User Reviews

Penguin gets together with Lola Lasagne and they devise a plan to manipulate the horse races. A mare is stolen from a glue factory to be painted to pass for a horse that will be the favorite in a Wayne Foundation race. A very funny episode, mainly because of the good chemistry between Ethel Merman and Burgess Meredith.

Penguin and a totally new female villain get into horse racing.

I am fully aware that Ethel Merman (Lola Lasagne) is one of those old Hollywood stars who was probably wonderful in her younger days, but she is not young here, in fact in this Bat-adventure she comes over as some raving old woman. Her spoken words here were so boring to me that it was a struggle to actually take in what she was saying. But now that I have got that out of my system, let me move onto the positive aspects of this horse racing episode.

All the bits with Burgess Meredith (The Penguin) AWAY from Merman are just fine and that moment where he just wanders into the library and commits such an obvious crime will get a laugh out of most. Also, he is great again at the end.

As I have said in my previous reviews, this 1966 Batman series is just not capable of doing a bad episode, when one element of an episode (Merman) is not working out too well, there is always something or someone else to focus on instead.

Several Merman fans will click the "not useful" vote for this review, but that's life.

Sam Strangis directed and served as one of the unit producers for this hilarious episode. Strangis went on to produce for THE BRADY BUNCH and also LOVE AMERICAN STYLE. That said, you know Strangis was going to have fun with the cast. Enter the great Ethel Merman (playing Lola Lasagne)! Merman was also quite a comedian, and she does her schtick her. Actually, both she and Burgess Meredith (as the Penguin) make a terrific team as they attempt to fix a horse face, for the distinguished Bruce Wayne Foundation, using a glue factory horse as a switch! Look for tv detective Horace McMahon as Mr. Glu??? By the way, for classic movie completists, the plot is very similar to CHARLIE CHAN AT THE RACE TRACK (1937), some 30 years earlier, but just as fresh, all about swapping horses for a big race. Also on the radio you can hear the great Gary Owens blabbling away. Lola mentions her short, short marriage to Mr. Lasagne, which was probably a rub to Ernest Borgnine, who was married a very short time to Ethel Merman. Recommended with or without lasagna. SEASON 3 EPISODE 4 box set, now fully restored.

The first of only five multi-part story lines from the third season, "The Sport of Penguins" not only boasts Burgess Meredith in his signature role but also adds Ethel Merman as Lola Lasagne, formerly Lulu Schultz, who doesn't like to be reminded of her past identity, her love of parasols matching his love for umbrellas (I fondly recall one blooper from years before: "and now the robust voice of Ethel Murmur!"). Returning henchmen are Lewis Charles as Armband, from the very first Penguin appearance in season one, and Joe Brooks as Visor, from the False Face two parter just a few weeks later. The plot dates back as far as 1936's "Charlie Chan at the Race Track," villains scheming to switch horses before the big race, betting on the long shot for huge winnings. This first chapter involves the search for a horse that can double for Lola's Parasol, winding up in Glu Gluten's Glue Factory for an old nag that might just fill the Penguin's bill (appearing uncredited as Gluten is Horace MacMahon, one of many familiar faces that surprised and delighted audiences of the time).