"King Tut's Coup" was the third outing for Victor Buono's pharaoh, who gets more outrageous with each episode. With Stanley Ralph Ross scripting the remainder of his adventures, it allows Buono even more room to ad lib in hilarious fashion, resulting in impersonations of W.C. Fields or rewriting Shakespeare. The opening is the best yet for this enormous arch villain, lecturing two students on the Yale campus, when potted plants reduce the students to kneeling servants, while the kindly professor responds: "the gang's all here!" Tut's goddess of the Nile is the aptly named Neila (Grace Lee Whitney), none too pleased to learn that her king intends to kidnap a queen, Lisa Carson (Lee Meriwether), who will attend a fancy costume ball as Cleopatra. Bruce Wayne, dressed as Julius Caesar, fails to prevent the villains from claiming their prize, resulting in Robin falling into their clutches, then Batman encased in a sarcophagus, ready to be lowered into a watery grave with little air to sustain him: "bubble, bubble, little bat at the bottom of the vat, your wings will dry and soon you'll fly to the great big belfry in the sky!" Another odd Batclimb cameo comes courtesy of Aileen Mehle, remembered during the 60s as gossip columnist Suzy Knickerbocker of "Suzy Says," usually seen on television as a game show panelist. Richard Bakalyan has a funny scene wearing a noose around his neck, which nobody had the foresight to remove, seen previously as henchman C.B. in "Death in Slow Motion"/"The Riddler's False Notion," while serving as henchmen to both Louie the Lilac (Milton Berle) and Cesar Romero's Joker during the third season. Deputy Mayor Zorty, mistaken for King Tut at the ball, is played by Tol Avery, previously tormented by Cesar Romero in "The Joker Trumps an Ace"/"Batman Sets the Pace." After her sexy turn as Catwoman in the feature film, this would be the only series appearance for Lee Meriwether, her character a prospective bride for Bruce Wayne.
Review of King Tut's Coup
