Episodes 53 & 54: Green Ice/Deep Freeze

Season 2 Episodes 53 & 54

Original Air Dates: 11/9/66 & 11/10/66

Special Guest Villain: Otto Preminger as Mr. Freeze

Guest stars: Dee Hartford, Marie Windsor

Written by: Max Hodge

Directed by: george waGGner

Mr. Freeze has kidnapped beauty queen contestant Miss Iceland and plans to lower her body temperature until she agrees to marry him. That's not all the Frigid Fiend is up to: he's initiated Operation Hate Batman, a smear campaign designed to turn the population against the Caped Crusader. Add to that, he's demanding one billion dollars or he'll turn Gotham into an ice skating rink. Wild!

PE: Bright Bruce answers the batphone to Commissioner Gordon's strangled "Help me, Batman." He then turns to Dick and says "The commissioner. I think he was trying to tell me something."


JS: A brilliant scene. Bested only by the dynamic duo's arrival at police headquarters. Just in case Gordon and O'Hara aren't dead, Batman brought along plastic explosive to finish them off...

PE: Robin is really going to town rubbing the frozen knuckles of Chief O'Hara. It seems to work though. 


JS: Once he got through with the knuckles, he did a heck of a job cleaning up the office before the media arrived.

PE: Newspaper woman Nellie Majors (Windsor) talks her head off while the other newspaper reporters behind her seem to nod off. I don't blame them. Batman is kind enough to call her attractive but I think Nellie has a point when she tells the Dark Knight that his "mask seems to make an excellent blindfold!" 

"No—I am your father!"

JS: I'm sorry that we lost the optical effect in Mr. Freeze's lair from the first season. But aside from that, Mr. Freeze 2.0 is a marked improvement.

PE: Robin's elementary lessons seem to be coming along fine. Following his work on percentages last episode, he's working on fundamental spelling: "I...C...E? Ice!"


JS: On top of everything else, I was impressed to find out that Mr. Freeze was actually Luke Skywalker's father.

PE: By golly, the fake Dynamic Duo look as fit as the real thing. In fact, the faux Robin looks just like Burt Ward's double (who should have gotten star billing over Ward since he seems to have more screen time).


JS: You can just see the pride in those henchmen when they get to trade out their normal henchmen-wear for a day.

PE: Wild!

JS: What's that about, anyway?




PE: If that silly Bat Crime Analyzer can predict what Mr. Freeze's next crime will be based on his past crimes, why doesn't Bats, in his spare time, feed the cards for all his foes in the crystal ball and head them off the pass? Another job for Alfred perhaps?


JS: I loved the artist's rendering of a frozen Gotham City. What most people don't realize is that Fox reused that painting 36 years later in The Day After Tomorrow.

PE: Since Harriet addresses Mayor Lindseed's date as "Linda" rather than "Mrs. Lindseed," I'll assume that Gotham's mayor is just like every other mayor in America!

JS: Marie Windsor would later appear as Eva Miller, owner of the boarding house in Tobe Hooper's TV movie adaptation of Stephen King's Salem's Lot.

PE: When Mr. Freeze crashes Wayne Manor's snob party, Bruce and Dick are mumbling about getting their long underwear on and doing something about it. They should really watch what they say since they seem to have an eavesdropper just behind them. Harriet's the only one at the party with a clear, calm head. She swears that Mr. Freeze's voice sounds just like the caterer for the party she spoke to over the phone.

JS: For those playing at home, PAM! is back.

PE: Wild!


JS: Okay, now you're really starting to freak me out.

PE: There seem to be a lot of bandwagon jumpers in Gotham this episode (as many as there were last episode). Harriet, Commissioner Gordon, and Chief O'Hara all question their faith in the Dynamic Duo. What fools. And then there's the Opie Taylor lookalike who boos Batman and Robin's poster right in front of the boys while they're in their civvies. Batman forgives the little bastard in the end though and offers to "take him for a ride." Do you think the police ever found the body?


JS: So did that kid somehow win a walk-on in an episode of Batman?

PE: Jeeeesus, that Robin is a whiner. So,yeah, he's freezing in a "cone of ice" (actually, to me, it looked more like a bubble bath), but they've been down before in worse scrapes. You can just see that Batman wants to get free so he can smack his youthful ward.


JS: Now I've got a hankering for a Sno-Cone...

PE: Following last episode's satire on the American public's idiocy when it comes to elections and candidates, this episode doles out a bit of smackdown on the American tabloid. It's kept to a minimum though unfortunately. I think this show could have gone down the same road as "Hizzoner the Penguin," and been more enjoyable. It's not a bad episode. It's just not very memorable (except for the bubblebath cones, which I remember vividly watching during the episode's first run). Preminger's not as good as this old codger remembers him. This was his sole appearance as Mr. Freeze (which also doesn't jibe with my memories of many episodes featuring Preminger). We'll have to see how Eli Wallach fares as the third and final Freeze later this season. If anything, I'd say Preminger's portrayal of Mr. Freeze inspired Joel "The Franchise Killer" Schumacher when it came time to design the villain for the final film of "Volume 2", Batman and Robin. Of course, that role went to Arnold Schwarzenegger and the rest is infamy.

JS: Once again, we close an episode with Gordon speaking directly to the camera. Wild!


PE: Wild!

PE Rating: 

JS Rating: 

Next up... The Joker! Same Bat Time, Same Bat URL!