Detective Comics #144

Issue Details

Synopsis

KAY KYSER’S MYSTERY BROADCAST One evening in Gotham City, Big Jack Bancroft (currently Public Enemy Number One), shoots his way through a police cordon and escapes on foot. Bancroft carried no baggage, yet the loot from his latest caper is missing. Strolling nearby, Bruce Wayne and Dick Grayson hear the commotion, climb a building, change clothes, and swoop into action as Batman and Robin, arriving slightly too late to prevent Big Jack's getaway, but still in time for Batman to recognize the fleeing felon's face. Bancroft tries to carjack a couple of guys in a convertible, stopped at a red light, but wait! The driver is Kay Kyser, and his passenger, Eddie Blinn, a saxophone player, looks almost just like Big Jack, only with a mustache. And it just so happens that when he was in the prison band, Big Jack had played saxophone. Bancroft gets a big idea, carjacks the two musicians, leaves the sax player with some henchmen, and heads to the Gotham U. Football Stadium, where Kay Kyser is appearing in a live broadcast, that evening. The whole show goes off without a problem, and in the days that follow, Bancroft attaches himself to Kyser's traveling band, moving from date to date. Kyser gets an idea, and in his next weekly quiz show broadcast, and again a week after that, announces "… this new version of Woody the Woodpecker is dedicated to my friend, Mr. Morse!" The second week in a row that they hear this, Kay Kyser fans Bruce and Dick know something's afoot, and they set up a recording machine, to get the rest of this broadcast down on wax, for some Batcave analysis. Sure enough, there's an "S.O.S." worked into the song's new arrangement. Batman's plan: Kyser's Kollege of Musical Knowledge is putting on an impromptu performance that very night at the Fireman's Ball. Batman contacts Kyser's press agent, and arranges to have himself appear as a contestant on the show. Meanwhile backstage at the show, Bancroft hears a radio news story about the Gotham Planetarium getting remodeled, which upsets him because that's where he's hidden his loot, and he has to stay at the show and keep an eye on Kay Kyser. His plan for dealing with this requires that his henchman, Buggsy Dolan, should win a round of the quiz show, and get handed an envelope by Kay Kyser. Then Batman arrives at the show, and Kyser is delighted to see him. The contest gets going, and Batman recognizes Dolan (but thinks of him as "Buggsy Malone"), as a Bancroft henchman. Kyser arranges for Batman and Buggsy to be pitted against one another. Batman wins by cheating, really: the quiz is about 1940s musical slang, which is like Greek to Batman, but Robin is in the audience, whispering answers into his belt radio. Kay hands the envelope to Batman, tips him off that an important message from Big Jack Bancroft, and mentions "Eddie Blinn." Meanwhile "Eddie" has slipped offstage and out of sight. The Dynamic Duo splits up: Robin to go rescue the real Eddie Blinn, and Batman to the Gotham Planetarium to take down Big Jack. At the Planetarium there's some climbing and chasing and fistfighting, and just as Big Jack is getting beaten down, Kay Kyser runs into the auditorium, and caroms off the giant star-show projector, causing it to run crazily, then black out the whole room. Kay helpfully whacks Big Jack on the head with a big hunk of wood, but when the lights come on, he's knocked out Batman instead! Bancroft marches Kyser and Batman into a room that's been sealed up with putty, and opens a gas jet in the ceiling, mockingly tosses a clarinet into the room, and leaves them locked in there. Kay scrapes some putty from the floor, and ingeniously uses it to turn the clarinet into a blow-pipe, then blows a wad of putty onto the nozzle of the gas jet, sealing it. Batman then calls Robin on his belt radio, and Robin sends police to the airport, who catch Big Jack before he can fly to South America. THE HUMAN ARMORED CAR THE SEVEN SINISTER MIDGETS THE CASE OF THE BLACK CAT CRIMES