The 1960s “Batman” television series can be pretty zany, but for many of the actors who appeared on the show it was no laughing matter. Incredibly talented character actors like Frank Gorshin, Cesar Romero, Eartha Kitt, and Julie Newmar all brought intensity to their roles as various members of the caped crusader’s rogues gallery, taking their performances deadly serious despite the show’s ridiculous levels of camp. Among the great “Batman” television villains is Burgess Meredith as The Penguin, the arctic bird-based baddie with designs on taking over Gotham through political avenues. Meredith was no stranger to really giving a role his all, even allowing himself to be lit on fire for an episode of “The Twilight Zone,” and he approached the Penguin with just as much pride in his work.
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In an interview with James H. Burns that was reprinted in Joel Eisner’s “Batman” explainer, “The Official Batman Batbook” (via CBR), Meredith shared that while he had a massive amount of freedom to shape his character, there were certain design choices from the comics that changed just how he portrayed the weird waddling villain, including the one that led to his trademark “quack.”
The Penguin’s quack hid Meredith’s need to cough
Filming was a bit different in the 1960s, and when characters smoked a cigarette onscreen they were actually smoking real tobacco cigarettes. Since one of the most prominent parts of The Penguin’s design in the “Batman” comics was a cigarette on the end of a long black cigarette holder, that meant Meredith, a non-smoker at that point in his life, had to smoke for the role. Thankfully, he was able to improvise a way to deal with his reaction to the smoke, as he shared:
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“One funny item involved the fact that during the middle sixties I had already given up smoking for twenty to twenty-five years – but I had to smoke all the time as the Penguin. The smoke would get caught in my throat. Since I didn’t want to constantly ruin takes by coughing out loud – which the smoke forced me to do – I developed the Penguin’s ‘quack, quack’ to cover it. Actually, it was a pretty unlikely noise for the Penguin to make. I sounded more like a duck! The quack got so famous, though, that whenever the writers couldn’t think of anything funny to put in the scripts, they’d write a ‘quack, quack’ for me.”
It’s kind of ironic that they forced Meredith to smoke when the exact opposite happened with Colin Farrell when he played the Penguin in Matt Reeves’ film “The Batman” and its spin-off series “The Penguin,” but it’s hard to picture the early Penguin without a cigarette. And while penguins absolutely don’t quack, it kind of works within the weird world of the “Batman” live-action series.
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One quacking good actor
While smoking real cigarettes is far from the worst thing an actor has had to do in the name of their profession, it’s also probably not the best thing for an actor’s health to do over an extended period of time. Thankfully, Meredith continued to have a lasting career well after “Batman,” and his ability to improvise, honed on the wacky comic book series, helped him get a role as boxing coach Mickey in the first three “Rocky” films. He was so enthusiastic about the role that everyone else on set had to raise their own effort level in order to keep up, which honestly helped make “Rocky” one of the greatest sports films of all time.
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Penguins don’t quack and Meredith didn’t smoke, but the 1960s “Batman” version of the Penguin will forever be connected to both. Getting to play a villain in a “Batman” show or movie seems to be one of the most fun roles any actor can play, and Meredith absolutely made the most of it.
