That Time The Riddler Performed On Showtime At The Apollo
"Just give it a chance... you never know." -Rudy Rush
In fairness to comedian & early-2000s era Showtime At The Apollo host Rudy Rush, he kind of nailed the whole idea behind the famous Amateur Night segment.
A seemingly random person walks out onto that historic stage at the legendary Apollo theater in Harlem and is completely at the mercy of the audience. Win them over and you'll basically be anointed as a rising star. Someone who can go forward in their career with the confidence that they were able to sway one of the toughest crowds in the nation.
Fail? You get to experience a chorus of boos and be shuffled off stage by The Sandman (or The Executioner, during this particular era, played by the multi-talented CP Lacey). A fate recorded and aired every Saturday night after SNL for over 20 years.
Sometimes, a person comes out the gate as shy as a church mouse and blows the crowd away with a strong vocal performance. Others dress like they're a complete fool, but shock everyone with some absurd feat of strength or physical display of dexterity.
This is not one of those hero arcs. In fact, it involves a villain. One of Batman's most famous, The Riddler. What's The Riddler doing on Showtime At The Apollo? Dancing to 'Smooth Criminal' by Michael Jackson, of course.
The crowd turns on this man immediately. They see his green outfit, bowler hat and cane and can smell that something is off. Rudy Rush does his best to get this thing back on track. But it's already out of the station and headed for a cliff.
The Riddler proceeds to undress his coat and dance like he's hacking into the Matrix.
Needless to say, Batman was able to sit back and let The Executioner handle this one.
Which is all the more ironic, because, back in the mid 80s, CP Lacey had their own Michael Jackson moment on the public access show Stairway To Stardom. Where, during ‘Billie Jean’, instead of singing "Then showed a photo of a baby cryin', his eyes were like mine", they sang "[She] showed a photo of a big head baby."
As for The Riddler, his (my) evil plan to get you to go down a rabbit hole of vintage Showtime At The Apollo has hopefully been a success. But I do have a bonus clip for you.
I'll leave you with my other favorite video from the Apollo, which is from the same era and is a classic double turn.
All I'll say is that the group coming to the stage is named Holy Troop. Like with The Riddler, the crowd, once again, isn't sold. But this time, they are won over, only to have the entire performance crater immediately right before their eyes.
…You never know.
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