GOING BATTY

Last night great nephew Bo and I joined millions of other cinema fans, plunked down eight bucks apiece, and saw the new, much-hyped Batman movie, The Dark Knight. I was sure glad I had a teenager to tag along with so he could explain what the heck was going on. I was clueless half the time. “Who is that guy in court?” “Why are people wanting to impersonate Batman when most of Gotham is pissed off at him?” “What are all those computer screens about?” My questions went on and on.

Of course, it didn’t help matters that, due to my auditory problem, I had to wear ear plugs since half the movie was nothing but loud, ominous music and explosions. When there was dialogue, I’d remove the left plug, but even then I had difficulty figuring out what Batman/Bruce was saying. He sounded like one of those people who smokes a carton of cigarettes in five minutes--low and raspy.

The worst thing about The Dark Knight, though, was the fact that it lasted 2 hours and 30 minutes. We all know that any woman my age cannot manage to go without peeing for that long, so halfway through the movie I was flying off to the bathroom. By the time I returned to my seat, I was totally lost with the plot. Then I dozed off a bit until another explosion roused me.

Needless to say, I much prefer the mindless, old Batman TV series. It was campy, with clever dialogue, like: “Holy metronome, Batman! What a fate--punched into piano player rolls!” Oh, how I loved that cute little sidekick, Robin. And, gee, this new movie doesn’t even have a Robin! Which means it also doesn’t have an Aunt Harriet, the housekeeper! Is nothing sacred? Those old Batman shows were fun. The “Zap” and “Pow” fighting was genuine fakiness and I never had to have anyone explain to me what was going on. And the best part about this TV show? It’s length. Thirty minutes. "Holy Charmin tissue, Batman! No bathroom breaks required!"