JACK PARKS: So that was the egg Robin laid

Greetings, Jackolytes! It’s that festive time of year again. That time of joy and cheer; of eggnog and warm nights by the fire; of peanut butter and mayonnaise sandwiches and reading “Helter Skelter.”

No? That last one’s just me? Oh well, it’s your loss.

One tradition that everyone can get behind, at least if they’re not a Scrooge, is Christmas carols. Everyone has their favorite one, and it’s always Josh Groban singing “O Holy Night.” That, or “Mele Kalikimaka.” It’s just the thing to say on a bright Hawaiian Christmas day.

But if it there’s a second favorite, it’s got to be “Jingle Bells.” Nothing quite feels so much as Christmas like that song. I find myself whistling and humming it, if not outright singing bars of it, throughout the year.

My oldest son has been singing it since a couple of weeks before Thanksgiving, and I admit I didn’t do much to stop him because I’m just as guilty of it myself.

Even if I didn’t sing it, I learned from “Helter Skelter” that if you can charge one person in a group with conspiracy, then you can charge everyone in that group regardless of their level of involvement.

But I digress.

A version of “Jingle Bells” that was popular when I was a kid, and I believe when even my father was a kid, turned it into a joke about Batman. I’m sure you’ve heard it:

Jingle Bells, Batman smells

Robin laid an egg.

Batmobile lost a wheel

And Joker got away.

It’s just a silly, irreverent little parody, right? But what if it’s more than that? What if we could look further into the lyrics, read between the lines and reconstruct a scene? Let’s do a little exegesis and see what kind of contextual clues we can pick up.

We can tell from the opening line that it is set at Christmas time. We see the characters are Batman, Robin, and the Joker, and the Batmobile also appears. Already we can imagine what’s happening. The Joker has committed some kind of Christmas Caper, and the Dynamic Duo are in hot pursuit.

In all likelihood, the story will soon be concluded. Joker will laugh as he’s beaten senseless by Batman, and he’ll be shipped back to Arkham until he breaks out again next month.

Or so it would seem …

To tell what’s going on here in this song, we need to go to the end and work our way backwards. The last line tells us that Joker got away.

This, more than anything, should tell us there is more here than meets the eye. The Joker doesn’t get away. He goes on a murderous rampage and is then caught. Being caught is half the fun for him. He will typically even just sit there waiting for Batman to show up.

If he’s getting away, it’s because he decided not to be caught yet, which means whatever led to his escape is entirely his doing. So what was it that led to his escape?

Simply put, the Batmobile lost a wheel. For some reason or other, the ultimate crime-fighting vehicle was disabled. It didn’t have a flat tire; no, the wheel literally came off the vehicle. The force necessary to do that, combined with Joker’s necessary involvement, imply something violent happened that resulted in the wheel coming off.

The preceding line is a bit of a riddle. “Robin laid an egg.” Robins, being birds, lay eggs. That’s not at issue. The issue is that Robin is not a bird, he’s The Boy Wonder. And humans don’t lay eggs at all, especially not the males. Depending on what iteration of Robin we’re talking about, he may not even be old enough to lay eggs in the first place, if that was even possible.

When one considers that Robin laying an egg coincides with the Batmobile losing a wheel, it’s logical to conclude they are related. Whatever caused the one also caused the other. What turned the Batmobile into the world’s coolest tricycle was so violent and shocking it caused Robin, who witnessed his entire family falling to their deaths before his eyes, to lay an egg.

So what are we talking about by egg? There are two sides to every face. And sometimes one of those sides gets a little off color. There’s no real delicate way to say it.

Basically, Robin pooped himself. That’s what it means. He pinched a loaf into his shorts. He dropped a fudge bomb in his tights. He sent his costume to downtown brown town.

And Batman could smell it.

That bit’s not surprising, really, since the Batmobile is airtight, and isn’t exactly the roomiest vehicle on the market. What’s surprising is that the world’s greatest detective didn’t consider that an air freshener might be useful on the job.

So then we’ve figured out what most of the ditty means. But what was it that actually happened? Well, we’ve still got the first line left. “Jingle Bells.”

Not just part of the setting, these are probably actual bells. Joker loves themed weapons, and he really loves explosives, so it follows naturally that he had exploding bells.

So our story has Batman and Robin chasing after the Joker at Christmas time. He’s probably committed a big robbery, and is fleeing on foot after having stashed the cash somewhere. The Batmobile is closing in on him, and he reaches up to the holiday sash he’s wearing and removes some of the bells from it.

Joker throws the bells behind him as he runs through the snow, and as they make contact with the Batmobile, they explode, causing one of the wheels to fly off and sending the vehicle flipping through the air. When it finally comes to a halt, Batman checks on Robin to make sure he’s okay, and that’s when he discovers Robin has soiled his costume. He opens the Bat-Hatch and leaps out, gasping for air in disgust while Robin sits, shaken and ashamed.

Joker takes a moment to observe all this, realizes what has transpired and laughs gleefully to himself while taking a moment to compose our little tune before slipping away, his laughter ringing behind him long after he’s left.

This would obviously not be the end of the story; there’s at least a third act waiting. Will they catch the Joker? How extensive and expensive is the damage to the Batmobile? How long will it take to get that stain out of Robin’s shorts?

While we may never know what the answers to these questions are, I think it would be nice if we took a moment every time we hear “Jingle Bells” to remember this version.

Not because of some greater, deeper meaning.

But because if, after “Jingle Bells,” the next line you hear in your head is “Batman smells,” then I will have successfully associated one of the most popular songs of all time with a childish poop joke and now, like the Joker, we can laugh gleefully to ourselves every time we hear it.