A New Villain

**A New Villain** is the twenty-eighth episode arc of *The Underdog Show.* In these series of episodes, we meet a new villain named Electric Eel.

## Story

### Part 1 (#113 - 11/5/1966)

After a violent thunderstorm ravages the city, the community gathers in front of one of the steel buildings to see a message revealed inscribed on its side: 'To Underdog, A Rhyme in Time Saves Nine'. Sweet Polly Purebred asks Officer Flim Flanagan at the police station what it means. Flim explains it could only be the work of Slippery Eel. A few weeks earlier, Eel, Fish, and their henchmen attempted to rob an armored car. They were caught by Underdog and were sent to the maximum prison with the electric fence. Still determined to get out, Slippery Eel tells his boys that he is going to climb the fence now that the power didn't seem to be on. Midway climbing the fence, the guards see him trying to escape and turn on the electricity. However, instead of electrocuting him, it electrifies him, and he then claims that he is now 'The Electric Eel'. He shoots bursts of electricity at the fence and wall and escapes with Fish and the gang, all the while vowing to get even with Underdog.

### Part 2 (#114 - 11/5/1966)

Flim and Polly agree that humble, loveable Shoeshine boy would be able to make sense of the riddle 'A Rhyme in Time Saves Nine'. Shoeshine deduces that 'rhyme' refers to Underdog, since he always talks in rhyme, 'time' refers to clock, Polly suggest's Big Ben, but says that that's in London. Shoeshine deduces, what the biggest 'Ben' is around in the city, to which Polly responds 'Ben's Jewelry Store' (not Big Ben). As for 'Nine' Shoeshine deciphers that there are nine players on a baseball team and baseball is played on a diamond. Polly then sums up the solution of the riddle that if Underdog gets to Ben's Jewelry Store he can save the diamonds. She then tells Shoeshine to hurry and find Underdog. Shoeshine immediately rushes to the nearest phone booth and becomes Underdog (no waiting) Prior to arriving the Electric Eel demonstrates to Ben and the others he is holding up, the trap of an electrical field he has waiting for Underdog. When Underdog arrives, he steps into the trap and can't break free of the electrical field.

### Part 3 (#115 - 10/15/1966)

The Electric Eel traps Underdog in his electric cage. As the cage closes in around him, the cage fills Underdog's body with thousands of volts. Before he dies, Underdog asks the villains not to throw him into the city's lake. Underdog's body is soon limp at the bottom of the electric cage. Sensing victory over his foe, the Electric Eel takes Underdog's body to the city lake and throws it in. Free from Underdog, Electric Eel begins his massive crime wave across the city. Still not satisfied, the Eel decides to commit the ultimate crime.

### Part 4 (#116 - 10/15/1966)

The Electric Eel and his gang head for Washington, D.C. to take over the country. But Underdog is on the mend; the waters of the lake sap the electric charges from the Eel's trap. Underdog heads for Polly's TV station, where he finds out that the crooks are heading for our nation's capitol to force the President to turn over control of the country to them. Quickly, Underdog heads for the Sandwich Glass Blowing Factory. When he gets there, he asks the factory's owners to show him their biggest glass jar. When they can't find a glass jar big enough to hold a man, Underdog learns how to blow his own giant glass jar. Armed with the jar, Underdog flies to Washington, D.C. where he puts the Electric Eel in the giant glass jar.

## Trivia

* Officer Flim Flanagan from *The Hunter* cartoons appears in this arc. Incidentally, this marks the only time a character from a Total Television Productions series crosses over in another, excluding Commander McBragg's appearance in *Catch the Cable Man*, an episode from the 2014 Tennessee Tuxedo and His Tales revival obviously not made by the studio themselves.
* When one of the henchmen says "Here he comes now!" in Part 2, his arm disappears.