| 04-20/21-1966 | "The Bookworm Turns" |
Francine York as "Lydia Limpet..."
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
One
of the more incongruously perverse pairings of the series was the statuesque
Francine York as the HenchGirl Lydia Limpet with the diminutive Roddy
McDowell's "Bookworm..."
She
adores the small worm and carries out his criminal deeds with a voluptuous
feminine grace...
Planting a book bomb in the Batmobile...
Batman has left the Boy Wonder to guard Lydia Lympet...
Going one better than the "I can beat you with one hand tied behind my back"
routine,
Lydia, despite having both hands tied, still gets the best of Robin--
She does first try to charm him into untying her...
Knowing she's a bad girl, Robin refuses,
but she talks him into reading her a book...
He sits next to her...
Prophetically claiming this kind of book always puts him to sleep...
He opens the book...
And out whooshes a cloud of knock-out gas...
Lydia looks away as the Boy Wonder is clouded...
And collapses to the floor...
She reports to the Bookworm that Robin
"Got a whiff of your sleepy-bye book..."
And then smugly regards the befallen Robin at her feet...
And yes, her hands are still tied...
Thanks to Starman* for the large vidcaps...
As
has been pointed out on the old
Land of Nod site, 1960s
Batman was the
Mecca for knockout gas/powder scenes... As no one shot
anyone with bullet-guns, the KO's on
Batman relied less on
physical strength or vicious violence and more on cunning, empowering Females as no other show
did... The "sleepy fetish" of watching WOmen gassing men was not only
highlighted, but probably the mass-media genesis for the fetish...
What makes this "sleepy fetish" so perversely delightful is that while the
seemingly negative action of a knock-out occurs, actually a blissful state
is being induced by a Beautiful WOman... There is no pain, no conks on the
head, the whole experience seems rather pleasurable... Just a soft stream of
ethereal substance that renders the victim utterly unto dreamland... And
what, prey tell, is dreamland? Something not unlike death, perhaps... And
these ethereal substances, per chance? Emanating from Beautiful WOmen, they
symbolically project as something akin to powdered breast-milk, a nurturing
source of love and warmth that oozes the male into unconsciousness... And
once the men are covered in this cloudy knock-out powder, they seem, with
their faces splattered, somehow happy, as though their own vaporized
ejaculate has wafted over them... And with the Boy Boner a symbolic youth,
Lydia Limpet does seem a perverted Mother-figure manipulating the baby into
dreamland with a "sleepy-bye book..."
High
C writes: "The producers and writer got it exactly right with York in
part 1. Some henchgals were given too much to do (see Terry Moore as Venus)
and many others were given hardly anything. York was handed just the right
amount of lines and responsibility in “The Bookworm Turns” and she handled
both very well. Although her later appearance on Lost In Space was notable
for her costume, as the episode wears on, it’s easy to spot the flaws in her
acting ability. Unfortunately, in part 2 of these Batman eps she was given
very little to do."