Take-two Tuesday — Daily Batman: Enter the Bookworm and Up With Love plus Surprise Connections and Zodiac-quackery

This post originally appeared on January 5, 2010 at 8:05 pm.

Roddy McDowall and Francine York, Batman, “The Bookworm Turns,” Season 1, Episode 29. Original airdate April 20, 1966. Well, that’s inauspicious. Shit.

I hate to come off as a down-at-the-mouth grump on the topic of love. I am a romantic. Here is the Bookworm and his lady, the lovely librarian Miss Lydia Limpet, and may I add that I rooted like gangbusters for this pair to win?

via Batman villains database — I love clunky contraptions on men’s heads. I find it so fucking cute. I really do.

In fact, I remember pretty strongly wanting him for myself (girls like a boy who reads!), but I rightly understood Miss Limpet having him was almost the same thing. Later, when I figured out he was in Planet of the Apes, I was even more impressed, but, being a fickle little girl, I soon made way for other crushes, like Matthew Broderick and the Great Mouse Detective — shut up, because that could work — to the point that, when I stayed at La Posada Hotel in Winslow, Arizona several years back and was given the “Roddy McDowall room,” I merely remarked that I’d “once thought he was cute,” and meant nothing more by it.

Interestingly, after his role as the Bookworm in the live-action television series, McDowall continued to wreak villainy in the DC world. He voiced Jarvis Tetch/the Mad Hatter for both Batman: The Animated Series and The New Batman Adventures, as well as performing him in a brief cameo for the late ’90s animated Superman.

In the original television series, the Mad Hatter was played by David Wayne. More on the Mad Hatter another day cause he was really depressed as a character and had some killer-great deadpan lines, even though no one matches King Tut in my estimation for the male villains’ comedic value. But back to love, because that is what I’m trying to prove is probably more important than trivial details of cartoons and old lunchbox-selling serials.

No, I can’t stop talking about it. Okay, because I’m looking at his page on the imdb to make sure I had the dates and titles right and it ends up Roddy McDowall was also the Breadmaster on Edlund’s masterwork The Tick, which is of grave emotional significance to me, and, moreover, had cameos on Darkwing Duck, Quantum Leap, and mother-effing Gargoyles. Also, he was monumentally in to photography and experimental camerawork. So, holy hell, I was smart to have a crush on him as a kid and now I’m going to have to get back to Roddy McDowall another day; he’s obviously been far more of an important thread in my life than I ever could have possibly understood … y’all please excuse me because Roddy McDowall has just now blown my mind.

Finally, according to authorities on these matters, the Catwoman outfit regularly worn by Julie Newmar appears to have been “upcycled” and worn by Francine York (who played librarian Miss Limpet on Batman) for the Lost In Space episode “The Colonists.” Also, in looking for pictures of her, I stumbled across a page where a woman had collected a bunch of pictures of famous Virgo women and though I always claim to put almost zero stock in that stuff, I have to say that they/we all have the faces of birdlike closet freaks who are too shy to smile with our lips parted but rock straight-up crazy do-me eyes despite our distrust of other people — to say nothing of the number of patron saints in her gallery of too-close-to-home horror. Good thing I think that’s largely bunk, or the unnerving similarities might have me concerned that my chakras weren’t aligned with the downward dog position of my chi and I’d have to bury a peeled potato under a full moon or some shit.

Truly the end of this post. Moving on for my own sake.

Daily Batman: The Long Halloween — “St. Patrick’s Day”

Batman, The Long Halloween No. 6, “St. Patrick’s Day.”

Please note Dr. Isley’s hair is represented here by shamrocks instead of the customary ivy leaves. Erin-go-bragh, y’all!

If you are a mainly Nolanverse kind of guy, you might really enjoy the late 90’s Batman comic arc The Long Halloween, as the events of the arc unfold in the direct wake of series-re-energizing thriller Batman: Year One, which is where Nolan draws a lot of his grittier, more emotionally cordant material. The story is told via episodes centering around the holidays in every month of the year and it runs basically that a fledgling Batman, with the help of Catwoman, pursues a serial vandal and criminal known as the Holiday killer. Carmine Falcone (and daughter Sofia), Salvatore Maroni, the Joker, Dr. Jonathan Crane, the Riddler, Solomon Grundy, Poison Ivy, and many more also appear — even the Mad Hatter.

Jim Dandy to the rescue. That’s my Loo G.

Meanwhile, on the side of right, Jim Gordon and Harvey Dent (who is married to his wife Gilda, as there was NEVER ANY “RACHEL DAWES” in any of the comics, and also becomes Two-Face over the course of the arc in this version of his origin) are looking to prosecute Bruce Wayne as the Holiday killer, even bringing in Alfred Pennyworth to testify against him, while Selina Kyle labors to help Bruce’s enterprises stay afloat during the trial and keep the Wayne family name and reputation clean. Bruce convinces them of his innocence and suggests they strike a pact with the goddamned Batman to bring down the mob’s control of the city’s corrupt public enterprises.

Actually, I’m cheating; this is one of the final panels of the issue just before, No. 5, “Valentine’s Day,” revealing that Ivy has been following Bruce and Selina and plans to control Bruce to get at his monies for the mafia. This just proves you CANNOT trust vegans.

Sounding like all kinds of appealing and tantalizing plot strings? Heck, yes. Check the arc out. The Long Halloween: ask for it by name!

Anticipation: Mad Tea Party edition

`Have you guessed the riddle yet?’ the Hatter said, turning to Alice again.

`No, I give it up,’ Alice replied:`what’s the answer?’

`I haven’t the slightest idea,’ said the Hatter.

`Nor I,’ said the March Hare.

Alice sighed wearily. `I think you might do something better with the time,’ she said, `than waste it in asking riddles that have no answers.’

`If you knew Time as well as I do,’ said the Hatter, `you wouldn’t talk about wasting it. It’s him.’

“High Tea” by Sugarrock99 on the deviantart.

`I don’t know what you mean,’ said Alice.

`Of course you don’t!’ the Hatter said, tossing his head contemptuously. `I dare say you never even spoke to Time!’

`Perhaps not,’ Alice cautiously replied: `but I know I have to beat time when I learn music.’

`Ah! that accounts for it,’ said the Hatter. `He won’t stand beating.’

“Tea Party” by Laurence Philomene on the flickr, also to be found as MY NAME IS LAURENCE on the tumblr.

`Take some more tea,’ the March Hare said to Alice, very earnestly.

`I’ve had nothing yet,’ Alice replied in an offended tone, `so I can’t take more.’

`You mean you can’t take less,’ said the Hatter: `it’s very easy to take more than nothing.’

The forthcoming incarnation. Click to see immensely large @ high-resolution.

`Nobody asked your opinion,’ said Alice.

`Who’s making personal remarks now?’ the Hatter asked triumphantly.

Alice did not quite know what to say to this: so she helped herself to some tea.

“We’re All Mad Here” by JessRabbit on the redbubble.

`Really, now you ask me,’ said Alice, very much confused, `I don’t think–‘

`Then you shouldn’t talk,’ said the Hatter.

This piece of rudeness was more than Alice could bear: she got up in great disgust, and walked off.

“Alice in Wonderland 10” by hooray on the deviantart.

Neither of the others took the least notice of her going, though she looked back once or twice, half hoping that they would call after her: the last time she saw them, they were trying to put the Dormouse into the teapot.

`At any rate I’ll never go there again!’ said Alice as she picked her way through the wood. `It’s the stupidest tea-party I ever was at in all my life!’


(Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll, Chapter XII.)

“Mad Tea Party” by Gurololi on the deviantart.

“And you’ll die with the rose
still on your lips,
and in time the heart-shaped bone
that was your hips.

And the worms,
they will climb
the ragged ladder
of your spine,
We’re all mad here.” — Tom Waits, “We’re all Mad Here,” Alice (Anti Records, 2002).

Previous Alice anticipation posts can be found here.

Daily Batman: Enter the Bookworm and Up With Love plus Surprise Connections and Zodiac-quackery

Roddy McDowall and Francine York, Batman, “The Bookworm Turns,” Season 1, Episode 29. Original airdate April 20, 1966. Well, that’s inauspicious. Shit.

I hate to come off as a down-at-the-mouth grump on the topic of love. I am a romantic. Here is the Bookworm and his lady, the lovely librarian Miss Lydia Limpet, and may I add that I rooted like gangbusters for this pair to win?

via Batman villains database — I love clunky contraptions on men’s heads. I find it so fucking cute. I really do.

In fact, I remember pretty strongly wanting him for myself (girls like a boy who reads!), but I rightly understood Miss Limpet having him was almost the same thing. Later, when I figured out he was in Planet of the Apes, I was even more impressed, but, being a fickle little girl, I soon made way for other crushes, like Matthew Broderick and the Great Mouse Detective — shut up, because that could work — to the point that, when I stayed at La Posada Hotel in Winslow, Arizona several years back and was given the “Roddy McDowall room,” I merely remarked that I’d “once thought he was cute,” and meant nothing more by it.

Interestingly, after his role as the Bookworm in the live-action television series, McDowall continued to wreak villainy in the DC world. He voiced Jarvis Tetch/the Mad Hatter for both Batman: The Animated Series and The New Batman Adventures, as well as performing him in a brief cameo for the late ’90s animated Superman.

In the original television series, the Mad Hatter was played by David Wayne. More on the Mad Hatter another day cause he was really depressed as a character and had some killer-great deadpan lines, even though no one matches King Tut in my estimation for the male villains’ comedic value. But back to love, because that is what I’m trying to prove is probably more important than trivial details of cartoons and old lunchbox-selling serials.

No, I can’t stop talking about it. Okay, because I’m looking at his page on the imdb to make sure I had the dates and titles right and it ends up Roddy McDowall was also the Breadmaster on Edlund’s masterwork The Tick, which is of grave emotional significance to me, and, moreover, had cameos on Darkwing Duck, Quantum Leap, and mother-effing Gargoyles. Also, he was monumentally in to photography and experimental camerawork. So, holy hell, I was smart to have a crush on him as a kid and now I’m going to have to get back to Roddy McDowall another day; he’s obviously been far more of an important thread in my life than I ever could have possibly understood … y’all please excuse me because Roddy McDowall has just now blown my mind.

Finally, according to authorities on these matters, the Catwoman outfit regularly worn by Julie Newmar appears to have been “upcycled” and worn by Francine York (who played librarian Miss Limpet on Batman) for the Lost In Space episode “The Colonists.” Also, in looking for pictures of her, I stumbled across a page where a woman had collected a bunch of pictures of famous Virgo women and though I always claim to put almost zero stock in that stuff, I have to say that they/we all have the faces of birdlike closet freaks who are too shy to smile with our lips parted but rock straight-up crazy do-me eyes despite our distrust of other people — to say nothing of the number of patron saints in her gallery of too-close-to-home horror. Good thing I think that’s largely bunk, or the unnerving similarities might have me concerned that my chakras weren’t aligned with the downward dog position of my chi and I’d have to bury a peeled potato under a full moon or some shit.

Truly the end of this post. Moving on for my own sake.