Today, we look at Ally Babble, a short-lived Gotham City resident whose incessant yapping drove Batman, well, batty.
This is "You Act Like We Never Have Met," which is a feature about one-time cast members of popular comic book series that have fallen by the wayside in the years since. Some of these are characters who would appear in comics routinely read by hundreds of thousands of people but are now effectively mysteries.
As I noted last week, during the Golden Age, the prevailing design in the comic book industry was over-sized comic books packed with tons of stories, with each character getting their own feature. When some characters grew popular enough to get their own ongoing series, though, now suddenly these characters were not only appearing as a feature in a larger anthology, they also had to, in effect, star in their own anthology where EVERY feature was starring that one character. With a set-up like that, it is only natural that comic book creators would often look for any idea that they could come up with for recurring features to fill up some space a bit more easily than having to come up with a novel story idea every issue. That's what led to the introduction of the recurring feature in Batman's ongoing series, "The Adventures of Alfred," where we would follow Batman's butler as he tried to be a detective himself. Basically, the pages had to be filled out somehow, ya know?
Meanwhile, Batman co-creator, Bill Finger, who more or less wrote the character steadily from the late 1930s until the mid 1960s, was famous in the industry for his collection of so-called "gimmick books." These were notebooks that he wrote ideas in. He would consult these gimmick books for ideas for comic book stories. "How should character X get out of this situation? Oh, I know, I have a scenario that fits that in my gimmick book." Stuff like that. He was SO well known for it that his contemporary writer, Gardner Fox, once created a Green Lantern villain named William HAND, who fought Green Lantern using a gimmick book, as well. It is with that in mind that I give you...Ally Babble.
As you may or may not know, one of the most famous stories in Arabian Nights is "Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves," about a poor man who discovers a group of thieves hiding in a cave they enter by saying, "Open, Sesame" to move the rock door and then "Close, Sesame" to shut the door close. Ali Baba steals some of their gold coins and gets caught up in some misadventures that leaves his own brother, plus all of the thieves, dead. It was a well-known story in 1945 and I'm sure Finger wrote down in his gimmick book at one point "Ally Babble?"
Ally Babbly made his debut in June 1945's Batman #30, in a story by Finger and legendary Batman artist, Dick Sprang. This was at the very tail end of World War II, but the comic comes with a war-centric cover of Batman and Robin handing a soldier a new rifle, paid for by war bonds.
Then we meet Ally Babble in a memorable splash page by Sprang, with what a gigantic mouth!
We then see Ally in action, as he just talks SO MUCH that he drives everyone around him nuts...
But that brings him into contact with a rich old handicapped man who has a list of grievances and a lot of money, so he pays Ally $5,000 if Ally can eliminate all 14 "pet peeves" on the list (so yes, it is, in fact, "Ally Babble and the Fourteen Peeves." Finger was not messing around! He came loaded with puns!).
Babble sets off to earn his money and he causes major scenes all over Gotham while he takes care of the various pet peeves of the old rich guy, like the guy who shoves people in the subway or the guy who doesn't return library books. Batman and Robin are soon on his reign of "terror," but also a pair of crooks start following him, too (and as I noted last week, Brooklyn accents were considered so funny at the time, so here we have, again, someone with a Brooklyn accent, referring to Hoiman instead of Herman).
In the end, the crooks track Babble back to his benefactor and try to rob him. Batman and Robin show up and they're about to handle it themselves when Ally steps in to help save the day and he DOES do so, even though Batman and Robin didn't REALLY need the help, but it now gives Ally ANOTHER story to tell, which angers the rich guy so much that he is cured of his paralysis!
The end of the story promised more Ally Babble, and readers only had to wait a eight months to see a return of Ally Babble in Batman #34!
Finger and Sprang are on the case again and Finger stretches the pun as far as possible with, "Ally Babble and the Four Tea Leaves," as a fortuneteller reads the four tea leaves to tell Ally that he will make a fortune, fall in love, go on a journey on a boat and make his friends happy.
Ally saves a rich guy from some crooks and is rewarded a dollar. Here, Batman gives him some oddly specific love advice and he seemingly finds "love"...
In the end, Ally appears on a boat on display and almost dies and in the end, he makes people happy because he loses his voice!
What a wacky character! Finger didn't get to bring him back again, so this was it for Ally, one of Batman's weirdest cast members ever.
0 Comments