Batman rights wrongs
This is part two of a parody of the 1960s Batman TV series. The story began here.
Voiceover:
“We have already seen…
A charity premiere
But the movie’s not here!
The mayor’s been taken
All dogs love bacon!
The pirate plays a game
The batcomputer’s aflame!
Our heroes brave and bold…
Rickrolled!
Can Batman and Robin escape the certain doom of being crushed by a giant log? It looks hopeless…but have you seen this show?”
Batman and Robin are straining against the log, but it’s still rolling unstoppably, while Rick Astley cowers against the wall. They step away dramatically.
Robin: “Holy Sisyphus, Batman!”
Batman: “Don’t give up hope, old chum. Fortunately, I have something that might just do the trick!”
Batman pulls a tube out of his utility belt. It’s labeled “Bat-Termite”.
Batman: “Mastotermes darwiniensis, or rather, my own genetically-modified mutant strain…Mastotermes darwiniensis chiroptera…the Bat-Termite!”
Rick Astley; “A termite? Seriously?”
Batman: “I am always serious when lives are at stake! Chew, little termite, chew!”
Batman shakes the termite on to the log. Sawdust begins to fly, as the log rolls forward. When the log rolls far enough and the bat-termite reaches the floor, though, we see the termite chew through the floor and disappear through a hole it has made.
Robin: “Holy Hogan’s Heroes! It escaped through a tunnel!”
Batman: “Holy hole indeed, Robin!”
Robin: “Actually, I said ‘Holy Hogan’s Heroes’.”
Batman. “Really? I just assumed–“
Rick Astley: “Don’t you have a bat-chainsaw or a bat-axe or something?”
Batman: “They would spoil the line of my utility belt.”
Robin: “Fashion is a powerful weapon against the criminal mind!”
Batman: “If only there was some way we could remotely contact Alfred! Some device that could transmit our voices across a distance without the use of wires!”
Rick Astley: “I have a cellphone.”
Batman: “Is it a bat-cellphone?”
Rick Astley: “Um…no.”
Robin: “Holy rotten luck!”
Batman: “The Boy Wonder is right! I appreciate your offer of assistance, citizen, but it would go against everything in which I believe to use a non-bat-item to save us. It’s unfortunate that you will also come to an untimely demise, bones snapping and being ground into dust, excrutiatingly squashed into unrecognizable jelly, but better to die than to live an unbranded life.”
Robin: “Gosh, that was deep!”
Batman: “Perhaps if I recalibrate my batarang, I can turn it into a bat-tuning fork! There’s one chance in a billion that I can hit the right frequency, which should dissolve the molecular bonds in the Pirate’s lethal log!”
Rick Astley: “Or you could just tell me the number, and I could dial it! That way, you wouldn’t be the one to use the device…and I wouldn’t die!”
Robin: “What do you think, Batman?”
Batman: “I still like the tuning fork idea.”
Robin: “A billion to one is pretty long odds.”
Batman: “You see, Robin! Math does serve a useful purpose. Your use of a statistical argument has convinced me.”
Robin: “Gosh yes, Batman. I’ll hit those math books twice as hard when we get home.”
Rick Astley: “What’s the number?!”
Batman: “Gotham City 5-5555.”
Rick Astley dials the number. We hear Alfred: “Batcave: Alfred speaking.” There is a bit of awkwardness as Rick Astley tries to hand the phone to Batman, who won’t take it. Rick Astley ends up holding the phone up to Batman’s cowl.
Batman: “Alfred, this is Batman, the caped crusader.”
Alfred: “Yes, sir. I’m sorry it took me so long to answer the phone. I was regrouting the bat-hot tub. How may I be of service?”
Batman: “Is the laser-equipped Earth-circling Batellite still in geosynchronous position over Gotham City?’
Alfred: “I believe so, sir.”
Batman: “I need you to program it to project a Robin-shaped beam precisely 375 centimeters from my current position, adjusting for a downward rotational rate of three degrees per second.”
Alfred: “Very good, sir.”
Alfred walks over to a machine labeled “Laser-equipped Bat-satellite”, and pushes a single, large red button shaped like a bat.
We see a red beam cut a Robin-shaped hole in the log. Robin dashes through.
Robin: “Holy square peg! What now, Batman?”
Batman: “Look for some way to halt the progress of this fiendish mechanism!”
Robin finds a handle labeled: “Stop the fiendish mechanism.” The boy wonder throws the lever! The log stops, and begins reversing.
Alfred: “Will there be anything else, sir?”
Batman: “That should be sufficient for now…you may return to your grouting.”
Alfred: “Thank you, sir. I consider it a privilege.”
Rick Astley: “We’re saved! Thank you, Batman!”
Batman: “I was simply doing what any citizen with a geosynchronous laser-equipped satellite would have done.”
Rick Astley: “Um, right. By the way, I meant to say…I’m actually not a citizen, I’m from England.”
Batman: “We are all citizens of the world.”
The log has retracted. We can see Robin, and a stairway with a sign that says, “Exit from Deathtrap”.
Batman: “You may return to playing your music, Britizen. Let’s go, Robin…we have a pirate to pursue!”
Batman and Robin run up the stairs.
We bat-cut to Commissioner Gordon’s office. Mayor Judi Rooleeani is there, with Commissioner Gordon and Chief O’Hara.
Commission Gordon: “Your Honor, it is fortunate indeed to see you back in command of this fair city. Chief O’Hara, I commend you and your men for your valiant action.”
Mayor Rooleeanee: “Actually, the Pirate dropped me off outside. The officers just rode up with me in the elevator.”
Chief O’Hara: “If only me and me boys had been there when the blackhearted scoundrel was here! I’d have shuddered his rudder.”
Commissioner Gordon: “I share your sentiment, Chief, but there will be no rudder shuddering without a court order…or a positive assessment of probable cause.”
Chief O’Hara: “I’d cause his probable!”
Mayor Rooleeani: “Listen, you two. Neither of you were there or were a part of this, so that doesn’t matter. In fact, I can’t think of the last time either of you were involved in anything more than a parking ticket! What do I pay you for?”
Commissioner Gordon: “It’s a mystery…and one I’m sure I can’t solve. However, there is one person who can…do you concur, Chief O’Hara?”
Commissioner Gordon reaches for the bat-phone…
Mayor Rooleeani: “Stop that!”
We bat-cut to the street outside a swanky restaurant named “The Crow’s Nest”. The Batmobile roars up (trailing bat-shaped bubbles). Batman and Robin unfasten their seatbelts and leap out. A uniformed parking attendant (Jay Leno) approaches them.
Attendant: “Valet parking?”
Batman: “No thank you, citizen. We are here to capture a major offender against the city’s civil code. It shouldn’t take long; we’ll just park at the meter. Besides, the Batmobile isn’t your average vehicle: not just anyone can drive it.”
Attendant: “I have some experience with exotic cars.”
Robin: “Holy in-joke!”
Batman: “Be that as it may, it won’t be necessary.”
Batman leaps to the meter, and we see a closeup of the utility belt as he pumps a little lever and it drops out quarters one at a time. We see a “bike rack” with the surfboards parked in it. There is a sign: “Amphibian surfboard parking only”.
Robin: “This looks like the right place, Batman! Gosh, it was smart of you to put bat-tracking devices on the Pirate’s surfboards! How did you know which ones to do?”
Batman: “Simple, Robin..I put bat-tracking devices on every surfboard in Gotham City.”
Robin: “Holy Big Bat-Brother!”
Batman: “It was a small matter to calculate the tracks of the surfboards which left the water, and led us here…to the Crow’s Nest.”
Robin: “Holy appropos!”
Batman: “I think it’s safe to assume that the Pirate and his high seas henchmen are using this newly established eatery as a front. To the batropes!”
Batman whirls a batarang and releases it! It sails up…and up…two stories…five stories…ten stories…twenty stories…now we’re getting bored! It wraps around a railing. Batman jerks it so it tightens. We cut to Batman and Robin doing a
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Robin: “Gosh, Batman, why do we always use the batropes? Why don’t we ever go up the elevator?”
Batman: “For the element of surprise, old chum!”
Robin: “But if we always do it the same way, why is it a surprise? Why aren’t the criminals just waiting for us at the window?”
A window pops open in the wall they are climbing. Lady Gaga leans out.
Lady Gaga: “Hello, Batman and Robin.”
Batman: “Good evening, citizen. What brings you to our city?”
Lady Gaga: “I’m doing a show at Gotham Square Garden.”
Robin: “Holy Little Monsters!”
Batman: “I hope your preparations are going well.”
Lady Gaga: “We’re all set. Although, say, I like the way you are climbing up the walls…maybe I could use that as my entrance.”
Robin: “Bat climbing isn’t for amateurs, miss. It takes years of practice.”
Lady Gaga: “Oh, I thought maybe you were born that way.”
Lady Gaga shrugs and closes the window. Batman and Robin continue their climb.
Voiceover: “Meanwhile…inside the Crow’s Nest restaurant…”
Hacker: “I’m still confused, Captain Boss. Why did we kidnap the Mayor, and then return her to police headquarters?”
The Pirate: “It be all part of a clever plan, you seagoing simpleton! While we had the Mayor at the abandoned Pirate Bay attraction, I scanned her.”
Malware: “What for, Captain Boss?”
The Pirate: “So I can feed her statistics into this, what be me greatest invention…The Infringer! Then, we’ll be able to make all the unauthorized copies we want…hahr hahr hahr!”
We see Batman and Robin have arrived on a ledge outside the window.
Robin: “Let’s get ’em, Batman!”
Batman: “Ready when you are, old chum! Those batclimbs are a good warm-up before a strenuous bout of batfighting!”
They are about to dash through the window when Batman pauses.
Batman: “Great Scott! Look who is being led to a table!”
We see Aunt Harriet and Alfred following a waitress in a pirate outfit.
Aunt Harriet: “Thank you for driving me, Alfred! I’ve heard that this restaurant has the most amazing seafood.”
Alfred: “I live to serve, madam.”
Batman is waving his hands wildly at the window. Alfred sees him. Batman points to Aunt Harriet, and makes a little walking motion with his fingers, to show Alfred he wants Aunt Harriet taken out of harm’s way. Alfred nods.
Alfred: “Madam, shall we go?”
Aunt Harriet: “Whatever for?”
Alfred: “Well, since we’ve finished dinner…”
Aunt Harriet: “Finished? But we haven’t started yet.”
Alfred: “Oh, but we have, madam. Don’t you remember? You said the mahi-mahi was delicious.”
Aunt Harriet: “Did I? I don’t recall.”
Alfred: “Yes, madam.”
Aunt Harriet; “Well, we must come here again some time, when I’m not quite so forgetful.”
Alfred: “As you wish, madam.”
Alfred winks at Batman, and ushers Aunt Harriet out of the restaurant. Batman and Robin bound into the dining room.
Batman: “Hold it right there, Pirate! Your sinister sailing days are through!”
Robin: “Yeah, you’ll be landlocked all right…landlocked in a jail cell!”
The Pirate: “Sink em, boys!”
The batfight breaks out…WOOT! LOL! BRB!
Batman and Robin are leaping off tables and smashing them over Hacker, Malware, and Trojan. Each of the henchmen goes down. Batman and Robin shake hands, and look from side to side for the Pirate. They spot him…next to the window! There is a plank sticking out of it, and on the plank is Katy Perry, in a leg-revealing leotard covered in feathers.
The Pirate: “I demand safe passage, Batman, or I’ll make her walk the plank!”
Robin: “Holy hostage!”
Batman: “Who are you, young lady?”
Katy: “I’m Katy Parrot. The Pirate hired me to replace his mechanical macaw.”
Batman: “Pirate, you fiend! Why did you do that?”
The Pirate: “I figured more people would pay attention to me this way.”
Robin: “Holy Yvonne Craig ratings desperation!”
Batman: “Now, Robin, don’t be sexist. Women can do anything that men can do…they just can’t be paid the same for it.”
Robin: “Gosh, Batman, you’re right…how insensitive of me.”
We hear a commotion, and Aunt Harriet enters quickly, followed by Alfred, who is trying to dissuade her.”
Aunt Harriet: “I’m sure I must have left my purse here in the restaurant, Alfred. Perhaps it’s in this cloakroom…”
Aunt Harriet enters The Infringer through a door. Lights begin to flash and we hear the sounds of a modem! A progress bar quickly moves to 100%, and “Item Scanned” flashes in neon lights on the side.
The Pirate: “Hahr, hahr, hahr! It works!”
The Pirate dances a jig, moving away from Katy Parrot. Batman hits him with a decorative treasure chest, and he sinks to the floor.
Batman: “Alfred, help Miss Parrot! Robin, to The Infringer!”
Batman and Robin leap towards The Infringer. They open the door, and Aunt Harriet stumbles out…and then another Aunt Harriet…and another…
Robin: “Holy duplication!”
Batman: “The Pirate’s sinister server has created a herd of Harriets!”
Robin: “Holy stripped DRM!”
Alfred: “Sir, I’ve noticed that there is another door labeled ‘Delete’. If you were to entice the copies to enter it, I should think that would dispose of them.”
Batman: “Good work, Alfred!”
Robin: “But how do we know which one is the real Aunt Harriet?”
Batman: “Simple, chum. Alfred, the fire alarm!”
Alfred: “Very good, sir.”
The alarm goes off and the overhead sprinklers engage. Everyone is getting wet, and on one Aunt Harriet, we can see the words “Harriet Cooper” appearing on her arm.
Robin: “Holy watermark!”
Batman: “Precisely, Robin. Some time ago, I took the precaution of marking everyone I know with a special invisible bat-tattoo. The chemicals in the ink interact with the hydrogen and oxygen in the water, becoming briefly visible, thus enabling me to verify their identities!”
Robin: “Why didn’t The Infringer duplicate the tattoo?”
Batman: “A scanner can’t scan what a scanner can’t see.”
Robin: “Holy tongue twister!”
Alfred has been feeding the duplicated Aunt Harriets into the delete door, and they’ve been disappearing. As the last one goes in, The Pirate recovers consciousness.
The Pirate: “What…what happened? Where are all the duplicates?”
Alfred: “What duplicates, sir?”
The Pirate: “You mean…you mean it didn’t work? I don’t understand…the programming was perfect.”
Batman: “No programming is perfect, Pirate…not even television.”
Robin: “Holy mixed metaphors!”
The Pirate: “Ahhhhrrr-choo! Ahhhhhhrrr-choo!”
Batman: “Caught a cold, Pirate?”
The Pirate: “I think I’m allergic to her feathers.”
Robin: “Well, there’ll be plenty more feathers where you are going…from the jailbirds!”
Commissioner Gordon, Police Chief O’Hara, and some uniformed officers enter the dining room.
Robin: “Holy obsolescence!”
Chief O’Hara: “Take ’em away, boys!”
The uniforms and O’hara drag out The Pirate, Malware, Hacker, and Trojan.
Commissioner Gordon: “What about her, Batman? Evil moll or innocent bystander?”
Batman: “She’s not one of the boys, Commissioner.”
Katy Parrot: “That’s right. This whole thing has just been a bad teenage dream. Thank you for rescuing me, Batman!”
Batman: “No thanks are necessary, citizen. Alfred, will you see that Miss Cooper, the aunt of Bruce Wayne’s ward, Dick Grayson, gets home safely to stately Wayne Manor?”
Alfred: “Certainly, sir. Miss Parrot, may we offer you a ride?”
Katy Parrot: “No, I’d better start looking for a job, now that I’ve lost this one.”
Robin: “Say, Batman, do you think that nice singer we passed on the way up here could use her?”
Batman: “No way to know for certain, Robin, but you can tell her Batman sent you, Miss Parrot. My friend, millionaire Bruce Wayne, owns a talent agency. I’ll have him send someone over to look after your interests.”
Katy Parrot: “That’s swell! Would he do that for me?”
Robin: “He’s a philanthropist, Miss Parrot. Just another rich guy helping out society.”
Batman: “Let’s go, Robin!”
Batman and Robin dash to the window.
Doodleedoodleedoodleedoodleedoo!
The final scene, in the sitting room at stately Wayne Manor.
Aunt Harriet: “Well, that was quite an evening!”
Alfred: “Indeed it was, Miss Cooper. I’ve taken the liberty of drawing you a warm bath upstairs.”
Aunt Harriet: “I still don’t understand what happened. At one point, I think I was seeing double!”
Bruce Wayne: “Fatigue can do that, Aunt Harriet. You’ll feel better in the morning.”
Alfred leads Aunt Harriet upstairs.
Dick Grayson: “Bruce, look!”
Another Aunt Harriet enters from the library.
Dick: “Holy viral video! I thought we got rid of all the duplicates!”
Bruce; “Unfortunately, Dick, once an illegal copy has been made, there is no way to eradicate it completely. I’m afraid these counterfeit Coopers will continue to pop up from time to time.”
Dick: “Isn’t there anything we can do?”
Bruce: “Not us this time, old chum. It’s up to the public, the good people of Gotham City. As long as they keep downloading unauthorized songs, videos, and e-books, the demand will exist. Until they stop, these criminals will keep infringing on the rights of law-abiding corporations and artists.”
Dick: “Holy futility!”
Bruce: “Never give up hope, Robin…never give up hope.”
THE END
(~^v^~)
This post by Bufo Calvin originally appeared in the I Love My Kindle blog.
If the book blocks text-to-speech access, I won’t list it.
I Love My Kindle 