Batwheels is an American computer-animated superhero children's television series that premiered on September 17, 2022, on
HBO Max, and on October 17, 2022, on
Cartoon Network's preschool block,
Cartoonito.
This show provides examples of:
- Achilles in His Tent: In "Up in the Air." Bam keeps himself in his garage after he accidentally led Batwing to crash.
- Always Night: In this Batman series, Gotham City is always shown to be at night. However, in Redbird's Bogus Beach Day, we see a sunrise at the near end of the episode.
- Animal-Themed Superbeing: Jestah resembles a hyena and Ducky is a duck-themed water boat, while Catwoman's Catmobile, Kitty, resembles an adorable kitty cat.
- Apple of Discord: In "Zoomsday," the Legion of Zoom became entranced by the Supermanium that the boys shouted together "IT'S MINE!" and began to fight over it, until they ended up in a pile-up and Jestah steals the special metal for herself.
- Cat Up a Tree: In "The Grass is Greener", Moe tries to save a cat during a night patrol with Bam. Too bad it didn't go so well when the cat attacked Moe, but at least it was safely out of the tree.
- City of Adventure: Gotham City, which becomes a vibrant city with colorful buildings and lights for the series.
- Cool Car: Almost every main vehicle counts, each with their own personality and gadgets galore.
- Dance Party Ending: The Batwheels dance to BC's dance music while she and Moe play another game of computer chess at the end of "Batcomputer for a Day."
- Edutainment Show: Batwheels teaches preschoolers lessons on character building and teamwork.
- "Everybody Laughs" Ending: At the end of "Stop That Ducky" The Batwheels travel down the road laughing all the way.
- The same goes for "Cave Sweet Cave", where Moe tells BC that this is a studio department while the Batwheels were laughing.
- Also in "Buff in a China Shop," the Batwheels laugh and Moe laughs along after he bumps into Buff's wheels.
- Face Your Fears: In "The Dark Knight," Bam has to face his fear of the dark to help Batman stop Poison Ivy from plunging all of Gotham City into darkness with her power sucking flower buds.
- Flight: Batwing and Quizz, given how their main purpose design-wise is to fly, Bam also counts, as he's been given a proper flying upgrade since "Up in the Air".
- "Freaky Friday" Flip: In the episode "Batty Body Swap," where the Batwheels have their motherboards swapped and inserted into each others' bodies to learn more about their jobs. Until, they learn how hard it is to be somebody else.
- Friendly Enemy: Mr. Freeze's snow crawler, Snowy, who befriends Buff in 'Buff's BFF.'.
- Here We Go Again!: In the end of the episode "Batty Body Swap," the Batwheels return to the Batcave after having MOE switch their motherboards back to their original bodies and defeating the Legion of Zoom, only to find that MOE had switched his body with BC. However, everyone (including BC in MOE's body) laughs it off.
- Heroic Canines, Villainous Felines: Batman's dog, Ace, and Catwoman's pet black cat, Ms. Kitka.
- Home Base: The Batcave where the Batwheels live, while the Parkam Scrapyard acts as the hangout for the Legion of Zoom.
- It's All About Me: The Penguin when he took over the TV station and created a show starring him in "Up In The Air."
- Ironic Fear: Bam has a fear of darkness and Batwing has a fear of caterpillars in "The Dark Knight."
- Jerkass: Almost every member of the Legion of Zoom, seeing as they are the vehicles of villains. Also, Mr. Freeze who commanded Snowy to freeze Batman, and Buff, who was the last Batwheel not to be frozen.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Snowy the snow crawler, he may be part of the Legion of Zoom, but went out of his way to save a dog, and became genuine friends with Buff and then the rest of the Batwheels.
- Legion of Doom: This kid-friendly and teen-friendly; in fact this family-friendly show got the four-wheeled version of the villainous team. All 5 villain vehicles are from the famous Gotham City’s rogue gallery!
- Lesser of Two Evils: Snowy, who is the only Zoomer to befriend the Batwheels during the event in "Buff's BFF." He also purposely missed Buff when he shot his freeze ray away from him in a bank heist in "Zoomsday."
- Lighter and Softer: Being made for a preschool audience, Batwheels has no fighting (punching, kicking, signs of blood and violence, etc.) unlike most other Batman series, although there are some scenes of Jestah using her toy hammer to pound her enemies.
- Musical Episode: Wheels Side Story. When Ducky zaps the Batwheels with his Songinator Ray and makes them sing.
- Mythology Gag: While it's younger target demographic doesn't allow them to be overt, Batwheels, like much of it's contemporaries, will reference older materials on occasion.
- The entirety of "To the Batmobile!" is one to the 1966 Batman series.
- A.D.A.M. is visually based on the 1966 Batmobile, while his mannerisms are based on Adam West, well, Adam Westing. In addition to his gadgets being based on the Camp Crusader's main arsenal, A.D.A.M. is named after West himself, with modified archive audio of the late actor being used for the character's dialogue.
- Green Arrow pops out of a window in a
Big-Lipped Alligator Moment while Bam and A.D.A.M. scale a building. This kind of gag was rampant in the 1966 Batman series. - The episode overall has a 60's style score whenever A.D.A.M. is in the spotlight.
- A.D.A.M.'s penchant for ramming is a reference to the fact that unlike most depictions since Michael Keaton's portrayal, Adam West's Batman only fought hand-to-hand, and at no point used any kind of gadget or weapon in direct combat.
- The episode uses special Written Sound Effect cards whenever A.D.A.M. starts entering combat, a hallmark of the 1966 series. A number of A.D.A.M.'s hits also had the background singers Saying Sound Effects Out Loud.
- The 1966 series' iconic spiraling bat-emblem transition was also used before the credits.
- The end credits use a cover of the normal opening song in the style of Neal Heafti's original Batman theme, while the graphics are simply an image of Bam and A.D.A.M. in Gotham rendered in a similar style to the Batmobile graphics towards the end of the 1966 series' title sequence.
- Poison Ivy is not a sexy Femme Fatale here, but behaves just as silly and babyish as Harley. In The Batman, Ivy was a child: she was sixteen, same as Barbara Gordon. Harley was an adult, though a very immature one.
- Mr. Freeze's status as The Pungeon Master originates from the infamous Batman And Robin film from the 90s. Unlike that version of Freeze, however, Batwheels Mr. Freeze is simply a total Jerkass.
- The Joker is much closer to the version of the character played by Ceasar Romaro in the 1966 series, in that rather than being absolutely psychotic, he's just in for money and very elaborate pranks.
- Unlike most modern portrayals of the character, the Batwheels version of the Riddler wears a skin-tight bodysuit and Underwear of Power alongside a domino mask. He still, however, wears the bowler hat made famous by the 1966 series version as portrayed by Frank Gorshin.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Like any team of heroes, the Batwheels make mistakes during their missions, but manage to fix them in the end.
- In "Stop That Ducky," Bam bosses his team around until they are fed up with his commands and decide to not follow his lead.
- In "Sidekicked to the Curb," Redbird accidentally throws a bursty bomb that he tries to get rid of, but it ends up bouncing on Bam, making it explode and Batman loses control of his driving, making him, Robin, and Bam crash into a comic book kiosk.
- In "Bibi's Do-Over," Bibi uses the do-over remote to perfect her jump, but after finally perfecting it by getting rid of a paintbrush she slipped on, she lets Toyman get away with the remote.
- In "Holiday On Ice," and "Dynamic Du-Oh-No!", Batwing goes solo to stop a villain, but ends up getting herself or her friends in a tight situation.
- In "Buff In A China Shop," Buff fails to help Batman capture the Riddler by accidentally knocking everything in the construction site down.
- Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: In "Dynamic Du-Oh-No!", Snowy learns why he and Jestah collected so many freeze berries when they made ice cream that literally freezes the civilians, that he takes off his ice cream hat and leaves it for Buff and Batwing to use as a landing pad for Jestah to freeze her so she wouldn't escape.
- Robot Buddy: The Batwheels' friendly and enthusiastic mobile operations expert, M.O.E. Also, the Zoomer's crash dummy robot, Crash.
- Running Gag: When the Batwheels or the Zoomers zip passed a sleeping man at the docks, he is seen spinning until he stops and lets out a fart sound effect.
- Save the Villain: Bam saves Prank from falling into the ocean in "Scaredy-Bat." After Bam realized the loop-de-loop was heading straight for the sea and Prank was going Too Fast to Stop.
- Shout-Out: The Penguin singing "The Blimp Where It Happens" from "Cobblepot: The Musical" in "Up In The Air" is a reference to Hamilton's "The Room Where It Happens"
- Buff mutters Shaggy's iconic "Zoinks!" catchphrase in "Spooky Batcave".
- Harley Quinn tries the iconic Bugs Bunny act on Batman, but he cleverly replies to her that she is in "Harley Did It."
- The Smurfette Principle: Jestah is the only female Zoomer in the Legion of Zoom.
- Spinoff Babies: The show features the Batwheels as cute vehicles with preteen or teenage personalities.
- Tastes Like Friendship: In "Buff's BFF", Buff befriends Mr. Freeze's snowcrawler, Snowy, after seeing him save a dog and helping him up. As they were on their way to the Batcave, they learn that they have much in common, even if they are on different teams.
- Tomboy and Girly Girl: Bibi is the speedy tomboy to Batwing's diva girly girl.
- Two Guys and a Girl: The recurring superheroes and their vehicles: Bam, Redbird, and Bibi.
- Villain Episode: Zoomsday, where the Legion of Zoom tries to use teamwork to steal some Supermanium from the Batwheels. Only after they stole the Supermanium, the boys fought over it until Jestah steals it for herself and gets caught by the Batwheels, whom Bam tells her that the Batwheels aren't just a group of heroes, but a group of friends.
- Villain Team-Up: All five of Gotham's famous villains: Joker, Harley Quinn, Penguin, Mr. Freeze, and the Riddler have teamed up to steal a truck of money in the beginning of the first episode, "Secret Origins of the Batwheels."
- "What Do They Fear?" Episode: The Dark Knight, where Bam is shown to be afraid of the dark.
