The Sheer Terror of Super-Villain Sidekickery: Gaggy Gagsworthy

Ladies and gentlemen, your Out-Of-Context Caption for the evening:

Yeah, I said I'd never go for the easy laugh of a Batman and Robin gay joke, but honestly, with a caption that likens them to aroused tigers, I don't really have to.

Now allow me, if I may, to blow your mind: That's not the strangest thing that happens in that particular story.

Not by a long shot, in fact, when your competition is the harrowing saga of Gaggy, the Joker's Midget Sidekick.

Yes, because what better sidekick for the joker than a midget dressed as Pagliaccio? Well, a leggy blonde gymnast with delusions of romance, I imagine, but this was 1966, brother, and that kind of jazz just didn't fly back then. Plus, Gaggy may be the most terrifying thing I could possibly imagine, especially with the way he keeps climbing onto Batman's back and covering his eyes. The whole thing just gives me the jibblies.

The unfortunately-named Gaggy is, in actuality, the unfortunately-named Gagsworth A. Gagsworthy, a "refugee from a circus" with the ability to shatter glass with a high pitched scream, and that's all the origin story you're going to get out of John Broome and Sheldon Moldoff, thank you very much.

According to the events of the story, his function in the gang seems to revolve mostly around making the Joker laugh, which in turn inspires Mister J to come up with new plans for daring and implausible robberies.

Gaggy's mission is accomplished pretty much how you'd expect:

...and it's like that for about fourteen pages.

Somehow, this gives the Joker the impression that it'd be a good idea to steal the original versions of famous inventions, so Gaggy adds a fake nose to his costume, because "who'd recognize me like this?" Gotham City is apparently teeming with runaway circus midgets dressed as Italian Opera Clowns, and with that kind of masterful disguise, he'll blend in, disappear. You'll never see him again.

Which, I suppose, we didn't, but I'm reasonably certain it's not because of the nose

Anyway, the crime spree begins just as Bruce Wayne and Dick Grayson are, of course, taking in a leisurely afternoon at the Original Famous Invention Museum, a bit of coincidence that happens more often than you might expect. Fortunately for the JOker, he was able to drive a purple hot rod into the building without anyone noticing, and he catches Our Heroes off-guard long enough for Gaggy to put his own master plan into action.

Yes, he rams neck-first into Robin. It's actually pretty effective, much to everyone's surprise, and the Joker and his pocket-size pal make a clean getaway with what appears to be a phonograph in tow.

But alas, the Joker decides to press his luck, setting his sights on the ultimate prize: The steeple of the original Gotham City Hall, a large and unweildly chunk of bricks worth upwards of thirty-two dollars on the seedy black market historical architecture market that thrives in the former Soviet Union.

But then Batman shows up, and despite Gaggy's best efforts...

...things pretty much go downhill from there.

So it's back to prison, and the brief and shining criminal career of Gaggy Gagsworthy comes to an end, before he even got a chance to battle it out with the Three-Foot Sleuth, a fun-size fracas that was just begging for a Bob Haney Brave and the Bold issue. But alas, Gaggy was, to my knowledge, never seen again.

But at least he gave us one of the greatest panels in Silver-Age Villainy:

Come on, he's got his own little window. That's adorable.