The Batscholar on Episode 109

By Joel Eisner

 

This episode was originally part of the previous two-part Egghead/Olga story, but rather than air another three-part story, the producers split-up the episodes. This in reality was the second part of the story; it was supposed to come between The Ogg and I and How to Hatch a Dinosaur. If you look closely during the Dinosaur episode you can see the golden Egg of Ogg prominently displayed in the background of the villains’ hideout. . Therefore this episode had to come before the Dinosaur story. During the connecting footage to the next episode, it is mentioned that Olga and Egghead ran into the waiting arms of the police only this time not at their request (after their encounter with the Neosaurus, the villains happily ran into the paddy wagon for safety). This was added in order to cover up the fact that Egghead and Olga had escaped for a second time (when this was a three part story). Since this was now a single part story, they couldn’t allow the villains to escape, so they were caught off camera.

In addition the footage of Gordon, O'Hara (who was named after producer Charles's Fitzsimons actor brother James O'Hara who portrayed serveral cops throughout the series) and Barbara was rewritten and reshot around the Egghead and Olga footage to form this into a single part story. The bits about Egghead getting out on a techinicality and the Cossacks not being wanted by their own country was an attempt to cover the reason they came back so soon after the previous episodes.

Anne Baxter “Working with Vincent was a delight, and Vincent had a lot of fun with Egghead. He hated the makeup, though; it took forever, and it was very hot.”

“I had a Russian friend, and I was supposed to swear at my platoon of Cossacks, so I said, ‘How do I say, “Stand still” and military things?’ I wrote them down phonetically, and when I rattled them off, they came to me and said, ‘They sound like swear words.’ I said, ‘Wait a minute; I’m doing Russian,’ but it sounded like ‘S.O.B.’ However, she [Olga] does spout Russian.”

Yvonne Craig, “There’s a scene, where Egghead was riding on the back of the Batgirl-Cycle and then hop off and run around to the front of me. I was supposed to stop the bike at his feet, but instead, it lurched forward “like a rabbit’ and ran over the instep of his foot. Vincent quickly responded with “Had I known we were going to do it this way, I would have shouted, Ole!’ I sent him a bottle of Dom Perignon champagne the next day with a note that read: “If you don’t want to drink it, soak your foot in it.”

The best part about this segment is that Vincent gets a lot more screen time and a few bits of comic business. Such as when he has to carry away the Egg of Ogg, and finds it is heavier than it looks (he did the same bit with the box of radium in the Dinosaur episode) and when he does his cowardly act with Batgirl, where he admits he is smart and clever but a complete coward. Not the best routine for Egghead, but Vincent had a ball with it.

Next the team-up of the Joker plays second fiddle to the new Catwoman.