For some Throwback Thursday fun, we’ll take a look back at another pair of episodes from the 1966 Batman TV-series starring Adam West as Batman and Burt Ward as Robin. In “The Joker Trumps an Ace” the Joker (Cesar Romero) returns with a series of bizarre crimes including stealing the hole from a golf course. Eventually the Joker’s plan to kidnap a visiting maharaj is revealed, but it also ends up trapping the Dynamic Duo in a death trap where Batman and Robin climb out a chimney to avoid death by gas. “Batman Sets the Pace” allows the Caped Crusaders to do a little undercover snooping as Bruce Wayne and Dick Grayson tracking the villain to his lair.
Although the Joker escapes, Batman discovers the true reasoning behind all of his madcap schemes and shows up just in time to stop the swindler from taking money from Gotham National Bank for a kidnapping which never happened. The pair of episodes offer on of the Joker’s more elaborate plans as all of the more visible crimes are nothing more than a ruse to hide the villain’s true purpose of impersonating the visiting dignitary and contriving a fake kidnapping. The episodes are also notable for the Joker’s use of mirrors which allows the Joker to escape and to stay one-step ahead of the Caped Crusades (for a little while, at least).
