http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Recap/BatmanTheAnimatedSeriesE27MadAsAHatter
Jervis Tetch, a scientist at Wayne Tech, has a crush on Alice, the secretary. After failing to woo her, he becomes the Mad Hatter and uses mind-control technology to turn those who've wronged him into his own slaves. His ultimate prize, of course, is Alice.
Tropes in this episode include:
- Actor Allusion: This isn't the first time Roddy McDowell's played a Batman villain with an obsession over classical literature. Nor is it the first time he's played an Alice in Wonderland character (or rather a character based on one in the Hatter's case).
- Captive Date: Jervis Tetch tries to win his co-worker Alice's heart after her recent breakup. She is charmed by Jervis but mistakes his romantic overtures as attempts to cheer her up, and she later reconciles with her boyfriend who then becomes her fiancé. Jarvis then uses his Mind Control technology to force Billy to break up with her again and after Batman shows up, he uses the same technology on her and takes her on a "date" at a Wonderland-themed amusement park.
- The Ditz: Alice, overall, comes across as this, remaining completely oblivious about Jervis’s increasingly obvious infatuation with her, even after he takes her on what’s clearly a romantic date across Gotham.
- Dogged Nice Guy: Jervis is originally this. However, he turns Yandere after Alice gets engaged.
- Ejection Seat: Batman uses one of these to launch himself out of the Batmobile to intercept the brainwashed muggers. It even comes with a built-in Batglider!
- Entitled to Have You: This is Jervis's problem, and what ultimately turns him into the Mad Hatter; he comes to view Alice as a prize to be won, not a person.
- Foreshadowing: Batman being physically overwhelmed and pushed from the bridge by the two first crooks the Mad Hatter controled, while they weren't even actively fighting him. By the end of the episode, the Hatter mentioned his mind control device also makes the victims physically stronger.
- A Glass in the Hand: When Jervis learns that Alice and Billy are back together soon after Jervis and Alice's "date" and are now engaged, he crushes a bouquet of roses he was going to give her. Alice notices that he'd pierced his hand on the thorns, but Tetch walks away to try and compose himself over her protests.
- Heroic Bystander: When the Mad Hatter sends his People Puppets after Batman to keep him from rescuing Alice, Batman is initially overwhelmed until he manages to disable the mind control device on one of them. The man he frees is Alice's fiancé Billy, who returns the favor by removing the rest of the Hatter's devices—since the puppets were only told to attack Batman, Billy can move among them unmolested.
- Ignored Epiphany: Tetch originally didn't want to use the mind control cards on Alice, realizing that it would just reduce her to a mindless doll, and attempts to woo her on his own merits—or rather, his merits augmented by mind-controlling everyone else, from their waiter to fellow socialites. However, when she reconciles with her boyfriend, he becomes desperate and uses the card on her anyway, preferring a doll over not having her at all.
- Ironic Echo: Tetch asks Alice if she remembers the Mock Turtle's song, reciting, "Would you, won't you, would you, won't you... won't you join the dance?" before dancing with her in the park. Later, as she is hugging her fiancé; Billy, while the Hatter lies trapped in the claws of a Jabberwock, he moans softly, "Would not... would not, could not... oh, could not join the dance," as the camera pans out to a statue of a crying Mock Turtle.
- Loony Fan: Tetch is obviously a huge fan of Lewis Carroll, quoting from his books, taking Alice to a Wonderland-themed carnival.
- Mean Boss: Tetch's boss yells at her employees a lot, often saying that "heads will roll" if mistakes keep happening. Fittingly, when she later appears as one of his brainwashed victims, he cast her as the Queen of Hearts.
- Meaningless Villain Victory: In a milder example, Jervis uses his mind control technology to land Alice, a co-worker he was too shy to talk to, but Batman calls him out on this, asking if a mind-controlled, compliant Alice with no personality was what he really wanted. Tetch has a breakdown and attacks him, blaming Batman for driving him to that extreme.
- Mobile Maze: The Wonderland park includes a maze build of giant playing cards, which can slide and rotate.
- Motive Decay: When Jervis first comes to the idea that he can use his mind control tech to force Alice to love him, he quickly becomes disgusted at himself for considering the notion. By the time he actually goes through with it, he's so obsessed with having her that he attempts to push the blame onto Batman for driving him to it.
- Mugging the Monster: 2 muggers mistake Jervis Tetch/the Mad Hatter and Alice for easy money, unaware that he has mind control cards up his sleeves that hypnotize their victims. When Batman rescues them from jumping off the bridge, they immediately return to normal thanks to the mind control cards falling off of them.
- Never My Fault: Instead of accepting Alice's relationship with her boyfriend turned fiancé and acknowledging that he went too far, Jervis blames Batman for what happened, when in reality, it was his inability to accept rejection after learning that Alice was engaged to Billy that was to blame.
- Nightmare Face: Jervis's grimace when Alice announce her engagement to her boyfriend.
- Not Good with Rejection: Jervis crushes a bouquet of roses (which he meant to give to Alice) after she reveals that she and Billy got back together and are now engaged. Bruce notices the spot of liquid over Billy's picture when he comes looking for Jervis.
- Oblivious to Love: Alice has no idea that Jervis is in love/obsessed with her, seeing their night on the town only as an attempt to cheer her up. It's only just before he nearly turns her into a mindless toy that she realizes how he felt.
- Pet the Dog: The abrasive Dr. Cates sits down and commiserates with Alice over her breakup, while Jervis Tetch, eavesdropping, reacts with glee that she's no longer attached.
- Psychic-Assisted Suicide: The Mad Hatter tells two thugs who were trying to mug him to "go jump in the river." Since this is a kid's cartoon, Batman catches them right before they jump off the bridge.
- Sanity Slippage: Jervis becomes unhinged after Alice announces her engagement to her boyfriend. Not that he was all there to begin with.
- Stalker with a Crush: How the Mad Hatter is first portrayed in his obsession with his co-worker Alice, being too shy to ask her out.
- Start of Darkness: Jervis becomes the Mad Hatter precisely at the point where he forces two muggers to leap from a bridge, and it goes downhill from there.
- Super-Strength: Jervis mentions that the strength of his mind-controlled slaves is enhanced. His boss, dressed as the Queen of Hearts, is able to overpower Batman and nearly kills him before Billy saves him.
- Undressing the Unconscious: Mad Hatter kidnaps and hypnotizes Alice and then dresses her up as the title character of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.
- Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Billy reconciles with Alice just after Jervis took her out of a night on Gotham and even becomes her fiancé, which drives Jervis to brainwash him and then Alice, kicking off the second half of the plot and forcing Batman to intervene.
- Yandere: Jervis goes to extreme measures to ensure that Alice would be his. He would have even killed Batman.
