The Joker (Cesar Romero) returns in the penultimate two-part story of season two of Batman. Written by Stanford Sherman, the first episode, Pop Goes the Joker, first aired on 22 March, 1967.

After the Joker breaks into the Gotham City Art Museum and makes his mark on a number of paintings, he becomes a bit of a pop icon! He’s increased the value of the paintings, and a number of Gotham’s artistic elite want more.

He even finds himself in an art contest, with some very familiar-sounding artist names, that allows him to win and make an even bigger name for himself. He opens his own art school, for the wealthy only, and Bruce Wayne (Adam West) decides to sign up for one.

Joker finds himself a financier in the form of Baby Jane Toweser (Diana Ivarson) who lays praise upon praise on him and keeps him from getting into legal trouble.

Bruce begins making jibes at Joker through one of the classes and works to unnerve the villain, and figure out the Clown Prince’s actual crime, but, of course, this is only the first part, so we know that no matter what happens (fisticuffs as expected when Robin (Burt Ward) shows up) we’ll be handed a bit of a cliffhanger, Robin is tied to a murderous mobile, and Bruce is tied to a chair and forced to watch.

This one is almost a little meta, as Joker and the series had become a pop art itself, camp included.

The second part, Flop Goes the Joker aired the following night on 23 March, 1967. Bruce is able to help Robin escape from his artistic death trap, and the pair go back to work on trying to figure out the Joker’s plan and put a stop to him, at least for this story.

Joker has used Baby Jane as much as he can, betraying her, and attempting to take her for all she has, and then keeping her prisoner. His final plan involves extorting Gotham by threatening the art being held in the museum.

But Bruce Wayne has donned his cape and cowl, becoming Batman to take on his arch-nemesis once again. He’s also pulled a fast one on Joker by switching the paintings he was going to destroy with a series painted by Alfred (Alan Napier).

Joker is livid, and goes on the warpath, even intending to wreak some revenge on Bruce Wayne as he drags Baby Jane to Wayne Manor, where he almost discovers the truth about the wealthy playboy when he triggers the bat-poles!

Alfred, however, helps save the day again. In fact, he helps out a lot in this story, and it’s interesting to see that Bruce is out of his Dark Knight costume for most of the story (mainly because Joker ruined one of his suits with paint).

Next time, we finish season two of Batman and prepare to launch into the third and final season.