"Cool, Cruel Christmas Caper" is the Christmas episode of the Filmation-produced animated television series The Adventures of Batman. Unlike some episodes of this series, this was a self-contained single-parter.
Synopsis[]
Disguising himself as the Santa Claus in Gotham City's annual Christmas parade, Mr. Freeze, and his henchmen use the perch of their parade float to freeze the park's giant Christmas Tree, this to steal the Diamond Star topper worth millions, along with Batman, Robin, and Commissioner Gordon. Shaking off their frozen state, Batman and Robin pursue the icy fiend, at first in the Batmobile, and then when Freeze's ray makes the road too slick, a team of sled pack dogs also attending the parade. But Freeze is too savvy for them, throwing food at the dogs who stop dead in their tracks. In his reindeer-drawn sleigh aided by his ice-ray slicking the way, Freeze makes good his escape.
Commissioner Gordon frets that Christmas will not feel like Christmas without the Diamond Star topping the tree, to which Batman and Robin vow not to let the kids of Gotham down. Their word is difficult to keep, since Santas are plentiful in Gotham City, given the season. At Stacy's department store, the Golden Yule Tree sits in the display window and becomes the new target of Mr. Freeze, using a charity kettle along with his Santa disguise to stalk the store. Freeze ices the display window so thoroughly that a small bell ringing is all that is needed to shatter it, after which he makes off once again, leaving the Dynamic Duo confounded. Batman gets the idea to draw Freeze out with bait, planting a news story that Gotham's Gingerbread House will have a silver-and-gold bell ringing inside it. Inside his HQ, a factory called "Ice House," Freeze's greed gets the better of him. As his helicopter tears the bell tower right off the Gingerbread House, Batman and Robin are secreted inside it, though not for long, as the line off the helicopter makes staying put impossible. Frantic, Freeze fires on the tower, missing wildly and icing up his chopper. Once grounded, Freeze guns for the heroes, who lead him to fall directly into the City Zoo's Polar Bear pen, where an angry resident makes his opinion of the intruder who slides into him clear as ice.
Batman and Robin return the Diamond Star to the Commissioner and the Yule Tree to Stacy's display window, and present Mr. Freeze packed inside a snowman. Gordon feels it will indeed be a very Merry Christmas, to which the humiliated Mr. Freeze responds "Bah, Humbug!".
Notes[]
- Mr. Freeze, when disguised as Santa, does not wear his trademark clear helmet, which in most versions of the character, he needs to survive. This discrepancy is never brought up.
Availability[]
The episode was made available on The Adventures of Batman: The Complete Series DVD set, released by Warner Home Video on June 3, 2014. It will be included on the series' Blu-ray collection, set to be released on February 28, 2023.
External links[]
- "Cool, Cruel Christmas Caper" at the Big Cartoon DataBase
- "A Perfidious Pieman is Simon" / "Cool, Cruel Christmas Caper" at the Internet Movie Database