do the bat-tusi

Sometime ago, I recall noting how all the gadgets and booby-traps from the classic Batman television series were all really conveniently and explicitly labelled. As pleased as I was to discover that the collection is still growing, going back to look at the original post from Dangerous Minds (at the first link), I was now finding myself more perplexed with the nature of such ‘captions.’
Was this running gag something for the benefit of the audience and expedience in the narrative only or was it some sort of meta reference? I could just as well imagine the Boy Wonder telling the Caped Crusader something blindingly obvious—eagerness made all the more supercilious by the labelling. I still suppose it is preferred over something machine-readable only like a bar-code or something with no expository value. Good old Alfred was probably behind of it, but one could also imagine that many a diabolical plot was foiled thanks to basic literacy. What do you think? The items from ACME mail-order catalogue that was always Wile E Coyote’s go-to resource also left no doubt what they were to do as well.