DC COMICS: Batman '66 (Batman s1 ep 15 & 16)

Batman '66 in the Media

THE JOKER GOES TO SCHOOL:
The Joker decides to recruit high school dropouts for his gang of Bad Pennies by rigging the vending machines at Woodrow Roosevelt High School so that they dispense silver dollars and negotiable stocks and bonds instead of milk. Learning of these shenanigans from Police Commissioner Gordon, Batman arrives at the school and calls an assembly of the student leaders: including Dick Grayson, Pete, and Susie, the head cheerleader. The Joker then appears, but when the Caped Crusader attempts to arrest him for loitering on school grounds, the Clown Prince of Crime manages to get off on a mere technicality. Meanwhile, in a bar across town, a trick jukebox with a double-barrelled shotgun enables two of the Joker’s henchmen, Nick and Two-Bits, to rob the bar's receipts from the cash-register. Later, at the Joker’s hideout in the One-Armed Bandit Novelty Company, the Homicidal Harlequin and his Bad Pennies - including Susie - hatch a blackmail scheme involving stolen exam papers, and then prepare to set a trap to capture the Dynamic Duo using another rigged vending machine equipped with shackles and sleeping gas!

HE MEETS HIS MATCH, THE GRISLEY GHOUL:
The Joker has tied Batman and Robin / Dick Grayson to two electric chairs connected to a one-armed bandit - when the machine spins three lemons, the Dynamic Duo will be electrocuted. However, a blackout stops the current, enabling the police to arrive in time to free the heroes before the power is restored. After listening to a secret audio-recording they made, Batman and Robin discover that Susie is a member of the Joker's Bad Pennies gang; the Boy Wonder goes undercover as Dick Grayson in an attempt to trick Susie into leading him into the villains’ hideout, but Nick sees through his ruse, and sends him off after mentioning an impending robbery at a local bar. When the Dynamic Duo arrive at the bar they come under fire from the shotgun-wielding jukebox, but disable it with the aid of a Batshield and Batbomb. Realising that Susie is in danger they immediately rush to her aid; meanwhile, the Joker instructs the girl to plant answers to important Nationwide Pre-College Exam papers inside one of the rigged machines, and then gives her some perfume - which contains a deadly poison that will kill her as soon as she sprays it on. The Caped Crusaders catch up with Suzie at Woodrow Roosevelt High and try to warn her that Joker is onto her and that her life is in danger. Suzie ignores their pleas, opens the bottle of poisoned perfume, squirts some onto herself, and immediately falls into the arms of the Dynamic Duo, unconscious. Later that night at Joker's headquarters, gang member Two-Bit informs Joker and Nick that he saw Suzie being driven away in a meat wagon, with the Boy Wonder crying inconsolably. Joker and his two minions are momentarily saddened by Suzie's demise, but Joker returns to form by giving Nick a memorial cigar in honor of the departed cheerleader, which turns out to be a trick exploding stogie. Their sprits lifted, the three rush out of Joker's hideout and head to the Woodrow Roosevelt gym, where their scheme will come to a climax. At the gym, the starting five for Woodrow Roosevelt's basketball team are finishing their warmups for that night's game against rival Disco Tech. The five know about Suzie's fate and are determined to beat Disco handily as a tribute to her. Walking out of the gym on their way to the locker room, the team captain notices that the out-of-order sign on the vending machine near the gym entrance is gone. One of them deposits a coin, and, instead of milk, out drops a bundle of papers. They look over the sheets and soon realize that they contain the answers to the upcoming Nationwide Pre-College Exams. At that moment, a camera flashes, and the team looks up to see Joker, Nick, and Two-Bit standing in front of the bleachers. Two-Bit has just snapped them holding the incriminating evidence. Joker and the Bad Pennies play dumb, pretending that they just happened to be on school property, which they support with their taxes...