The BEST episodes of Batman (1966)
Every episode of Batman (1966) ever, ranked from best to worst by thousands of votes from fans of the show. The best episodes of Batman (1966)!
Wealthy entrepreneur Bruce Wayne and his ward Dick Grayson lead a double life: they are actually crime fighting duo Batman and Robin. A secret Batpole in the Wayne mansion leads to the Batcave, where Police Commissioner Gordon often calls with the latest emergency threatening Gotham City. Racing to the scene of the crime in the Batmobile, Batman and Robin must (with the help of their trusty Bat-utility-belt) thwart the efforts of a variety of master criminals, including The Riddler, The Joker, Catwoman, and The Penguin.
#1 - Hi Diddle Riddle
Season 1 - Episode 1 - Aired 1/12/1966
While the Riddler maneuvers Batman into being sued, the Dynamic Duo investigate the supervillain's concurrent scheme.
#2 - Flop Goes the Joker
Season 2 - Episode 58 - Aired 3/23/1967
The Joker persuades wealthy heiress Baby Jane Towser to join him in his artistic capers. Aided by his new accomplice, the Joker easily clears out a wing of the Gotham City Museum to make room for his latest “masterpiece” – pieces of a broken table. But the laughing criminal has plans for the priceless collection of paintings that once filled the room.
#3 - Hot Off the Griddle
Season 2 - Episode 3 - Aired 9/14/1966
Catwoman makes her return known with a string of robberies. Hoping to lure her into a trap, Batman plants a news blurb giving the whereabouts of a rare canary, but Catwoman is tipped off and arrives prepared. Batman and Robin follow a lead to Catwoman’s hideout, the Pink Sandbox, but soon discover that this villain has been waiting for them.
#4 - Green Ice
Season 2 - Episode 19 - Aired 11/9/1966
Mr. Freeze is in town, and has begun a new cold wave of terror. He launches “Operation Hate Batman,” framing the Caped Crusader as taking a bribe and dressing his own henchmen as Batman and Robin. As the negative press mounts, Mr. Freeze works on his plan to turn the Dynamic Duo into human Frosty Freezies.
#5 - Tut's Case is Shut
Season 2 - Episode 8 - Aired 9/29/1966
Using resurrected scarab beetles, King Tut concocts an ancient mind control potion, abu raubu simbu tu. Chief O’Hara is the first under his spell, followed shortly by Commissioner Gordon, and when Batman himself is tricked into taking the drug, Tut’s plan to control all of Gotham City by tainting the water supply seems close to succeeding.
#6 - A Riddle a Day Keeps the Riddler Away
Season 1 - Episode 11 - Aired 2/16/1966
King Boris, who hails from a European country, comes to Gotham City for a visit. Upon his arrival, there is a disturbance, which includes a clue from the Riddler. Batman and Robin investigate and get on the Riddler’s trail. They are trapped by the criminal, who ties them to large wheels that will spin with ever-increasing speed until they are dead.
#7 - Smack in the Middle
Season 1 - Episode 2 - Aired 1/13/1966
The Riddler fashions a mold of the face of the unconscious Robin. He contacts Batman with two more riddles. The Riddler tells Batman if he can solve the riddles, he'll know where Robin is.
#8 - The Bird's Last Jest
Season 2 - Episode 28 - Aired 12/8/1966
Attempting to save Chief O’Hara from drowning inside a metal trunk, Batman and Robin find themselves under fire from the Penguin’s henchmen. Batman instructs Alfred to pose as famous forger Quill-Pen Quertch (complete with false fingerprints), but the Penguin recognizes Alfred as soon as he puts on his glasses. The evil Bird-man and his cronies then visit stately Wayne manor brandishing a giant Butler-pie.
#9 - Batman Displays His Knowledge
Season 2 - Episode 50 - Aired 2/23/1967
Catwoman goes ahead with her scheme to steal several Batagonian Cat’s Eye opals, but she has trouble finding someone to fence them since such rare stones would be easily spotted. With little recourse left, she decides to turn them in for the reward money. It seems like the perfect job for her acquaintance, Freddy the Fence. But when he notices that the gems are fakes, Catwoman realizes she has been tricked by Batman and vows to get revenge on the Caped Crusader once and for all.
#10 - Scat! Darn Catwoman
Season 2 - Episode 41 - Aired 1/25/1967
Batman agrees to let the Catwoman drug him. But he appears to have a headache and the Catwoman permits him to take an aspirin. After the drug is administered, Batman appears to assist Catwoman on her crime wave. However, the police receive anonymous telephone calls that enable them to pick up members of Catwoman’s gang, including the drugged Robin. Meanwhile, the Gotham City police try to trace the hot line to the Batcave. Batman is there with Catwoman. He uses a device that foils the trace. Eventually, Batman reveals he hadn’t taken an aspirin but his universal drug antidote that prevented the drug from working. Catwoman tries to flee on top of a warehouse near the Gotham River. Batman is in pursuit and corners her. But, unwilling to go straight, she falls into the river. Has she lost her life, or just one of her nine lives?
#11 - Batman Sets the Pace
Season 1 - Episode 26 - Aired 4/7/1966
After an ingenious escape, Batman and Robin again pick up the trail of the Joker. The villain’s ultimate crime is designed not only to make him rich but to ruin Batman’s reputation.
#12 - Catwoman Goes to College
Season 2 - Episode 49 - Aired 2/22/1967
Catwoman is released from prison, and claiming she wants to enrich her education, enrolls at Gotham City University. She dresses one of her own henchmen as the Caped Crusader in order to frame him for a robbery. With Batman in jail, she goes ahead with her plan for a mass sit-in at Chimes Square. Catwoman is more than surprised when Batman himself shows up at the event. However, his efforts to expose the villainess are futile, and she prepares to terminate him and Robin in front of the whole crowd.
#13 - Pop Goes the Joker
Season 2 - Episode 57 - Aired 3/22/1967
The Joker appears in an art gallery and defaces the paintings with paint-spraying guns. But instead of being horrified at his alterations, the Joker’s work is praised as “art.” After more success at an international art competition, the Joker founds his own art school. But Batman and Robin suspect he has a more sinister purpose in mind when he enrolls only wealthy millionaires.
#14 - The Cat and the Fiddle
Season 2 - Episode 4 - Aired 9/15/1966
Catwoman disguises herself as a wealthy recluse – Minerva Matthews – to exchange a quarter million dollars for two Stradivarius violins. Once the instruments are safely in her hands, the villain reveals her true identity and demands the cash back. But Catwoman is surprised to learn that her business partner – Zubin Zucchini – is also not who he appears to be.
#15 - That Darn Catwoman
Season 2 - Episode 40 - Aired 1/19/1967
The Catwoman manages to drug Robin. The junior member of the Dynamic Duo is now the Catwoman’s mindless slave. Batman is on the trail of the sultry villain, but he’s hampered by the fact he can’t harm his partner. Eventually, Batman is trapped by the Catwoman. He’s in a giant trap and Robin is cutting the rope that will cause a giant mouse trap to snap on Batman. The Catwoman offers Batman a choice – die by Robin’s hand or agree to be subjected to the same drug.
#16 - Fine Feathered Finks
Season 1 - Episode 3 - Aired 1/19/1966
The Penguin plots to manipulate Batman into inadvertently devising capers for him.
#17 - The Penguin's Nest
Season 2 - Episode 27 - Aired 12/7/1966
Penguin has opened a fancy restaurant called The Penguin’s Nest. There every order has to be written down by the customers on a piece of paper. He then plans to get himself arrested and hand over the handwritten notes to a forger doing time by the name of Ballpoint Baxter. Suspecting a scheme, Batman urges the police not to send The Penguin back to his permanent cell. Unable to reach Ballpoint, The Penguin and his culinary cohorts escape from jail, taking Chief O’Hara along as a hostage.
#18 - Dizzoner the Penguin
Season 2 - Episode 18 - Aired 11/3/1966
After escaping the Penguin’s death trap, Batman still faces an uphill run to defeat the Penguin in the race for mayor of Gotham City. The Feathered Fiend uses every dirty trick he can think of to ruin Batman’s reputation. But the Penguin discovers opinion polls aren’t what they are cracked up to be. Still, Batman and Robin will need to subdue the villain before his plot can be put down once and for all.
#19 - Deep Freeze
Season 2 - Episode 20 - Aired 11/10/1966
The press continues to attack Batman and Robin, thanks to framing by Mr. Freeze. As public animosity mounts, the Dynamic Duo decide to hang up their capes for the time being. But when Mr. Freeze demands the impossible sum of one billion dollars, or else he will cover all of Gotham City with ice, the Caped Crusaders feel compelled to go back into action to foil the frosty villain.
#20 - The Impractical Joker
Season 2 - Episode 21 - Aired 11/16/1966
The Joker pulls off a string of key-related pranks throughout Gotham City, then with his magic box, proceeds to snatch a priceless jeweled key right under the noses of Batman and Robin. The Dynamic Duo wise up to his ways and thwart him at their next encounter. However, the Joker has more devious plans to do away with them both before his final caper.
#21 - Hizzonner the Penguin
Season 2 - Episode 17 - Aired 11/2/1966
The Penguin appears to have gone straight. (Evidently the citizens of Gotham City have short memories; he tried the same trick in season one.) Not only that, he has emerged as the leading contender for mayor of Gotham City, thanks to a little-known provision of the city charter that permits felons to run for elective office. Mayor Linseed, facing almost certain defeat, convinces Batman to run for mayor. This displeases the Penguin, who doesn’t want to leave anything to chance. He lures Batman and Robin into a trap and, by episode’s end, things don’t look good for the Dynamic Duo.
#22 - The Bat's Kow Tow
Season 2 - Episode 30 - Aired 12/15/1966
Batman and Robin escape Catwoman’s trap by hitting the precise note needed to shatter the glass chamber in which they’re prisoners. They quickly get on the trail of Catwoman. The feminine feline criminal eventually “steals” the voices of Chad and Jeremy, Commissioner Gordon and talk-show host Allen Stephens. She blackmails the British government, which faces the lost of revenue from the taxes on Chad and Jeremy’s performances. Batman and Robin eventually capture Catwoman and her gang, but not before Batman and Catwoman express obvious affection for each other.
#23 - Rats Like Cheese
Season 1 - Episode 8 - Aired 2/3/1966
Vince, a temperamental physician at a Gotham City hospital (a takeoff on Ben Casey), saves Batman and Robin. The Dynamic Duo resume their pursuit of Mr. Freeze. Eventually, Batman substitutes himself for Paul Diamonte, a baseball player, Mr. Freeze has kidnapped. Robin, disobeying Batman’s orders to stay away, is also captured by the villain. Now, in his headquarters, Mr. Freeze is using his climate controls so that only Batman or Robin will have access to life-giving warmth.
#24 - The Penguin's a Jinx
Season 1 - Episode 4 - Aired 1/20/1966
Bruce Wayne escapes the Penguin’s deathtrap and returns to the Batcave. What he doesn’t know is that one of the Penguin’s clues, an umbrella, has a listening device.
#25 - Catwoman's Dressed to Kill
Season 3 - Episode 14 - Aired 12/14/1967
The Catwoman targets the fashion industry by first terrorizing a banquet honoring Batgirl and then attacking a fashion show. During the attack on the fashion show, Catwoman captures Batgirl and takes her back to her hideout where she threatens to kill her with a pattern cutter. She then tells Batman that if he attempts to rescue her that it will leave the visiting Queen Bess of Bellgravia vulnerable for attack. Now the Caped Crusader must find a way to save Batgirl and prevent any harm to Queen Bess.