All right!
Hey!
- How 'bout another round, handsome?
Those ice cubes look dry.
Thank you. Thank you.
Yes, you are too kind.
Welcome, molls and dolls, to the Aurora Borealis Room
at Oswald Cobblepot's spectacular Iceberg Lounge.
Oh, we're just getting jumpin' tonight, mm-hmm.
That was "Two is the Magic Number,"
and before that, "The Number 2 Second Street Serenade."
So now grab your better half. We're gonna double down
with "Ain't We a Pair."
Boo!
- Whoo-ee, somebody needs a fresh drink.
- Come on! Play "Three Day Weekend."
- Easy there, sir. We're playing "Ain't We a Pair."
Have a drink and enjoy the show.
- No, I'm sick of it, all right?
All night long, it's "Tea for Two,"
"Bicycle Built for Two,"
"Doo Bee Doo Makes Two"-- twos all night long!
I got the number two coming out of my rear end here, all right?
Enough with the two!
Play something else!
- Please, sir, we have a set list.
We don't take requests.
- I wanna hear "Three Day Weekend."
- Sir, we have a VIP guest upstairs who insists on a--
- Oh, really? Oh, thank you so much
for the news flash, Vicki Vale.
You think this whole town doesn't know
who's up in room 222?
You got Two-Face hiding out up there!
Yeah, I said it.
- Sir! - Ah, that's why no one's
seen him lately, all right, 'cause he's cracked.
He's shuffling around in a bathrobe, talking to himself--
not that you'd notice the difference, am I right?
- Sir, I'm going to have to--
- Yeah, what? You're gonna have to what?
You're gonna-- you know who I am?
Do you know who I am? I pay 15%
off the top of my operation to Oswald Cobblepot,
who last I heard, didn't, eh, truck with the funny farm.
- All right? - Yes, of course,
Mr. Miniscule, it's just--
- Wh--hey, hey. Fats Miniscule expects
a certain, eh, standard to be freakin' upheld!
And that means you keep the Arkham bait locked up
in the rubber room, capisce?
You don't let them give the orders.
All right, and another thing--
What? What?
What's everybody looking at?
Oh.
F-f-f-f-f--I--
- We're trying to sleep upstairs...
And you're not helping.
- Uh, hey.
Hey, T-t-t-t-- uh--buh--uh, Two-Face,
um, you're looking real, uh-- real--
- Easy, easy. You seem nervous, Fats.
Relax. What's the matter?
You heard we been...
A little erratic lately?
- Hey, you understand, I--
I was just blowin' off some steam, you know?
- I--I didn't mean-- - We said relax.
We're not crackin' up, Fats.
You know, we're just maybe a little, uh...
Overworked right now.
Pour him a double, Gigi.
You see? We're not such a bad guy.
People think we're such a bad guy.
But we have a devil on one shoulder
and an angel on the other, just like everyone else.
You know, like in the cartoons.
- Argus Studios. - Yeah, yeah, yeah, sure.
Angel over this side...
And a devil over here.
Right? On your worst day, it's...
Still a 50/50 proposition
which shoulder wins.
And this isn't even
your worst day, is it?
- No, no, i-it's not?
No, sure it ain't.
And good news for you,
we listen to our angel all the time.
But here's the problem, Fats.
The angel on our shoulder has an angel on his shoulder.
You follow?
- Yeah, yeah, no, I--I-- - I mean, 'cause we can
listen to our angel,
but is our angel listening...
To his angel?
We don't know. See, 'cause the angel has
a devil on the other shoulder.
If our angel is listening to his devil,
we might be better off listening to our devil.
I mean, he's got an angel, right?
- Uh, I, uh--
'Cause hear us out,
if the angel has a devil on one shoulder,
who's that devil listening to? His devil?
I mean, the shoulders are getting
pretty small here, Fats.
But we're not done.
That devil has a devil, and that devil has a devil,
and that devil--oops, he listened to his angel,
but that angel listened to his devil,
and who are a devil's better angels anyways?
- Are they good at being bad? - Uh--
- How many devils on how many shoulders
are we listening to when the angel starts
making with the chin music, Fats?
- I-- - How far back do we have to go
to get advice we can really trust here, Fats?
How many times does the path split, Fats?
Do you see why this makes it so hard to sleep?
- Wait, wait, wait, what are you gonna do to me?
- Us?
We ain't doin' nothing.
- We're going back to bed.
It is an unseemly hour
for questions of moral relativism.
We're callin' it a night and leaving it
to our angel and our devil to sort it out.
That's what we keep 'em around for.
- Oh, thank God.
Oh, and here they are now.
- Evening, boss. - This guy giving you
- trouble, boss? - Boys,
Fats here wants to know more
about internal moral conflict.
- Wait, wait, wait, wait a minute. Who are these guys?
- Oh, that's our angel and our devil.
We told you we can't trust
the two wise guys on our shoulders.
So we hired dependable replacements.
- Hey, Bob, be an angel
and leave Fats a few teeth.
- Oh, no. - You got it, boss.
- And Bub, I'm gonna pretend I didn't see
those brass knuckles, you sneaky devil.
- Ohh, no. - What knuckles, boss?
- Piano Man, how 'bout "Two Tickets to Timbuktu"?
Good night all, and we are
so very sorry for the intrusion.
- I'm sorry!
- Gotham, a fleshy fruit rotting sweetly
inside a rind of asphalt.
Join us once again for another tale
of life and death in Gotham City.
February 28th,
unable to return to sleep, Harvey Dent instead returns
to the work that has run him so ragged
these last two weeks...
An avalanche of emergency filings,
petitions, court injunctions,
a Byzantine maze of legal skullduggery.
But to what purpose?
The answer is known only
to the addlepated attorney extraordinaire
and his new business partner slash taskmaster,
Oswald Cobblepot.
While Batman and Robin seek
to suppress the steady crescendo of madness
being conducted by the Scarecrow,
the full flower of the Penguin's devious plot
is poised to bloom with noxious effect.
The nerve center of Gotham Police Headquarters
and its familiar odors of aftershave,
burnt coffee, and desperation.
On one wall, a map
of Gotham City roughly the size of a subway car.
Each thumbtack represents
- a crisis in progress. - No, no, I need twice
- the amount of men downtown now. - Each pinprick
a conflagration of criminal mayhem.
To say that a badly beleaguered
Commissioner Gordon lacks the necessary resources
to cover the ongoing catastrophe
would be the literal truth.
- What do you mean, we ran out of thumbtacks?
What, in the whole building?
Well, take down your kids' valentines.
Lieutenant, we just got word
that Penguin has completely folded
his protection racket in the Narrows.
Now Two-Face's psychos are taking a bloody chunk
out of every small-timer south of Barr Street.
For every move we can anticipate,
we get something like this Mama Dagmar murder.
All right, listen up. We need to move
while the situation is still fluid.
Penguin and Two-Face combined is a wide-awake nightmare,
and it's just getting warmed up.
But there's chaos while they consolidate,
and we can work with that. Our ace in the hole
is Penguin's illegal dump site in the harbor.
Oswald Cobblepot's whole front operation
is in federal trouble.
That's why he's gone into hiding.
But we have to find him and put the heat to him
before he forms a legal strategy
- with Harvey Dent's help. - Commissioner?
- All right, now, drawing him out isn't gonna be easy.
- Not when we got-- - Commissioner,
someone's here to see you.
- It's a really bad time. All right, I'm trying to--
It's Oswald Cobblepot.
- Say that again. - He says he wants to give
- a statement on the harbor dump. - He what now?
- He's in interrogation room three.
Damn it, we're too late.
All right, you tell his lawyers that--
No lawyers, Commissioner.
He waived his right to counsel.
He what now?
- Commissioner Gordon knows Oswald Cobblepot better
than to trust this seeming reversal of fortune.
But on the other hand, when a good cop smells a rat,
he follows his nose.
- Lieutenant, meet me in interrogation room three.
- Mr. Cobblepot.
Oh, what ho, Commissioner.
You startled me.
I say, you're looking prosperous, old egg.
- We've been looking for you pretty intently
for the last two weeks.
What is it that brings you in here tonight?
- Well, Commissioner, it's my giving nature.
Sometimes I curse my boundless charity.
I've got a present for you,
and I just couldn't wait to see you open it.
- From beneath his chair, the portly provocateur
produces a large and elegantly wrapped parcel.
I hope you don't mind.
- Mr. Cobblepot, have you been drinking tonight?
- Say again? Into the new
hearing aid, old smoke.
- Are you intoxicated, Mr. Cobblepot?
What?
No! Why, I'm dry as salted cod.
And not otherwise impaired?
This is a voluntary statement?
- Aren't you curious what I've brought you, old sport?
- I'm interested in your statement regarding
the illegal dump site you are responsible for.
You are aware you are being recorded,
and this recording will be entered as evidence in--
Dump site? Dump site?
Why, no nature lover you,
Commissioner, that's quite clear.
- What are you talking about? - Oh, you haven't heard?
Your dump site in the harbor has been declared
a "protected marine habitat."
It's home to a thriving population
of Gotham Bay hagfish.
- Thriving? That's an invasive species.
Immigrants, by another name.
And Gotham is such a welcoming place.
At least the right environmental groups have been
encouraged to think so.
You'll find all the paperwork on file at City Hall.
- Already filed? - Yes.
I've recently allied myself with first-rate legal support.
You really don't want to open the gift?
- And is this legal support being provided by Harvey Dent?
Hearing aid,
old boy, speak up.
- Are you admitting you are working
with the Two-Face criminal syndicate?
- Oh, I'll admit to any old thing you like.
Just open your present, Commissioner.
I just can't stand it.
- And who let you bring a package in here?
- Oh, it's been thoroughly determined to be harmless.
They searched me to my skivvies.
This is a police station after all.
Open it.
I don't know what you're playing at, Mr. Cobblepot,
but you've been made aware of your rights and, uh--
Do you like it?
It's a cuckoo clock.
- I can see it's a cuckoo clock, Mr. Cobblepot.
Yeah, but I-I don't know what all this--
- What, you don't know what this is all about?
Well, then I'll tell you all about
the obstreperous cuckoo bird.
Oh, you'll wish you never gave me the opening, old bean.
Birds are a passion of mine,
don't you know?
At any rate, your merry little cuckoo bird,
that selfsame winsome little warbler
that so inspired Handel and Beethoven, well...
He's actually a vile
sort of chap known as a brood parasite.
Doesn't that notion chill your blood?
Parasitic birds? Bleh.
Fine feathered fiends?
And indeed, the cuckoo bird is detestably ruthless.
It doesn't build nests. It doesn't feed its offspring.
It deposits its eggs in the nests of other birds,
the ones that are none the wiser.
- Yeah, I know where you're going with this, Mr. Cobblepot.
You think you're clever, don't you?
- And then the little cuckoos hatch,
and the unsuspecting host bird feeds them
like their own.
The GCPD is like a big, cozy nest,
isn't it, Commissioner?
And you're the mama bird, aren't you?
How many cuckoos do you think you're feeding?
- If you're telling me I've got bad cops,
I know I got bad cops.
I know who's on the take,
I just can't prove who's paying 'em.
Are you taking credit for that--on the record?
As I said, old bean,
I'll confess to whatever you like.
How about old Mama Dagmar?
Such a sweet and tender old lady, eh?
Or she was eventually,
but it took more than once through the grinder.
But that's Mama D.
She can be tough.
Take my word for it, I had to turn the crank.
- Lieutenant!
Get a booking officer down here.
Oh, would you?
I think O'Malley is on duty tonight.
His smile lights up a room.
You see, the cuckoo has taken up residence
at the top of the hour, Commissioner.
All the other eggs have been pushed out of the nest.
Nobody here but us cuckoos.
- What are you talking about? I still run this--
This is a courtesy call,
because believe it or not,
I respect you, Commissioner.
I don't know, I think it's the mustache.
You're under new management, effective immediately.
Harvey Dent has arranged everything.
Expect the announcement shortly.
- Announcement? What annou--
- Now then, you are going to have
quite a gauntlet to run with the press.
This went very badly.
- Ha! You mind, uh,
lending me that hearing aid, Mr. Cobblepot?
I thought you just said--
I've never been so outraged in my life!
I'm going to have your job for this, Gordon!
- Commissioner. - Where does
he think he's going?
Is that the press outside already?
It's inhumane!
Why, you can't treat a taxpayer like this!
Get out of my way!
You'll be hearing from my lawyer!
- Ay, ay, don't let him walk out of here.
- He just confessed to-- - Sir, we have a problem.
The recording equipment in the interrogation room--
- Lieutenant, if you gonna tell me that you weren't
- rolling on that-- - We were rolling,
Commissioner, but listen for yourself.
- What the?
- There was high frequency disturbance
inside the room with you, some kind of signal jammer.
- Damn it! That wasn't no hearing aid.
Ay, stop Cobblepot!
- Commissioner, we can't detain him.
There's no record of what went on in that room.
It's gonna be our word against his.
- Lieutenant, get me duty rosters from all precincts.
Pronto! Don't say who's asking.
Restrict O'Malley to desk duty. We were right about him.
And get me on a burner phone to the Batcave.
Penguin is making his move-- right through our front door.
- The last outpost of law and order assailed from within.
And the distance narrows between life
and death in Gotham City.
Hey, Gotham teenagers.
What it is?
This Friday night at the Gotham Riverwalk,
enjoy a wholesome evening of positive messaging
and a drug-free environment at the Youth Musical Festival.
- Remember, staying off Scarecrow drugs is as simple
as saying G-L-A-R-B-I-M-A-C-T-A-F-I-N,
which spells GLARBIMACTAFIN,
which stands for "Get lost, all right, buster,
I made a choice to abstain from illegal narc--"
- We interrupt this broadcast for a breaking news bulletin
from Gotham City One.
- Good evening, Gotham City.
This is Jack Ryder live on the steps of City Hall
where we have been told to expect a statement shortly
from Oswald Cobblepot, who earlier had this to say.
- It is my sad duty to come forward
as a private citizen to report my ordeal.
No one should have to endure what I just went through
in that interrogation room.
My fellow Gothamites, there is a terrible corruption
at the heart of the Gotham City Police Department.
A fearsome, fetid rot,
and it goes by the name...
Batman.
- Gotham, a glass hammer shattering on impact
with the inevitable.
Join us once again for another tale
of life and death in Gotham City.
In a squalid tenement on Gotham's derelict fringes,
two drug dealers cower in the inky darkness of blind panic.
- Oh, man. It's him!
- It's him! - Hey, lock the dang door!
- You dope, he's already inside!
- An old German myth relates that if a bat flies
into your house, the devil is after you.
- Where? - I don't know where.
It's too dark.
- A more recent Gotham City tale has it
that if a bat flies into your illegal narcotics laboratory,
the devil will be the least of your concerns.
- Shoot him, Scud! He's up there.
No, you stupid. He's over there.
- I think I got him.
I think I got him. I think I--
- Did you get him? - Yep.
- I got him. - You sure?
I'm totally sure. I got him.
I absolutely got him...
I think.
- You didn't. - Aah!
- successful raid of the narcotics
manufacture site operated by the narcoterrorist
known as the Scarecrow.
Civilian identity remains unknown.
In his criminal persona, he styles himself
as the Master of Fear, a reputation he maintains
by the sadistic application of psychoactive chemistry.
His Scarecrow drugs make the addicts crave his horror.
- I recognize his goons, a couple of dead-enders
from a west side motorcycle gang called Dem Bones.
Ride or die types.
So why were there no motorcycles parked outside?
The narcotics lab is a high yield operation.
Custom equipment optimized for an unknown purpose.
He's making something new.
But why is he making it up here?
There's no street trade in this district.
Why is he assuming voluntary risk
to move his product downtown?
Or is he moving the addicts uptown?
Bikers with no motorcycles.
Drug dens with no drug addicts.
Whoever the Scarecrow is,
there's a structure to his eccentricity.
Elective inefficiencies indicate an urgent need
to work around a larger problem.
For all the terror of his criminal persona,
this is a man who shows every sign of being motivated--
by fear.
But a fear of what?
What frightens a nightmare?
- Batman to Batcave. - Robin here.
I've swept the site.
No sign of the Scarecrow.
I'm returning to the cave to deal
with Commissioner Gordon's concerns.
Has the Penguin begun his press conference?
- He just started. You're gonna want to hear this.
Patch it through.
- And no sooner had I presented myself
voluntarily and in full cooperation with my civic duty
than I was locked in a room to be viciously intimidated
by the so-called Batman.
- Listen to him lie.
- The truth of what he says is irrelevant, Robin.
It's not possible to disprove his story.
But what's his angle here?
- This is the sorry state of police work
in Gotham City?
Is Gordon running a law enforcement organization
or a Hallow's Eve spook house?
I say this is what happens
when we let the police police the police--
this and worse!
It's long past time that the GCPD was subject
to civilian oversight.
- Of course. I should have seen this coming.
- Civilian oversight? What's he talking about?
- Per the provisions laid out in the city charter,
I have filed an injunction for the immediate establishment
of a civilian review board of all police operations.
- He can't make that happen, can he?
He can't.
But Harvey Dent can.
This is the endgame of their partnership.
They're formalizing the systematic
corruption of the police force.
- Beginning at midnight tonight,
the current police command as well as the rank and file
will answer directly to the head
of the new Civilian Review Board,
a post to which, given the circumstance,
I nominate myself.
- Holy chain of command, Batman.
He can't be serious.
- He is. The Penguin and Two-Face
are taking over the GCPD in broad daylight.
- And it's going to work. - How do you know?
Because it was my idea.
- Your idea? - I see it as nothing less
than my civic obligation...
- Before Batman decided to join the police force,
I had settled on a plan to reign in growing corruption
by making Bruce Wayne civilian commissioner of police.
District Attorney Harvey Dent had it all worked out.
Then he had his accident.
It seems Two-Face has taken the plan off the shelf
with Penguin in the starring role.
But what's his play, Batman?
How does he get the public behind him?
This town loves Commissioner Gordon.
- And to give you an idea of what you can expect from,
well, a Commissioner Cobblepot,
I'm going to do what the GCPD hasn't done,
what Commissioner Gordon won't do,
and what the Batman has repeatedly failed to do.
Put your trust in me,
and I will finally bring in...
the Joker.
Wait, what did he say?
- Get Gordon on the line. We knew the consolidation
of the two biggest criminal syndicates would bring chaos,
but this is chaos torn to pieces by wild animals.
The Penguin and Two-Face have just declared war on the Joker.
- Yes, the Penguin and Two-Face have climbed
behind the wheel of a nitro-burning nightmare
for a citywide demolition derby.
Join us next time as we rev the engines and pop the clutch
for the inevitable high-octane head-on collision
between life and death in Gotham City.
- The Harlequin is coming soon
to Gotham City.
The Harlequin is coming soon--
- In baseball news, the streak continues
for the mighty Swat Fleishacker
and the Gotham Gaslamps--
- Basil Karlo, horror classic, in a newly remastered--
- From Hollywood's legendary Argus Studios...
Who knows what evil dwells
in the heart of the dark of the city?
One lone defender of the night...
I am justice.
- Look! In the shadows, on the rooftops...
I am vengeance.
- It's a specter. It's a shade.
It's--
Oh! Ack! Ack! Sorry!
Sorry, I'm okay, everyone. I'm okay.
It's just really dark out here.
- It's Bat-Mite!
Mysterious miniature masked marauder
of Gotsumgum City.
- Ow! Okay, okay, ow.
No, I'm not as okay as I thought I was.
- He fights a never-ending battle for...
- Oh! Nope. Not tonight, I don't.
Moving around is agony.
Does anyone see my wallet?
I think I dropped my--
it's a brown wallet. I can't find it.
- Argus Studios presents the manic antics of Bat-Mite.
- Yuh-oh! - The brand-new cartoon comedy
taking Gotham City by storm. Short features
showing exclusively at the Monarch Theater.
And don't miss daily comic strip appearances
- in the "Gotham Gazette." - Eh, yuh-oh!
- Bat-Mite is a work of fiction; similarities
or endorsement to any actual persons known or unknown
should not be implied; Argus Studios does not condone
extralegal vigilante activity of the sort lampooned herein.
- Ow! Okay, now my shoulder's dislocated.
- I hate that.
- Someone, please, I-I need help getting into a taxi.
Anyone?
To be continued.
The Audio Adventures,"
written and directed by Dennis McNicholas.
Batman created by Bob Kane with Bill Finger
based on characters from DC.
With performances by Jeffrey Wright,
Aristotle Athari,
Ike Barinholtz,
Rosario Dawson,
Steve Higgins,
Toby Huss,
Gillian Jacobs,
John Leguizamo,
Dennis McNicholas,
Tim Meadows,
Seth Meyers,
Bobby Moynihan,
Chris Parnell,
Katie Rich,
Ben Rodgers,
Paul Scheer,
Pete Schultz,
Brooke Shields,
Brent Spiner,
Kenan Thompson,
Alan Tudyk,
Bradley Whitford,
Melissa Villaseñor,
Eli Brueggemann,
Doug Bossi,
Ranjani Brow,
Chris Gibney,
Julie Larson,
Erica Phillips,
Rosie Phillips,
Tony Phillips,
Zoey Phillips,
Deirdre Quinn,
Robbie Wyckoff.
Executive producers Jon Berg,
Angela Petrella.
Produced by Dennis McNicholas.
Executives in charge of production
Shaleen Desai,
Peter Girardi.
Producer Tyler Dorson.
Production services by Cast Media.
Producer Colin Thompson.
Coordinating producer DJ LaBelle.
Music by Doug Bossi.
Sound recording, design, and mixing by Big Yellow Duck.
Sound design, mixing, dialogue editing,
and rerecording mixing by Chris Gibney.
Dialogue editing and additional postproduction
by Julie Larson.
Original songs by Doug Bossi and Tony Phillips.
The characters and events depicted
in this podcast are fictional.
Any similarity to any actual person, living or dead,
or to any actual events, firms, places,
and institutions or other entities
is coincidental and unintentional.
This podcast is protected under the laws
of the United States and other countries,
and it's unauthorized duplication, distribution,
or exhibition may result in civil liability
and criminal prosecution.
Country of first publication United States of America.
The Audio Adventures,"
copyright 2022 Warner Brothers Entertainment Incorporated.
Batman and all related characters and elements
are trademark and copyright DC.
All rights reserved.