Batman, Beaver & Bombs — Madge Blake’s Shocking Past

Growing up, I must admit that I wasn’t Madge Blake‘s biggest fan. You see, whenever Aunt Harriet Cooper showed up on the screen in the 1960s Batman television series, it usually signaled to a younger version of me that there would be a break in the action. Usually, those scenes with Madge were in stately Wayne Manor, and let’s face it, folks, they were pretty darn boring.

However, as I reached adulthood and I finally went back and revisited the classic television series, I was surprised to discover that, even though, as Robert Marcum over at Writeups.org so gleefully points out, Aunt Harriet had no real powers or abilities on the show, just “a stern tone of voice, regularly practiced on Dick Grayson”, I really enjoyed Madge’s work on the show. Maybe that was because I had also discovered another classic television character that Madge had brought to life.

I am referring to Margaret Mondello, Larry’s mom on Leave It to Beaver. Much like Aunt Harriet, Margaret was a kind but easily exasperated woman, and come on, how could you blame her when she had to put up with all of Larry’s shenanigans? And, why was Larry’s dad always out of town?

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Speaking of classic sitcoms, believe it or not, Madge was up for the part of Aunt Bee on The Andy Griffith Show. Unfortunately, due to scheduling conflicts with Leave It to Beaver, she couldn’t take the role. But here’s a fun fact: She actually recommended her friend Frances Bavier for the part. And of course, Frances went on to make Aunt Bee another unforgettable character in television history.

Another little-known fact about Madge is that she had gotten to know Frances while working with her as live-action references for the 1959 Walt Disney animated feature, Sleeping Beauty. You know, it’s pretty cool to think that two of the three fairy godmothers were Aunt Bee and Aunt Harriet.

For a while there, Madge seemed to be everywhere. According to journalist Beccy Tanner, who chronicled Madge’s career in The Wichita Eagle way back in 2012, Madge was in “some of the best-known sitcoms of the 1950s and 1960s. She was the babysitter in the pilot episode of Dennis the Menace. She played the president of the Jack Benny Fan Club in The Jack Benny Program. And appeared as Miss Comstock, a school official on The Addams Family.”

Everett Collection

Let’s get back to Batman. Did you know that the producers of that show considered firing Madge at one point? We don’t know exactly why, but if I were to guess, I bet it had something to do with declining ratings and a reduced show budget, or perhaps it had more to do with an overall concern about her health. More on that in just a moment.

Fortunately, we have Adam West, the O.G. Batman, to thank for Aunt Harriet’s sticking around. Apparently, he and Madge had become very close friends, and when he heard about her potential firing, he put his foot down. The very next day, Adam found a freshly baked cake in his dressing room.

Thanks to Adam, we got to enjoy Madge’s charm throughout the series. Well, if I’m being entirely accurate, I believe Aunt Harriet just made two or three appearances on screen during the show’s third and final season. That’s because Madge’s health, which had never been great, took a turn for the worse. Just a year later, in 1969, Madge would pass away. I believe it was reported as a heart attack, but from what I understand, her health was so bad that her heart just stopped working. Either way, she was just 69 at the time of her death … which is far too young.

Let’s wrap up our celebration of Madge Blake’s creative contributions to the arts with this piece of non-entertainment trivia. Did you know that during World War II, she and her husband actually worked on the Manhattan Project? According to numerous sources, Madge, along with her husband, James Lincoln Blake, worked in my home state of Utah on the construction of the detonator for the atomic bomb and performed other jobs, such as testing equipment destined for the Manhattan Project. Madge and her husband both received citations for their work from the U.S. government. No doubt about it, the woman lived an extremely fascinating life.

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May 2022

Celebrate top TV moms from the ’50 to the ’90s including 8 things you didn’t know about Donna Reed plus weird and wacky TV moms.

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