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Trivia / Justice League

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  • Acting for Two: Many of the minor villains like Deadshot or random bystanders are voiced by the main cast members. More prominently, Static and Green Lantern have pretty lengthy conversations. Done literally by Batman at the end of the first Unlimited season..while yet another Batman is in the same room.
    • Hawkgirl and Fire and Livewire were all voiced by Maria Canals-Barrera.
    • Dr. Moon's only speaking role was interrogating the Combs-voiced Question.
    • Mark Hamill voiced both Joker and Solomon Grundy in "Injustice for All", and of course they start arguing.
  • Actor-Inspired Heroism: The writers initially wanted Vixen/Mari McCabe to be a very temporary Romantic False Lead for John Stewart. She was supposed to reveal herself as a big enough jerk that John could break up with her guilt-free and get back with his first love interest, Hawkgirl/Shayera Hol. But Mari's VA Gina Torres played her with enough humanity that the writers couldn't bring themselves to make her a jerk. As a result, the writers couldn't come up with another in-character reason for John to break up with her — so their relationship lasted through the end of the series (with some ambiguous clues that John might get back together with Shayera sometime in the future).
  • Approval of God: Dave Gibbons and Alan Moore voiced their approval of the episode For the Man who has Everything, including the necessary changes made, giving the episode the honor of being the only adaptation of Moore's work that he's on record for actually liking.
  • Children Voicing Children: The younger versions of Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, and Green Lantern in the episode "Kid Stuff", are all voiced by actual children.
  • Cross-Dressing Voices:
  • Cross-Regional Voice Acting: Vancouver voice actor Ian James Corlett did a few voices for the show while the majority of the cast is from the United States. This is one of the few shows he worked outside Vancouver until he gotdual citizenship in the 2010s.
  • Edited for Syndication: JLU found a new home on the Saban-branded Vortexx block. However, it suffered from Saturday Morning edits. From the first episode, guns were given laser sounds, Green Arrow's boxing glove arrow hitting someone was cut, and Black Canary seductively zipping up her boot was cut.
  • Executive Meddling:
    • After The Batman began airing during the Unlimited phase, all major characters from that property other than Batman himself were suddenly verboten in JLU; this was referred to as the "Bat-Embargo" by fans. Similarly, the villain Black Manta was banned when Aquaman seemed a go for a live-action series, as were Robin and Nightwing (aside from a silhouetted cameo from the latter in "Grudge Match") because of Teen Titans (2003) (which resulted in Wonder Woman taking Jason Todd's role as the one who brought down Mongul in the adaptation of For the Man Who Has Everything). Fortunately, DC has plenty of characters to use. As a result, viewers got to see more minor and obscure characters, like Deadman, Warlord, and the Seven Soldiers of Victory, who otherwise would have probably been ignored.
    • The episode "Legends" was originally supposed to feature the JSA, but DC management informed the show's producers that they could not use the JSA (one: they were trying to establish the comics as a non-parody group and two: producer James Tucker later revealed on Twitter in 2020 that a sticking point was the JSA dying, both of which the episode would have been counterproductive towards) and the show had to come up with the expies that were used in the episode proper.
    • The villain of "Starcrossed" was originally supposed to be Katar Hol, the Silver Age Hawkman and Shayera's Distaff Counterpart in the comics. However, DC didn't allow the showrunners to make Hawkman evil, so they creared Hro Talak instead. Later, the show introduced a proper Hawkman based on the Golden Age version, a human named Carter Hall - who in a nifty twist claimed to be the reincarnation of Katar Hol, so the veto turned out for the best.
    • This was why the expanded Secret Society in season 3 of Unlimited couldn't just be called the Legion of Doom — some higher-up at DC apparently thought the name sounded too silly and ordered them not to use it. That said, the Legion of Doom name was still used off-screen by the writers and by the packaging of the season 3 DVD set. (Had they been able to, the name would've come from The Flash calling them that after the events of "The Great Brain Robbery".)
  • Fake American: Jennifer Hale, who voices Zatanna, Killer Frost, and Giganta, is Canadian, though with American parents and raised in America.
  • Flip-Flop of God: Dwayne McDuffie confirmed that yes, Darkseid and Luthor are trapped in the Source Wall and might as well be dead, but later retracted that statement in 2011, saying that they escaped.
  • In Memoriam: Following Kevin Conroy's passing in 2022, HBO Max put a tribute to him in at the beginning of the series.
  • Kids' Meal Toy: It got toys at Arby's and McDonald's.
  • Lying Creator: Knowing the series bible would be used for promotional material, the crew created a fake bio for Hawkgirl to hide the truth of her arc in the first two seasons.
  • Non-Singing Voice:
    • Jeffrey Combs does his own singing as The Question, although it is Played for Laughs.
    • Green Arrow humming his own theme in "To Another Shore", as Kin Shriner's attempt didn't work for the creators so producer Bruce Timm took a crack at it and was still unhappy, so it was dubbed in looping by Lex Lang.
  • The Original Darrin:
  • The Other Darrin:
  • Out of Order:
    • In the first season, the producers held back the airing of "Injustice For All" for eight months, so that it would coincide with the Video Game with the same name. But since it did air elsewhere during that period, it didn't take long for spoilers and pirated copies to appear online. However, both "Fury" and "Legends" have have elements that didn't appear until "Injustice for All".note 
    • In the second season, everything between "A Better World" and "Starcrossed" has their airing order rearranged from their production order. "The Terror Beyond" and "Eclipsed" had their airing order swapped from their production order, as did "Hereafter" and "Secret Society", and "Comfort and Joy" and "Wild Cards". However, this doesn't really affect anything, even with Green Lantern and Hawkgirl's Relationship Upgrade in "Wild Cards" despite "Comfort and Joy" being the episode before it in production order, but airing after.
  • Playing Against Type: Jennifer Hale as Giganta, a more explicitly "girly" character than the tomboys she usually plays. Pronounced due to her playing Killer Frost as well.
  • Playing with Character Type: William Atherton, who usually plays smug jerks, voiced Doctor Destiny, who is a smug, sadistic sociopath with delusions of grandeur who psychologically tortures his victims out of petty revenge.
  • Pop-Culture Urban Legends: It was long believed that the original teaser/commercial for the episode "Legends" used footage from an earlier version of the episode that still featured the JSA, as opposed to their expy counterparts the Justice Guild. This commercial was just a fan-creation redrawing over part of the real commercial; the JSA version of the episode never made it past the scripting stage. The YouTube video, which was a reupload, would later have its description changed to reflect Watchtower Database discovering the actual origin of the fake.
  • Post-Script Season: The season two finale was written as a potential Grand Finale, making JLU something of a post-script Sequel Series. The second season of JLU was also intended to be the wrap-up, hence the Book Ends with "Epilogue". After wrapping up so many storylines, the only place left to go was the Legion of Doom. They also took the opportunity to tap into the deepest pools of the DCU, including Hawkman, The Warlord and Deadman. According to Dwayne McDuffie, there were plans for a fourth season if Warner Bros. wanted them to do one.
  • Promoted Fanboy:
    • Phil LaMarr as John Stewart/Green Lantern. He proudly boasted that for "In Blackest Night", he didn't need his script when reciting the Green Lantern oath.
    • Phil Morris was a huge comic book fan and didn't need to be told anything about Vandal Savage before he voiced him.
  • Real-Life Relative: In "Hunter's Moon," Maria Canals-Barrera plays Hawkgirl alongside her husband David Barrera, who plays a Thanagarian soldier.
  • Recast as a Regular:
  • Recycled Script: Earth's mightiest heroes are suddenly lost in another dimension. Not all of them: the most powerful one and the Badass Normal were left behind. The lost heroes thought for a moment that they were in the past, but not, according to the newspapers the date is right. But some brief visions of doom tell them that something is not right. They soon find out that they are in another dimension, home of another supergroup (a Captain Ersatz of another group, which can not be used directly for network reasons). They fight each other first, then become friends, and fight against the real foe: a kid with a big and grotesque brain, so powerful that he actually created and controlled the world surrounding them. Sounds familiar? Hope so, true believer! That's the plot of The Avengers #85 and #86, the debut of the Squadron Supreme!
  • Refitted for Sequel:
    • Back when there were considerations to have Superman: The Animated Series be about Superman teaming up with various guest star heroes (and forming the Justice League at the end of the first season), some of these heroes included Green Arrow, Black Canary, Hawkman, Hawkgirl, the Question, Vixen, and Mister Miracle, who would later appear in Justice League Unlimited.
    • The militaristic uniforms worn by the Justice Lords were based on a very early idea Bruce Timm had for the League to wear matching costumes, which had quickly been vetoed by DC.
  • Screwed by the Network:
    • The show consistently put out some of Cartoon Network's best ratings in spite of the fact that it was rarely advertised, chronically shoved into unusual timeslots (six in the evening on a Saturday?!), and only aired once a week (most of Cartoon Network's other shows at this time aired reruns several times a week).
    • When the last season premiered in September 2005, Cartoon Network aired new episodes in an hour timeslot on Toonami. So, four episodes out of the thirteen ordered were burned off in two weeks...and new episodes didn't resume until the following February. And in-between, reruns were non-existent.
  • Short Run in Peru: Frequently, thanks to Cartoon Network's scheduling.
  • So My Kids Can Watch: John Ridley wrote an episode for the second season because he wanted to do something for his two children, since his recent work at the time had mostly been more adult fare like Third Watch and Undercover Brother.
  • Throw It In!:
    • It was implied that Cheetah was killed by Solomon Grundy in "Injustice For All", but when the animators mistakenly drew her being arrested at the end of the episode, it was simply easier to say she was alive.
    • The budding relationship between Diana and Bruce was due to the surprise fan reaction to "The Brave and the Bold" where Wonder Woman gives Batman an affectionate kiss on the cheek (he believed she was crushed by a missile and desperately tried digging her out, when she turned up fine she noticed his dirty gloves and could tell he really does care). This came back around with a Fake-Out Make-Out in "Starcrossed" and Everyone Can See It in the JLU phase.
    • The reveal in "Epilogue" that Terry is genetically Bruce's son came from a discussion on how unlikely it was to have a redhead couple sire two black-haired boys.
  • Un-Canceled: Twice!
  • What Could Have Been: There's enough for its own page.
  • Word of God:
    I don't think he'd be happier on Krypton. It's just that Superman never really knew Krypton and had a profound longing to experience that part of his history. Krypton is part of him but Earth, I think, is a bigger part.
    • The late Dwayne McDuffie more or less retconned or at least clarified Darkseid's resurrection in "Alive!" via this on his message board and on the special features on the DVD set for the final season, revealing Tala purposely resurrected Darkseid as a final "Screw you!" to Luthor, rather than it being an accident.
  • Word of Saint Paul: According to Kevin Conroy, Batman's "word of advice" to Deadshot in "The Enemy Below" was, "I know where you live, Floyd."
  • You Look Familiar: Phil Morris voiced the gorilla who interrogated Batman, Wonder Woman, Martian Manhunter, and Hawkgirl in "The Brave and the Bold" before being cast as Vandal Savage. The same episode had Dr. Sarah Corwin voiced by Virginia Madsen, who'd go on to voice Roulette.

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