User Reviews

"The Joker's Provokers" begins with Batman escaping the human key duplicator by producing a key to gum up the machinery, freeing him long enough to rescue a well waxed Boy Wonder in the nick of time. Speaking of time, The Joker (Cesar Romero) redesigns his magic box so that he now controls all of time itself, able to make time go forward or back, or simply stand still. Much of the latter portion involves Alfred impersonating his cousin Egbert as night watchman at the local waterworks, which Joker intends to infiltrate with a special formula intended to bring Gotham City to its knees. Humdrum is not a word that one would use in regard to Cesar Romero's Joker, but that's only the fault of the lackluster script. His next appearance would find him in a magnificent three part adventure worthy of the first season, teamed with Burgess Meredith's Penguin. Kathy Kersh only enjoyed a brief career, which concluded with a nude coupling with LOST IN SPACE's equally beautiful Marta Kristen in the 1975 "Gemini Affair."

In the first part The Joker returns to Gotham City and begins to carry out several robberies related to keys, he also manufactures a strange artifact that can immobilize the dynamic duo, traps them in his lair and places Batman in a giant key-copying machine and Robin. In a camera that will turn him into a wax doll. In the second part, they both manage to escape but now the villain modifies his device and transforms it into an instrument that can control time by making it move forward or backward quickly or slowly, but in order for it to work throughout the city, he must first introduce a drug into the drug distribution company. Waters. The story is quite confusing, it is not understood how he uses his machine in different parts of the city but then he needs to mix a potion in the water, it seems that the writers were a bit clueless when they wrote this chapter.

The Joker's ( always fabulous Caesar Romero) fun and games in Gotham City continues, this time with a box that can make time speed up, go backward or stand still. To note, an episode of LOST IN SPACE, which was also filmed at 20th Century Fox, used the same idea, confirming the old story that tv writers "borrowed" from each other.

The Joker also happens to have in his possession a bunch of pills (connected with the time box) which he plans to dump into the city's water supply. Mission: Total Chaos. Has the idea ever struck any of these villains that if they went LEGIT with their revolutionary inventions, they would have probably become overnight billionaires!

Alan Napier, as Alfred the butler, has a solid acting gig here or two ( a twin!) pretending to be a water company guard. He pulls a gun on the Joker and gets control of the time box, accidentally zapping bad girl accomplice Cornelia (Kathy Kersh) into a kid! What has to be a gag scene, Aunt Harriet stops by the water company after she runs out of gas(?) and meets Alfred in disguise. Don't miss this goofy bit.

Super trivia note; Kersh would go on to marry Burt Ward the following year.

This campy episode runs fast, and the acting, particularly Romero, is spot on. SEASON 2 EPISODE 22 remastered color dvd box set.