Do Go On - 157 - Batman (with NICK MASON)

Episode Date: October 24, 2018

Our favourite tram driver / podcaster joins us for our MOST REQUESTED TOPIC EVER! The great man himself, Nick Mason, gives us a comprehensive background on Gotham's masked hero, Batman! .... And naturally we go off on some tangents as well. Support the show and get rewards like bonus episodes:www.patreon.com/DoGoOnPodCheck out Nick's podcast: https://www.planetbroadcasting.com/our-shows/the-weekly-planet/Submit a topic idea directly to the hat: http://bit.ly/DoGoOnHat Twitter: @DoGoOnPodInstagram: @DoGoOnPodFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/DoGoOnPod/Email us: [e-mail]: dogoonpod.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Melbourne and Canada, we got exciting news for you. And we should also say this is 2026. Jess, what year is it? 2026. Thank God you're here. Right now, I'm in Melbourne doing my show with Serenji Amarna, 630 each night at the Cooper's Inn Hotel, having so much fun. We'd love to see you there.

Canada, we are visiting you in September this year. If you've somehow missed the news, we are heading up Vancouver, Calgary, Montreal, and Toronto for shows. That's going to be so much fun. Tickets for all this stuff, I believe, are online. And I'm here too. This week Do Go On is brought to you by Care of. Care of is a monthly subscription vitamin service

that delivers completely personalized vitamin and supplement packs right to your door. For 25% off your first month of personalized care of vitamins, visit Take Careof.com and enter the promo code, Do Go On. That's Take Careof.com and enter the promo code and do go on. Do, G-O-N.

And now, let's go on. with the show. This podcast is part of the Planet Broadcasting Network. Visit planetbroadcasting.com for more podcasts from our great mates. Oh, and welcome to another episode of Do Go On. My name is Dave Warnicky and I'm here in the studio with Matt Stewart and Jess Perkins. And what's that? A spy, a special guest, Mr Nick Mason.

Hey! It's Mason. It's great to be here. Yes. Hey, Mason, just quick question. What are you doing for Block? Offer Block, Blockbuster. Yeah.

Well, I've been listening to every. episode of your podcast for Blockbuster Tober. Well, that is surprising and beautiful gesture. I enjoyed your, most recently, I enjoyed the War of the Worlds episode. Oh, what an episode. Would you like to hear a fact about the War of the World's radio play? No, thanks. No, that's fair.

No, no. Sorry, I didn't answer. I'd like to hear it. So two against one, sorry, Jess. There we go. It could be a fun fact. You'll have to. I'll decide.

So the War of the World's radio play and the subsequent panic that it caused. The drama. It did not happen again? What? Yeah, it happened again. With the musical? No, in 1949, in Ecuador, a radio station did it again. And basically what happened is they play the radio player again, like their version of the radio.

So they didn't do Orson Wales. It wasn't all in English and they're all thinking, what the hell is that? What is this? What's just insane? Everybody turned off. It was a real ratings disaster. But they did it. and they had like people on board like actors on board who would like who would imitate the mayor

and the mayor like so the mayor was involved and was like oh you know this is this is a real disaster i don't understand what's happening there's an invasion kind of thing and this is definitely not a radio blow and the the army who heard that it was happening and heard the mayor was saying that they went to the north of the town to to investigate no one's told us in person, but I assume this radio station is how I'd find out as the general. And then eventually the people at the radio station figured out what was happening. And they were like, okay, just letting you guys, just letting you know, this is a trick, this is a hoax.

We just did it as a bit of fun. That's their first big mistake. What they should have done was send down a black thunder with icy cold cans of coke. Exactly. And that could have just, yeah. But apparently there were people in the streets, like people were running to church to like confess like because they, you know. So the priest got some.

some mad gossip that day. Well, apparently there were, there were like men confessing that they'd committed adultery to their wives. I never loved you anyway, Mary. Anyway, so the radio station was like, okay, we apologize, but at that point,

there was a mob of people in the streets who went to the radio station. That's when you get the coax out. Yeah. They burned it down. They actually did. They burned it down. Because there was a radio station,

and below that was the, the newspaper printing press for the town, and they lit it on fire. Yeah, newspaper is a great kind ofing. Yeah, it's unlucky. Never build on top of a newspaper printing press. Would you like to know another fact about the War of the World's Radio Play and the subsequent... Oh, no. Mesa is very quickly doing a better job than you did, Dave.

Oh, no. It's just this is a short one. I'm going to change my yes to one now. Okay, never mind. People at home do your own research. It's not difficult. Now, what was the other one? I happen again.

Wait, the third time? Yeah, in 1968. Happening again in Buffalo. Oh, Buffalo. When will people learn? No, they've... But was anything burnt down this time? No, nothing got burned down this time.

Because I kind of enjoy how that escalated. Yeah, right? But also, if I think the world's about to end, I'm not going to be like, I cheated on you. Like, I'm going to let it go. Yeah, you take that to the grave, that kind of shit. But the problem would be is that they, if you think that you need to ask for forgiveness to get into heaven,

then you offload it all. But I also don't think that's the right environment to sit down and discuss and ask for forgiveness. No, you don't need it from them. You need it from Jesus. And the marshes. So just ask him when you get there. And the marshes. You won't get there, Jess.

That's the point. Well, I've never been going to anyway. Billy Islebub is not so good at the forgiveness, okay? Okay. Talking from experience. Oh, boy. Yeah, I listen to metal. You take a sip of water.

Yeah, very cool. From my goblet Skull goblets Yes Anyway so this is This is week four of blockbuster tober For Grace Jones period And

And Jerry McGuire Sorry show me the money And Show me the money And You have to say it three times Sorry Matt

That's only two times from me personally But then Tom Cruise turns up in the mirror Something You had me at hello Oh my God. This is going to be a nightmare episode. It is... Sorry, Mesa, thanks so much for dropping it.

I'm so sorry that you have to see us like this. I love it. I love it. He loves us at our worst. That's right. And if you don't love us at our worst, fuck off. No, see, this is you at your worst, and I love you at you are. You are a sweet man.

So week four of Blockbuster, Tobor, as we've been saying since the start, this is our most ever requested topic. And it is with Mr. Mesa. Do you have a question to get us on topic? I do have a question. I mean, it is pretty silly as we all know what it is. Well, you guys all know what it is. But the listeners don't know what it is.

But the episode title says what it is. Some of them play without looking. Yeah, really? That's balzy. Yeah, that is ballsy. Okay, well, here's a question for the two people who are not, who play this Russian roulette episode titles. And can I get it?

because someone emailed in saying that they've added up all the times we've answered, and I actually get it right the least. Really? That's fascinating. I would not have guessed that. Who gets it the most? I would have said you the most, Jess, the least. Is it the opposite of it?

The exact opposite? I don't get it the most. Hayes, a scientist emailed in, Jeff. I would have thought it would be you that gets it the most. Look at us all backing each other. She was pointing at Matt then. I go with the most bravado, but I don't think I often get it right. Wow.

So I need to improve my stats here. I feel so smart. Well, let's see. Yeah, yeah. Also, who's this guy adding up all the questions? I mean, good on you. I should know. You really should get.

Can you find out his name by the end of the episode day? Yes, I'll do some investigating. Okay, so here's the question. Yes. For the two or three people that, okay. So, in the 1960s, the actor who portrayed this character was kicked out of an orgy because he refused to break character. What character was it?

And can you guess the actor? I'm sure he can. I reckon it's... Orgy Phil? It's Orgy Phil, yeah. What's his name? It's Batman. It is Batman, yes, correct.

And also, I think maybe the Joker or the Ridler? It was the Ridler, yeah, that's true. And I can't remember either. Adam West. Adam West was Batman, yeah. And who was the Ridler? The Ridler was Frank Gorshan. Oh, the Gorsh.

The Gorsh. The Gorsh, an actor and a stand-up comedian. So apparently... And a bloody sex man. Oh, hang on, whoa. Whoa, whoa, whoa. I guess, yeah, no, you know, being the riddler at an orgy is a bit pasty. Getting kicked out of an orgy implies your behaviour isn't welcome.

Oh, okay, so ye with the first stone cast it at my glass house again. Never been kicked out of the orgy, have I? I've been given warnings. Strong warnings. Never actually kicked out. Never rejected. Okay. Red card.

You were given the red card. I gave a red card. I had a time out. But I was allowed. back in. Your parents were contacted. After I said sorry nicely, like I meant it. Did you ever get that when you're a kid?

Sometimes like, yeah, your mom would be like, I apologize, go, sorry! Like you mean it. Like, you mean it. But then you just learned layers of, yeah. Yeah, you just fake it. So you can watch TV again. Is this a, that's a true orgy story. That is a story that Adam West has told a number of times.

Well, he did. He's passed on since then. But apparently he and Frank Gorsham were invited to a whole. a fancy Hollywood party. And they're like, cool, well, let's go and hang out with some people and have some drinks and whatever. And they showed up not knowing anything of what the nature of the party was. And they showed up and it was an orgy in progress.

Batmobile keys in the bowl. Yes, Papamobile keys in the bowl. Exactly. And they were like, let's do this in character. And so he was just coming up and talking to all the various concerned citizens and telling them to wear their seatbelts and drink milk. Wanna zoink? Yeah, exactly.

Zorke. And then eventually the host of the party was like, you're messing with the vibe you should probably leave. Oh. Get involved, everyone else. There's plenty of characters in the DC universe. Exactly.

Could have been a catwoman. Could have been a king tut. These are all sexy characters. That's right. A penguin. Oswald's cobble pot. Stop it. It gets you going.

The fiddler. The fiddler. Come on. Dave. Dave. Dave. Dave. Come with Dave.

Well, have you going to turn on a pun like that, then probably, leave. That's why Dave was kicked out of an orgy. Yeah, too many puns. That makes sense. So this is generally our most ever requested topic. Oh, pressure.

You've been on other man episodes. You're on the Superman episode. You're on the Mothman episode. Do you hate women? I just love men. Yeah, fair enough. Can't I have man just love other men? That is very true.

Men in capes and spandex? Yes, of course. You can. It's 20, bloody 19 or whatever the year is. At the year of release. I think we're going to put this straight out, so that'll be 2018. Nice. What is how we tend to operate, yes?

I've got a few in the vault. It usually takes about six months of legal clearance. I've guessed it on some pods, and they've just never come out. If you want to have a chat, if you want to catch up, just say so. Forget the fake months. It's hard not to take that personally. When they're releasing other episodes. Have you ever followed that up?

No. That'd be good. Yeah, I'll shit do that show. What the fuck? Come on, guys. Do you want me to do it for you? I'll say, as Mr. Mason's representative, just wanted to inquire as to the status of the podcast.

What the fuck? Thank you. Your dickheads. You got a problem? You want to fucking go? Sorry, was that your email to Mark Maron's WTF podcast? Yeah, he knows. I just want to talk about Nick Mason, What the Fuck?

Episode 671. Never came out, Mark. Where the bloody hell is it? Yeah, come on, Mark. Also, loved you in glow. Yeah, a really great turn. Good show, yeah. Love that show.

Great. Real career renaissance for that guy. Yeah. He's great in it. We should do that. So it is the most requested ever topic. We've had so many tweets. We're not even going to read out the name.

Sorry, everyone. But if you're listening, you probably have requested it. I reckon quite literally hundreds of people have requested this. It's actually easier for us to read out the names of people who haven't requested it. So here we go. Doug. Kevin Jones Hank Cobblepot

End list That's the brother of the guy you said just before Oswald He's really bitter He doesn't want to hear any more about the penguin He's the non-fictional brother Of a fictional character So three people haven't requested it

Everyone else on earth has Including President Obama Wow Yeah it goes all the way to the top A few years ago So Nowadays it's just a podcast enthusiast Good for him

Yeah Well you got to do something in your retirement Anyway people will be He's screaming at their podcast machines. What do you do? You can't drive anymore. Do you know that? What?

Sorry what? Take away your license. It's no longer safe to be a personal driver. The Queen doesn't even have a license. She doesn't need one. Can you believe that? Fuck, she's cool. They take away you.

That's bullshit. He's young. George W. Bush. That's weirdly the oddest thing about that's the thing I'm blown away about. Yeah. Yeah. So George W. Bush, the younger one, because he still likes to drive, goes to his Texas ranch.

on private property where he's allowed to. Okay, right. Sorry, Matt. I know you're trying to get on topic, but that is crazy, isn't it? That is crazy. If I was Obama and they said that to me, I'd plead the fifth. I'd say, officer, I'm pleading the fifth.

And I'd do a burnout. Yeah, nice. And drive off. Would you do Sharkers while you did a burnout? Yeah. Oh, obviously. Yeah. A bit of a stupid question.

So that's what pleading the fifth was. Yeah, that's actually what I thought it was. Sharkers. Woo! I have no idea what pleading the fifth means. It's either being silent. or having a gun. I forget.

Why not both? I'm pleading the fifth. Anyhow. Batman? This episode is about Batman. It will be at some point. Like, you were the only person who's ever done a report

with pen and paper. And paper. Because as you guys learned earlier, I don't know in a laptop. So I love it. I don't believe in it. I don't believe in any of this. You're a regular Oswald Cobble Pot.

When was the last time you used a keyboard? You used to play the key Tart, didn't you? Well, that would be an it. Yeah, I was in a flock of seagulls. I was in a flock of seagulls one time. The band. Playing Akita. Yeah, that's probably then.

No, I can't even remember. Yeah. Must have applied for something online, maybe a job. Do you reckon you've forgotten how to now? No, I can do it. I don't know that you can. Wow. We should really do some of these tangents once we started talking about Batman.

No, no, tangents. I'll do four minutes on Batman at the end. Great. It must be tangents. Okay. So, Batman. Who's heard of Batman? Me?

What do you guys know about Batman? As a boy, he was walking along the street with his parents who had pearls in an opera suit. They did have pearls in an opera suit. And a man who could have been the joker but probably wasn't killed those guys. Yeah. Those guys being his parents. Those guys being his parents. And then he fell down a hole into a bat cave.

And bats flew everywhere. And he started fearing the bats until he grew into an adult. And he became the thing he fears most. He became Bitzman. Hang on. Good night, everyone. We've covered it all. They were in the city when they were walking down.

Yeah, they're in Gotham City. And he fell in a bat cave in the middle of the city? Well, that was on their property where their mansion, the Wayne Manor is. Right, okay, great. Sorry, that was a jump cut in there. Because I was thinking, like, oh, down the end of this alleyway, it's just like a manhole that leads to a bat cave. And that feels like a town planning issue.

No, they're on a cliff just outside of the city. Okay. Is most of that kind of right? That's pretty close. So I guess everybody, it'd be a rare person who doesn't know at least the basics. Yeah. The pearls falling everywhere. The pearls falling everywhere.

Exactly. And the oprissuit. And the oprissuit. Exactly. And the manhole filled with bats. Those things. Dave, any of that news to you? The pearls.

Didn't know the pearl bit. Right. Yeah. Right. Yeah. So the basic story of Batman, as Dave has pointed out, is that the Wayne's, wealthy socialites, Thomas and Martha Wayne, Wayne, were taking their son Bruce to the theatre.

They were going to see a movie performance of the Mask of Zorro at the Monarch Theatre. And then they are mugged. And then Thomas Wayne gives them the mugger all his money. And then the mugger goes from Martha Wayne's pearls. And he takes exception to that. And he grabs at the pearls. And then Thomas Wayne's like, no, no, no.

At which point the mugger shoots both the Wayans, leaving Bruce Wayne an orphan. Right. So why does Thomas not want the pearls? Do they have significant value to the fan? No, it's just a, maybe it's just the principle of the thing. Maybe it's because he's making move towards the wife. Maybe that's it.

I think that's probably the issue there. And then, of course, Bruce. He was also, like, really expensive. It was very expensive. And he just bought them for it. But I think, and it's also was a different time. Obviously, now we know that women can be mugged too. That's very true.

But Thomas was very old-fashioned. He's like, no, no, if you're going to mug someone mug a man. Mug a man. Mug a man. What kind of animal mugs a woman, he said. And I mean, that's obviously very David. And the answer is, of course, a bat. That's exactly right.

So Bruce Wayne decides that he is going to wreak vengeance upon all criminals and rather than use, his vast fortune to maybe change some laws or make some social programs to rehabilitate criminals. He decides he's going to learn martial arts and science and then build big vehicles. martial arts and martial science. That's exactly right. Wow. And then beat up criminals individually.

Yeah. Which I think is important. And does it ever explained where the money comes from? The Bruce, the Wayne money. Yeah. What's the business of Thomas? Thomas. Thomas.

Well, Thomas Wine's a doctor. Why do you assume it's Thomas's money? Oh, sorry. Different time. Different time. I mean. Sorry. Sorry.

Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. I forgot. He wasn't wearing expensive pearls though, Dave. Think about that. Yeah, because it was a different time.

Yeah. But he also came into a lot of money, I believe. further back into the Wayne history, there was money involved there as well. I'm not sure exactly why. They were involved in the formation of Gotham City, which is the town they're from. So I think maybe mining, I want to say, or construction. Something one of those. I'm going to say both and politics.

Politics, probably politics. And lottery. Bit of R&D. Yeah. So anyway, Bruce Wayne decides that he is going to, he becomes, he travels the world and he becomes very well trained in everything he would need to fight crime and then he's sitting in his drawing room one day and he

one night and he thinks to himself okay I need something a gimmick he doesn't say a gimmick to strike fear into the hearts of criminals he says criminals are a superstitious and cowardly lot what can I do to Is that true?

They will not step on a crack It was a different time for fear of breaking their mother's back and I will be crack boy Crack boy Don't step on me We surrender He just wears assless chaps

It's his uniform But before that particular sign Could come to him Instead a bat crashes through his drawing room window And he goes Criminals are afraid of bats Was he he was an illustrator Or an artist

Who's this? Bruce Wayne Bruce Wayne was not an artist No No he was uh You're thinking of Captain America He was an artist Was he?

Yeah he was an illustrator Yeah right Someone who was an artist though Was the man who's the man who's most closely associated with creating Batman, which is the main name Bob Kane, born October 24, 1915, New York, New York. Well, that's his birthday week this week.

It is, yeah, that's right. Maybe even this day. Today is the 24th, what day is it today in that thing that you said? The 17th. Wait, no, when is this coming out? 24th. Oh, then that's his birthday. Serendipity.

Serendipity. His 103rd birthdays today. Yeah, well. That's, that's spooky. Good quick math. Very spooky. Spooky. He was born New York, New York as Robert Kahn.

And then he quickly changed his name to Bob Kane. Quite quickly, like on day three? On day three, yeah. He's like, what the fuck do you guys thinking? You're not feeling this. I'm more of a Bob. Come on, look at me. Is this a Robert face?

Is this a Khan face? It's a Kane face. I don't think so. I'm Bob Kane. It's a bloody cane face. So he studied it, he went to high school. He actually went to high school with a member. named Will Eisner, who was also a

comic book artist. And a member of the Black Eyde P's. Yeah, Will Eisen, I am. Yeah, I remember him. Yeah. That's good stuff. He's doing the regret face. Dave's doing a regret face. Oh, my goodness. I felt that. I'm regretting for two.

I'm regretting, you said that. So Will Eisner created a character called The Spirit, who was kind of like a masked detective kind of character. and the Eisner Award, which is the biggest award in comic books, he's named after him. And they went to high school together? That's amazing. That's cool.

So that was, sorry. Back to, so I just wanted to say back to a couple of weeks ago with the Orson Wells War of the Worlds episode. Yes. One of his big breaks was being the narrator on the Spirit radio show. There you go. That's right. Yeah.

That's how people knew Awesome Wells earlier. Yeah. And the spirit was sort of like a proto superhero. Yeah, he was. him and yellow yellow Oh the yellow kid As we've mentioned before The spirit was kind of

Yeah he was like a proto superhero He wore he just He was a man in a suit with a mask But the the biggest Contribution that the spirit had To comic books was Will Eisner would broke the character out of that Really traditional comic book format

Of just like okay he's six panels And he's a little thing happening in this one Little thing happening in this one Will Ison was all about Okay here's him Let's just do a big splash page and here's a, here's the whole page and there's action happening in it

or he'd have the characters jump out of the panels or it'd have, you know, it was very much like sort of deconstructing the form. And this is, when did you say this was the 30s? This, oh, the spirit would have been the late, would have been through the 40s. Forties. The roaring 40s.

That he, it was later made into a movie maybe 10 years ago that was not very good. Oh, bummer. It's a real bummer. That's, oh, fuck, I love this stuff so much. So, there's, There's a lot going on already. There's a lot going on already, yeah.

So he... I was about to bog you down, but I won't. No, no, that's all right. Well, there's a lot to bloody get through. So in 1934, he joined the Max Fleischer studio as a trainee animator. This is back to Bob. This is back to Bob Kane. Yeah, that's right.

And then two years later, he entered the comic book field in 1936. As a freelancer, his first work was to a comic book called Wow, Water Magazine, exclamation point. His first pencil and ink work was on a serial called Hiram Hick. I don't know anything about that character. It sounds offensive. Harem Higgins. Isn't that Larry Bird's nickname? Isn't that something like that?

The Hick from Hirenberg Hick? No. Something like that. I swear to God, you told me so. On this podcast. I only talk about the round band of rebound. Charles Buckley. Nice.

So, and wow. Magazine was owned by a guy called Jerry Iger. Iger later formed a comic book production house called Isner and Iga with Will Eisner. And then Bob Kane joined in on that. He was like, I'll get a piece of this. What a game. And with, wow, what a magazine. It sounds like the guy that created that said to people,

all right, I want people to look at this and say, wow, what a magazine. Yeah, right. Think of a cool title. I'll be back in five. You could just do that. And then they would just make it for you. It was a different time. It was a different time.

It was a different time. Iceland and Iger was like a comic book Packager which basically meant they went to various production companies like National Publications which became DC and they were like, we'll make some stuff for you and they were like, okay, how about a superhero comic book or whatever? How about a funny animal comic book?

And they would go and they would get their team and they would write it and draw it and then they would just send it in and then National would buy it presumably or not, depending on how good it was. Right. So Bob Kane wrote a comic book series It's called Peter Pupp, which was about funny animals.

That was about it's a funny animal. That's pretty funny. Peter Pup. Peter Pup. He also created Oscar the Gumshoe, Ginger Snap, and Professor Doolittle for various. And this is early on when none of the good names are taken. How are they coming up with this crap? Oscar the Gumboot.

Is Professor Doolittle anything to do with Dr. Doolittle? I think it's unrelated. What are the chances. Dr. Doolittle's created. He wanted someone that could outrank him. Exactly. And there was one of those. was something, ginger snap?

Ginger Snap against me. No, that's unrelated also. Speaking of great names, that Ginger Snap was published in more fun comics. That's so good. More fun. More fun. The only comic that I've ever owned is TISM volume 2,

and that was released by a small Melbourne magazine called Ag. I remember Argue. Sure, yeah, I can't remember anything else they produced, but I remember. Classic Tism. They might have also produced the Martin Molloy comic book, I'm not sure. That would make some sense, I reckon. I didn't know there was one.

Yeah, there was. It was like three issues. Really? Chronicling the adventures of Melbourne radio hosts and comedians, Tony Martin and Michelin. I think we need to get a do-go-on comic going. Oh, yeah. That's a lot of work.

That would be so fun. There's a weekly one of comic. We can talk to those guys? Yeah, can we be on a splash page? Yeah, nice. It's a big, too. A good way to do it. Yeah.

I'm picturing like a splash. on a page. Yeah, like a real splash. Because you say that a bit on your podcast, and does that mean it's like a full page? Oh, it's just a splash page is just like a full page, and there's action happening like the whole page. Right.

It's just one, like if you get, just one big scene is happening. Right. It's a one moment? I'm feeling I'm excluding Jess, but it's just because she's over there. Yeah. And I hate women as well. That's what I'm.

Yeah. Good. We've got that bit out of context. So anyway, in 1939, D.C. or national publications at the time, we're having a huge success with a little character called Superman, which we covered some time ago in a Superman episode. I don't remember. It wasn't listening. Wow. It's all right. We're not going to talk about it. Who cares, quite frankly? But everybody else, go back to that one. It's pretty good. It's pretty good. After you finish this one, can't have any dessert until you finished your veggies. That's right. This is the veggies.

Oh, is it? That's a compliment. I like this. This is a real broccoli of an episode. Yeah, you looked at me like I was saying this is shit. But I love veggies. I love veggies too. Oh, man, yum. And I love cheesecake, so I'm leaving to go back and listen to the Superman episode. Typical Dave.

That's why he'll die first. Dave. There's no doubt in my mind, Dave will die first. This is going to feel awful when it happens, when people are listening to this. Yeah, but also. You can't die. I can't. I'm immortal.

Me and Keanu live forever. Jess has a certain youthful exuberance, which I think we'll see her through. And Dave, he's just got that type of. of attitude where he'll just give up. Plus he eats too many pies. He does eat too many pies and cheese coke, apparently. First sign of something not being right, Dave's body will just shut down. You need different colours on your plate.

I can't just all be yellow. You're a big yellow boy. I'm a yellow kid. You're the yellow boy. The yellow kid. Nice. Good stuff. Bring it back.

Bring it back. I can't believe you think I'm going to die first. Well, I don't want to say. You can say it's me. It's fine because I'm only here for the episode. Yeah, maybe. Maybe. So no way.

No way. My sister's going to live forever. Yes. Because I always thought I was going to live forever. Oh, Dave. Are you serious? How stupid are you? Not only you're stupid, you're going to die soon.

Soon. You do stretch every night, though. Yeah, true. It's not going to be in some kind of stretching accident. And now every morning as well. Morning and night. Oh, at noon. I should.

Every day at work, the alarm goes off. Stretching damn goes! he puts on his... Don't... You're going to stretch on the way to a helicopter and stretch into a blade or something else. Yeah, it is going to be a stretching accident. Don't stretch too high.

You're stretching too close to the sun. Well, as long as I have access to a helicopter, I think I've lived a good life. Yeah, that's pretty good, actually. Wow, great point. Like a bat copter? Oh, good return to this. Here we go.

All right, so national publication. I'm just going to call them D.C. We know who it is. This DC Comics. Oh, that was going to be a sweet reveal. Sweet reveal. They were having huge amounts of success with Superman and action comics, and they were like, okay, they went to all the artisan writers,

and they were like, can you give us something? Give us something that's like that, and it's going to be a hit just like that. And so in 1999, one, Bob Kane was being interviewed by Stan Lee on an interview show called The Comic Book Greats. What's his last name? Stan Lee. Stanley. Oh, I see.

I see what you're doing here. I see what you're doing. I see. Jokes I knew his name's Stanley Lee, but he changed it for show business. He did not. He did, it's true. Stanley Lee. Yeah, Stanley Lee.

La, la, la. So he, and Stanley asked about the creation of Batman, and he said, in this situation. And, of course, Bob Kane was like, I got to get in on this because, like, Segal and Schuster created Superman got a kind of a raw deal, you know, throughout the course of their career. But at the time, they were making what would have been the equivalent of like a couple of grand a week. So they were doing a right. And so Bob Kane was like, he said, for that kind of money, you'll have a new character on Monday. Like, I'm going to go away this weekend. I'm going to create a new character and then I'm going to be rolling in it. And I've created such great

characters as Gumshoe Boy, ginger nut. Yeah, ginger nuts. Crystal meth. He even said on this interview, he even said, for that kind of money, this, to create this new character, I'll steal it from somewhere. Maybe it's a little foreshadowing. Oh, no. How about ghost mutt? But true to his word, he came back in Monday morning and he had a character called the Batman.

And so it was... How about Superman? Oh. And he said he was influenced by the character. His influence included Zorro, Swashbuckler Zorro. I love Zorro. Written into the origin story. Exactly.

Written into the... I love Antonio Banderas. Yeah, well, this was... I love Puss and Boots. Oh, I'm glad you said boots. Yes. But there's some sweet editing to be getting by the listener later on.

If you, you know... I love Puss. No editing required there. Nice. Hello there. Sorry, hello there. This is Matt, just budding in quickly to tell you a little bit more about Carol.

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or wherever babies go, it's sort of near the belly, but it's not right in your belly unless you've eaten a baby. And I really don't think they're looking after you if you're a baby eater. You don't eat the baby. Thank you. It's an important thing I wanted to get out. That's not part of this script. And also, did you know this? You will know this if you're in the Northern Hemisphere.

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25% off your first month personalised care of vitamins visit take care of dot com and enter the promo code or one word do go on do go on D-O-G-O-N and now let us do go on with the show He also said that he was that when he was a kid he saw he was reading a book of Leonardo da Vinci drawings and in that there's a... So he's looking at it, he's a reading a book.

Yeah, that's true. There's a picture of what was called an ornithopter which was like a helicopter with big flappy wings and he was like, well, that looks to me like a Batman. So I'll put that in there and it's my drawing of the Batman. It's a divinci. And so the design of Batman that he presented

was pretty close to the one people know of now, kind of that grey full-body suit and it's got the cow that covers his face and the ears and the cape and he's swinging down from a rope and he's like, what do you reckon about that? And they're like, absolutely, you know. Absolutely not. This is the worst idea we've ever seen.

So he's a writer-illustrator. He's actually done the original drawings as well. Well, he's an illustrator. And so I think the idea was, according to what he would say he would, you know, he created this character, here it is. And they would go, okay, now get us some stories. And then he would go away.

and then he would come back with some early stories. So hang on, where are we? Where are we? We're in the studio, Matt. No. No, incorrect. Oh, no, we've asked him. Fix it in the, fix it in post.

There was the Superman's big hit at the moment. And he's taken in like such a different direction because you've got the basically indestructible, all powerful guy. Yes. With one weakness to just a guy. Just a guy, exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So in this, and I think maybe, I would definitely say that this is the, that's part of his appeal over the years.

Is, yeah, he is just a guy. It's a, it's a character that you don't, kids can be like, you know, they don't have to, you don't have to be a man from another world. You could just, you could just, and it was, you know, a thing of kids, hey, if you work really hard. And get billions of dollars. Billions of dollars. That's why I like Captain America. Hmm. Because all he did was be a nice person.

And get a serum. Yeah. Yeah. So anyway, so the first Batman story was published in Detective Comics No. 27, which is a collector's item these days, although not as much of a collector's item as Action Comics No. 1, first appearance of Superman, obviously. And it was called The Case of the Chemical Syndicate. And in this story, Commissioner Gordon, he invites his friend socialite Bruce Wayne to a crime scene. They're going to investigate a crime scene. You bring the brandy. Yeah, he brings the brandy. And they investigated this crime scene. crime scene and it turns out that there's

a group of crooks and they're going to be they're stealing from this chemical company and they figure this out and then later Batman arrives on the scene and he defeats all the criminals and then he takes off and then Bruce Wayne reemerges and

Commissioner Gordon's like well what a situation just happened there and then Bruce Wayne's like I know what a incredible turn of events that this Batman has shown up and defeated all these criminals and then he goes back to his stately Wayne manner and it's course it's revealed that he in fact is the Batman himself. So you don't know that reading it until...

You don't know until he ends. Oh, that's great. I love that. If you're an idiot, I guess. Well, I... Yeah. Yeah. There were simpler times.

You know who you're talking to. Yeah. I'm reading that going, guess that was a weird turn of events. Anyway, back to the mansion. Yeah. Oh, hang on. So the earlier versions of Batman were sort of inspired by pulp characters like The Shadow. So the early versions of Batman,

were way they were definitely happier to just kill criminals. So the early versions of Batman is just like machine gunning people from his bat copter. Fuck yeah. Or like hanging people from the back of it.

Oh, that's too far. There's a character from early on called the monk, who turns out to be a vampire. And all his henchmen are also vampires and there's a scene where Batman just stakes them all through the heart. Like he finds them sleeping in their coffins and he just stakes them all to death.

And that, so wait, are you saying modern Batman wouldn't kill vampires? I don't think he would because they're sentient beings. They're intelligent. They're also kind of Batman. They're a little bit Batmany, aren't they? Yeah. So over the course of...

So I should say that this has taken me for a bit of a surprise because I was sure we were going to be doing an episode about Melbourne's founding father. John Batman. Yeah, for sure. So this has really thrown me. Oh, no. Should I go back and do some... I can wing it, I guess.

Yeah, correct. I'll give it a try. Of Batman Avenue. Yeah. Real bad guy, apparently. That's a shame. Yeah. Let's see.

What else? Okay, so by Detective Comics number 29, we've got more established elements of the Batman mythos. He's got a batterang for the first time. His famous throwing a weapon. A batterang. Is that a play on words for something? Or is that a fully made up word?

What do you mean? Batarang. Boomerang? Seriously? I never. Were you doing a bit? I never figured that out. I'm like, what is that a plan?

It's so far from boomerang to me that I was not able to... Batarang is so far from boomerang. Sounds more like Kterang, which isn't anything. Deterang, the country... K-you-of-kermine, the horse rangulizer. K, I'm in a K-hole right now. Leib, get me out of here. I've fallen down a K-hole.

I'm going to grow up to become K-man. Let's see, in Detective Comics 29, we got his utility belt. which contains all these crime-finding gadgets. And snacks. Could be some snacks. Sure, there's a musli bar in there. Power bar, I think power bars. It would be definitely called a batter bar, though.

Yeah, batter bar, exactly. No, that's what we call a battered mars bar. You deep-prime mars bar, that's called a batter bar. Batter bar. Yeah. If you're out fighting crime, that's not a quick in-and-out job. You know, like, that can take ages. Take ages.

Steakouts. If I don't eat for a couple of hours. Are you doing an infomercial right now? No, I'm just letting you know something about me. We're in the ad now. We're in the ad now. Because we're about to be overseas together. So I'm just letting you know that if I don't eat for a couple of hours, I'm a grump.

Stopping crime, isn't it in and out kind of high? He wasn't listening. I'm the Batman. Jess, on the tour, all you have to remember is check your utility belt, get the musli bar, and you'll be back. Do go on utility belts. Yes. That makes utility belt yellow. Utility belt.

You love yellow. I love yellow. I'm literally wearing yellow right now. Yeah. his first vehicle for killing people off, I guess. And then in Detective Comics 33, that's where we get his origin story, which is two pages, again, where his parents are killed, and he revows vengeance against all the...

And that one... Is the only one that the Joker is in the first movie? Yes, I can give you some background on that. So, the... Initially, it's a nobody. And then there's a story many years later where Batman is investigating a... a mid-level sort of mob guy called Joe Chill. And cool name, right?

Pretty cool, right? Fucking cool name. Mr. Chill. Mr. Chill. And then what he, and then he, through his investigations, he discovers that that Joe Chill was in fact the mugger that killed his parents. Oh my God, that's giving me chills. And he confronts this guy and he's like, surprise, I'm Batman, but I'm also Bruce Wayne.

You killed my parents. What are you going to do about it? Prepare to die. Indigo Montoya Star. And then so, then Joe Chill goes to his man and he's like, guys, I don't know how to break this to you, but I created Batman. You know, that guy who's a menace to all our criminal careers. And then, as luck would have it, they all kill him.

They all get together and kill him before he can. Because he created Batman. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's, that feels clumsy and weird. Exactly. Well, comic books, you know, guys. Oh, clumsy in weird. I thought that was comic book readers.

Nerds. And then later on in the 90s, they were like, because remember in the 90s were really extreme? No, we were super young in the 90s. Man, no, my 90s were so extreme. Remember when you were born and then your parents just put you on a snowboard straight away and just chucked you down a mountain because the 90s were really extreme. So in the 90s, they were like, we've got to make Batman even grimmer than he is now. So what they did is they had Batman go through a time portal.

And he went to a time and then he discovered that when his parents were being, when his parents were murdered, that Joe Chil was in fact in jail for another crime. So it couldn't have been. So then he was like, oh, no, not only did I get that guy. killed but also that wasn't it wasn't the guy vengeance has not been served

so it was sort of a retcon it was but then they re-ccom it again so it's Joe Chill again why did Joe Chill say yeah that was me if he didn't do it I killed so many he killed so many he lost track

I killed so many parents mate he left heaps of kids orphans how was he to keep training I saw they call me the orphaner yeah chances are eventually one of them was going to turn into some sort of Batman I mean statistically yes

Yeah. But anyway, you're right. In the 1989 Batman movie, his parents are killed by a man named Jack Napier. I think it was the first movie I saw at the cinema. Who becomes the Joker later. But there's another mugger with him, and that is implied to be Joe Chill. Oh, cool. So he's there. So he's there, but he's not there. That's an incredibly dark film for a child to be seen for the first time of the cinema, Matt. Yeah, I don't think my granddad knew, and no one did. So it is quite weird looking back. I don't, yeah. But, yeah, I was a toddler. So it was really weird

What, in 89? Yeah, I was a very slow developer. It took me centuries. So anyway, you're at school. In Detective Comics 38, we got the introduction of Robin, who is Batman's sidekick. And a lot of people are like, oh, why is you, you know, when all these new movies come out, they're like, oh, you know, why bring in Robin, blah, blah, blah, you know, he's just this silly, this silly, colourful character. But he's been around basically as long as Batman has. He's been around since 1940.

And basically, he was introduced because... Batman needed a friend. Batman doesn't need a friend, well, he needed a friend and he also needed somebody to exposition towards. Yeah, yes. Like Sherlock Holmes says a Watson. I love Watson. It's weird that Batman's always just thinking

really, really long pieces of text to himself. Yeah. We need a little... And then also the idea, of course, was that having a kid sidekick meant that kids could relate more to the character. Because it's hard to relate to Batman, but it's... Right. You know, kids are always getting in a funny little scraps

and nearly being murdered by the jockey, you know? Why, wasn't that, hasn't that really played? Like, it wasn't in the Noel, not really in the Nolan trilogy? No, in the Nolan trilogy, Joseph Gordon Leavitt, in the third one, is implied he's going to be Robin or the next Batman or something. It's a bit fake. And the 89 one as well didn't, I don't think, but that sort of turns into the one where Robin comes in, right?

Correct, yes, yes. Sort of, no, it's like totally. Yeah, we'll certainly get to those. Great, sorry. No, please. But yeah. This, for people, people, people, can't see this, but this is just an assortment of loose notes.

Right. On paper, so I'll go back and back. I don't think I really like Robin that much as a character. Which Robin? The ones from the movies. Okay. And the TV show. Because depending on who you, depending on how you count them,

there's been somewhere between four and seven Robbins. Yeah, there's one called Bruce Graham or something like that. Yeah, there's one called Bruce Graham. No, I'm kidding. I'm not. It wouldn't be Bruce. We can talk about it later, I think. Dick Grayson.

There is a Dick Grayson. That's the first one. That's the one from the movies and the TV show. Right. Yeah, I don't know. I just found, yeah, someone about it. I'm just like, just let Batman be Batman. I like him being a loner. Yeah, that's fair. Yeah, I think a lot of people feel that way as well. That's, it's, he's, uh... I find that more relatable. Because you're a, yeah. I'm a what, Nick? A loner. Yeah.

A cool, a lone wolf. Yes. A wealthy, wealthy loner. You've got a wolf pack that do go on crew, but you could very easily go out of him. Hellen at the moon. Yeah. We only catch up once a week and that's enough. Other than that, solo. Yeah, solo trader

Yeah Solo drinker This was also when Shortly afterwards We got Batman number one Which was his own solo series But the stories continued So

We were getting Batman stories In detective comics And we were getting Batman stories In the Batman comic itself So you have to buy two to keep up with the story No they were separate Continuity was less of an issue I think back in the day

So if you saw it was mostly he just picked up, pick up one, and you had a Batman's story. Batman number one introduces, I believe, the Catwoman and the Joker with two of Batman's recurring villains for decades. What else? Um, mum, mum, mum.

By this point, by sort of the mid-40s, they were like, okay, let's, because of this, it was getting more popular, they were like, okay, maybe we should take out some of the more deadly elements of Batman, so he stopped killing people, and renounced guns and et cetera.

It was never really mentioned. He never really gave them away. It's just they just stop bringing it. So that didn't go all the way back to the start. Like, is he now never a gun guy? Or did he make a decision? He's basically the current origin of Batman would suggest that at some point he thought about it. And then he was like, nah, better not.

But then there's some weird thing that I hear you guys talk about on the weekly planet, sometimes about Ben Affleck and he's like he has guns. I mean, I can't let that go. Ben Affleck. Ben Affleck. Ben Affleck. I thought he was, you knew of doing that on purpose. I'm doing that on purpose.

David, please. Yeah. Benafleck. Jess and I just looked at each other like, what the fuck? What the fuck is Benafleck? I don't think I've hardly pronounced one word right this whole episode so far. Benafel. And Benafelik's.

the one you go for. Because that sounds like some sort of exotic dessert. One, a Benafli. I was thinking that too. I'll have a Bonofi and a Benafelik, please. To go. So in 1943,

there was also a Batman newspaper comic strip that kicked off as well. So now there's three continuous storylines happening. Bob Keynes. All of these have this little banner on them that says Batman by Bob Kane. People might recognize this little square and it's got his name in his own little handwriting

B with a really big O, Bob. Bob Kane, that's on all the mast heads. And that's interesting because back in the day, there was no, what happened? What happened? Nothing. Back in the day, are you guys making fun of it? No, absolutely, no, I'm making fun of a day. Okay, great.

I'll accept that. So back in the day, nobody really got a byline. Siegel and Schuster creators of Superman famously never really got any credit for their character. But Bob Kane, in the first meeting where he went in and he sold his. his character. Nobody really knows what was said, but that's good. Yeah, exactly. He said, I know where you live. Exactly, but he forever got this byline on it, basically everything. And it later became, initially with that,

and then years later, up until even maybe 2015, every piece of Batman media said Batman created by Bob Kane on it. And apparently, according to some people in the know, maybe the Who heard it's secondhand, apparently the contract, which has never been seen, I don't believe, says that Batman would be forever listed

as solely created by Bob Kane. So whatever negotiating tactic he... Wow. It's employed. It was kind of watertight. Especially back then. You showed him his balls. Yeah, that said,

they're terrified. This is mine, or I will show you these balls again. Exactly. And again, and I know where you live. For every piece of merchandise. I'll show you kids my balls Oh, okay Okay and then they signed a deal with you

I'll show you that little pretty Peter Pupp Yeah I'll show my balls You're funny animals So Bob came because he had that Bob came too much Oh Because he had that name in the

In the credits he became sort of a minor Celebrity so as the decades were on when they created the Batman TV series, which we'll get to shortly afterwards, when the Batman movies came, like the Tim Burton Batman movies came out in the 80s, he really embraced. He was kind of a larger-than-life character.

And, like, he went to the 1989 Batman premiere in like a white suit with like a black velvet cape on. And he got out of the Batmobile just to greet all his fans. Sounds like a mad dog. Yeah, and he parlayed that. He stopped a few years later in towards, I think, I guess,

the 60s, he stopped drawing, he stepped away from the Batman comic books and he just started doing like oil paintings and lithographs of Batman, that he would tour around the world with and people would buy them.

Anyway, he died in 1998, age 83. And I've got a little quote, this is from his headstone, which I'll, you know, a bit of fun. Headstones are a bit of fun. They are a bit of fun, exactly. So God bestowed a dream upon Bob Kane, blessed with divine inspiration,

and a rich imagination, Bob created a legacy known as Batman. Let's see. Bob Kane, Bruce Wayne, Batman, they are one and the same. Bob infused his dual identity character with his own attributes. Goodness, kindness, compassion, sensitivity, generosity, intelligence, integrity, courage, purity of spirit, a love of all mankind. God, no word limit on this thing is there. It's huge. And there's a picture of like the bat symbol.

Like on the grave. And so basically he left behind this legacy of this character, you know, and, you know, all these amazing creative, these characters, this huge, this huge Rhodes Gallery and all these supporting characters. And adjusted for inflation, the Batman movies collectively have made $3.5 billion. Billion.

Speaking of movies, though, and if I want to wind it back a little bit, There's a man named Michael Usland, and he's been a, he was a producer on, he's basically been a producer on all the Batman movies. Like he started the Burton Batman movies up until Justice League, which is the most recent one. And he was a comic book fan since he was a little kid. And in 1965, he convinced his parents to take him to the first New York Comic Con, like the first one that ever happened. Wow, Comic Con has been gone since 65. Well, it's actually been going before that.

This was considered the first official comic con because before that, like, fans had created comic concerts to get there and talk about, you know, comic books. But this was the first one where, like, creators and artists and writers would show up. That's awesome. Yeah, and this was at the Broadway Central Hotel, which was kind of a rickety. This is July 31, 1965, Broadway Central Hotel. This was a very dodgy, rickety hotel. Apparently three months after this convention, the roof caved in and the building was condemned.

but so Michael Usland who was this big comic book fan he convinced his parents to take him and his younger brother to this comic book convention and that was so thrilled that was super exciting because he you know he's loved comic books since he was a tiny little kid and he and his brother went up to a bar to order a couple of coax just to take a little rest

from all the excitement of the comic on and they ran into a guy his name's Otto Binder he was a very very prolific comic book writer from back in the day and he was having a conversation with another man who they didn't recognize and Auto Binder he'd written for action comics and adventure comics and he created

he worked on the Shazam Captain Marvel family just so many thousands of issues and they were so excited to meet him and then this auto Binder said to those kids hey would you kids like to meet the creator of Batman and they were so far

they were like this is so exciting we're going to meet Batman and they turned to this kid this guy who they were like we're going to meet Bob Kane This is Bob Kane, the guy in the... Oh. And they turn to this guy and it's... It's not Bob Kane. It's a different man.

And so, and I'm like, you're going to need... I'm going to need you all steady yourself. This is a man of the name of Bill Finger. Oh, Bill Finger. That's a stupid name. Because some of the people who messaged in this say want the Batman episode, they wanted to hear about Bill Finger. Yeah, right.

I forgot about that. Bill Finger. So Bill Finger's the real... So here's the thing. So again, every masthead had always said Batman, created by Bob Kane. And there's actually... So basically what happened is the thing about Batman, because he's the world's greatest detective. So I guess the fans who aspired to be like Batman also became little detectives. And there was a huge fan of Batman at the time. His name was Jerry Bales.

And he was like, okay, so there's D. detective comics and there's Batman comics and there's a Batman newspaper strip like how was it that Bob Kane had time to write all this and draw all this and like and this and so he wrote to DC Comics and and this was at the time when if you wrote

to a comic company they would write you back I want to talk about you know something that could have legal ramifications I'm a 13 year old boy could you please write me back I don't know worries little Timmy will send you all the our details. This is our lawyer's name if you want to ask any more questions.

He's a little showback. So he was like, so is Bob Kane right everything else who writes who writes Batman stories? And they wrote him back and they were like, okay, here's some contributors, here's some artists. But the name that came up was a guy called Bill Finger who had been

ghost writing this character for, not from 1939 to 1965. Whoa! So so the story goes that in 1939 Bob Kane

again he went away on a Friday and he went and he went to create this character called the Batman I'll find a little photo He created Just a little one please It's very simple Outside of that one time

You say he created the Batman You've dropped the the the They used the the the mark Initially he's the bat man The bat-man The bat-hyphen man It got dropped I want to say the 50s

Right So it's around A little while. Please, people, everyone. Similar to Facebook. Yeah, the Facebook, exactly. Facebook man. So he went to Facebook, man.

Oh, book man. Facebook man. Oh. From the ATT. He's a guy with a face. Yes. Man. So he went away and he created his character, the Batman.

Now, this version of the Batman sort of wears like a red union, like a bright red union suit. He's got the big black trunks. He's got blonde hair You can see his head He's got a little domino mask on And he's got these big stiff Sort of bat wings Oh

It's like a devil A demon A little stuff Nothing like a bat Not so much like a bat So then he called A friend of his Bill Finger

Who he'd also gone to high school with And who was an aspiring writer And also a shoe southman What a school? I can tell you I'd have to find it No I mean what I'm saying What a school

What a school It's more of it not What's the school School. You need details. I need to send my future children there. And Bill Finger was basically like, okay, well this isn't going to work. Okay, so what you need? You need the costume to be darker because he's a creature of the night.

He's a bat. So they made it grey and black. Then he was like, okay, he's got this little domino mask on. People are going to see his face. And criminals are not going to be intimidated by that. So how about give him a cow that covers his whole face? Give him the bat he is because then he's more like a bat. And then he's like, okay, these stiff wings are not going to be practical.

Have I give him a cape instead And give it like a scalloped edge So it looks like bat wings He can flat behind him Fully designed it And then he was like okay And there's nothing Maybe put a symbol on the chest

Like break up the put a bat on there So we know he's the bat man That girl does look sick But yeah It's not at all like Batman He's totally sick He looks sick bro So um

So basically he brought So Jerry Bales Who was this big fan Of comic books And of Bill Finger Was like Okay we're gonna bring you to this comic comic convention you can talk about this

and so he basically came out as this guy who'd been writing for Bob Kane oh so I should I should dial it back a little bit so basically Bill Finger writer designed this character and then basically he went okay here it is and then Bob Kane went to DC

and was like okay I created this character here it is and I created this and uh my name on everything thank you or I'll show you my ball And then he was like, hey, and then he came back to Bill, and he was like, okay, just letting you know, I sold it. Congratulations, we did it. But because I made the sale, my name's going to be on it.

And I'll pay you a portion of my salary. But there was never any contract written out. So the idea was that Bill would write. Bill got fingered. Yes, Bill would write the stories. Thank you. And Kane would draw the stories. Right.

So that was the arrangement. He caned him. for some time. With Bill's Finger. And so Jerry Bales, who was this huge fan, he actually wrote an article, it was a two-page article. Do you have a question?

I was going to say, so Bill Finger was the, he wrote the stories, and Kane drew them. But also, Bill Finger basically designed. He designed Batman also. So he designed how he looks

and he wrote all the stories. Well, I mean, there is some, there, Bob Kane certainly did write some of the stories, and he created some of the characters. Like, um, So Bob Kane's initial idea, people, you know, they both came up with the idea,

okay, well, Batman should have a sidekick because he needed somebody to talk to. And Bob Kane's idea was a character called Mercury. He was a teen boy and he had a super costume that gave him superpowers. And Bill Finger was just like, maybe just make him a regular kid. Yeah, that would be weird to have your sidekick being more powerful than you. Right? Exactly. So Jerry Bales wrote a little article. was a two-page article called

If the Truth Be Known or A Finger in Every Plot and it was his two-page article basically saying Hey everybody, just letting you know In case you're wondering, Bill Finger, he's this guy and he created all these characters. Wow, Jerry. Championing. But of course, he couldn't really publish that anyway.

So he'd basically just Xeroxed a whole bunch of copies and if anybody was curious, like he would accept letters from people who were curious about it or he'd find out their details or he'd see him at comic convention as he would give him a copy of the email them out a copy. Anyway, so

Bob Kane responded to this. He went to a Batman fanzine called Batmania, and he called, and Bill Finger, I also spoke on that day on that Comic-Con and he spoke about it, yeah, I did create a lot of this stuff. And basically

Bob Kane went to this fanzine and was like, hey, love your work, big fan of your fanzine, read it all the time, love it. And he was like, just let's you know that Bill Finger's statement about the creation of Batman, it was fraudulent and entirely untrue. The truth is Bill Finger is taking credit for much more than he deserves. I refute much of his statements here in print. And he said he claimed to create the Batman figure and costume entirely by myself. Wow. Yeah. Drama. So basically what happened is, yeah, Bill and Bob met at a

party one time and Bob only dealt with D.C. directly. He was the only one and apparently he never told anyone

about Bill and people at D.C. never asked. Because again it was this situation where it was like as long as you're bringing the work in we don't care. But a child did ask in letter form

and they did give the net. Yeah, I guess eventually they figured it out like after a decade or so. Right. They figured it out and they're just like,

all right then. Where else are going to? Wow. Yeah. Ah, this story has got it all. Sarah's got it all, right? It's got a little hook to it. And let me find the rest of the hook.

Hang on. Okay. So, yeah, so the characters that were in doubt that people, either Bob or Bill had a hand in, Batman, obviously, Catwoman, Robin, the Penguin, the Joker, the Ridler, the Scarecrow, Commissioner Gordon, Bruce Wayne, the identity of Batman. Bill Finger said that he thought of the character Robert the Bruce,

the Scottish nobleman, and Wayne was also a very nobleman, so he created that name. He named Gotham City. He named the Batmobile. He created the notion of the Dark Knight. That's his name. I'm leaving a lot of scraps.

The Batcave. He also wrote the two. two-page origin story in which Batman got his origin. Okay. Yeah, so that's, you know. Not much. So what's left? Like, Gecko Man as a bad guy.

No, well, there's the Ridler. It wasn't mentioned. The Riddle was mentioned. I can say, Bob Kane definitively created Tooface. Who is the... Harvey Dent. He was scarred by acid and becomes a... Famously played by Tommy...

Tommy Lee Jones. It was played by Billy D. Williams in the first movie and then Tommy Lee Jones many years later. What else? Clayface. All right. Can you just go through ones that people have heard of? No, can't.

People know Clayface. Go on. Clayface has never heard of Clayface. Would you do a quick challenge for me? Go ahead. Can you give me the top ten in order, most famous? So Batman would be number one in the Batman world? Yep.

Number two, you'd say it'd be Joker, right? I'd say it's probably the Joker, yeah. Then number three, it'd be Robin? Robin, then Catwoman? Yep, Catwoman, okay. Penguin Scarecrow, that all be up there. And then you haven't said the butler yet, have you? Poison Ivy. Oh, Alfred, yeah.

Alfred the Butler, Poison Ivy, thank you. There we go. Poison Ivy? What about Captain Freeze? Oh, Mr. Freeze. Nice to freeze you. Yes, okay. Oh, no, sorry.

Ice to freeze you. Yes, that's very correct. Let's see. Was that a finger or a cane? Ice to freeze you. Ah, that's a good question. Or a Bruckheimer. I think he might have been, because he wasn't a,

really big character. He was just kind of, he was really a nothing character for a really long time. He would resent that, but I think he probably right. He was originally called Mr. Zero. He actually wasn't Mr. Freeze. And then in the 1960s, they needed, for the Batman TV series, they needed a bunch of relatively harmless characters, like no serial killers, no two faces, et cetera. And they were like, okay, let's get this. This guy seems jovial and harmless. So they renamed him Mr. Freeze and they brought him into the TV series. Is there anybody? And I don't know if you're going to cover this, I'm sorry if I'm jumping ahead. Is there anybody else besides Alfred?

Yep. Who knows Bruce Wayne's secret? Oh, heaps of people. Oh, okay. Red fox? Sorry? Red fox? Lucius Fox?

Lucius Fox? Look, so it's, but look, the idea is behind Batman is, you know, he's this mysterious figure of the night and nobody knows who is. But basically everybody knows who is. So Commissioner Gordon probably knows, but he doesn't want to say anything. Catwoman knows because they've had an on and off relationship for years. Hot. All the Robbins knows. So that's like another.

seven people. The riddler knows, but for some reason he won't tell. He's a riddle trapped in a... He's a riddle trapped in a enigma. Enigma. He's probably trying to tell people, but he's telling it in riddle form and no one can crack it. He's a waney bruise.

I don't understand. Brainy moose. I don't get it. Jim Carrey, tell us what are you trying to say? Yeah. Just a whole bunch. Tona Dan. It's the worst kept secret in comics, really.

That's interesting. I didn't realize that. Who plays, who most famously plays Alfred? I wonder. Oh, yeah, that's a good question, David. Dave, do you have any idea who plays Alfred? I guess I believe it was Caesar Romero in the original. Oh, no.

No, no. He would have been a good... You're thinking of Michael Gowl from 1989's Batman. Michael Gow. Michael Gow. Wait, hang on. Oh, I think he might even be here now. Hello, my name is Michael Kay.

And I'm not related to Bob, but I do, I'm sorry. Are you okay? I'm sorry, Master Wayne. Bruce. The Lamborghini then? Much more subtle. Struggling in a brave.

Wow, I don't remember this, but. Dance Vader choking him out. Yeah. It's a beautiful retelling. Thank you. And scene. Very good. Yeah, that was, I did that to be the drama queen at school.

Did you? Not drama queen. What were you guys? Drama captains. Drama queen. Sorry, drama queen. Anyway, what I might do is I'll talk a little bit, a tiny little bit more about Bill Finger. I might come back to him later.

But I'll just get that other than we can talk about the history of Batman, maybe in the TV shows and the movies and the animated shows and all that sort of stuff. How's that sound? Everyone hunker down. Somebody's excited. I'm excited. I'm excited. I'm loving this. Yeah, loving it.

Okay. So in 1972, Bill Finger, there's not a lot, because Bob Kane was this huge guy and this huge character and he was all over the place. He was all over the media. He did a lot of interviews and stuff like that. But Bill Finger never really talked to anybody. There's made maybe like two surviving interviews with him. At a certain point, there was only three photographs of him.

He was kind of an enigma. Like, nobody really knew him. Do you reckon he's a real person? He's definitely a real person. We'll get to it. Maybe we'll finish up with Bill Finger. We'll talk about him at the end. You'd change your name though, wouldn't you?

I wouldn't. Well, actually, Bill Finger, not his real name. Oh, get fucked. He did change. He chose Finger. I love it. He chose Bill. So, yeah, he chose Bill.

All right, it's William Finger. That's right. One of the... Willie Finger. Oh, no. You would go Bill. Yeah, so in 1972 there was an audio interview with him, and he says, look, regarding his work on Batman, he says,

I was a ghost, I really was. It wasn't until later that DC found out that I was the writer, and the Bob Kane wasn't the writer. He's so humble. He's a little bit humble. Hang on, I'll find a little... Can you be a little bit humble? Yes, I can, thank you.

So this is from that tape, he says, But when I came up there for the first time, meaning the DC offices, gee, there I was a kid in these big offices. Bob Kane was using me as a kind of tool all this time to bolster his own paycheck. So he was kind of like his, Robin to his, the Batman.

Yeah, I guess that's true, yeah. Finger was Robin. Finger was the Robin, yeah. And Bill Finger, again, he produced a lot of, again, so much that became part of the Batman mythos. Like, you know, again, so many of the supporting character. and the villains and like one one one one thing that uh made batman very popular was that like

the scale of all the adventures there's a lot of uh and and making gotham city the character as well like gotham city was filled with all these weird props and kind of like there's there's a go head go ahead no that is very funny that you know when i was watching the movie i couldn't help it feel there's an extra character in this film and it doesn't have a credit this doesn't have an actor. It's not just Carrie and Miranda and the other two. The city, the sex in the city. It's the real character.

There they are. Hello, I'm got them steady. Oh, Dave, I think did my bad impersonation rub off on you there? What? You've lost it. I like to think I inspired you and everything you do. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. What's his real name again?

Does anyone remember? I'm okay. William Finger. There we go. Willie finger. Willie. It's the classic Willie Wony Finger scenario. Ooh, boy.

Anyway, Gotham City is kind of like its character on its own. But like the Batman comics were known for like these huge set pieces on like, you know, Batman would fight some villains on a giant typewriter. Or like, because, you know, that was part of the city or like, you know, or like in, if you look at a, if you Google the Batcave, one of the images of the bat cave is there's like a giant robot dinosaur and there's, is a giant penny, and these are all like tokens of his adventures that he collected over the years. And that was all Bill Finger, it was all these characters, all these little bits and pieces

that sort of added to the mythos. Apparently, he would like bus around New York City, and he had a little book, and he would just collect little ideas. Oh, giant penny. Exactly. He needed to get on a bus to figure that one. Exactly. Well, he apparently one time he went past a place called the Gotham Jewelers, and that's what it was.

Oh, tiny bus. So was, so Gotham City is sort of based on New York City? Yes, it is, yeah. Concrete jungle. Exactly. They dreamed of man. Bloody rat race, huh? Pave Paradise.

Yeah, catch that train in work every day, buddy. Pave in the bloody pavement. That's what I do. Pave and pavement. His little fun tidbit. The Batman TV series, Bill Finger was the only comic book writer to write a TV episode. No other comic. writers ever did. They were all TV writers.

He does it all. Yeah, so this was, it was the episode The Clock King's Crazy Crimes, featuring The Clock King. Clock King Crazy Crime. Giant Clock. Write it down. There was a giant clock. The human porch was rejected for a bank loan.

So he wrote, so he wrote this with a friend of his who was a TV writer called Charles Sinclair, and they submitted the script, and Charles Sinclair recalls in an interview later, he said, okay, they bought this, and Bill said to him, listen, there's only one request if, because it said the Clock King's Crazy Crimes by Charles Sinclair and Bill Finger, and he said, would it be okay if I was put first in the, in the, in the, in the, in the title, so that would be nice.

Bill, you diva. I know, right, but they did. So if you, if you, if it's okay. Yeah, but you don't mind. I think it's very humble. I thought he was going to say. I thought he was going to say. I thought you were going to say.

I thought he was going to ask. My one request is that I actually get credited for this. That would be nice, right? I'm afraid now. You'd be so paranoid. So that is literally his only published credits. Wow. For Batman up until, well, we'll get to it a little bit later.

Was it a good episode? Famously the best episode. You could have been one of the best episodes. Crazy Clockworths, Crazy Clints, Crazy Prises. Yeah, everything on the floor is down the door. Upper Daily's discount warehouse, yeah. So anyway, Bill didn't do a lot after that. He wrote some, he'd write, like, articles for, like, carpentry magazines, and he'd write, like, for, like, the...

I know another guy who wrote articles for carpeting magazine. Yes, and who was that? Fah! Tell me about it. Please don't. Okay. He would also write for, like, the, there's a place called the Army Pictorial Center where they would do, like, they would, like, make, like, instructional videos for people in the Army. He would write for that sort of stuff.

Oh, my God, what a fall from what is. Yeah, exactly. That's right. This guy created the most famous comic book character of all. time. Yeah. In the 70s, he went back to working for DC,

but he didn't work any superhero stuff. He worked on mostly mystery stuff. He worked on the instructional videos. Exactly. In January 18, 1974, he had two of these mystery stories

due. He handed in one of them and he went home and presumably to work on it. And then, sometime later, his friend Charles and Claire,

the TV writer was like, I haven't seen him in a while. I should probably probably see what he's up to and he came, he went there and he passed. passed away. He had a history of attacks.

Yeah, exactly. Been revived many times. It ran in his family actually. In fact, every member of his family in generations before him had passed away. His grandfather. His great grandfather. They were expecting this to happen at some point. Yeah.

Oh, that's so sad. Maybe that's what Crazy Clint's clock was counting down to. Wow. I guess Crazy Clim's clock finally hit midnight. Hang in a way. Even Crazy Clim's clock is right twice a day. Just like our low low prices. They're only right twice a day.

It's a giant clock. The shops only open twice a day for one minute. I can't be expected to open this. You want to check out our, yeah, you can have a look at our clocks now for the next minute. They're all working very well, as you can see. All right, out the door. You want to either make the purchase or get the fuck out. It was an intercom announcement.

Crazy Clince. Crazy clocks will be closing in approximately one minute. Thank you very much. We're also opening right now. So, anyway, after the death of... So in 1989, so many years later, Bob Kane, this is after the release of the Batman movie, Bob Kane released his autobiography, which he released with... He wrote it with a man named Thomas Andre.

And in this autobiography on page 44, there's a line... Now that my longtime friend and collaborator is gone, I must admit that Bill never received the fame and recognition he deserved. Oh, you piece of shit. He was an unsung hero. Because he came into the strip after I had created Batman, he did not get a byline. I often tell my wife, if I could go back 15 years before he died,

I would like to say, I'll put your name on it now, you deserve it. Oh, that's nice. Yeah, it's nice, right? Yeah. It's a little too late, but it's still nice. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Now that he's not.

no longer a legal threat. Exactly, yeah. So it seems that Bob Kane did have some regrets. He went back and forth. He had some regrets, but also I think he was in a position where he couldn't reveal, like that that was kind, that Bill Finger had a real, like a huge impact on the creation of Batman. At one point, he produced a page that allegedly from 1934, so four years,

five years before he created Batman that he created when he was 14 years old with a sketch of a birdman slash Batman. It was dated January 17th, 1934. And I'll find a copy for you right now. This is Bob Kane. This is Bob Kane.

And he's like, I mean, you know, he did have some contributions, obviously, but I just want to let you know that years beforehand, I created this character. Oh, wow. Yeah, if that is real. Well, that's the thing, if it's real. Yeah.

Because again, first of all, why put the date on it? Yeah, that's a bit strange. Who's just sketching some random stuff as a 14-year-old and they're just like... Better date this. Right now. Yeah. Also, if you... It has the symbol.

It's got... Yeah, it does. It has a bat symbol on it, which his design for the Batman did not have. Yeah. And it's also got the cow with the ears on it. Yeah. So isn't it weird that he went... Now, years ago, I had this design for a Batman.

but I'm not going to use that. I'm going to use this version. Oh, Bill, what do you want to add to it? All those things from my old. Yeah, right? Extremely suss. It does seem a bit suss. Yeah, it does seem a bit suss.

What an absolute prick. Yeah, it seems that way, doesn't it? Yeah. I like the two different reactions over there. Hmm, yeah, seems a little bit of a sad. Yeah, Matt's like, what an absolute prick. I don't know. I always, because I know, memories are so, what do you call it?

Not trustworthy. People, like, that much time. He'd start to, I reckon both of them, their memories change things. Exactly. And I think the more you talk about something, like if you, the more you repeat a lie, sometimes you even start to believe that lie. I mean, obviously, you've created fake evidence of creating your character five years earlier by being like, look at this drawing that may, if it is made up, you're a prick.

Yeah, for sure. Yeah, that does feel. Prickish. But you believe it and then you go, I don't have any proof, but it's definitely true. unfortunate thing to prove this thing, I believe, is true. It's still dodgy, but you know that story? The boy who cries a woman. American journalist who...

Cried wolf? A wolf who cried journalist? Some sort of. He was in, I think it was in one of the Iraq wars, and he... The story he told he was hit, he was in a helicopter that got hit by gunfire or whatever. But they went back and found out that he wasn't in. that helicopter he was in a helicopter quite a way back from it I think and and then they trace him telling the story and it slowly morphed he fully believed it but every time he told it he was

closer to the action he was then in the helicopter that got hit then he was in the helicopter went down he was likely to be alive like it got bigger and bigger and he actually fully believed it but obviously that's not ideal for a journalist like you're quite a famous journalist in I do know that, but also in this instance, that would be like that guy creating a fake video of him being hit by the rocket and saying this happened. Yeah, yeah. Assuming, yeah, assuming that isn't. I'm saying if it is a fake drawing, which I don't know. Yeah, the circumstances would seem a bit, they do feel a bit off, the dating of it as a child. But I mean, maybe that, you know.

Maybe so. I think kids could do that. Who knows? It's possible. I'm sure I'd put dates on things at some point. Yeah, sure. Yeah. But, yeah, it's weird that he would have reversed it. But so that red one, that, That is definitely what he submitted it first. That's what he came up with first. He didn't submit that first, but he showed people that. Right. So that was a mistake.

Yeah, and the exact things that Finger suggested are the... Exactly. Yeah. Originally. I mean, Bill did suggest them, but I had already thought of them. Exactly. But I just didn't use them. How do we know that Bill definitely suggested them?

Isn't that just Bill's word? Oh, yeah, I guess that's true. I think what we've done here is fallen for the trap of going with a guy with a much cooler name. and just believing him. That's what I've done. Bill Finger, sounds trustworthy, huh? Yeah, yeah, right.

Bob Kane. Yorn. Sounds like a politician. Yeah, and I'm not voting for him. Bill Finger, got my vote. Number one, finger. Yeah. In his autobiography,

Bob Kane's autobiography, also he did eventually give. Again, post the death of his friend, he did say, okay, yeah, you know what. He did actually corroborate, okay, well, he added the tape, and he added the, It's also so brutal that they were friends and they worked so closely together.

It's like, why not just say you're a team the whole time? Yeah, exactly. But that's the thing. Like, I think it also, definitely an ego thing, but also because so much of his, like, his whole persona and his fame was, I'm the Batman guy. And to be like, actually, I'm only half the Batman guy. Where the Batman guy? But that would be fine. It would be nice.

You'd be able to share it. It would actually be better. It would be a Batman Robin situation. Finan. Were they both very well off? No, Bob Kane definitely was. Bill Finger, not so much. See, that's sad.

That's real strong. I just don't understand. You could do that to any, like, even someone you don't like, but let alone your friend who actually is responsible for your success. The long, the long running rumor was that Bill Finger was, in fact, he was buried in a potter's field, which is a cemetery for people that don't have any family or money. So they're just, like an anonymous kind of. A grave situation, yeah. Do we know if that is true? Well, we'll get to it later maybe.

I love them. All this, pre-sizzle. Anyway, what else do you know about Batman? So Batman, he was kind of a dark Avenger initially, and then he kind of softened up in the 40s. By the 50s, I think maybe we talked about it on one of our other comic book episodes, but they introduced the Comics Code Authority in the 50s,

which was basically like, you can't be, no blood and no death and no, don't anybody be mean to each other and whatever. Yeah, you talk about this on the original Marvel. There we go. And so I think that took some of the edge off. And so Batman, like in the 50s, there was a lot of him dealing with aliens and space phenomenon. Really? Yeah.

So how, because in most of his on-screen worlds, as I understand it, they're basically real worldish. Like certainly the Nolan thing, the TV show was just like, it was a costume party. Yeah, right. Yeah, yeah. But he does exist. Obviously, in the new movies, he's in an alien world. Yeah, he's in the DC. universe, which is full of, it's just lunacy, all of it.

And people, I mean, I'm jumping around, but the people love the, uh, Benatholic portrayal of him, right? Well, but or is it just the look of him? I like the look. Right. I could take a leave of the performance. I mean, it's fine, but it's, you know, it's, it's hard, I think, to, to emote and be a real character when all you can see is two eyes and a, and a mouth hole.

So it's more of the Bruce Wayne that he's doing. Yeah, right. Exactly. Yeah. But is there a thing about him using guns in that? Oh, he, there's a lot of, there's a lot of killing in that. There's a lot of, at one point he like hits a guy with a packing crate and then the guy cracks his head on the wall and there's a huge blood stain.

Yeah. That guy's definitely dead. One point he machine guns a guy wearing a flamethrower and the flame thrower blows up. And it was fun. We don't wear a flame throw. Don't wear a flame throw. Exactly. It's a poor accessory.

It's ridiculous. Yeah. Don't wear a flamethrower to wear a knife, but I've always said that. Yeah, you have always said that. That's what your tattoo says, isn't it? Yeah, first time it's almost made sense. So, yeah, so that's the most recent one. Probably not going to be him anymore from what you've said every second week.

Oh, yeah, for sure. He's not super keen on that role. There's that great footage of him in an interview about Batman versus Superman. Oh, yes. And he is looking in the middle distance. He's very sad to be there, yeah. Oh, it's the best and worst. Let's talk about happier Batman times.

Yeah, okay. So it got quite silly in the 50s. In the 60s, they were like, okay, let's lighten this character up again. They hired a guy called Carmine Infantino, who's a great artist, to redefine Batman's look. And so they made him instead of this dark Avenger character, they lightened up his suit, and they gave him the gold, the yellow bat symbol on his chest. They lined up all the characters. And from that is the basis of the Batman TV series.

So that was for comics? That was for comics first. He got the yellow and stuff? Exactly. And then they were like, let's do this. Let's do this. Exactly, yeah, which is a... Pow!

Precisely, pal. Oh, when did the song come in? Was that for that show? That was for that show, yes. Do you mean the song? No, no, no, no, no. Bam. Yeah.

It's really great. It's a great music. Bam. Yeah, it's sick. It would have to be a 60s made song, I guess. Yeah, and that series... Let me find. Actually, you know, we'll talk about Batman in film.

I guess we'll start. So the first Batman film series was, there was a 15 episode serial in 1943, which is super racist. Because it's, it's World War II based. And so it's basically a propaganda film. And Batman is engaged by the government

to defeat a villainous Japanese villainous villain called Dr. Daka. It's pretty racist. Dr. Daka, did he pull everyone's pants down? Yeah, that's exactly right. That was his skill set. Exactly. Ooh. Wait, is that the noise you make when you're dacking someone or when you get dacked?

No, I'll do the sound of dacking. You do the sound of being dacked, ready? Ooh. That's that it would have gone down. That serial is also notable for creating the Batcave. That's the first appearance of Batcave. And it's also, that also defined the look of Alfred because in the comic books he was quite a portly gentleman. And in the serial, they made him quite trimming.

little mustachey, very Michael Cainey, exactly. And that characterisation was maintained for a while. It was also one in 19... There was a series called Batman and Robin in 1949, which is also terrible. Again, doesn't use any Batman villains. He uses a character called The Wizard. And that serial, I think, is most notable for...

They keep thinking that Batman and Robin are like, okay, we think the villain, we think the Wizard. We don't know his identity, but we think his name's Professor Hamill. But Professor Hamill's in a wheelchair. and the wizard is not in a wheelchair. So it couldn't possibly be him. And then they go to visit Professor Hamill and he's not in a wheelchair anymore

and it's never brought up. Nobody twigs. Nobody tweaks. It's a little continuity error in the movies, but nobody. Oh, in the movie? Yeah, right. Do you reckon they just lost the wheelchair halfway through filming

and they're like, no one one artist? Yeah, maybe that. The rental period expired. They send it back. Yeah, they are expensive. You own day by day. yeah um bad man tv series adam west bert ward i think a lot of people know

the the batman characters of matt something something bert ward it's uh and that was what the um the episode of the simpsons with uh radioactive man movies sort of based on right jimmy jillicrous i've said jimmy jillicrous so many times it's almost lost on me yeah exactly don't forget to use your nails boys The Scoutmaster is the worst bad guy ever.

And that, the idea behind that series is basically, okay, well, okay, we're going to create something that's super camp, and the adults watching will be like, this is stupid and ridiculous, but kids who don't get that campy aspect would just be like. Yeah, it was still being regularly repeated in the 90s when I was a kid. And I watched it. Yeah, on Saturday afternoons, I reckon I watched it a lot.

Very fun. Yeah, the color of, was awesome. The bat, the shark repellent, bat shark repellent. It became like a joke that he just had something for every scenario. And that, is that the series of that? That's the only really existed in that series probably. Yeah, kind of did.

But what happened was because that series was initially very popular, they changed the character in the comic books to be more silly in Canada. But then, of course, when the series popularity waned, all of a sudden the Wayne, Bruce Wayne. Then the version in the comic books was the popularity of that also waned. And people like this. Bruce. Yeah, thank you.

Thomas waned. The mum, Wayne. Martha. In the 70s, Batman's popular, he waned a bit. CBS, the TV station was interested in producing a series called Batman in outer space. That never emerged. Sidney Shineberg involved in there. Thank you.

I was thinking that. Michael Usland, who we mentioned earlier, was a big Batman fan. He purchased the film rights of Batman from DC Comics in the late 70s. Right, so he was the one that met Bill Finger. For the first time. Yeah. Exactly. And so that didn't put him off, obviously, being a lifelong obsessed.

Huge Batman fan. No, he kept at it because he was just such a huge Batman fan. And by this time, he's like a rich TV exec that can make these kind of. He actually wrote a script called The Return of the Batman to like shot the bandbearance. To like pitch to various film studios. Didn't really get anywhere up until 1989 when Tim Burton finally got the reins of the Batman movie franchise and made. What I consider one very fun. One film and one.

Edward Sizzahans, yes. Exactly, Mr. Edwards isa Hans himself. So you reckon the first one's really good, and the second one he lost the plot of it? Well, he, he, Tim Burton only agreed to make Batman returns if he got full creative control. Oh, so it's, he burtened it. He burtened it. He pertained it to the ground. He burtened it absolutely to the ground.

But they were massive financial successes. And then he refused to do another one. They got Joel Schumacher to make. The race car driver? Yes, exactly. That's amazing. It was high octane that film. The movies weren't great, so maybe you should have stuck to the track.

The track, exactly, yeah. Well, you know, you live and learn. You live and learn, exactly. Which ones were these Schumacher films? He wrote Batman, he directed Batman Forever. The one with U-2 in it? Is that that one? That was Batman Forever, yes.

With Jim Carries the Ridler. One with U-2 in it. And Seal. Kiss from her. Yes. And then he also directed Batman and Robin, which has... Fuck me, kill me, kiss me, fuck me. Yeah, that's the one.

Thrill me. And fuck me again. Oh, sorry, I forgot. Mesa said it the study, I wasn't swear. And I've just been potty-mouthing it up today. Sorry, Macea. And then Batman and Robin, that's the Mr. Freeze one. Which is the one that famously killed the Batman franchise.

Because as a kid in the 90s, I thought they were freaking awesome. Yeah, right. I had the toys. Which one's one with Davido? That is Batman Returns. Davido as the penguin. Is that Cumbull Cocker Cockat? Yeah, it is, yeah.

The thing that you said, yes. So that's so weird that he didn't... Yeah, because that's iconic. And that was also the Catwoman, right? It was, yeah, Michelle Pfeiffer is the Catwoman. But that's a bad movie, but it has iconic stuff in it. Controversial opinion. Not a fan of Michelle Pfeiffer.

Oh, what? Yep, not a fan. I would argue she's gotten better age. Bit dull. Bit dull. So charming. What are you base that off? Her films.

Oh, okay. But you've never even met her to make her proper opinion? I'm saying as an actor. Oh, as an actor. I'm sure as a person, she's delightful. I don't doubt that for a moment. I'd love to have a latte with her, soy or otherwise. Really?

Armoured milk? No. Okay, yeah, that's... Never armoured milk. I'm sorry. Yeah, so Batman and Robin had Clooney in the role? Yes. Isn't that weird?

As Robin, yes. That seems so strange that George Clinton has been Batman. Batman played by Paulie Shaw. It was real close. But I mean, I guess all of the Batman movie casting has been a bit weird. Like Michael Keaton, who was the first. I like Michael Keaton. Well, he was great, but he was like, he was not known as an action guy.

He was Mr. Mum. He was Mr. Mom. Imagine a man raising kids. What? Imagine it. Yeah. What a wacky concept? That was the humor that was derived from that movie.

What's one where he clones himself? Serendipity? No, multiplicity. Multiplicity. That was good. He did that afterwards, I think. He was in Dream Team. He was in Beetlejuice.

So he was like this comedic guy and people were like, I don't know about this, but he carried it off of the film. I've always felt like he was very, and this isn't an interesting opinion because I think everybody says it. Isn't, like he's quite underappreciated. Like he could have been, I reckon he could have been so much bigger. Michael Keaton. Yeah.

I think he's having a Renéass songs. Oh, yeah, he definitely is. Yeah, for sure. Since the Birdman. Yeah, yeah. And he's the vulture. He's played quite quite a quite a few men. He's like the police sergeant in the other guys.

That's true, he is, yeah. And he also works at bed, bath and table in that. That's right. It's so funny. Has there ever been an on-screen Batman who the fans were happy with at the start? Val Kilmer. Oh, yeah, where's Val come into this? No, probably bail.

I think Christian Baal. I don't have with that. Because he was really good. Yeah, he brought an intensity to it, I think. Yeah. Yeah, so Batman and Robin, George Clooney has Batman. He has famously said, I believe, that if anybody ever comes up to him and criticizes the quality of Batman and Robin, he just gives them their movie ticket price back.

He will just give them the money back. Really? So he just carries cash with him. Yeah, well, he's just Hollywood. He just carries $11.50. Exactly. Yeah, yeah. One a day.

He'll be one person a day. So did IMAX Mr Clooney? Shut up, kid. Come on, mate. Because he was the one with the nipples as well, I think. Yes, he was, yeah. And a big bat bulge. He's the only man with nipples.

No, bat nipples. He's the only man with bat nipples. Does he have like 16 nipples? Did George Clooney have 16 nipples? No, we definitely know what you mean. We're just fucking with you. I thought you were talking about bat nipples. I was really with you there.

Disappointed. I'm sorry. But yeah, so obviously they were critical. You said that that killed the bat franchise. It was kind of critically... Because at the time, as a nine-year-old, I thought that it was so good. He loved the Nips. Yeah, I loved the Nips.

I had a two-faced toy. I think it was precisely engineered to appeal to kids. Because one of the flaws of Batman returns was it was weird and dark and violent and they couldn't sell any toys off it because it was just too... Kids don't want any copper pots. It was kind of unpleasant. And so they were like, okay, bring back the campiness and bring back the color. and here's a new Batmobile that looks even fresher than the old Batmobile,

and you've got to buy the new Batmobile. Which I did. Here's all the new Batman suits, and you've got to buy all the Batman suits. Which I did. Yeah, exactly. So I think kids loved it, but I think critically, people were not a fan. I have seen it repeated on TV as an adult and been like, whoa, this is really bad. Have you got, what's the, I'm assuming I've probably heard this story from you,

but what's the story about Tommy Lee Jones was in the same movie as, as Two-Face as Jim Carrey was the Riddler. And then they bumped into each other. They famously did not get along because Jim Carrey was the riddler during Batman Forever. And he was at peak Jim Carrey at that point. And I guess he had to maintain the Jim Carreyness at all times. He's since, you know, relaxed a leased a little bit.

And Tommy Lee Jones was Two-Face and apparently he only did it for his kids. His kids were like, why, and you win one of those movies. And he's like, all right, I guess I'll do this. But apparently just it was hell on earth. Although we're both trying to be the biggest, craziest person on the screen. No, well, Tommy Lee Jones is just like, I'm going to do these lines and I'm going to get out of here, I guess. I'm Tommy Lee Jones. But apparently during the filming, Tommy Lee Jones went out to just a restaurant when he thought no one would recognize him and it would be very quiet.

Is he dressed his two-face? No, he was just in his regular clothes. No one would recognize him he dressed his two-face. He walked in and everyone's just staring out. He was like, God damn. And he just went and he's just like, I'm going to have a quiet dinner. I'm going to forget about this. huge budget, whatever.

And then Jim Carrey just rolls into the restaurant, like in full Jim Carrey mode, probably with a weird entourage or whatever. Rod to me this, I want two baked eggs. And he just came up to him. He's clearly like, let's share a table. Let's get out of here. Let's, let's have a big night together. And apparently Tommy Lee Jones set him aside and went, Jim, I cannot, I cannot sanction your buffoonery.

I hate, please. I cannot sanction. Leave me alone. And I don't know if they've gotten along since then. This is one of the stars of men in blood. Yeah. I cannot sanction your buffoonery. I've got to go make a film where I talk to a dog.

I think he's more talking about these off-camera stuff. I think he was just so full on that he's like, I can't handle this, Jim. I imagine it would have been really. But the way, I just the phrasing of that is pretty amazing. Exactly, right? That's one of the all-time great lines, I feel. Then, of course, Christian Bell,

Christopher Nolan, Batman movies Great stuff. That wasn't the movie where they filmed him cracking it at the... No, that's Terminator Salvation. Right. Which is a really weird movie to have an on-set meltdown at. Did he invent the voice? The Batman voice?

I believe he did, yes. On Batman. Yeah, which is not. You don't like that? You don't like that, no. Look, I like all those movies, but I don't love them. Right. I love the second one.

Yeah, Heath Ledger does a fantastic performance. And I like, and I do like Liam Neeson. Yeah, for sure. In the first one. Yeah, yeah. Now, could I ask. He's a Irish actor. I do you.

You'd fucking say that. Who does he play? He sort of plays his mentor, kind of, but then it turns into a bad guy. Is he like a samurai type? Yeah, he's the influence plans. Oh, yeah, of course. Sorry. Henri DuCard, who is his mentor.

And it turns out he's the villain Ray Shal Gould. Yes, got it. Yeah. Incredible name there. But, Mesa, sir. Yes. You're not a fan of Christian Bail. We're going to ask you who you think the best Batman is or has been

and your favorite film franchise. My favorite Batman is actually not an on-screen Batman. My favorite Batman is Kevin Conroy. He's the voice of Batman in the Batman animated series. Right. That seems to be the most. Is that the one across from Luke Skywalker as Joker? Yes, it is.

Yes. So that's a, basically on the heels of the first Batman movie, Warner Brothers were like, okay, here's a property, cartoon, does anyone want to make a Batman cartoon? And there was a guy called Bruce Tim who had just come off

Tiny Tune Adventures. Oh, great show. I could do Batman as well. And so he went home and he did a like a stylized Batman sketch on his own this time, just him. And he brought it in and they're like,

actually we really like this. And they, him and another writer artist called Paul Deanie and they got together and they built this based sort of on the Burton universe, this sort of gothic art deco universe Batman character sort of this timeless version and it sort of went bloody great guns

people remember that fondly because the what they they weirdly they got enough freedom to be like this is a this is a show that adults can enjoy like kids should be able to watch it but also it's it's dark enough and it's adult enough that I think it was on it was Saturday cartoons

in Australia so yeah I forgot I said Luke Skywalker, I meant Mark Hamill. He voiced, and he's often called the best Joker. Yeah, so Kevin Conroy was a theater actor and he was told that, okay, if you, if you want to make some extra money on the side, you should be a voiceover actor and just do ads and stuff like that. And he got a call up from his agent who was like, actually we're doing, we need some dramatic actors. So why don't you try this out? This was his first voiceover audition ever. Wow. And he got Batman and he's been Batman for, wait, 18 years.

Wait, no, 28, 30 years, nearly 30 years. Wow. And he's been Batman in the animated series, and he's been in all the video games and all that sort of stuff. And Mark Hamill, originally the Joker's going to be Tim Curry. Oh. Hebrughey. Tim Curry.

Which one is that, man? Is he the guy that makes the musicals? No, that's Tim Curry, Tim Rice. Oh, that's Tim Curry, Tim Rice. I'm thinking of, so Tim Carrey is Rooster from Orfan Annie. and the Star of Congo Exactly He's Frank and Ferdar in one of the Rocky Horner

And McAil's Navy The remake with Tom Arnold He's the bad guy in that Yes that's great bad guy One of the best So he recorded three episodes And they were like This is good

But it's not quite what we look like A lot of people came in And they just did their impression Of the 1960s Joker And they were like This doesn't work And they went Well Tim Curry's good

We like him He's good to work with but he's not quite right. And then they brought in, Mark Hamilton just do like a guest appearance. He was just going to be like a side character briefly. And then they were like, and he says,

because he loves that character. And he was like, and he loves Batman and comic books and what sort of stuff. And he said, okay, if you have anything else going, just let me know. Because I want to be like,

I'd like to be more episodes because I think this is a great idea. And then Tim Curry, they were like, well, let's look for another joker. And they called him Mark Hamelin. And he went in expecting,

to not get it because he was best known as Luke Skywalker and he's like well they're not going to they're obviously not going to get this guy who mostly plays this paragon of virtue this ultimate hero kind of thing he obviously not going to get it so he went in not caring whether he got it or not

like you know with no illusions that he'd get it and they were like actually you get this wow and apparently he got it on the laugh right because he had the best laugh that's how I go into every audition like fuck this whatever I care And it hasn't really worked yet. But when it does, you'll be laughing.

I'm going to look so aloof and cool. But also, I mean, you've been right every time, which is nice. It's not positive in a way that you're on a hot streak for calling it. Oh, yeah, I'm always like, I'm not going to get this. And I don't care. You say that into the camera and then you do your auditions. They're like, are you ready? And I'm like, oh, what?

I had an audition not too long ago for an ad. And before we started, I said to the go, to the go. I'm not very good. And he goes, why are you telling me that? I'm like, just trying to lower expectations. Way to sell yourself. Yeah, I instantly regret it. I'm like, why did I come to this place?

Have you thought about perfecting your laugh? I mean, that'll do it. I haven't. So apparently Mark Hamill said, because he read a thing that Frank Gorshian, the Riddler, had once said, and he said, it's not how I laugh, but it's what I'm laughing at. So you key the laugh to what you're laughing at. Like, like, like, funniest home videos when somebody gets hit in the nuts. Yeah.

That's a different laugh. It's a different laugh. That's the sound effect like, who-woo. So he keyed that and people and they were like, yep, you got it. And so he's also been, like, he's been the Joker for nearly 30 years as well. Right. So that series is still running. No, it's been different.

So it was, it was, there was like a hundred-something episodes of the original, and then there was like spin-offs. And then there was a series called Batman Beyond Set in the Future. and he was the voice of the old Bruce Wayne. That's cool. Because at one point they were like, hey,

you know, they, the studio went to these guys and went, hey, you know, the studio interference is always like, hey, what if,

could you make a series where Batman's a teenager? Right. And they were like, yes, we can absolutely do that. Batteen. Batteen.

And they're like, well, that breaks the whole connoe, but then they just went, okay, well, how about, how about original Batman's retired? And then we were replacing

with another Batman, an old Batman can be his mentor. And so they created that, series. That's the... They had a real can-do attitude. They're a real can-do attitude. That's what's all about. Yeah. Yeah, so that's your number one, and that's your number one joke as well, right?

I think so, yeah. Oh, Heath Ledger is great. Yeah. That's my favorite villainous performance of all time, I think. What about number one? Catwoman, Anne Hathaway? Oh. I don't know how I felt about that performance.

I was a bit like, eh. Yeah, right? Did Hallie Berry have a crack? She did have a crack? Oh, I'd go, Harley, in the solo movie. and there were three cat women in the 1960 series as well. Ah. Yeah, okay.

I'd give it a go. Meow. Oh, you've got the part. You've got it. You really don't care if you get this or not. We love that. Miao. Just like a cat.

They don't care. Cats don't give a shit. They don't. Meow. Whatever. Nice. Nice love. Whatever.

This sounds like a good catwoman teen. Whatever. Meow. Anyway, maybe probably a good time to wind it up because that's about, that's about all the, thank you so much,

I should probably wind it up, Bill Finger. What happened to that guy? Yeah, what happened to Finger Boy? Well, this is where we introduce just one more guy. He's a guy named Mike Taylor Nobleman. He's a children's author for the most part,

but he also wrote a book about Jerry Siegel and Joe Schuster, the creators of Superman, and the sort of the trials and tribulations that they went through. And so he went, he also learned about the story of Bill Finger, And he was like, you know, he'd grown up on superheroes and Batman, he was huge fan of that sort of stuff.

And he was like, well, I think it would be good if Bill Finger could get some credit for the stuff that he put into. And this is after Bill's past. This is maybe, this is the early 2000s. Oh, wow. And he was like, okay, well, the key here is to find out stuff about Bill, find some, because he obviously couldn't just go to D.C. and be like, hey, I'm a guy who has no relation to this guy. You should change some stuff. Of course, they're just going to show them the door, obviously.

So they're probably right back their financial details in a letter form. That's right, exactly. Now, they're wise. They've wised up now. They don't want to give the game away. They don't write back to kids anymore. But basically, so he was like, okay, I've got to find some relatives, but nobody really knew anything about Bill Finger.

First thing he found out, name actually not Bill. Milton Finger, much cooler name. That is a sick name, Milton Finger. But apparently he changed it because that's kind of a Jewish name. and apparently. Milton? Yeah, so he changed for, you know, anti-Semitic. Really?

People would be a little prejudiced against him back in the day. Oh, what a bummer. Yeah, it was a different time, but obviously, yeah, you couldn't have a cool name back then. Yeah. Bill. Finger. Yeah. Finger love it.

Melton, though. But it turned out, so Bill Finger, it was assumed he never had any serious relationships in his life. He never really talked about it. Nobody ever knew about it. It was assumed. People looked at him and went, no chance. No, not this guy. Not this guy.

Single, virgin. So he got married to a woman named Portia, and they had a son, and he's like, perfect. I'll talk to the son. But it turned out his son, Fred Finger. Fred Finger. No. Freddy got. Yeah, exactly.

But it turned out Fred was gay, and he died in 1992. So he's like, well, that's, okay, that's, I can't do it. Was the gay thing related to him dying in 1992? Yes. it was yes related we'll move we'll move forward and then so he was like

okay well I guess that's the end of the family trail he was like well that's the end of the family trail but then he talked again to Charles Sinclair his friend the TV writer and he was like can he give me any information and he was like oh actually well

it turned out he didn't he actually after after his his Porsche he divorced him and passed away he had a lady friend he had another lady friend and he looked up this person person and he actually had more than a lady friend. He had a second wife named Edith.

Everyone's assuming this guy's a version. Yeah, I know right. He's got wives everywhere. He's got wives everywhere. That's like more than a friend, I would argue. Yeah, a wife, yeah, for sure. I reckon like wives are on a different level. Yeah.

And she actually, upon the release of the 1989 Batman movie, she actually approached DC herself and said, I think it would be nice if Bill Finger could have some credit on these movies. Edith Finger. That's a beautiful. And what did they say to Edith? They said no. And he was like, okay, well, that's, I guess that's it.

You know, I went through two wives and I couldn't find anything. But then he went back again and he went, okay, well, well, Portia passed away. I'll look at her obituary. And I'll see maybe if there was some mourners who would know her or know anything about Bill. And he found two cousins on the obituary, survived by these cousins. And he called them up and he said, look, do you know anything about Bill Finger? And he was like, oh, Uncle Bill. I mean, I know a little bit about Uncle Bill,

but who you should talk to is his granddaughter. And he had a granddaughter. And he, and Mark was like, well, obviously he didn't have a granddaughter because, you know, he had a son named Fred and Fred was gay. So he couldn't have had a granddaughter. But Fred had a daughter. So you know gay people can't have kids. Well, turns out.

Well, actually, he wasn't gay. He was bisexual man. And he had a daughter named Athena. Oh, Athena Finger. So many good names. Good names, right. Edith Finger, Athena Finger. Yeah.

Freddie Finger. Well, sure. And we all? Athena Finger. So he had a daughter named Athena Finger who, there we go. It's good stuff. And who had grown up knowing a little bit about her grandfather and had sort of known that he had had this hand in creating Batman. But it was the sort of thing where she would tell people, oh yeah, my grandfather created Bill Finger.

guy. My grandson, my, well, he did, but Mike was kind of created a bad man. And people were like, obviously, no, he didn't. You know, you're making this sort of stuff up. It was obviously Bob Kane, because it always says Bob Kane, blah, blah, blah. And so Mark went to Athena and chatted with her and said, look, this is kind of our last chance to maybe make a claim on this. If you want to get some, some recognition for your grandfather, maybe now's the time to do it. And so together they contacted DC and they said, hey, can we get some recognition? And they said, Oh, welcome to the family. Great to have you here. Here's a check. Anyway, good to see you. Come to some DC. Come to some movie parties. Come to a movie premiere.

This is about the time of the Dark Night. Like, hey, cool, anyway. See you later, kind of thing. And then a few years later, the Dark Night Rises came out. And they were like, hey, just checking in. It's still great for you to be part of the family. We've got some more money for you. but just letting you know you need to sign this

and this will also give away all your rights to your father's recognition of creating the character. And so Mark encouraged her to not take that money and instead instigated a lawsuit against D.C., which they did. But of course it was a case of like one word against, you know, Bill's word against Bob

and who created what and what's the deal with, you know, the ownership here. How do you prove ownership? you know, and Bob had said, well, he created some of this, and I created some of this, so what can you do? You know, what's the figure? But so one thing that did work in their favour was that the guy, Thomas Andre, who worked with Bob Kane on his autobiography,

in order to transcribe it, had taped all his interviews with Bob, and he kept the tapes. And in one of the tapes, he asked Bob, just to be clear, how much contribution, In terms of like a percentage, a percentage. Legally speaking. If we were in court right now, pretend on the record. And he said, as far as Batman goes, Bill was in 50 to 75%.

So that was kind of the smoking gun. Oh. So they talked to Thomas. 50 to 75%. And this is from a guy who's not given much away. That's 100%. I don't know. And again, just as I guess once the tape's rolling, you sort of forget where you are.

and he just put it out there. So 2015, Batman versus Superman came out and in the opening credits it says Batman created by Bob Kane with Bill Finger. So at long last. And so now henceforth, every Batman, every piece of Batman media says that in it. And is the granddaughter getting paid cash for everything?

I don't know. A settlement was reached, but it is a... Athena Finger. It is a private settlement, so we have no idea. Maybe one day we'll find out. Athena Finger. We've all. So good.

I hope she's super wealthy. Wouldn't that be cool? You get called up. Be like, oh, grandpa. Oh, yeah? Maybe it makes me really reconsider my, uh, your family. My negligence of those emails from that, uh, Nigerian prince.

Yeah, right? Hmm. Who said he created Batman. Yeah, maybe I should get in touch. Hmm. All I have to do is send him my bank details. Hmm. Yeah.

Oh, one last thing. Just before I forget. Um. So again, it was long suggested that Bill Finger was, he was buried in a potter's field with no relatives, obviously, because there was nobody at his, there was nobody at his autopsy, etc. And so people are like, oh, it's probably. People usually turn up to their family's autopsies. Apparently they did just to, you know, identify the body, etc. All right, while you saw through their ribs, I'll just patiently watch.

But apparently, Fred Finger, who lived in. Oregon, he wasn't there on that day of the identifying the body because he was in another state. But the day after, and that's why his name was not on the coroner's report. But he arrived the day later and he got Bill's remains, his crewmate of remains, and he took them back to Oregon. You're starting to get Batman voice. I know a little bit. I've done a lot of talking. Yeah. And as far as the story goes, he went out to a beach in Oregon. and he drew a little bat symbol in sand and he poured the remains in there

and then it got washed out to sea. That's nice. It is nice, right? That's weirdly what I wanted to do with my ashes. With a bat symbol. Yeah, if you guys don't mind. Of course. Well, of course I'll be there because I will outlive you.

You absolutely will not. Matt, if you don't mind. Yeah, I'll do that for you for sure. Thank you very much. Matt. As the immortal one of the show. Two can play that game. The immortal.

game. I'll see you there in the year 2040. That's actually not that far off. That's not that far off. Oh my God. Please give me more time than that. Please let me make it to my 50th birthday. Okay, I will.

Thank you. But just because you are so nicely. That was so good, Mesa. That was awesome. Stop it, you guys. I'm sure I missed out on a lot of stuff. Are you just riffing so much off of the topic? You have your notes there, but you're also just like going into stories and naming

names. Well, these notes are incomplete. That's how that happened. Are there any... So we've got your favorite Batman, your favorite Joker, and your favorite show. It's all the cartoon. Yeah, I think so. The first season of that or the first series?

It's hard to go that specific. Oh, yeah. Just Batman, the animated series all up. Yeah. It's one of the best. That's so cool. Mesa, this might be the first time you've been on the show when we've done the segment, fact, quote, or question.

It is, actually, yeah. It's everyone's favorite part of the show. Yeah, I've heard. Where at the end of the episode, we take someone from our Patreon, and they give us a fact, a quote or a question. They also get to give themselves a title. This week, this guy could have been from the, his name's so good, it could have been from the Batman story.

It's Maximilian Duke. Oh, very good. Oh, that is good. Well, there is a villain called Maxie Zeus, who is a, he's just a guy who, who thinks he's Zeus. He thinks he's Zeus. Okay.

He's not, though. He's not the most popular villain. Batman is not going to let him get away with that. No, so why would you? That just sounds like... impersonating a Greek god is a crime in Gotham City. Who's your favorite villain? Ooh.

I mean, you said joke is your favorite villain on the screen, but in the comics and that... It might be, oh, it could be Mr. Freeze. Really? He was a nothing villain initially. But speaking of the animated series, they gave him a tragic backstory in an Emmy award-winning episode of that series. They were like, okay, let's take this nothing guy and let's give him some real gravitas. So maybe, yeah. Right.

Yeah, because it wasn't it in the movie, it was, he was sad because of something about his family or something? His wife was cryogenically frozen. Right. And he wanted to find a way to cure the disease that was afflicting her. And then the company he worked for shut down his procedure and also turned him into the, the tin man. Turn him into the tin man. Exactly.

That's right. So he's committing crime so he can get the money and the resources to cure her. Yeah, right. Anyway, so Maximilian Duke, that or kite man? Kite man. Kite man? Yeah, one of those. Does he fly kites?

He's a kite. I don't know. Are you joking? No. He's not really a kite, but he's like a, he suits like a kite. Isn't a type of bird? Yes. Yeah.

Well, Dave's the ornithologist for the pod. Yes. Yes, I am. And do you not going to answer my question or? Yes, I am an oranthologist. I answered your question. Fact quote a question. Maximilian Duke, he's given himself the title, In-House Counsel for Bacon and Unicorn Affairs. Which is, it's obviously a big role. Yeah, the internet is composed almost entirely.

That is more than full time. We're actually looking to expand that to a two-person role. So anyone get in contact if you would like to help out Maximilian there. Any idea what that's in reference to? Bacon and unicorns. Oh yeah, sorry. Dumb shit. I was right in front of my face all along.

And here is the in-house counsel for bacon and unicorn affairs, Maximilian Jukes, fact quote or question, which is actually a fact quote and question all wrapped up in one. How did he do it? He says, here you go. Did you know that bunny farts smell like carrot? That's a quote from Jacob, his eight-year-old son. That is so cute. It's a fact, a quote and a question only one.

I hope they have a pet bunny or it's weird. I hope both of those things. I mean, that seems factually inaccurate, doesn't it? Yeah, it'll be. Probably does, yeah. Or if the bunny doesn't eat carrots. Yeah, it's not all they eat. But you know, when you vomit, there's always carrot in it?

I don't eat that much carrot. I don't eat that much carrot. I love carrot, because as a mention, love veggies. Carrot's one of my favorites. Me too. See it at the nighttime as well. Love carrot.

I'm a bit like old Batman guy. I say the night time, not nighttime. Yeah, sick. Another part of the show at the end of the show that we do as a part of the show at the end is another Patreon segment where we read out some patron's names. Dave, you normally talk about the Patreon in some way. Maybe explain it to Mesao as if he is a person. So you haven't supported this show enough over the last few years.

Oh, come on. No, that's not at all what I was hoping for you to do there. Mesa has been the biggest supporter of this show. Mesa, it's time for you to get out of town. Yes. Jess has bought you a holiday. Oh, thank you, dear. Yeah, just to say thanks.

Oh, my God. You're going to Fiji. You, of course, are now officially the fourth member of the group. And I think is this officially the eighth episode of the podcast? This podcast? Well, no, because you guys did a live show without me. So, yeah, can't believe you did that. I'm so sorry about that.

Sorry. But you were in the rooms. It's weird that you were there and we made you watch. It's coming out next week. So you can imagine that Mesa was in that room with us. He was big time. Anyway, so Dave, the Patreon, how does it work? Basically, if you love the show and you want to keep us going,

you can go to patreon.com slash do go on pod or click through it from our website, do go onpod.com. And basically, chuck a couple of bucks into an internet machine and in a Exchange will give you some rewards such as our shoutouts like this kind of thing or two bonus and or two bonus episodes per month. Wow. And all. Except for the Patreon's here.

So lots of stuff in there. We also have a, you know, a bit of chit chat, a bit of dialogue with our patrons, which is a bit of fun. I refuse. Have you said, did you say that we've got a Facebook group going on now? We have got a Facebook group going now, which is a lot of fun, a lot more of the chit chat going on in that group, which we are enjoying. So if you want to get involved and support the show, that's what you do it. And we also like to thank a few people at the end of the episode. And we're going to do that right now.

Jess normally gives them a little game to play here. Maybe you could bring Mesa into the game. Hello. I was thinking we could give them either like a superhero or a villain name. Oh, villain. Oh, make him a Batman villain. Batman has a very impressive rugs gallery. Oh, can you, maybe would you, do you have six in you to give us one for each of our patron?

Sure, like real ones? Or let's invent them. Oh, invented even better. All right, great. Yeah, I think I was inspired by Kite Man. Yeah, he's real. Yeah, he's real. I thought I was going to get you.

No, he's real. Karmine's fake, right? No, he's real. Wow, yeah, I really thought I'd get him. I don't believe him now. I do too. All right, I'll kick this off. I'd love to thank from the Great Britain,

did not mean at that time, from Sheffield in South Yorkshire, which I think is not too far from where Mr. Markle, Kahn. From. In that he's from Great Britain somewhere. Yeah, exactly, yeah. His name's Maurice. Hello, I'm Maurice Kane.

Micklewit. Micklewhite. Anyway, I googled that earlier. Who you thinking? I thought he just come to you, which was very impressive. I mean, it came to me. This is such a great English name as well. I love to thank Alexandra Rogers Brassington.

Oh, I like that. No, Brousington. And she would be the villain. We can do this. Yeah. We've done this before. The way you exiled there made me think maybe she could be The Breeze. Oh, London Fog.

The London Fog, that's cool. Yes, the London Fog. I like that. I like that. What is her motorsopar and I? She drives a scooter. She's very mod, you know, like those mod types. She's got a scarf and a scooter.

Yeah, and she's literally a fog. And she's a fog also, yeah. That's so good. She has a fog horn on her moped. What does that sound like, Matt? Oh. Nice. Hello.

I never thought I'd be in the room when the man of a thousand noises did want his famous noises. Yeah, congratulations. Sorry, I feel like I should have given you more there. No, that was great. You give me what you give. Has anybody calculated how many noises you have left to do? No.

I hope somebody can figure that out. Yeah, get on that, you nerds. Yeah, come on nerd. You know the person that might be to do that, if they've been, I imagine sitting there for two hours waiting for me to thank the person that has been adding up the questions and who's answering The show's official scientist. That's right.

I can say I've answered 32 questions correctly. I used to be in second now, and Jess used to be last, but that has flipped. Get fast. Matt has answered 37 questions correctly. Jess 38. Europe on a hot streak. But winning the day is 44 times nobody got the correct answer. Yeah, that's great.

No, actually, well, the fourth member's Mesa. So I guess that. 44 for Mesa. Yes. And that is thanks to Bob. That's what he signs off as, or his email name is Bell. Binda Bartia. So thanks to Bob or Belbinder Bartia.

Could be Bob Kane? Bob Kane. Maybe Bob Kane can work out the thousand noises as his next project. I'm genuinely shocked by that. I don't think I ever get them right. Well, I would argue you about 38 times you do. But I'm only one above you. Now I'm just, I'm fucking, what was the Patreon's answer?

Bob. Oh, so that wasn't a patron. That was Belbinder Bartia. Oh, congratulations. Special statistician of the show. Or Bob. Poor Bob. I'd love to thank another great Britain from...

London Fogg. From Hertfordshire. London Fog, too. Adam Stamford. Oh. Adam Stamford. Is there a badger? The badger?

I don't think there is a badger. What made you think of that? This is one of my favourite English animals. Okay. The badger. And apparently they are bloody vicious. All right. Okay, I like it.

The bloody badger. The bloody badger. The bloody badger. The bloody badger. That sounds like a good pub too. How does he get around? Just dig it. By his teeth.

Yeah. So his headquarters is a pub. Yes, I think so. And so what does he do? He just gets around in a black cab. Yeah. His day job is the manager of the pub. Whoa.

But by night, he's a bloody badger. He's got a badger cave. And at night he cleans up vomit from the pub. Yucky. He's a pub. Republicans. And what does he do with that? Does he use that to get Batman back?

Yeah, basically. Well, he fills a pool with it and he's trying to lure Batman into the pool of vomit. Oh, wow. I don't think that's going to work. Batchez is not very good at this. No, but he's very good at balancing the balls. Hey, can I thank some people? Yes, please.

Thank you so much. A little more locally now. I'd like to thank someone from Sydney in New South Wales, which is in Australia. I would like to thank. Lucas Reynolds Ryan's cousin What's he's the Deadpool And he's also a green goblet

Correct, yes So maybe he could be The dead goblet Death goblet If you take a sip out of him You die Wow Death goblet

Man nah nah he's very rock and roll Yeah Amazing Yeah good on your Lucas What do you think about how does he get around? Probably on a tray. On a tray. Probably in a tray.

Like a floating tray. Oh, he's got a waiter that carries him around. A giant. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Isn't he a goblet? He's a goblet. He's a goblet.

He's a goblet. He's a goblet. He's a goblet king. I do. He's a goblet. The man's a goblet. Thank you to Lucas. We didn't leave you much to do there, but the tray was a beautiful little bit of color.

Can I also thank from Brisbane in Queensland in Australia. Where's Australia On the earth I'm not the geography one So I can't confirm nor deny that I'd like to thank Ryan Ginevin The Jinslinger

Oh Also a bartender Yeah Yeah Is he Annie Is he in cahoots With No

The bloody badger They're rivals They're rivals They're rivals That's something I don't understand The bad guys don't They're not necessarily in a team. No, very rarely.

Do any of them hate each other? All of them. Really? We're all fighting each other too. Batman's just trying to stop everyone fighting. I assume they were all over. Don't get me started on the war of jokes and riddles. Oh, wow.

Is that on paper? That's a whole. It's on paper, yeah. Wow, that sounds sick. Is that basically Tommy Lee versus? Yes, exactly right. I will not stand. No, it was better than that.

Damn it, I really should, I want to be able to lock down that phrase and use it one day on someone unsuspecting. You'll use it on me, I can't feel it. Can you give it to me one more time? Oh, I can't sanction your buffoonery. I can't sanction your buffoonery. So good. So good. What did Jim say to that?

What are he saying? Who knows? He just did a car wheel. Yeah. Did a voice. Oh, riddle me this, Tommy. Shut his butt. Also, Tommy Lee Jones doesn't strike me as the type of guy who wants to go by Tommy.

You know? It's interesting, right? like Thomas. Yeah, do you think there was another Thomas Lee Jones already in the treading the boards? I don't think that. David, do you like to thank some people? Let me bring us home with a couple of beautiful names here.

This is another local. They better be beautiful, you son of a bitch. Even more local. Well, this is a beautiful name from Fitzroy right here in Victoria. I'd like to thank Jade Bland. Oh, that is so good. Jade Blan. I love it, not too showy.

Love that. Yeah. Thank you so much. Humble pie. May I say you got a name? I think Jess just said, Oh, humble pie. That sounds like a genuine Batman villain, I reckon.

The humble pie? The humble pie. What do they get it around on? Bike. Oh, that is humble. I just got a little basket in the front. They keep the pies. They throw at you and they're very hot.

Oh, hot humble pies. Hot humble pies. It's sort of, but not poisonous or anything. Just hot. Like steaming. Just really hot. Burn your face a bit. Wow.

But not like third degree, but like enough that you'd be like, oh. First degree. Should we give this last one to Mesao Dave? Oh, I'm ready. Okay. Where's this last one? I thought you're going to snap your laptop. He's from Greensboro, but not the one in the northern suburbs of Melbourne that I haven't been too many a time.

But the one in Greensboro, North Carolina, Dean Clark. Hang on, Dean Clark, Kent. Yeah, wow. Dean Kane. Clark Kent. Oh my goodness. Ripley's Believe it or not host to Dean Kane, Clark Kent. I believe it.

I love how he'd always end that show with Believe it. No, but he didn't say the or not bit. He should have finished with Believe it or not. I'm walking out every time, Dean Kane. There's a fact I know about his home state of North Carolina. We do have time for it. I'm always up for a fact. I love it.

I love facts. So love to learn. Do you guys know basketball? I know of it. I'm also no of it, yeah. Yeah, so there's this goat who plays basketball called Michael J. Jordan. And he... What's the J stand for?

Justice. And he... Can you imagine? Yeah, anyway, so he... Fastest he's ever improv. He's very... We set this up hours ago. He is a very, very...

He was the greatest goat of all time at basketball game. And he used to go to study school. in North Carolina. He used to go to study school. Yeah, big time. Wow. He hit the books. Yeah, he was.

He studied hard and he... Do you play hard? Partied hard on the basketball court. And when he partied, he partied dunks, basketball dunks. And he... Matt, are you okay? Anyway, like, a long story short, he would not take off his pants.

Despite moving interstate to Chicago, he was a never nude. The windy city, he was a never nude. He wore his blue denim cutoffs underneath his Chicago Bulls shirt and pants. Under the shirt. Yes. Wow. So they're high riders. High wasted, yeah.

The overalls. It was 80s and the high waist was in. They're back now. Sure. But they were still there then. And he went on to play. more games in denim than anyone ever did again. That's a great fact.

A genome. Yeah. It's a little riddle that I like to call fun fact, Jess. Now let me just say that Dean Clark Kent. Will you do me the honours? Fun. Dean Clark Kent is still sitting there thinking what superhero name are we going to give him? The double denim.

Double denin, all right You're going to have to flesh that out a bit, May so The double D. Oh, no, don't know. I mean, that was the opposite of flushing it out. That was the double. The dub. The dub.

Stop, he's fading away. T, T, T, Dane, stay with us. Dane! Dane! So many options there, right? Each better than the last. So double denim has denim, everything. He's gun.

Denim gun. Yep, nice. But he has two denim guns. Denim. Two cars. He's like two faces son. Yes. But he didn't, he doesn't, he doesn't have the scars, but he wants to impress his dad. Yeah. So double everything. So then he saw, and he opened up, but he was like, hmm, criminals are superstitious cowardly lot and he opened up a GQ magazine and

they're like, double denim's back. And he's like, oh, double denim. That seems like a sign. Yeah. A superstitious sign. That's right. So he's double denim now. That's a great origin. story. I love an origin story that is opening up a magazine. Yeah, right. And you're on it, yes. Perfecto. Yes.

Oh, wow magazine? It was a wow magazine. That's a nicer magazine. That's so good. Well, I think that just about brings us to the end of this podcast. Maybe the greatest ever. I think this is our go. Mesa. I'm never taking these shorts off again. It's so nice for you to come in here and spend so much time on the report.

We are super lucky to have you in. The few people who do not know your fine work on the internet as the internet celebrity, where can they find you. They can find me at the podcast, The Weekly Planet, where we talk about mostly Batman, if I'm honest with you. Just endlessly. They'll stop. And they'll recognise you from the start and the end of our podcast.

Oh, that's right, yes. And also the whole... The planet broadcasting is named after you. You are... I'm a planet, yes. You're a planet. You're a star. It's a planet called broadcasting.

Yes, exactly. Yeah, go to planetbroadcasting.com. Wikipedia Brown. The start of the episode. Your Instagram. The blog podcast from our great mates. Thank you, Jess. Or, again, I skip it.

I don't like your own voice. It's yuck. It is yuck. Your Wikipedia, Brown, Twitter's great, but your Instagram, that's where the action is at. I'm going to do an Instagram post right now. Oh, that's so good. So if you want to see this next week or see last week now in the present when you're listening to this. Yep.

You can look up at. Nick M-S-O N-I-S-E-A-U Bloody A bit of a mistake I have to spell it out every time

No regrets One regret One regret Okay Yeah You gotta have one You gotta have one You gotta have one

I'll have one Mine's killing that guy Anyway See you actually Waiters So I Something I've been told recently Something podcast is meant to do

Is say Please give us Five Stars on iTunes I'd really appreciate that May, so you've got a real great spill at the end of your podcast where you just nail everything. I should listen to that and change the words. I miss it every time.

Really? We've got so many things at the end. We've got to thank so many people and plug so many things. I always forget one thing. At least one thing. Well, I forget most things. Dave, have I forgotten anything? Pants!

Oh my God. Don't worry. I'm wearing two. Pairs. Does that help me? You can take one off. Basically, there's two pieces of fabric between my genitals and yours. and I'm happy about it.

That's an almost a Seinfeld reference. Okay, well, my jockey boys. Now, if you... My boys need a home, Jerry. Want to get in contact with us. Go onpod.com. Follow the links to our Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube channel.

It's all slash or at do go on pod. Get on that. And do go on pod at g-emar.com if you want to get in contact. The other thing you can do at the website is, of course, suggest a topic. Always open. That is a 24-hour hotline. baby.

That's do go onpod.com slash submit dash a dash topic. Probably slash. I write that out on Twitter a lot. Nice, great. Good stuff. And yeah, of course, Matt and I, our other pods are out now,

Primates. What's happening this week on the Primates pod? Primates this week. We'll be featuring DJ Levens and we're talking about the band Gorillas. Oh, how cool is that? Yeah, heaps of fun. I'm interested in hearing that.

I've found of their music. And book sheet. My new podcast is. up and about and the episode that I just released this week features Jess Perkins over there. Hello. Oh, now I'm interested. I zoned out of this conversation because it wasn't about me. You're in.

And also you're on with Naomi Higgins from the Batch Bitch podcast. So good. Great show. And I told you all about we cheated the book, The Great Gatsby. And I've already forgotten it. So I look forward to listening to that podcast. So yeah, get in contact. I should also say, Dave, that the episode of Prime Sages just came out.

which is you, Mr. DW, and we talked about the Marvel Comics, Marvel Apes, which is a sweet series of parallel universe comic capers in a world where all the superheroes are primates. Matt, It's a great dream universe for you. May I please also point out that Dave is wearing a t-shirt with bananas on it? He is.

It is making me horny. Matt, it's mid-sentence, not sure if I was going to complete it, but I bloody did. and I regret it, no doubt about that. You'd regret not saying it more, I think. Yeah, that's true. It's the times you don't say you're horny.

You miss 100% of the shots, you don't say you're horny. Matt, let me just say, I cannot sanction your profession. I appreciate that. That's a beautiful way to finish the show. Thanks again, guys. We'll be back with another episode next week, but until then, I will say thank you and I will say goodbye. Later's. Bye.

Mesa. What a catchphrase. Mesa. This podcast is part of the Planet Broadcasting Network. Visit planetbroadcasting.com for more podcasts from our great mates. I mean, if you want, it's up to you. Don't forget to sign up to our tour mailing list so we know where in the world you are and we can come and tell you when we're coming there.

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