LOUIE THE LILAC FROM BATMAN '66: The Most Random Villain Ever
- 2 hours ago
- 5 min read
Growing up as a kid in the tri-state area, I was very lucky to have been able to watch Batman ‘66.
Now, of course, I wasn’t born, nor a glimmer in my father’s eye, in the 1960s, but thanks to syndication, I got to see the program on WPIX-TV, or Channel 11 for those in the Metropolitan area, every afternoon during the early 1990s. I will give the credit to the uber success of the Tim Burton Batman and Batman Returns movies for it even being on the air.
However, and I’m not ashamed to admit it, I actually prefer to watch the version from the ‘60s than any other Batman enterprise that came out. In their own ways, they are great, but they don’t match up to the original television series.
There was such a campiness and over-the-top element to Batman ‘66 that I adored. An element of comedy. If you look at the seriousness of Adam West and Burt Ward as they elaborate on the wild objects and wacky inventions they have made as Batman and Robin, you’d laugh out loud at it.
Over a decade ago, I learned that the entire Batman ‘66 DVD box set was coming out in stores. I brought my geek self over to Target and made the purchase, totally expecting to binge watch the entire series within a few weeks.
Sadly, that didn’t happen the way I thought it would.
I literally had to chip away at it over a slow, snail-like pace. Up until a few days ago. Sitting in Stately Bruce Manor, or my apartment, I finally completed the entire series. And then, I started to think about it.
I sat and thought about every episode and every villain that came through the screen, attempting to challenge the Caped Crusader and his young ward (and Batgirl for Season 3). Who was the most random character ever introduced on this program? There were countless bad guys and gals.
However, after careful deliberation, it hit me like a fragrance that was pungent and incomplete. It rattled my brain like a hypnotic boutonnière designed like a flower.
But, to be fair, it has zero to do with the character portrayal, which was done by the great Milton Berle.
The answer, in my honest opinion, would have to be LOUIE THE LILAC.
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There is nobody as revolutionary in the world of modern comedy as the great Milton Berle.
Mr. Berle began performing his act from childhood, working his way through vaudeville from his transformative years. Inspired by Ted Healy, the man who helped put together the Three Stooges, Berle became a burgeoning stand-up comedian. By the late 1940s, he had a very successful run on radio with The Milton Berle Show, but it wasn’t until June 1948 when, as the lead of the Texaco Star Theater on NBC, he became world-renowned, earning the nickname “Mr. Television”. He was also one of the founding members of the Friars Club in Hollywood in 1947, taking up residence in Beverly Hills by 1961.
However, by the late 1960s, Mr. Berle’s mainstream career began to wane. Multiple television shows on multiple networks were cancelled, However, his name was still strong enough to be a guest star on countless television programs and motion pictures.
Batman ‘66 brought him in for two separate episodes during Season 3 (Episode 7 “Louie the Lilac” in 1967 and Episode 18 “Louie’s Lethal Lilac Time” in January 1968).
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As I alluded to earlier, the character’s actor portrayal had nothing to do with Milton Berle. In fact, in both episodes of the program, he played it straight, with minimal campiness, and I genuinely enjoyed it.
Also, I genuinely enjoyed the aesthetic of Louie on the show. The sharp grey suit with purple trim and purple fedora looked sharp. Also, as a one-time cigar smoker, that was an homage to the real life habit of Mr. Berle.
BUT…the storyline given to Louie the Lilac was kind of weak.
Unlike the first two seasons, Batman ‘66 really began to lean into the times. In his first appearance in Season 3, Episode 7, Louie wanted to manipulate the Flower Children of Gotham City, as he knew that they were the future of the world. First, he controlled the entire market of flowers and provided those groovy kids with plastic flowers. Then, after manipulating Princess Primrose with that flower boutonnière with MIND CONTROL, he tried to gain their movement into his control.
However, after the MIND CONTROL wore off, as well as learning that he trapped Batman and Robin, who they thought were “groovy”, in his man eating lilacs when they tried to rescue her, they rebelled, causing Louie to drive off.
Then, after learning that cold air nullified the hungry lilacs attacks following breaking a window, Batgirl sprayed Louie with a mold-growing spray, turning himself into a diseased “plant”. After trying to escape via the man eating lilacs, Batman laughed and took him to jail.
Episode 18 of Season 3 was even weirder. After Dick Grayson found ambergris, the section of a whale used to create fragrances, on the beach, he and Bruce Wayne were kidnapped by Louie and his henchman. Followed up with kidnapping muskrats, beavers, and musk-deer from the local zoo, he demanded that Bruce, an expert of the animal kingdom and an “international sportsman”, cut out their scent packets to use for his new fragrance…or else.
Asking for two glasses of warm water, seemingly for the procedures, Louie obliged. However, once locked away, the real ploy: the water would be used to uncoil a pill that enclosed both of Batman and Robin’s costumes.
Breaking back into the initial room, alongside the police’s muscle, the Dynamic Duo took out Louie and his minions, rescued Batgirl, who was also trapped, and got all of the animals back to the zoo.
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To me, it might’ve been two of Batman ‘66’s weakest episodes, story-wise. However, it was not for a lack of trying for Mr. Berle. He portrayed a fantastic villain. Normally, Mr. Berle was over-the-top with his delivery as a performer on outlandish programming. Yet here, he played it straight, and it really worked well. The storylines he was given just didn’t work.
Had Batman ‘66 continued with a fourth season on NBC, as attempted, I would bet my bottom dollar that Uncle Miltie would have returned. Sadly, that was not the case. But in Batman lore, Louie the Lilac has continued on in both Batman: The Brave and the Bold in the 2000s and in the Batman ‘66 books in the mid-2010s.
Not bad for a B-character.
But regardless, due to the story and not the man playing the character, I can safely say that Milton Berle’s Louie the Lilac was the most random villain ever, not just for Batman ‘66, but maybe in every Batman incarnation, and that spans a lot.
Bankie Bruce
