Batman The Animated Series

The fact it doesn't have head scratching whodunnits and the fact it was originally thought for younger targets don't make it any less palatable for adults, thanks to good writing that can reach beyond its primary audience. Sherlock Holmes-like mysteries are not an obligation for that.

edited 9th Mar '11 6:34:06 PM by NapoleonDeCheese

You can count the villains from The Batman with any depth at all with the fingers of a hand (basically, the first Clayface, the Riddler at some point, Catwoman, kinda, and... that was pretty much all).

Poison Ivy, Harley Quinn (both of them moreso in The Batman Strikes comic, where they were allowed to appear more), the Ventriloquist (how could you forget him?) Firefly when he became Phosphorous, and the one-shot Anti-Villain from Season 4, Francis Gray, too. That's two hands.

In my opinion the best episode (that I saw, anyways) was Almost Got Im

I always loved episodes like that and "Trial", where the various villains crossed over with one another through some bizarre circumstance. That kind of situation is always guranteed entertainment.

edited 9th Mar '11 6:50:32 PM by ManwiththePlan

The message behind "The Trial" was certainly fascinating but it runs into a problem a lot of villain team-ups do, diminishing returns. "Villains A and B are 100 percent awesome, so them together equal 200 percent awesome" is usually not what happens, and eventually too many villains start to go negative from the previous percentage. When the hero is capable of eventually defeating 5 or more top-tier enemies at once they tend to lose their danger level, since the hero is evidently 5 times or more better than the individual villains. I think even Bruce Timm has admitted as much regarding that episode.

Speaking of episodes featuring more than one villain, who remembers the episode where that guy made a device that could see into people's minds and found out Batman's secret identity?

Personally, I always thought it would be awesome if they had ever done an episode where Two-Face actually does find out Batman is Bruce Wayne. Because they have such a personal connection it would be interesting to see how he reacts (to my disappointment, the comics had the Riddler figuring it out... and who the heck cares about him?)

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^^^ I've read the Batman Strikes, and really... yeah. The comic got waaaaaay better use out of a lot of the characters. Not that the show didn't get good use out of them, just that the comic got good use and had them appear more often.

I mean, hell, Harley only has two speaking appearances - and her characterization in the comic is hilariously skewed from the norm of the character, so much so that I wish she had made more appearances in the show.

Poison Ivy, though, kind of failed at being a deep villain: both in the show and the comic the story and the characters tried so hard to treat her as sympathetic, but she wasn't really...

edited 9th Mar '11 11:40:28 PM by KnownUnknown

"The difference between reality and fiction is that fiction has to make sense." - Tom Clancy, paraphrasing Mark Twain.

I dont like this show.In fact I prefer The Batman. There I said it. But why? Well, first we have a case of Seinfeld Is Unfunny.Also this show is simply overrated. I think its slow sometimes, characters aren't that great, and I simply cant see why everybody love it. I must note that most people that praised it, watched it during their childhood, while I saw it first as a teenager. It wouldnt be that disapointing if not mentioned above praising. The biggest failure was Joker. I dont know why everybody thinks that Mark Hammil was genius, his jokes arent that funny, and he gets humilitated in most episodes he appers in. And again, I love Joker from The Batman. I must also mention that I dont watched all episodes, so maybe you have some reccomendations?

There's a best episode page.

I completely disagree with you. I'm rewatching the series, and although I've watched several newer superhero cartoons (Including the really good The Spectacular Spider Man), BtAS is still one of the best. The pacing really isn't slow; some episodes, like The Laughing Fish and the one with the Grey Ghost, are actually fairly fast paced for a cartoon. The ones that aren't are typically the two-parters, and while some of them suffer for that (Feat of Clay really only needed one episode), others benefit from the slow pacing (Two-Face).

Also, Mark Hamill provided the voice, not the script.

The Batman was a very uneven series; some of the episodes were really good (The Clayface ones in particular) and some were not.

edited 10th Mar '11 1:42:45 PM by Scardoll

Fight. Struggle. Endure. Suffer. LIVE.

Some of The Batman episodes wasnt just good, but awesome (Artifacts, Seconds, Everywhere Man, Riddled, Strange New World, Strange Minds) I know about that Hammil is just a actor. I just dont understand, why everybody thinks he's the greatest Joker, except Heath Ledger. For a slow episode I meant for example Eternal Youth. And for best episodes: Heart of Ice- again Freeze is totally in Seinfeld Is Unfunny mode, Almost Got'im was cheesy, and The Man Who Killed Batman was just silly. One good scene with Joker doesnt make a entire episode intresting.

Almost Got 'Im was supposed to be cheesy. The whole appeal of the episode is the ridiculous nature of the villains playing cards while talking about their overcomplicated and gimmicky methods.

But whatever you say. I liked some episodes of The Batman, and I'm one of the few people who actually liked its rendition of the Joker. I just thought the show as a whole suffered from very inconsistent quality.

edited 10th Mar '11 3:25:21 PM by Scardoll

Fight. Struggle. Endure. Suffer. LIVE.

I watched it as a teenager too. Granted, as a kid I loved it, but as my tastes matured and were informed by exposure to anime. literature etc. it became harder to see anything but the faults, despite Italy's best efforts.

I mean, in this day and age, we have Detective Conan, and the Blackjack OV As, both of which are basically everything Batman: The Animated Series was supposed to be but wasn't.

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The main problem with The Batman was that it made almost every enemy a kung-fu master, which dilluted what made them unique among his rogues gallery. Part of what made "The Batman vs Dracula" so popular (beside the crossover coolness) was that it was one of the few times in that series Batman was completely outclassed physically (more so then even Bane), forcing him to use research, strategy and science to come out on top. The action sequences were consistently well done so "too much action" isn't necessarily a bad thing, and the series became more interesting and complex as it went along. I would say "The Batman/Superman Story" is a superior episode to "Worlds Finest" because of how well it tied into several previous plot threads and Superman had a far greater sense of strength than his DCAU incarnation.

Part of what made BTAS so revolutionary wasn't exactly just being "well written," but it was the atmosphere (the Dark Deco look) and willingness to experiment. "The Man Who Killed Batman" has Batman in exactly two scenes, which makes the rest of the episode an interesting look at how people would react if Batman was really killed (along with Amazing Freaking Grace on a kazoo). "Heart of Ice" is really a rather basic sympathetic villain story (I lost someone I loved) but Michael Ansara's monotone performance, the crisp dialogue, the discovery of Fries motivations and the ending scene with Fries alone in his cell is what made the episode so popular. Comparing those episodes to "The Last Laugh" (which resembles the episode structure of The Batman a lot more) and you can see where the strengths of the series shines.

Sunchet, I think what we have here is a case of your own Nostalgia Filter projecting Nostalgia Filters on others.

The Batman's Joker is just as humbled as the TAS one, if not more. Heck, even his hyenas laugh at him. The only time I remember him ever pulling a clean escape was in Two of a Kind. His jokes are much more hit and miss than Hamill's, most of the time.

I'm someone who also never saw B:TAS as a child, but started watching it later in life. I've already mentioned some of my peeves with it (sluggish action scenes, simplistic detective work), so I'll say now that there are quite a few episodes I liked. Whenever the series tried doing a primarily humorous episode, they usually did a bang-up job ("The Man Who Killed Batman" is probably my favorite of the episodes I've seen). And when they tried for characterization and drama . . . well, that could be hit and miss. Sometimes those turned out really good, other times they fell into Narm territory.

For example, there's a lot of good dramatic stuff in "I Am The Night", particularly when Gordon gets shot, but the effect is kinda ruined by Batman's silly-looking reaction to it (really, any time Batman (in costume) has to widen his eyes, he ends up looking more than a little ridiculous). Then there's the Scarecrow's first episode, which has a really neat idea in having Batman's greatest fear be his father disapproving of him . . . except we're given little insight into why he'd think his father would disapprove, and ultimately he shrugs it off a little too quickly.

Overall, though, the show's creators could turn out a pretty funny and heartfelt show when they wanted to. It's the episodes that are just "Batman tries to catch a criminal" where it seems like they're playing to their weaknesses.

"It takes an idiot to do cool things, that's why it's cool" - Haruhara Haruko

^ While I like most of the episodes of the show, I will admit that Scarecrow's episodes were my least favorite. They were all held back by something or another.

The best Scarecrow episode barely involved him at all.

edited 10th Mar '11 8:55:34 PM by KnownUnknown

"The difference between reality and fiction is that fiction has to make sense." - Tom Clancy, paraphrasing Mark Twain.

The one where batgirl "died"?

He who fights bronies should see to itthat he himself does not become a brony. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, Pinkie Pie gazes Also

Yup.

"The difference between reality and fiction is that fiction has to make sense." - Tom Clancy, paraphrasing Mark Twain.

It helped that he looked fucking creepy in that one.

Fight. Struggle. Endure. Suffer. LIVE.

My god, that episode will always stick to me. I'm currently watching the series from the very beginning and cannot wait to get to that one becuase it was so fascinating.

I saw a majority of Batman the Animated series post my introduction to it as a little kid and I liked it a lot, especially that version of the Joker that seemed to have a wonderful combination of being funny and dangerously frightening at the same time. All Jokers were good in their own way but seemed to lean harder on either the psychotic killer side or the psychotic funny-guy side and since I love humor but I still wanted a good villain, the Mark Hamil Joker is the better fit for me. Though him being my first Joker probably helped as well.

I always knew the show was rather slow, I could see it in the animation, the odd way the characters moved, I just assumed it was part of the aesthetic; that faster paced things would ruin the mood.

One of the things I'll probably never get over though, is the art shift.

edited 10th Mar '11 9:13:25 PM by MousaThe14

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Personaly, I think the later DCAU is vastly superior to BTAS, however, BTAS paved the way for everything that came after, so it is not a bad thing.

He who fights bronies should see to itthat he himself does not become a brony. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, Pinkie Pie gazes Also

I guess I'm a bit older than a lot of the tropers wandering about- I was in my mid- to late-teens while it was airing (I graduated high school a few months before the original run ended), and didn't really get to see much of it until I was well into my twenties. That being said, it's a show that will always rank high on my list of favourite cartoons (western or anime- I don't tend to distinguish unless I'm having to explain it to someone else).

Mark Hammil's Joker is a part of that, I'll admit- and in large part, it was the voice, and more importantly, the laugh. For me, the seminal Joker moment will always be towards the end of Mask Of The Phantasm- everything is exploding around him, he's utterly beaten and in the hands of someone who wants him dead... and the Joker... laughs. Absolutely love it. And the rest of the voice casting was just as good- Andrea Romano is one hell of a voice caster.

If I had to explain my fondness otherwise, I think I could sum it up in one word: style. That's it. The show had panache, a certain verve- even the episodes that were kind of crummy (or that I didn't like, at any rate) still had that polished veneer, a darkly stylish approach to things that few cartoons even bother trying for. At least, that's my take on it.

Scardoll: Yes, quality was inconsistent. Still, I dont think, that Almost Got'im was good. Sure idea was good, jokes were funny (Twoface and Poison ivy), but their stories were lame, and many times, they werent REALLY close to kil him. KJ Mackley: Are you kidding? The Batman always was using "research, strategy and science" in combat. Swamped, Fleurs du Mal, Artifacts, are the best examples. And I liked the fact that Batman didnt go to fight with Mirror Master, next day with Clayface, and next with Black Mask, and somehow he still have trouble with normal thugs. And fights were awesome. And yes, athosphere wan TAS best quality. Animation was slow, but characters looked great, that I must admit. But Last Laugh wasnt like The Batman. The Batman would have a good fight scene . Napoleon: Let see: getting trophy stuck on his head while losing his pants, almost killing himself REPEADETLY, losing because he was jerk to his girlfriend versus getting almost killed by Rumor, Clayface, or Joker 2.0 and... what else? Nope new Joker has definitly more dignity. And his Hyeanas never were trying to bite him. I think that also anwsers to all people who loke ol' Joker from TAS. BTW My favourite characters from TAS are Mad Hatter (TAS) and Scarecrow (TNBA). From The Batman its Joker, Riddler, Hugo Strange and Ragdoll.

Flawless cartoon that layed the groundwork for how superhero cartoons should look and feel, both graphically and tone-wise. Also. (and I'm saying this as my own opinion) but greatest theme/intro of ANY 90's Western cartoon ever.

That's the point. Tying someone to a giant penny and launching them hundreds of feet into the air is not the work of a sane, serious, or competent person. It's the story of someone who's not attached merely to a goal, but to the challenge. The episode shows just how absolutely demented and silly the villains are at heart. They're people who spend their poker nights just bemoaning their own deluded dedication to catching one man. The Joker practically spells it out when he boos and mocks each of the previous schemes, and then proceeds to talk about killing Batman with an electrical chair powered by laughter.

And it's hilarious.

Fight. Struggle. Endure. Suffer. LIVE.

^^^ The Batman's first two seasons were almost entirely plot based, it was less about character interaction and more about stopping the villains nefarious plot. That's where it is so similar to to "The Last Laugh" of BTAS, all that really mattered was the situation to stage the action. The big exception was the Clayface two-parter at the end of the first season, which is why everyone lists that episode as Growing the Beard.

For example the second season finale had the Riddler form a truce between the Joker and the Penguin so they could focus their attention on Batman. How does Batman defeat them? Kung-Fu, and that's about it. The best part of that episode was Commissioner Gordon's introduction at the end, but everything else was just another series of fight scenes.

Comparatively BTAS was largely character driven, "The Laughing Fish" hinged entirely on the fact that Joker's actions didn't make sense to anyone else and targeted innocent men, who were absolutely terrified. If it was plot driven it would be entirely about Batman keeping those men safe, not getting into the Joker's head.

To be fair, out of the first two seasons of TB, both "The Laughing Bat" and "Dangerous Minds" were more focused on new quirky insights into the Joker's mind than about how did Batman overcome him.