egghead

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Egghead
Vincent Price as Egghead

Egghead is a fictional character created for the 1960s Batman television series. Played by horror film mainstay Vincent Price, the character was identifiable by his pale bald head and white and yellow suit. He believes himself to be "the world's smartest criminal," and his crimes usually have an egg-motif to them as well as including egg puns in his speech where appropriate ("egg-zactly", "egg-cellent", etc.) Additionally, he would use a wide assortment of egg-shaped weapons, such as laughing gas eggs and tear gas eggs (laid by chickens on a diet of onions).

Character profile

Egghead was introduced in the second season two-parter, "An Egg Grows in Gotham" and "The Yegg Foes in Gotham," where he schemed with Chief Screaming Chicken (Edward Everett Horton) of the Mohican Indian tribe to revert control of Gotham City to the Chief's people. In return, Egghead would also govern the city and enable the criminal underground to run amok. Their scheme was foiled by Batman (Adam West) and Robin (Burt Ward). Egghead would return three times in the third season with his new partner and love interest, Olga, Queen of the Cossacks (Anne Baxter), in exile from Bessarovia. The first two third-season appearances, "The Ogg Couple" and "How to Hatch a Dinosaur", were actually filmed as one multi-part story, but split into two separate stories (Season 3 episodes 8 and 9) prior to airing. The final season three appearance was in episode 15, "The Ogg and I". Egghead was also one of six arch-criminals freed from prison by Dr. Cassandra, but this brief appearance was by a stand-in.

Egghead has rarely appeared in other Batman media outside of the 1960s series. It is somewhat doubtful if he is part of the comic book continuity (although he can be seen in Shadow of the Bat #3-4 as an inmate of Arkham Asylum).

Egghead was one of only two Batman 1960s series villains to deduce Batman's secret identity. Reasoning that the enormous "egg-spense" involved would point to only one of three Gotham City millionaires who would be of the right age as Batman and deducing that two could not be the Caped Crusader (one has a French accent, which Batman does not have, and the other is a southpaw, whereas Batman is right-handed), the last, Bruce Wayne, must be Batman. Before he can confirm this, Bruce Wayne's ward Dick Grayson shorts out Egghead's "memory egg-straction" machine, and later the Dynamic Duo plant enough evidence to make Egghead doubt his theory.

In other media

Egghead has rarely made cameo appearances in other Batman media outside of the 1960s series. It is somewhat doubtful if he is part of the comic book continuity, although he can be seen in Shadow of the Bat #2-3 as an inmate of Arkham Asylum).

Egghead can be seen in Batman: The Brave and the Bold episode "Day of the Dark Knight!" as a convict trying to escape Iron Heights, but was stopped by Batman and Green Arrow, among other villains from the show and the Adam West series.

Eddie Murphy declared his interest of playing the Egghead character in a Batman film during his appearance on The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien.

See also

• List of Batman Family enemies