Category: television

Stupid Things I’ve Always Wondered About #28193

Remember the old Batman TV show? Of course you do. Remember the opening credits? Probably, but not as well as I do. As a kid the credits fascinated me, because they were the only cartoony aspect of the show (which, of course, was as camp as Christmas, but that’s irrelevant to this post).

Anyway, during the credits, we see a large crowd of villains approaching (off-screen) Batman and Robin, only to have their asses handed to them, vis a vis onomatopoeic blows that cause them to fly through the air. Most of the bad guys are generic hoodlums and 40s film-style gangsters, but there are a few recognizable faces in the foreground. The Joker and Penguin to name two, plus,a few seconds later, someone who I assume is Catwoman.

Joker even re-appears after being severely mutilated by the comical Dark Knight.

What always bothered me were three of the bad guys appearing in the crowd. They seemed liked standard costumed antagonists, but despite all my useless comics knowledge, I couldn’t for the life of me identify them. It drove me nuts. The first two appeared to be some sort of anarchist/hippie mad scientist, and a guy in a scaly mask… or perhaps it was chainmail. Maybe he was an early appearance of Kobra (if you know who I’m talking about, you are a big damn geek).

A few second later, this guy turns up. He’s apparently some sort of serial-killing klansman rapist, or maybe Buckethead, or both. For extra geek cred I’m pretending that’s Clayface II behind him.

So who are these guys? Yes, the easy answer is that they were just generic bad dudes whipped up by the animation team to fill space. Maybe Killer Moth was too hard to draw. I’d prefer to think they’re secret Batman villains lost to the annals of time. Sure. If nothing else, they remind me of the background archenemies on the Venture Brothers. Maybe Grant Morrison will revive them.