Mark Gets Batty

Ugly Americans, S0306

Mark introduced a bat person to his group, but he was soon bit in the crotch and started transforming into a bat person himself.  Rather than seek some of kind of treatment, Mark decided to become a crime fighter and was teamed up with a Robin-knock-off Doug.  Although Mark lacked many superpowers beyond a high-pitched screech, he and Doug made a significant impact on the organized crime in the city among the cat people.  He finally decided to end his hero days after Callie was kidnapped and he had to save her.  Thankfully, Doug's bite was the cure.  Randall also started a taxi service where he recorded celebrities' conversations in a Taxicab Confessions fashion.

Mark's spoof of the original Batman was lame, but I liked that Doug was his Robin counterpart.  Not only was he cute, but he basically did all the real fighting that Mark possibly couldn't do himself.  Other than that, Mark going around dressed in an unimpressive costume got old pretty quickly.  I think the best part of him becoming a bat was that his bug-eyed appearance was joked to look like Steve Buscemi.  Even Sabrina thought it was the famous actor coming to get her when Mark attacked her at the end.  That made me laugh the hardest in this episode.

Beyond that, I don't think I found too much to be funny.  I liked that Callie got over her disgust of Mark's appearance at the end until he started to wild out like the bat who had bit him.  I thought maybe since he was pretty much a bat by that time that he couldn't be turned back, but Mark quickly went back to normal after Doug's bite.  It's a little gross that he has to keep getting daily bites from Doug in the same place for a whole year.  I suppose that's better than Grimes chopping off his penis with a machete

I didn't mind this story, but I guess I imagined that it would be a bit funnier since it was making fun of something I knew.  Then again, Batman has been spoofed over and over again, so it's been done to death.  I might have liked it better if Mark had tried a different way of life as a bat instead of a cheesy superhero.  I think I could even have stood for more of the grosser scenes that I've gotten accustomed to in this show.  If it's not going to be funny or bizarre, the episodes should at least gross me out in an unexpected way.