Hi Diddle Riddle / Smack in the Middle – Batman season 1
Hi Diddle Riddle – January 11 1966
The very first live action Batman episodes are Hi Diddle Diddle and Smack in the Middle is. With Frank Gorshin playing the Riddler with absolute glee!
While the Riddler maneuvers Batman into being sued, the Dynamic Duo investigate the supervillain’s concurrent scheme. Frank Gorshin as The Riddler, Jill St. John as his henchman, Molly.
Batman: “Why is an orange like a bell?”
Robin: Answer – because they both must be “peeled.”
Robin: [solving the riddle] There were three men in a boat with four cigarettes and no matches. How did they manage to smoke? They threw one cigarette overboard and make the boat a cigarette lighter!
The Riddler: What is it that no man wants to have yet no man wants to lose?
Robin: A lawsuit!
Smack in the Middle – January 12 1966
The Riddler fashions a mold of the face of the unconscious Robin. He contacts Batman with two more riddles.
What’s absolutely hilarious is the Riddler’s plan to have Molly impersonate Robin. Because, it’s physically impossible to stuff Jill St. John’s figure into Burt Ward’s costume!
Robin: Listen: how many sides is a circle?
[Batman jerks back his head in thought]
Robin: Answer: two. Inside and outside, right?
Batman: Right.
Robin: Here’s the second one: what President of the United States wore the biggest hat?
[Batman turns around and starts pacing]
Robin: It’s, it’s easy Batman: the one with the biggest head!
The Riddler: Has anybody seen my friend Kersh?
The Moldavian Prime Minister: Kersh who?
The Riddler: Gesundheit!
Batman: This jokes on you, Riddler!
Robin: When is a donkey spelled with one letter? When it’s U!
The Riddler: Did you hear about Greta Garbo? She dreamed one night she sprinkled six boxes of grass seed in her hair and woke up moaning, [imitating Garbo] “I want to be a lawn [alone].”
Cast of characters
- Adam West (The Outlaws is Coming) … Batman
- Burt Ward (Batman the Movie) … Robin
- Alan Napier (The Mole People, House of Horrors) … Alfred
- Neil Hamilton (Tarzan the Ape Man, What Price Hollywood) … Commissioner Gordon
- Stafford Repp … Chief O’Hara
- Madge Blake … Mrs. Cooper
- Frank Gorshin (Bells are Ringing, 12 Monkeys) … The Riddler
- Jill St. John (Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Lost World) … Molly
Trivia
- Based on the comic book story, “Remarkable Ruse of the Riddler”, by Sheldon Moldoff and Gardner Fox