EPISODE NUMBERS: 43-44, Production Code N/A

PLOT SUMMARIES:

The Greatest Mother of Them All :
Gangstress Ma Parker and her fiendish brood--sons Pretty Boy, Mad Dog, and Machine Gun and daughter Legs--have invaded Gotham City and begin their wave of crime by disrupting Gotham's Ladies Auxiliary's Mother of the Year Awards Ceremony and robbing the entire audience. Batman and Robin are called into action. They quickly locate the fiendish family at their home on Cherry Blossom Road, where, under the cover of a smoke bomb, they evade apprehension, save for Pretty Boy. Later, Machine Gun is also captured, after The Parkers pilfer money from a theater's box office. Then Mad Dog is foiled in his attempt to hold up a drugstore. They finally trace Ma and the last of her delinquent children, Legs, at an old ladies' home, where, after Ma's high-speed rocket-wheelchair race ends at a well-placed wall, they are arrested. The Caped Crusader and The Boy Wonder quickly take Ma and Legs to Gotham State Penitentiary to join the rest of their family.

As Batman and Robin leave the prison, they notice a trustee examining The Batmobile's Batengine. Writing off his rather suspicious behaviour as curiosity, they start on their way. Unfortunately, back in Warden Crichton's office, Ma reveals that she has been secreting sympathetic guards into the prison for some time, so it is easy for her gang to take over; she also brags that Batman was her unwitting pawn in capturing her and her crooked kids, for now she's in total control of The Gotham State Pen! Furthermore, unknown to The Dynamic Duo, that "curious" trustee planted a timebomb inside The Batmobile, thus it has been rigged to explode once it reaches 60mph!

Ma Parker :
As The Dynamic Duo speeds back to The Batcave, Batman suspects foul play because of a comment made by the trustee dealing with The Batmobile's speed, and he immediately stops the car and disables the car-bomb just before it can go off! Quick as a blink, The Peerless Pair speed back to the prison to check on The Parkers. However, clever playacting convinces them that all is well there. Ma then holds a meeting of the prison inmates and informs them of her plan for using The Gotham State Pen as a hideout while Batman & Robin do their work by send more crooks to fatten her jailhouse gang. (After all, who'd think to looking for escaped crooks inside a prison?) During an armed car robbery, Ma detonates the druck with dynamite, the resulting explosion triggering The Batseismograph, which in turn alerts The Dynamic Duo.

They rush to the scene, where under a shower of cash, Ma Parker and her delinquent kids cut out--but her plan goes awry when Batman siezes a scrap of cloth from a fleeing thief and recognizes it as prison garb! Suspecting Ma Parker is involved, Batman and Robin break into the prison, only to be captured and strapped into electric chairs by Ma's gang, scheduled to be barbecued at midnight! When Ma pulls the switch to fry The Duo, she and her cohorts find that Batman (having lured Legs into leaving the room beforehand) has cleverly managed to rewire the whole setup, using it to signal Alfred to cause a prisonwide blackout instead of an execution! The Caped Crusader and The Boy Wonder immediately free themselves and recapture The Parker Family to restore order in Gotham State Penitentiary. Later, in Warden Crichton's office, Gordon, Robin, Crichton and Batman are surprised at a bundle of roses sent to The Caped Crusader by Ma Parker; the reason: it's Mother's Day!

WRITTEN BY: Henry Slesar

DIRECTED BY: Oscar Rudolph

CAST:
Madge Blake (Aunt Harriet Cooper)
William Dozier (Narrator)
Adam West (Bruce N. Wayne/Batman)
Burt Ward (Richard "Dick" Grayson/Robin: The Boy Wonder)
Alan Napier (Alfred Pennyworth)
Stafford Repp (Chief O'Hara)
Neil Hamilton (I) (Commissioner James W. Gordon)
Fran Ryan (Chairperson)
James Griffith (Tiger)
Milton Berle (Lefty)
Michael Vandever (Mad Dog Parker)
Tisha Sterling (Legs Parker)
Peter Brooks (Machine Gun Parker)
Robert Biheller (Prettty Boy Parker)
Budd Perkins (Prison Guard)
Shelley Winters (Ma Parker)
Lyzanne LaDue (Nurse)

INTERESTING NOTES:
- Milton Berle (seen here as Lefty) will be seen as Louie The Lilac in Season 3.

- Ma Parker's crankiness can be attributed to back pains Shelley Winters sustained from a nasty spill she took on the set.

SCREEN GRABS FROM EPISODE 1

SCREEN GRABS FROM EPISODE 2

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