Batman: The Complete Second Season – Part One

DVD Reviews | Feb 14th, 2015

Batman: Season 2 Part 1 DVD Review

Starring: Adam West, Burt Ward, Alan Napier, Neil Hamilton, Stafford Repp, Madge Blake, Julie Newmar, Frank Gorshin, Cesar Romero, Burgess Meredith
Created By: William Dozier
Studio: Warner Home Video
Buy On Amazon.com

If you got 130 bucks, you can get the complete series of Batman. If you don’t, you’ll have to get the separate seasons. The Second Season: Part One DVD is now out and offers up more fun Batman episodes. I just wish it was the entire season instead of this Part 1 and Part 1 nonsense.

The second season of Batman has more villains than the usual The Joker, The Riddler, Penguin, and Catwoman villains. Some of them appear again though. The first 2 episodes features Art Carney as The Archer, which doesn’t seem like the right actor to play a villain. That’s like Jaleel White playing a villain if this show was made in the 90s. Throughout the first part of the second season, Batman and Robin have to battle it out with King Tut, Minstrel, Catwoman, Ma Parker, Clock King, Egghead, The Penguin, Mr Freeze, The Joker and some others.

Doesn’t really matter who the villain is each episode since each episode is basically the same. The villain does something, Bruce and Dick get a call from Commissioner Gordon, try to go up against the villain and fail. Then the villain traps them by the end of the episode, next episode Batman and Robin escape, and then end of that episode they get the villain. Even though we know Batman and Robin are going to escape and do the same stuff throughout each episode, it’s still fun to watch.

Watching these episodes again brought back my childhood memories of when I first got into Batman. I’m not sure if I watched these first before Tim Burton’s Batman movies. I found these to be a lot funnier than I remember, but not sure they were meant to be funny. The constant positive messages that Batman would spew were hilarious. Remember to lock up your car, shouldn’t lie or buy your way into political office. Those sort of things just made me chuckle more than the silly action. It reminded me of Christmas Story, “be sure to drink your ovaltine.”

A lot of these villains were second fiddle to the bigger villains. I always remember hating Ma Parker and my hatred for that character and actress is still the same after all these years. I’ve always like Julie Newmar as Catwoman (giggity) and thought she was the best. The Joker, The Penguin, Mr Freeze and The Riddler were always my favorite villains to watch. Mainly because the actors were having such a fun time playing the parts. Isn’t there a saying, you’re only as good as your villain? Or something along those lines…I guess what I’m saying is the episodes with the better villains were the better episodes. This show is really outdated but isn’t that part of his appeal still?

The DVD doesn’t have any special features on it and is presented in standard view. If you can’t afford the huge box set, this is obviously the next best thing. Unless you want to watch the episodes on IFC, which air a lot on the weekends nowadays.

Episodes:
Shoot A Crooked Arrow
Walk The Straight And Narrow
Hot Off The Griddle
The Cat And The Fiddle
The Minstrel’s Shakedown
Barbecued Batman?
The Spell of Tut
Tut’s Case Is Shut
The Greatest Mother Of Them All
Ma Parker
The Clock King’s Crazy Crimes
The Clock King Gets Crowned
An Egg Grows In Gotham
The Yegg Foes In Gotham
The Devil’s Fingers
The Dead Ringers
Hizzonner The Penguin
Dizzonner The Penguin
Green Ice
Deep Freeze
The Impractical Joker
The Joker’s Provokers
Marsha, Queen of Diamonds
Marsha’s Scheme of Diamonds
Come Back, Shame
It’s How You Play The Game
The Penguin’s Nest
The Bird’s Last Jest
The Cat’s Meow
The Bat’s Kow Tow

Video
Standard 1.33:1 Color

Audio
English Dolby Digital Mono

Bottom Line: Fun Second (first-half) Season of Batman but not as good as the first
Running Time: 755 mins
Rating: NR
Extras Rating:
Overall Rating:

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