Ed Ranks Batman (1966 to 1968 TV Series) Villains

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I've ranked Batmen before, as well as Batman Villains before, but now I'll focus in on the villains from that cheesy 1960s show that we all know and remember fondly. Just a few rules/notes:

• Lee Merriweather is ranked here too, even though she never appeared as Catwoman in the TV Show (technically, she was only in the Batman Movie that was meant as a companion to the TV show). 
• Not ranked is "Pussycat," played by Lesley Gore, who is sometimes included in such rankings. In my view she simply counts as a Catwoman henchwoman, rather than a villain on her own. 
• Additionally, I'm ranking some villains in pairs if they only ever appeared as pairs. For example, Dr. Cassandra Spellcraft and Cabala.

What puzzles me is why this episode was made.

36. The Puzzler (Maurice Evans) - Hypothetically, TPuzzler is based on an actual, unique DC comics villain from Action Comics #49 (a title more associated with Superman than Batman). In truth, Frank Gorshin did not return as The Riddler in Season 2 of Batman, so this guy was brought in as a fake Riddler ripoff. He sucked.

35. Calamity Jan (Dina Merrill) - Calamity Jan barely makes the cut. In reality, she's really more like a henchwoman (like the unranked Pussycat, explained above). However, when the true villain of Jan's episodes, Shane, returned (he had featured in previous episodes before, without Jan), she was added and received equal villain billing as if she was more than just a henchwoman. I guess I'll use her billing status as a special guest villain to include her, though she doesn't really it.

34. Nora Clavicle (Barbara Rush) - The main villain in one forgettable Season 3 episode where she takes over the government, has Commissioner Gordon fired, and does other "evil" things like appoint women into positions of power in the government. I suppose different TV shows dealt with the Women's Liberation movement in different ways in the 60's.

33. Lola Lasagne (Ethel Merman) - The name alone of this famous Broadway star's villainess is terrible enough. Add to that she wasn't really a villain of her own, and simply played second fiddle to Penguin in one of the million episodes he was in.

Fun fact: She was married to the OG Mr. Freeze.

32. Minerva (Zsa Zsa Gabor) - Holy shit! Zsa Zsa was in Batman? She was! Maybe you forgot about it. In fact, she was in the last ever episode of the TV show. She was so bad that she must have killed the show. Oh well.

31. Lord Marmaduke Ffogg (Rudy Vallée) and Lady Penelope Peasoup (Glynis Johns) - Everything British was cool in the 1960s because of the Beatles, and so Batman had a swinging 60's British Invasion episode, except in the reverse where they went to London. Or in the case of this episode: Londinium. Because, for some strange fucking reason, they acted like the word "London" was copyrighted and they couldn't go to the actual city. For that reason, this episode features Chinese knockoff things like Chuckingham Palace and Ireland Yard. Oh, and the pair of one-off villains? Also extremely forgettable.

30. The Sandman (Michael Rennie) - There are multiple characters called "Sandman" throughout the history of DC comics.  This version is based on none of them, and is instead an evil hypnotist who makes sleepwalking people so his bidding, while he wears what clearly looks like a lady's fur coat.

29. The Minstrel (Van Johnson) - As annoying as you might think the Jaskier character is in The Witcher, he is nowhere near as lame as Van Johnson's stupid Minstrel who played a lute while simultaneously being a stock market manipulating expert in electronics. So now you know where Bane's story from The Dark Knight Rises came from.

28. Dr. Cassandra Spellcraft (Ida Lupino) and Cabala (Howard Duff) - This forgettable pair of villains featured in the second-to-last episode of the series and found a way to become invisible so that they could break a bunch of other Batman villains out of jail. Unfortunately, they were too lazy/cheap to hire all those other villains (Joker, Riddler, Catwoman, Penguin, Egghead, etc) to actually feature in this penultimate episode. So they just used body doubles and most of the episode was Batman, Robin, and Batgirl kicking and punching the air while pretending that they were fighting invisible enemies.

Even he is confused about existing.

27. The Archer (Art Carney) - A fake Green Arrow (who is just a fake Robin Hood anyway) that is a villain instead of a good guy. Played by the guy from The Honeymooners! Uhh... okay.

26. The Black Widow (Tallulah Bankhead) - I mean much praise for getting Tallulah Fucking Bankhead to star in this campy TV show. Actually, Batman was pretty good at getting notable stars (often past-their-prime, to be honest) to have cameos as villains of the week. If this show were on today, you'd be seeing folks like Billy Zane, Freddie Prinze Jr., and Snooki.

25. Olga, Queen of the Cossacks (Anne Baxter) - Yep, add the great Anne Baxter (Eve in All About Eve, Nefertari in The Ten Commandments, and so much more!) to the famous names who wanted to cameo in this show as terrible, terrible, forgettable villains.

24. Zelda the Great (Anne Baxter) - Wait... what?! Anne Baxter AGAIN?! That's right, folks! Though several villains were played by different actors (Catwoman, The Riddler, Mr. Freeze), Anne Baxter is the only actor who played different villains! Other than Liberace, but he played twins in the same episode, so that doesn't count. And to tell the truth, this isn't Anne Baxter again, since this was actually her first appearance on the show, while Olga was her second. I'll put the two Anne Baxter roles right next to each other, though I'll rank Zelda slightly above because this was her original appearance in an early episode of the show, and she played a more interesting character (a magician who likes to rob banks).

23. The Clock King (Walter Slezak) - Most people probably thought this was TV-only villain not based on a comics character, until Batman: The Animated Series came along and people were like, "Oh wow, that really is a Batman villain?" In this show, he's pretty much just The Mad Hatter, but with a clock in his hat. He would win the prize for craziest eyebrows on the series, if not for both The Mad Hatter as well as Otto Preminger's take on Mr. Freeze.

22. Marsha, Queen of Diamonds (Carolyn Jones) - You might know that John Astin (Gomez Addams) filled in as the Riddler during Season 2... but did you know that the actress who played Morticia Addams was also on Batman? She was! And she played the Queen of Diamonds, who, you know, liked to steal diamonds. She was just okay, but not terrible for a one-off villainess.

21. Mr. Freeze #1 (George Sanders) - There were three actors who played Mr. Freeze on Batman, and I have read one article which said that George Sanders was the best because he was the original and he didn't ham it up as much as the other two. Whoever wrote that obviously doesn't understand that hamming it up is what Batman 1966 was wall all about. This is the version of Mr. Freeze who is totally forgettable. Oh, and as the picture above of Zsa Zsa aludes to, George Sanders was married to her at one point. Although it's not hard because she was married to everyone back then at one point.

20. Ma Parker (Shelley Winters) - Shelly Winters (another famous name!) played this obvious parody of the famed mid-western crime lady Ma Barker. She comes in to take over the city penitentiary, but isn't memorable enough to carry her two-part appearance without needing a Catwoman cameo in the second part.

Basically already dressed like a Batman character.

19. Chandell and Harry (Liberace) - So yeah, Liberace was on the show, hamming it up big time. He played twins, one of which was Chandell, and the other who was Harry. Chandell was Liberace being super gay (e.g. playing himself) and Harry was Liberace pulling the ol' Rock Hudson and pretending to be a butch manly man. Obviously he was not as convincing as Rock Hudson at pulling that off.

18. Shame (Cliff Robertson) - Cliff Robertson (an Academy Award winner for Charly, though you likely know him more as Uncle Ben from the Tobey Maguire Spider-Man trilogy) starred on Batman as an obvious pastiche on a "Western" villain. Presumably because most other TV shows were westerns, and having an old west Batman villain meant that they got to reuse the wardobe in the studio closet rather than pay to design a new villain wardrobe. Practical! Shane is obviously the inspiration for the name, and someone thought Shame was a good enough character to come back for  pair of episodes in Season 3 after his initial Season 2 appearance. That makes him technically not a one-off villain like so many others.

17. Colonel Gumm (Roger C. Carmel) - Ah, the wonderful Roger C. Carmel, famous for being Harry Mudd in Star Trek, and Cyclonus in Transformers. Technically, he didn't get special billing for this episode, but that was because this episode was meant as a crossover for The Green Hornet, and featured Van Williams and BRUCE FUCKING LEE appear in it as The Green Hornet and Kato. In fact, Batman and Robin suspect GH and Kato as being the bad guys instead of Col. Gumm at first. Which is kind of dumb, once you remember that they actually met previously because GH and Kato had a cameo appearance earlier in the season when they had a cameo scene where Batman and Robin passed them walking up a wall (you know the old shitty window scenes!) Anyway, I lost track of Col. Gumm because I got sidetracked by BRUCE FUCKING LEE. He's good for a one-off villain, because Roger C. Carmel is good. Good enough to crack well into the top 20, and to even surpass an iteration of Mr. Freeze. That's saying something.

16. Louie the Lilac (Milton Berle) - Milton Berle playing a Batman villain is about exactly how you think it sounds. At first, you're like, "this is going to be awful." Then you realize, "no, this is probably actually a fairly good fit for this campy-ass show." 


15. False Face (Malachi Throne) - False Face wasn't terrible, and was actually a pretty good concept (a master of disguise). He was a character who could have, and probably should have, returned for another story later on. But I'm certainly not going to rank him above JOAN FUCKING COLLINS.

Just here to seduce you.

14. The Siren (Joan Collins) - Honestly, The Siren was not that good and probably doesn't deserve to rank this high. But I will rank her this high, because she is JOAN FUCKING COLLINS! Hot, young Joan Collins dressed up like a Greek goddess (Siren's name is "Lorelei Circe") and plays a harp to seduce and brainwash people. She only featured in one episode (if you don't count a short cameo in the episode before that was used as a set-up to introduce her), but I could have gone for a lot more Siren in Batman 66.

13. Catwoman #2 (Lee Meriwether) - With only one appearance as Catwoman in the movie (when Julie Newmar was unavailable), it's hard to really judge Lee Meriwether. I'm throwing her here, because she did a fairly good job for such a small time.

12. The Mad Hatter (David Wayne) - Those eyebrows tho. Also, obviously just a rip-off of the Alice in Wonderland character, though in fairness, he is based on DC Comic's initial rip-off, rather than being an original ripoff.

11. The Riddler #2 (John Astin) - Like Joan Collins, maybe John Astin doesn't deserve to be this high. Frank Gorshin was in, like, a million episodes of Season 1 of Batman. He was clearly "the" Batman villain, moreso than the Joker. But he didn't come back for Season 2, and after trying (and failing) with the absolutely awful "The Puzzler" (ranked at the bottom), they said "screw it, let's recast The Riddler." And they did. And John Astin was perfectly damn fine as The Riddler. In some ways, I appreciate the fact that he did take the role over. The few episodes with him are, like, special little gems.

10. Mr. Freeze #3 (Eli Wallach) - Yep, the legendary Eli Wallach (Tuco / The Ugly in The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly) was Mr. Freeze. I'm not going to hate on him, even though some people don't like his portrayal. It was no Otto Preminger, but it was good.

9. The Bookworm (Roddy McDowall) - If any character is ranked "controversially high," it is this one. All the other characters in the Top 10 are going to be characters you've heard of, remember, and who appeared in multiple stories. But The Bookworm?! Who the hell is that?!  Well, he was Roddy McDowall (he's in a ton of things, but you might just go with Planet of the Apes) playing a big dork in glasses who committed crimes based on literature and, ultimately, just wanted to steal a bunch of valuable books. The two-episode story he was in was so dumb and goofy that it's awesome.

Before the Arnold puns, there was this dude.

8. Mr. Freeze #2 (Otto Preminger) - Otto Preminger is the Mr. Freeze from the Batman show. This is the Mr. Freeze that most people remember. He was great. Hrm. I wonder if this take on a bald-headed, European-accented Mr. Freeze inspired any other versions of the same character. Probably not, right?

7. Catwoman #3 (Eartha Kitt) - My memory of Batman from childhood was about a 50/50 split for Eartha Kitt and Julie Newmar Batman episodes. That memory from childhood is completely wrong, because Eartha Kitt only appeared as Catwoman in two storylines (three episodes), and both were very late in the show's run. What the hell? Julie Newmar, meanwhile, played Catwoman in 12 episodes. Everything I remember is wrong. Still, the fact that I remember Eartha Kitt's Catwoman so well despite being on the show in FEWER EPISODES THAN CLIFF ROBERTSON'S SHAME (who was in 4 episodes) obviously means that the little she was there was done so well that she knocked it out of the park.

6. King Tut (Victor Buono) - For a made up silly character not from the actual comics, King Tut knocked it out of the park. This is exactly the type of cheesy-ass villain that made Batman so campy great.

No addition context needed.

5. Egghead (Vincent Price) - Vincent Price. Egg puns. Enough said. Or is it? Because I'm actually saying more. This dude is a movie icon, especially in somewhat villainous roles. He took a break from creepy-ass horror films to do Batman, and the world is better for it.

4. The Riddler #1 (Frank Gorshin) - Many rankings will put the Riddler at #1, but I won't. He's great and everything, and Frank Gorshin was great. But it was almost overkill with The Riddler, especially in Season 1. There were a ton of episodes with him. Sometimes less is more, and this was definitely not a less situation.

3. The Penguin (Burgess Meredith) - Speaking of overkill, The Penguin was in Batman for 20 of its 120 episodes (about 17%), more than any other villain. So yeah, Burgess Meredith was in this show A LOT. He was great though, and who doesn't love a Penguin episode? Penguin moves ahead of Riddler because of his pretty iconic look. The nose. The long cigar. I'm not going to lie, as a younger child I was pretty sure that FDR was The Penguin.

Your holy trinity? Almost.

2. The Joker (Cesar Romero) - Cesar Romero as The Joker was amazing, even if he never bothered to shave his damn mustache and just painted over it. The Joker would never be the iconic character that he is today without Cesar Romero knocking it out of the park. While you can think of The Riddler as someone with a high IQ who is obviously somewhere "on the scale" and who likes to play games, Romero's Joker is a 100% batshit crazy dude.

1. Catwoman #1 (Julie Newmar)

Catwoman was the best. Sorry. If you think otherwise, you are wrong. I saw a few other rankings (which I tried to ignore when I made my own), and she was always #2 while Joker or Riddler flipped between #1 and #4 (speaking of which, Penguin was always #3, which is exactly where I put him too). I kind of get why different people flip Joker and Riddler between #1 and #4, and the same reason I get that is the same reason why I feel like neither deserves #1. That leaves Jule Newmar's leather-wearing seductress (as much as she could be in a family 1960s TV show, but come on... even for that time her tight black outfit left little to the imagination) in the top spot. The same as Cesar as The Joker. Julie Newmar made Catwoman an iconic and unforgettable character and sex symbol.

Meow?