Holy Kevin Bacon, Batman!

There must be a corollary to Murphy's Law about how a person's office workload inevitably doubles during the week he's trying to relax and taper for athletic competition.

Stupid Murphy.

We have VIP visitors tomorrow, and tons of proposal work to do. It's good, I suppose, in that these activities keep the company afloat, which allows me to continue getting paychecks, but c'mon...I'd really like to spend a day or two staring out the window instead of gathering statistics and editing presentations.

Oh well. I guess the only real impact is that I get home later, get less sleep, and therefore have less time to spend blogging. And that's probably a blessing for the folks who actually stop by this site. There's less time for me to rant about people who don't use their turn signals or folks who take video of Bigfoot with really crappy cameras. One megapixel movies just don't cut it, people--get with modern times, OK?

Anyway, let's talk about Batman villains, and their connections to other cinematic luminaries. As I suspected, yesterday's puzzle was easier than usual; most people easily got "Holes" and "Barnaby Jones." But while folks did recognize Eric Von Zipper, the actual connection I had in mind seems to have been a bit elusive.



As you know, Eartha Kitt (Catwoman #2 in our puzzle) also played Madame Zeroni in the Shia LeBeouf movie "Holes." I really liked that movie, and would recommend it as more than just a children's story.

A couple of people made the connection with Julie Newmar and Star Trek...but that wasn't quite the answer I was looking for. Julie (Catwoman #1) did indeed appear in Star Trek, but it was in The Original Series, not NextGen; so Picard isn't the right guy. He belongs to Halle Berry (Catwoman #4), since he played Prof. Xavier in the X-Men. Ms. Berry was Storm, the mutant chick who ruled the weather.

[Extra credit question: Can you tell me what Julie Newmar's Star Trek character named the baby she had in the episode? I'll give you a hint; Kirk saved her tribe, and McCoy saved her life. Double extra credit if you can quote the caustic remark Spock makes when he hears the name.]

Lee Meriwether was also in Star Trek TOS, as the taciturn computer-generated babe who could be configured for cellular disruption based on DNA. But her appearance in this puzzle is related to the time she spent as Barnaby Jones' version of Della Street. (It's a pity that Jed didn't also hire Jethro Bodine as his version of Paul Drake.)

Which brings us back to Ms. Newmar. Before she donned the cat ears to befuddle Batman, she played a lifelike robot in the TV series "My Living Doll." Her co-star (and Mindy to her Mork) was Bob Cummings, who later played the beach blanket scientist known as "The Finger", shown in our puzzle using his Vulcan nerve techniques to incapacitate the fearsome bike gang leader, Eric Von Zipper.

So that's it for Catwomen. Next, we will discuss some connections associated with the male malcontents who plagued the good citizens of Gotham City. These guys:



Today's puzzle is a two-fer. Both of the graphics below denote relationships with the same evildoers shown above. The first one is relatively easy, but the second puzzle shows connections that require a slightly more in-depth knowledge of the actor's career.

(And keep in mind that the second puzzle is about the Batman villains, not the guys directly above them. In other words, I know that Michael Jackson had a thing for rats, and that Mr. T learned acting from Yosemite Sam, but those are just bonus coincidences. The puzzles below are simply two sets of answers that apply to the same 4 guys above, OK? Good. And as always, you can click to embiggen.)

Have fun, and have a great day!