Beware the Gray Ghost

I've recently had a string of sports posts, so I decided to take a quick break and do some more Batman episodes. First up is the classic "Beware the Gray Ghost." It was the 18th episode produced and 32nd aired on Nov. 4, 1992.

The episode starts with a nice, nostalgic black-and-white flashback of a young Bruce watching the Gray Ghost. Not only did I get a kick out of the Golden Age Gray Ghost cartoon, but I always love to see glimpses of Bruce's past, no matter how brief. I'll add a point for this.

I'll add another point for Adam West playing the Gray Ghost. This whole episode was loosely based off Adam West's career — he was so well-known as Batman, he had trouble playing anything else. Luckily, he was a good enough sport to play this part. Today, he's made a living playing a parody of himself, but he really is a good actor, and I enjoyed his performance as both the Gray Ghost and the actor Simon Trent.

The score will rise to an 8 for the excitement of Batman finally meeting his childhood hero, followed by the disappointment in realizing that he's not everything he wanted him to be. I like this because it makes Batman more human and even a little vulnerable. But this episode has a good ending. Even though the Gray Ghost wasn't initially the childhood hero Batman remembered, he did come around to become a sort of hero. He ended as another ally to Batman in addition to being his inspiration.

I'll add one more bonus point for the cameos of producer Bruce Timm as the Toymaker and writer Paul Dini as the movie store clerk. It was a great tribute to the creators of the show, and they also did quite well in their performances, I felt.

This really was a beautiful episode with all the black-and-white and Golden Age feel, and a fitting homage to Adam West. We sometimes give West a hard time for making Batman too goofy, but we do need to occasionally recognize the good he did for the character. He brought Batman to a wider audience, and by making him more well-known, created the possibilities for him to be improved and become the greatest superhero in the world. This episode served as a nice reminder to that, and it was executed nearly flawlessly. I would give it a perfect score if it weren't for everyone's paralyzed fear from some remote control race cars and the sheer ridiculousness of Batman randomly pulling a flame thrower out of nowhere. These complaints weren't big enough to take away any points — they just prevented me from adding another point.

Final score: 9