Trivia / Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker

• Acting for Two: Mark Hamill voices both the Joker and Jordan Pryce. This is a deliberate example; Pryce is used as a Red Herring for the returned Joker's true identity and them sharing a voice actor makes the deception all the more convincing.
• Author's Saving Throw: The DCAU crew were aware of the negative reception towards the Joker’s design in The New Batman Adventures, so this film features yet another re-design for him that’s presented in the flashback sequence. It combines elements of both his Batman: The Animated Series (general appearance and details) and TNBA (the color scheme and triangular jawline) designs and adds a darker color scheme to his mouth and sharper teeth. This design was re-used for his chronologically earlier appearances in Static Shock and Justice League.
• Creator Backlash: According to the DVD Commentary, Mark Hamill had minor creative conflicts with Timm and company during the recording sessions. Hamill came in immediately going right into his by-now customary manic Joker mode, only to be asked to pull back and restrain his performance. They wanted Hamill to tone it down to play into this being a different, darker (albeit still manic and funny) version of the Joker. While Hamill groused (half-jokingly, half seriously) about missing the old Joker, his performance was ultimately lauded as one of his best outings in the entire DCAU.
• Cross-Dressing Voices: Andrea Romano plays Young Tim Drake and is actually credited as "Laughing Boy" in the film. Matthew Valencia couldn't pull off the maniacal, Joker-like giggle that the producers wanted because his voice had changed too much.
• Deleted Scene: One was included on the DVD release. Terry follows Bruce as he visits Joker's grave site at the old Arkham facility, only to see a message waiting for them.
• Development Gag: The character design for one of the two prostitutes that Batgirl interrogates during the flashback to when Robin was missing is the design for Black Canary that had been developed for a planned guest appearance in the original series.
• Distanced from Current Events: The reason there is both a cut and uncut version of this movie - the original release date for the uncut version was going to be on Halloween 2000◊, which was unfortunate when it was still during the fallout of the Columbine shootings, and movie companies were coming under heavy criticism for violence in films. As a result, the film was postponed, then heavily edited and released as the unrated version on December 12, 2000. Fortunately, the producers still retained the original version in shelves and eventually released it as "the original, uncut version" under the PG-13 rating on April 23, 2002 (just three days after the third anniversary of the Columbine tragedy) following an online petition to have it released.
• Executive Meddling: Anyone who has seen the edited version of this film knows what we're talking about. World's Finest Online has a rundown of the changes here.
• Keep Circulating the Tapes: The edited version is harder to come across nowadays, being superseded by the PG-13 cut
• Reality Subtext: The Joker seems to be used as an Audience Surrogate for people who didn't really like Terry as Batman during the final battle. Terry's takedown of the Joker, meanwhile, is used to cement the fact that Terry isn't Bruce, and that's the point.
• Serendipity Writes the Plot: Due to Bruce Timm mandating that Harley would die for her part in torturing Tim, Paul Dini found a compromise that she survives but gives up the criminal life with "Pudding" dead for real, showing she didn't become a Karma Houdini after breaking a child's mind. This ends up making it stronger (and scarier) when we learn that the DeeDee twins are her granddaughters, and Joker had coerced them into working for him. Indeed, the implications are that Joker specifically hunted them down because of their relationship to Harley.
• Similarly Named Works: This movie is not to be confused with the Batman: Return of the Joker games by Sunsoft.
• Spared by the Cut: Bruce Timm mandated that Harley Quinn had to die, against Paul Dini's protests, and they laugh about it on the uncut DVD commentary. Timm said that her torturing Tim Drake crossed a line, and her mental illness and toxic relationship with the Joker was no excuse. Dini found a compromise: Harley "retired" that night after falling down the pit in Arkham, with Barbara adding that they never found her body. And with neither the authorities nor the Bat-Family hearing from Harley in ages, it's unlikely she'd still be causing trouble, especially at her advanced age. In the end, "Nanna Harley" appears to bail the DeeDee twins out of jail, showing that karma did get to her with the Joker recruiting her grandkids. Not to mention she is walking with a cane, like Bruce is, showing she didn't survive the fall or natural aging unscathed.
• Throw It In!:
  • The bit at the end with Nanna Harley wasn't originally in the script, but Dini didn't want to let the character go. Bruce Timm agreed to leave it in because the funny moment served as a good release after the climax.
  • Ghoul came about because Michael Rosenbaum's impression of Christopher Walken was never used in previous collaborations.
  • The salute the police officer gives Batman wasn't in any storyboard given to the animators. Everyone was surprised to see it in the final print and found it too hilarious to be upset.
• Two Voices, One Character: While Matthew Valencia returned to voice young Tim Drake, Drake's laughs as Joker Junior were provided by casting director Andrea Romano, because Valencia couldn't pull it off.
• What Could Have Been:
  • The initial design for the Dee-Dee twins was very different◊ from what appears in the finalized film. Probably a good idea that they changed it, as it perhaps gives away the fact that they are Harley Quinn's granddaughters.
  • The comic includes several scenes that did not make it to either versions of the film, such as:
    • Bruce's visit to the remains of Arkham Asylum to find clues on the Joker's return. He is unknowingly followed by Terry. (Storyboard drawings, however, do appear as deleted scenes, which were present on both versions of the DVD as part of the special features.) The trip to Arkham even made it into the movie-licensed games on the Nintendo 64, Playstation, and Game Boy Color; serving as the third level, though Terry is there alone looking for clues on the Joker.
    • Batman's interrogation of the Penguin in the flashback. Both were part of the script that got cut out of the movie due to time and pacing concerns, as confirmed in the commentary.
  • As many fans had speculated, Harley Quinn was indeed originally going to die when she plummets into a chasm, but Paul Dini decided to leave a scene showing her survival at the end of the movie, as he did not want to kill off the character who he felt was his biggest contribution to the Batman mythos.
  • During the flashback, The Joker wears the "Kiss the Cook" apron in both the cut and uncut versions. Originally it was going to say "Kill the Cook", but the execs decided that the words would be too gruesome.
• Word of God:
  • The writers admitted that as they talked about the novel Hannibal one night, after the book came out but while the movie was being made, elements inspired by the novel description of Hannibal Lecter made their way into the Joker designs for the movie—the slicked-back hair on the future Joker and the red eyes on both the future and flashback/Justice League/Static Shock Joker designs.
  • Harley managed to survive her fall into the chasm at Arkham because of the serum Ivy gave her in "Harley & Ivy".
  • Despite what many fans had thought and hoped, Poison Ivy is unrelated to the DeeDee twins (especially since Ivy was implied to be sterile in TAS anyway).
• Writer Revolt: Again, Paul Dini's refusal to kill off Harley despite direct orders from Bruce Timm and Alan Burnett.

---