Follow TV Tropes

Following

Trivia / Batman Beyond

Go To

Trivia Tropes For Batman Beyond

Trivia With Their Own Pages


  • B-Team Sequel: The Batman Beyond 2.0 comics were done without the original showrunners' involvement.
  • Cast the Runner-Up: Sherman Howard as Derek Powers, or at least he's one in terms of the larger DCAU rather than the initial Beyond casting. Howard was the original front-runner for the role of Lex Luthor on Superman TAS (and would've basically reprised the role from the Superboy show from the late 1980s). Then Clancy Brown came in to audition and while they ultimately chose him, they liked Howard enough to cast him in several guest roles. When development began on Beyond and they decided to give Bruce Wayne a Luthor-esque villain, Howard was Bruce Timm and company's first choice.
  • Completely Different Title:
    • In some countries, the series was called Batman of the Future.
    • Batman: La Relève in France, which more or less translates as Batman: The Successor.
  • Creator's Pest: Not a sentiment shared by everyone, but several of the crew, including Bruce Timm, are on record as to hating Max Gibson, who was loved by co-creator Alan Burnett. This is an example where there are also as much viewers who loved her as there are those who couldn't stand her.
  • Dawson Casting: Downplayed in the case of Terry. Will Friedle was 22 at the time when he voiced the teenager, which while it would be significant in live action, is much smaller in terms of voiceover where teenage characters are often voiced by people much older. A perfect example of that being Lauren Tom voicing his same-age girlfriend Dana, in real life was 37.
  • Development Hell: After the failure of Batman & Robin, Warner Bros. considered making a Live-Action Adaptation of this series. It was announced in August 2000 that the film was in development with Boaz Yakin directing and co-writing the script with Paul Dini and Alan Burnett and Neal Stephenson as consultant. Yakin hoped to cast Clint Eastwood as the older Bruce Wayne. In July 2001, a first draft was turned in and the writers were waiting to see if a rewrite would be needed. The studio, also exploring other takes of Batman in development, eventually placed the project on hold in August 2001, but ultimately canceled the proposal. Yakin reportedly wanted to the film to be dark, nihilistic, and with swearing and violence, and not the PG-13 film the studio wanted. Warner Bros. were reportedly concerned about the budget required.
  • Dueling Shows: Spider-Man Unlimited, which was originally going to be an Animated Adaptation of Spider-Man 2099, was made to be Marvel Comics' answer to Batman Beyond. It was nowhere near as successful; it was canceled after one season.
  • Executive Meddling:
    • Originally, the show was supposed to be a Lighter and Softer version of Batman: The Animated Series, with Batman in high school to sell The Merch to kids. One look at the radar and nightmare fuel pages (or, really, any episode) will make you understand that the 'lighter' part wasn't followed to the letter.
    • Studio demands in the second season were the primary reason Max Gibson was created.
    • The WB network never allowed Bruce Wayne's age to be revealed in this series because they didn't want him to be old and decrepit. In one episode where Bruce has a birthday, the writers said his age in the initial script but had to take it out because the WB network would not allow it. The producers say Bruce Wayne was about 80.
    • Starting with season 2, the network wanted more stories about high school drama and less about corporate corruption. The writers even joked about that with having Bruce Wayne in one episode say the episode's Monster of the Week "just feels so...high school."
  • Fake Brit: American Michael McKean voices Ian Peek with a rather convincing British (or Australian) accent.
  • Kids' Meal Toy: Burger King did a promotional campaign for the show, that included several complimentary toys.
  • Pop Culture Urban Legends: While it has been reported that one rejected script featured the fully grown son of Superman and Lashina (from their brief affair in the Superman: The Animated Series finale "Legacy"), Rich Fogel is on the record saying that "I don't recall that ever being discussed in the room at the time. The staging of the scene in Legacy clearly suggests that they were sleeping together, but whether or not anything came from that, we never really pursued that." The idea seems to stem from a fanfic posted on the ToonZone forums between 2001 to 2005, which then had elements repeated in an act of wikipedia vandalism in December of 2007. The falsified information remained on the page for the next 3 years until another editor noted Dwayne McDuffie had also stated the information to be incorrect in a post from his now defunct forums.
  • The Other Darrin:
    • Barbara Gordon was voiced by Stockard Channing in Seasons 1 and 2, but was replaced by Angie Harmon for Return of the Joker and Season 3. This would not be a first for the DCAU Barbara Gordon, as she did undergo this trope twice in her Batgirl days, too.
    • Jack was first voiced by Scott Cleverdon, then Nicholas Guest.
    • Queen was voiced by Amanda Donohoe in her first appearance, then by Sarah Douglas in her other appearances.
    • Paxton Powers was first voiced by Cary Elwes, then Parker Stevenson.
    • Both Zeta and Agent Bennett had different voice actors (Gary Cole and Joe Spano, respectively) in their debut episode than they did on The Zeta Project and their other appearances on Batman Beyond (Diedrich Bader and Kurtwood Smith, again respectively). Also Zeta looked completely different in the episodes after his debut in the Poorly Disguised Pilot that wasn't one.
    • See also Big Time, voiced by Stephen Baldwin in his first appearance and Clancy Brown in his second. Probably due to him being horribly transformed after his first appearance.
    • Rachael Leigh Cook replaced Yvette Lowenthal as Chelsea in Season 2.
    • In the French dub, Patrick Messe replaced Richard Darbois as Bruce Wayne.
  • Reality Subtext: Bruce mentoring Terry as the next Batman is this as this was Will Friedle's first gig as a voice actor and, as Friedle has stated many times, Kevin Conroy really took him under his wing and mentored him.
  • Recast as a Regular: Sherman Howard voiced the Perserver and Steppenwolf in Superman: The Animated Series before being cast as Derek Powers.
  • Recursive Adaptation: From comic to original series to sequel series to comic again.
  • Screwed by the Lawyers: Wonder Woman was supposed to appear in "The Call", but rights issues prevented this; Big Barda was substituted for her.
  • Shout-Out: In "Disappearing Inque" Bruce Wayne goes to aid Batman...dressed in a long trenchcoat, a large hat and a long red scarf covering the lower part of his face.
  • Star-Making Role: Will Friedle was famous for Boy Meets World but this was his first voice acting role, which he built a more impressive career from.
  • Technology Marches On:
    • Wayne-Powers and other places are still using Cathode Ray Tube monitors.
    • Physical media is still in wide usage.
    • Bulky 90's era flip-style cellphones are the predominant means of communication, without any of the additional features currently expected in a phone (no text, no email, no web, etc., although sleeker flip-phones are still ubiquitous in certain areas, such as Japan) and apparently nobody has Bluetooth.
    • Landline phones are also often spotted, as well as paper photographs, both of which will almost certainly be extinct by 2039.
    • Laptops are in common use, and there's not a tablet, smartphone or smartwatch in sight.
  • Throw It In!: "Epilogue" revealing Bruce Wayne as Terry and Matt's biological father. Bruce Timm states that this decision was partly motivated by the fact that Warren's hair is light-brown and Mary is a redhead, making it genetically improbable for Terry and Matt to have black hair.
  • Unfinished Episode:
    • One rejected script had Terry become an item with Maxine after Dana breaks up with him, penned by Alan Burnett. That rejected script is a double What Could Have Been, as Bruce Timm's original plan for the episode would have explored Terry and Dana's relationship more and ended with it being strengthened. Timm rejected the episode script after Burnett changed the entire purpose.
    • Glen Murakami had some ideas that didn't make it in the final show. (skip to 44:34) These included Bruce losing his money and living in the city among Gotham's crime families, a Royal Flush Gang episode where Melanie is revealed to have become the new Queen and married to another crime family, and other plans for Curare.
  • Working Title: Batman Tomorrow. In fact all the development art had that title on it. However, the title was changed because it would be too hard to do promotional interstitials for a show called "Batman Tomorrow". Other working titles included The Tomorrow Knight and B2.

Top