Back in this post and this post, we were talking about the comedy team of Davis and Reese and I recalled from memory a pilot-type show they did back a long, long time ago. I wrote in the first of the above links…
The most interesting thing I recall about them is that around the time the Batman TV show (the one with Adam West) was all the rage, Davis and Reese made a pilot-of-sorts parodying it. This is all from memory and I may be a bit off but I remember it being a five-episode, shot-on-video, low-low budget serial that ran once, Monday-thru-Friday in Los Angeles on Channel 9. I think Davis played the Robin-like character and Reese played the Batman-type guy and that's all I remember about it other than that it wasn't very funny. Does anyone else recall this thing? I don't know if it was local or national or what.
I didn't think there was any way to further research this but David A. Grudt, a reader of this site, prowled around in the L.A. Times archives and found out stuff. It was called Catman and Reuben and indeed, Davis played the Robin-like character and Reese played the Batman-type guy.
I recalled it as five-episodes aired in one week. It was, in fact, one hour which KHJ Channel 9 aired twice — at 10 PM on two successive Monday nights — February 21, 1966 and again on February 28. As a point of reference, the Batman TV show debuted on January 12, 1966. So someone had to get awfully busy to get the parody written and produced and telecast a mere six weeks later.
David wrote, "It would seem to have been only on Ch. 9, not national" and I think that's probably true. At this point, a lot of the local channels in Los Angeles were producing shows and pilots with what usually turned to be the following pipe dream: That a network would see what they were doing and grab up the show…or there would be interest such that national syndication would become feasible. The following year, Channel 9 tried some other short-lived programming including the infamous kids' show that adults watched, Shrimpenstein.
David also found an article which said, "Channel 9 answers the Batman craze with this hour-long spoof, Catman. In the first thrilling episode, Catman and Reuben are called on to stop the evil Dr. No-Good from smuggling any more whee! into the country. Stars the comedy team of Tony Reese and Pepper Davis."
I am fairly confident of my almost-56-years-ago recollections that the show was very dull and cheap-looking. It mostly consisted of Catman and Reuben standing around the Cat-Cave (the main and perhaps only set) talking about a lot of off-stage action. Catman was very serious and wise. Reuben — and yes, I noticed his name spelled wrong above — was pretty dumb and always saying, "Gosh, that sure makes sense to me, Catman!"
It struck me that they were trying to turn that line into a catchphrase so he said it about eighty-seven times. Did we ever see the much-talked-about master villain, Dr. No-Good? I'm not sure we did but I may not have made it to the end, especially since I had school the next morning.
And that is all we know about this show…and all we may ever know. We'll probably never even find out what "whee!" is and why it's a bad thing. Great thanks to David Grudt for finding what he found.