Line #10 WhatCouldHaveBeen/BatmanTheAnimatedSeries


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5	[[quoteright:685:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/batman_meeting_death.png]]
6	[[caption-width-right:690:Recreation of a scrapped episode that would've had Batman encounter [[ComicBook/TheSandman1989 Death and Dream]]. From ''ComicBook/DarkNightATrueBatmanStory'']]
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9	* Creator/AlPacino was approached for the part of [[Comicbook/TwoFace Harvey Dent]] before Creator/RichardMoll was cast.
10	* Creator/LeonardNimoy, Creator/AnthonyHopkins and Creator/AnthonyZerbe were offered the role of Mister Freeze before the casting of Creator/MichaelAnsara. Hopkins was later considered for the part in ''Film/BatmanAndRobin''.
11	* Creator/ChristopherLee was the first choice for Comicbook/RasAlGhul before Creator/DavidWarner was cast. However, Creator/AndreaRomano stated it would have been too difficult to have him play a recurring role in the series due to him living in England.
12	* [[Film/UncleBuck Kevin Meaney]] [[https://www.baltimoresun.com/news/bs-xpm-1994-02-11-1994042215-story.html was going to guest star]] in an episode of the show and even recorded lines for it. Meaney wound up never appearing in the final product.
13	* The Creeper was originally planned to appear in the earlier seasons before he finally showed up in ''The New Batman Adventures'' season.
14	* Roland Daggett was initially planned to be [[Film/BatmanReturns Max Shreck]].
15	* In part with the ExecutiveMeddling for the Penguin above, they had initially planned for him to be sort of a [[Film/{{Psycho}} Norman Bates]]-type character, committing crimes to dote on an unseen, but apparently [[MyBelovedSmother overbearing mother]].
16	* Many villains were planned to appear, but never did, including Black Mask, Anarky, Calendar Man, Gentleman Ghost, Bronze Tiger, Dr. Tzin-Tzin, and Tweedledee and Tweedledum. A {{Gender Flip}}ped version of Calendar Man would later appear and Gentleman Ghost had a small cameo in ''WesternAnimation/JusticeLeague''.
17	* In "[[Recap/BatmanTheAnimatedSeriesE54Zatanna Zatanna]]", Gentleman Ghost was meant to be the antagonist, but producer Alan Burnett shot the idea down, due to being too supernatural, and as a result was replaced by the somewhat forgettable Montague Kane. This would've made him a RoguesGalleryTransplant (due to him normally facing Hawkman), long before ''WesternAnimation/BatmanTheBraveAndTheBold'' did so. He eventually appeared in ''WesternAnimation/JusticeLeague Unlimited'' in a small cameo fighting Green Lantern and Hawkman, and Gentleman Ghost was confirmed to appear in ''Batman: Caped Crusader'', also by Bruce Timm.
18	* In "[[Recap/BatmanTheAnimatedSeriesE9BeAClown Be a Clown]]", Joker originally kidnapped Jordan Hill on purpose.
19	* Man-Bat originally killed people instead of merely stealing from the drug companies in "[[Recap/BatmanTheAnimatedSeriesE1OnLeatherWings On Leather Wings]]".
20	* In "[[Recap/BatmanTheAnimatedSeriesE64ReadMyLips Read My Lips]]", the Ventriloquist was going to make most of his money by fixing gambling and sporting events and would have a base on a barge. DC also wanted the Ventriloquist to be a rather poor ventriloquist, mangling his pronunciations when speaking as Scarface, as he is in the comics. Dini felt it would hamper the voice actor's performance and talked them out of it.
21	* "The Demon's Quest" originally had ComicBook/RasAlGhul openly admit he kidnapped Robin, and force Batman to help him steal a jeweled statue of Kali, leading Ra's's assassins to begin a crime spree, forcing Batman to try and outwit Ra's to stop them and save Robin, with the help of ComicBook/TaliaAlGhul, who had other plans for him.
22	* In "Two-Face", Harvey Dent would be disfigured when Batman chases a thug into the middle of the stakeout. Acid meant for Batman would hit Harvey, turning him into ComicBook/TwoFace. Two-Face, after going on a crime spree, plans to lure Batman into a trap to make him pay for his failure.
23	* "[[Recap/BatmanTheAnimatedSeriesE2ChristmasWithTheJoker Christmas with the Joker]]" originally opened with killer toys made by the Joker appearing in stores days before Christmas. The hostages also would have had bombs strapped to their stockings.
24	* Killer Croc's origin was different, being an animal trader who is bitten by a lizard, giving him a disease that mutates him into Killer Croc, who then plans to create an army of reptiles in the sewers to terrorize Gotham. Obviously scrapped as it was too far-fetched.
25	* In "[[Recap/BatmanTheAnimatedSeriesE3NothingToFear Nothing to Fear]]", Scarecrow would have been using his fear toxin to extort money from Gotham's elite, instead of trying to get revenge on the university.
26	* In "[[Recap/BatmanTheAnimatedSeriesE7POV P.O.V.]]", Montoya, Bullock and Wilkes told their accounts of what happened in a coffee shop instead of police headquarters, and their careers weren't on the line. The episode proper also would have delved into Bullock and Montoya's backstories, revealing that Bullock was once a high school sports star with an [[AbusiveParents abusive father]] who drilled respect for the rules into him, explaining his intense dislike of Batman, while Montoya would have been revealed to grow up in Crime Alley and is a reformed teenage punk, who cleaned up her act and dedicated her life to helping people. Their backstories were axed by the censors, and were one of the main reasons why writer/story editor Sean Catherine Derek left the show in frustration.
27	* ComicBook/MrFreeze's origin was going to be completely different, and more faithful to the original comics. He would have been created in a freak accident in the cryogenics lab and would then use the lab as a front for his thefts of 'ice' aka jewels and diamonds, eventually creating an 'arctic smuggling operation'. It's safe to say that scrapping this idea and going for something new, a tragic origin for what many saw as a forgettable, gimmicky villain, ended up saving the character.
28	* Bruce Wayne was originally going to behave incredibly snobbish, self-centered, elitist, and uncaring as possible in public to make sure no one would ever associate him with Batman, seeing this as a small price to pay to keep the truth secret. He also would have only made his charitable donations and actions in secret, via dummy companies. Another trait that wasn't featured in the series was that he wouldn't have been haunted by his parents' deaths, having exorcised the trauma by becoming Batman.
29	* Robin was going to be more of a solo hero, due to being in college, only helping Batman from time to time, though this may be the proper explanation for his absence in most of the first season.
30	* Alfred would mostly help with enforcing the boorish Bruce Wayne personality, even going as far as to organize Wayne's social calendar and would play dry-witted jokes on Bruce by selecting utterly tasteless ties and suits for him to wear, being the one source of humor Bruce finds amusing. He would also somehow execute fake Batman sightings when Bruce is out of the country.
31	* Commissioner Gordon had a more in-depth backstory, being a good cop who worked his way through the ranks until being kicked upstairs by the crooked ex-mayor and his administrators, but made it clear he wouldn't kowtow to them by showing up for his first day as police commissioner in his patrolman's uniform to let them know he wasn't one of them. He was to be more of a blue-collar cop in a white-collared world. Gordon was also to have a clear dislike for fools, especially rich ones, and was to have a strong dislike for Bruce's early character, who in turn would have to pretend to find Gordon a boring underclassman who got lucky and hide his respect for Gordon, as opposed to the series where Gordon shows a decent amount of respect for Wayne. Gordon's wife from the comics, Sarah Essen, was also going to be in the series, but was cut.
32	* Batgirl would have lived in Gotham and would have had a crush on Batman and would only have become Batgirl to try and impress him. Changed for... obvious reasons, with the only reference being a dream sequence where Batgirl dreams about saving Batman and attempting to kiss him, before Robin interrupts the dream, causing [[CrashingDreams Batman to speak in Robin's voice]]. (Bruce Timm apparently had a Babs/Bruce shipping thing going on. He finally introduced it in tie-in comics for ''WesternAnimation/BatmanBeyond'' as a reason why Barbara later became distrustful of Bruce and didn't get with Dick, but making it explicit in ''WesternAnimation/BatmanTheKillingJoke'' put off a lot of viewers.)
33	* Renee Montoya would have been a major character, as opposed to the minor recurring character she is in the final show. She would have lost her husband to Gotham's criminals, shot and killed in the line of duty. She grew up in Crime Alley, so knew first hand what criminal lifestyles did to good people. While she would have had mixed emotions about Batman, she was to find herself working with him often and he would become fond of her due to their similar pasts. The irony being that she hated Bruce Wayne and all he stood for, thinking he was everything wrong with the wealthy and that he was deaf to the problems the poor faced. She also would have been a volunteer at a Catholic church and had ambitions to have children of her own, as she loved kids. She was to secretly dread the day she might have to arrest Batman.
34	* Harvey Bullock was to be more of a rogue cop who got results with methods not too dissimilar from Batman and would have arrogantly viewed his badge as a licence to break the law.
35	* Mayor Hill would have hated Batman for being out of his control, but wouldn't make a firm stand on him due to fear of losing pro-Batman voters. In "[[Recap/BatmanTheAnimatedSeriesE9BeAClown Be a Clown]]", when Jordan was returned to him, Hill would have made a cold comment that if Batman had never existed, Joker wouldn't have kidnapped the boy at all. He and Bullock would have had a mutual friendship over their dislike of Batman.
36	* Due to their roles in the Creator/TimBurton films, Joker, Penguin and Catwoman wouldn't have gotten proper introductions, as the audience would already know them, so all the other villains' introductions would have been the first Batman, and the audience, would have met them as well. This is true for Joker and Penguin, not so much for Catwoman, whose first appearance is the first time Batman meets her. Her design was also a bit different, with long, flowing black hair coming out of her mask.
37	* Riddler had a more elaborate backstory closer to the comics version, changing his name from Eddie Nashton to Edward Nigma, and becoming a criminal after multiple riddle, quiz, and puzzle competitions across the world began to bore him.
38	* Poison Ivy's backstory was more in-depth as well, detailing that as a child, plants in the greenhouse were her only friends and she was a somewhat homely wallflower, who matured into the beauty she is now known as, but the attention and attempted wooing of would-be boyfriends caused her to become even shyer. In retaliation, a gang of hoodlums would have surprised and attacked her in her greenhouse, accidentally setting it on fire, causing her to swear revenge on all men.
39	* [[UniverseBible The bible's]] enclosed description of Poison Ivy's criminal persona, a lovesick StalkerWithACrush obsessed with using various plant derived love potions to turn Batman into her infatuated slave, while very inline with how Ivy had been in the comics from the Silver Age into much of the Bronze Age, doesn't synch up with her actual characterization in the show proper. She does act [[TheTease flirtatiously]] towards Batman but there's no indication of her wanting to enslave his heart. Whatever's going on between them is purely [[FoeRomanceSubtext subtext]].
40	* Clayface would have been a small-time criminal, not a well-known actor.
41	* Hugo Strange would have been able to use his mind-altering devices to brainwash people into simple-minded brutes.
42	* In the case of the episode "[[Recap/BatmanTheAnimatedSeriesE22JokersFavor Joker's Favor]]", it's more like a case of "what might ''not'' have been." The whole reason Harley Quinn was designed for this episode (designed at all, for that matter) was that, at first, the writers thought having the Joker jump out of the cake himself would be silly (even though that's how it actually went in the final draft) so they designed a PerkyFemaleMinion with the intention of her doing that job. She may never have done the role she was designed for, but several episodes of CharacterDevelopment later, Harley had become a vital part of the Batman mythos.
43	* Instead of reusing the [[EpisodeTitleCard title card]] for "[[Recap/BatmanTheAnimatedSeriesE10TwoFacePart1 Two-Face: Part 1]]", storyboarder Jim Smith originally planned a completely different title card for the second part, the sketches of which can be seen [[http://about-faces.livejournal.com/70734.html about halfway down this page]].
44	* "[[Recap/BatmanTheAnimatedSeriesE18BewareTheGrayGhost Beware the Gray Ghost]]" would have been scrapped entirely had Creator/AdamWest not agreed to voice the titular character.
45	* Creator/PaulDini thought [[https://mobile.twitter.com/Paul_Dini/status/1162499521525342208?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1162499521525342208&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fs9e.github.io%2Fiframe%2F2%2Ftwitter.min.html%231162499521525342208 of]] doing a team-up between ComicBook/RasAlGhul and ComicBook/PoisonIvy, but it was shelved when the show staff moved on to work on ''WesternAnimation/BatmanBeyond''.
46	* Dini also conceived a story about Poison Ivy seducing Comicbook/SwampThing, but it turned out that the latter character was [[ExiledFromContinuity off-limits due to rights issues]].
47	* As detailed in ''ComicBook/DarkNightATrueBatmanStory'' and comments in an article of [[https://www.tor.com/2014/12/17/neil-gaiman-sandman-morpheus-casting/ Tor]], there were plans for an episode where Batman meets [[ComicBook/TheSandman Morpheus and Death]] during a near-death experience with the idea of Creator/JohnHurt or Creator/AlanRickman for Morpheus. [[https://www.cbr.com/paul-dini-sandman-batman-tas/ The idea was rejected]] partly due to its supernatural and dense nature, and partly due to concerns over introducing children to ''The Sandman'' (as this was during the period when ''The Sandman'' and other Creator/{{Vertigo}} characters were beginning to be ExiledFromContinuity from both the mainstream comics and adaptations.
48	* Bruce Timm had created a character sketch of [[https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/batmananimateduniverse/images/2/2e/Zsasz.gif/revision/latest?cb=20120210194259 Victor Zsasz]] in case if they were able to add him to the show, but this was turned down by Paul Dini who would then say that Zsasz [[AdaptedOut would never be used]]. This is quite justified, as Zsasz all by himself is one of Batman's darker villains, having no quirks apart from being a StrawNihilist SerialKiller who keeps his KillTally by carving a tally mark into his skin. The story that introduced Zsasz in the comics, ''The Last Arkham'', featured in the comic book ''Batman: Shadow of the Bat'', was adapted as the episode "[[Recap/BatmanTheAnimatedSeriesE28DreamsInDarkness Dreams in Darkness]]", but with Zsasz AdaptedOut and replaced with Scarecrow likely for this reason as well.
49	* The original plot of "The Cape and Cowl Conspiracy" would have been that someone stole Batman's cape and cowl and impersonated him while committing crimes.
50	* Writer Rich Fogel [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DDoY8tCg0Ag had the idea]] of bringing back Cassidy as a new Firefly, being driven insane by the experiences from "Torch Song" and becoming the thing she was afraid of. The final scene of that episode, where Cassidy seemed horrified by the fire she used in her performances, was meant to foreshadow this episode. The show ended before that episode was proposed.
51	* Bruce Timm and Paul Dini considered to adapt ''ComicBook/ADeathInTheFamily'' at some point of the show, but ultimately realized that the story was too violent to be adapted, so they decided to not feature Jason Todd and incorporate some of his characteristics in Tim Drake. Dini and Alan Burnett would end up adapting a version of the story in the comic book continuation ''[[ComicBook/TheBatmanAdventures Batman: The Adventures Continue]]''.
52	* According to Dan Riba, Killer Moth was going to appear at some point as Killer Croc's wrestling partner in a small gag, but the idea did not go further beyond an [[https://twitter.com/dcauwatchtower/status/1493782445090430978 unused character design]].
53	* Nocturna as a vampire was considered and Bruce Timm created a [[https://batmantheanimatedseries.fandom.com/wiki/Bruce_Timm?file=Nocturna.png character design]], but was nixed by the networks. The character in Timm's design has a cameo in ''The Batman & Scooby-Doo Mysteries'' comic book. Nocturna would later be confirmed to appear in Bruce Timm's ''Batman: Caped Crusader''.

Context WhatCouldHaveBeen / BatmanTheAnimatedSeries