Posted By Dan Greenfield on Jan 13, 2025 | 2 comments

BATMAN ’66 WEEK: Leslie Parrish, Linda Harrison, Teri Garr — and MORE!

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It’s BATMAN ’66 WEEK! Click here for more Batgrooviness! — Dan

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By JIM BEARD

I don’t always accept challenges, but when I do they usually involve the 1966 Batman TV series.

See, for a guy like me who loves the show and has done a lot of writing and publishing on it over the years, you might think I wouldn’t have much left to say — but you’d be wrong. On this year’s anniversary of the Jan. 12, 1966, debut of Batman, I found the solution to what to say about it this time around sitting right there, staring at me and wondering why I took so long to get to it.

So much has been illuminated about the show’s cast — and rightfully so, Robin — but it’s almost always focused on the heroes and the villains. My thought today is, why not talk about the rest of the guest-stars, those actors and characters who populate the stories and don’t get all the press that an Adam West or Julie Newmar or even a Rudy Vallee get?

Well, I’m going to remedy that here and now and bring some folks the Bat-justice they deserve.

Bring those batteries to power and speed up those turbines, Gothamites! The best is yet to come! Here are 13 BAT-TASTIC BATMAN ’66 GUEST STARS WHO DIDN’T PLAY VILLAINS. (I’m covering Season One and the feature film. Gotta leave something for next year, right?

ZOWIE!

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Michael Fox (Hi Diddle Riddle/Smack in the Middle). Not to be confused with that other M. Fox, our guy appeared as Inspector Basch in the pilot episode of Batman and while he never returned as the character, Fox did show up again as a different character, Leo Gore, in True or False Face/Holy Rat Race later in Season One. For a fun bit of trivia concerning the actor, Google the “Dr. Fox Effect.”

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Cathy Ferrar (Hi Diddle Riddle/Smack in the Middle). Yeah, I’m doubling up on the first story, but how can we ignore the “Gleeps Girl”? With one blockbuster line, “Gleeps! It’s Batman!” Ferrar cemented herself in the annals of genre television forever. And she never even got to Batusi with the Caped Crusader… though she did return in The Joker Trumps an Ace/Batman Sets the Pace, though presumably not as the same character. But who really knows? Most likely not the Shadow.

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Leslie Parrish (Fine Feathered Finks/The Penguin’s a Jinx). The beautiful Leslie Parrish had an amazing career even before she essayed the role of actress Dawn Robbins on Batman, a fascinating part due to her standing as a worldly girl who didn’t know who Batman was. Google her part in the creation of interactive television for an eye-opening side-credit for her.

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Dick Curtis (The Joker is Wild/Batman is Riled). This actor-writer’s part in Batman was brief but memorable—gotta love a guy who’s credited as “The Inebriate” for a role. Curtis is also known for the film Support Your Local Gunfighter and popped up in another ’60s superhero parody show, Captain Nice.

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Teri Garr (Instant Freeze/Rats Like Cheese). The late, lamented Garr made one of her earliest TV appearances with an uncredited part in the fourth Batman two-parter. She’d go on, of course, to genre stardom in Star Trek, Young Frankenstein, Oh, God!, and Close Encounters of the Third Kind, as well as returning to the Bat-universe as a voice actor for the 1999 Batman Beyond: The Movie.

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Reginald Denny (A Riddle a Day Keeps the Riddler Away/When the Rat’s Away the Mice Will Play). Denny cut his eyeteeth on stage and in silent films long before his role as King Boris on Batman, and also distinguished himself in the RAF during World War I. He also, and maybe more famously, played the out-of-touch Commodore Schmidlapp in the 1966 movie, a part that would prove to be the last of his long, long career.

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Jim Drum (Zelda the Great/A Death Worse Than Fate). There’s precious few minor characters who return for more than one appearance in Batman, but Drum could claim one of those special occurrences when he played GCPD Officer Clancy in this story as well as later in The Penguin Goes Straight/Not Yet He Ain’t. Stay tuned to this same Bat-Channel for another example.

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Linda Harrison (The Joker Goes to School/He Meets His Match, the Grisly Ghoul). All eyes were on Susie the cheerleader in this story, but lurking in the background, also in cheerleader mufti, was the girl who would soon go on to fame, fortune, and all the bananas she could eat in 1968’s Planet of the Apes and 1970’s Beneath the Planet of the Apes. Vootie, indeed.

Cherie Foster, Donna Loren, Linda Harrison

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Byron Keith (The Joker Trumps an Ace/Batman Sets the Pace). And here it is, the next example of a recurring minor character: Byron Keith as Gotham City’s Mayor Linseed (a play on real life NYC mayor John Lindsay). Look also for Keith in Beware! The Blob and Abbott and Costello Meet the Keystone Cops, as well as Orson Welles’ 1946 film The Stranger.

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Francis X. Bushman (Death in Slow Motion/The Riddler’s False Notion). In a story based on a Joker comic book misadventure, silent film legend Bushman appears in one of his final roles ever as Mr. Van Jones. He died in August 1966, only a few months after the airing of this story. You may remember him as a running gag throughout several episodes of The Beverly Hillbillies and for a mention of him in the M*A*S*H episode “The Interview.” His long lists of film and TV credits will take you a few days to peruse.

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Milton Frome (1966 Batman Feature Film). Frome’s one of those guys you recognize from a billion productions but maybe never really know his name. He shows up playing tiddlywinks with his secretary in the Batman feature film as Vice Admiral Fangschliester (whose name in German translates to “catch-closer”), the clueless naval officer who doesn’t understand why selling decommissioned war surplus submarines to people don’t leave their full address might be reason for suspicion. Watch for Frome on everything from The Monkees and The Nutty Professor to Adam-12 and beyond.

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Teru Shimada (1966 Batman Feature Film). Remember the end of the ’66 feature film when all those international delegates had to be reconstituted from dust by Batman? The distinguished-looking Shimada played the Japanese delegate, but I bet he’s more recognizable to genre fans for his role in You Only Live Twice. Also, like George Takei, he was placed in an internment camp during World War II, an event that derailed his growing acting career until his release in 1945.

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Emmanuel Thomas (The Curse of Tut/The Pharaoh’s in a Rut). Here’s our final example today of an actor playing the same minor role… probably. Thomas appears as an unnamed reporter in the same story in which King Tut makes his debut, and then reappears as a reporter in the ’66 feature film as “Mr. Stanley from the Globe.” I can only assume it’s the same character — and why not? Thomas has a wonderful gravitas he brings to the part (parts?) and I’m perfectly fine with accepting it as the same guy both times.

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MORE

— The Complete BATMAN ’66 Index of Features. Click here.

— PAUL KUPPERBERG: My 13 Favorite BATMAN ’66 EPISODES. Click here.

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JIM BEARD has pounded out adventure fiction since he sold a story to DC Comics in 2002. He’s gone on to write official Star Wars and Ghostbusters comics stories and contributed articles and essays to several volumes of comic book history. His prose work includes his own creations, but also licensed properties such as Planet of the Apes, X-Files, Spider-Man, Kolchak the Night Stalker and Captain Action. In addition, Jim provided regular content for Marvel.com, the official Marvel Comics website, for 17 years.

Check out his latest releases: Rising Sun Reruns, about classic Japanese shows on American TV; a Green Hornet novella How Sweet the Sting; his first epic fantasy novel The Nine Nations Book One: The Sliding World; and the most recent Batman ’66 books of essays he’s edited: Zlonk! Zok! Zowie! The Subterranean Blue Grotto Essays on Batman ’66 – Season One, Biff! Bam! Ee-Yow! The Subterranean Blue Grotto Essays on Batman ’66 – Season Two and Oooff! Boff! Splatt! The Subterranean Blue Grotto Guide to Batman ’66 – Season Three.