. How far we’ve fallen.

I wonder what Batman and Robin will get up to next week, same bat-time, same bat-channel!