YMMV / Holy Musical B@man!

• Alternative Character Interpretation:
  • For pragmatic reasons, Ivy's appearances are downplayed in Act Two so the same actress can play Baby Candy. Could it also be that Ivy feels guilty for inspiring Sweet Tooth to target Robin and feels she should stay out of the scheme for as long as possible? She looks discomfited when he thanks her for giving him the idea and hints that he will murder Robin. In the comics, some of her iterations are a Friend to All Children. (One notable comic had her and Harley Quinn abandon a bank heist to save a girl that another villain tried to kidnap and beat up.)
  • Is Batman and Robin's relationship one of brotherly, coded gay, or mocking the attacks on the 1950s from conservatives of how Batman was corrupting youth with its gay undertones?
• Aluminum Christmas Trees: While most people don’t know this, Sweet Tooth was not a Canon Foreigner invented for the show. He actually originated as a one-off villain in The New Adventures of Batman.
• Big-Lipped Alligator Moment: While Batman and Robin beating up some bad guys during the 'Dynamic Duet' sequence. Robin needs to run into the corner and cry hysterically for a few moments, before continuing to sing with Batman. This is never explained or mentioned again.
  • From the same song, all of the villians (who previously simply seemed to double as background dancers) suddenly applauding Batman and Robin and giving them a big hug, only to go right back to trying to kill them in the next act.
  • "The American Way" starts out making sense in the context of the story, as Superman has just been given a mission by the President of the United States, but Batman and the villains have no reason to sing about America whatsoever.
  • Batman devotes an entire verse of "Dark, Sad, Lonely Knight" to rambling about an ex-girlfriend and his food allergies.
• Crosses the Line Twice: Nearly ALL the times Batman ends up injuring innocent civilians.
• Fridge Brilliance:
  • Alfred says while he shielded Batman from all the bad things in the world, he accidentally kept all the good things away from him too, "Like the birds and the sun..." When Batman and Robin sing about their newly formed friendship, what is one of the things Batman refers to Robin as? His morning bird.
    • Similarly, Superman is strongly linked to the sun so it could refer to Robin *and* Superman.
  • When the reporters are asking Commissioner Gordon about information on the Batman, one of the reporters, played by Brian Holden, is wearing a white button-down shirt, a red tie, and thick-framed glasses. These are the same glasses Batman uses to try to expose Superman's secret identity later in Act 1. Clark Kent was trying to find out more about Batman.
  • During 'Robin Sucks', one of the characters uses Stan Lee's catchphrase "Excelsior". That makes sense if you know about Stan's dislike for teen sidekicks.
  • Sweet Tooth ends up not kidnapping Robin, though he does incapacitate Rachel Dawes. It ends up being his sidekick Baby Candy does that when Robin lets his guard down to help her to her feet, after Sweet Tooth knocks her down. Now remember that Harley Quinn always did Joker's schemes better, even nearly killing Batman. Even as Practically Joker, Sweet Tooth can't get a break.
  • When Batman suggests giving the Batplane to Spider-Man, Alfred says, "That's a good idea. Spider-Man could use a nice plane." Guess who later turns out to be moonlighting as Spider-Man?
• Fridge Horror:
  • Batman punches civilians and criminals alike, but Gotham worships him regardless. He justifies it by saying everyone has a criminal inside them waiting to come out. That sounds less like heroics and more like a Domestic Abuse situation.
  • Superman lightheartedly refers to the fact that he's powerful enough to turn back time, and threatens to go back to when Batman was a baby. Is he a bad day away from Beware the Superman?
  • If one isn't acquainted with the original comics, it can be somewhat disturbing to find out that in canon, Robin was essentially Batman's adopted, 12-ish-year-old son, considering how much Ho Yay there is in this musical
    • To be fair, Robin in this musical borrows more from Batman (1966), where he was played by 19-year-old Burt Ward (and which has its own Ho Yay reputation).
    • Sweet Tooth goes out with a smile after Batman pushes him into a chocolate vat, and activates the warheads. Why? He succeeded where the Joker failed: he got Batman to kill a villain. Then it would have been All for Nothing since Robin thanked Batman for reducing him but insisted they need to save the citizens of Gotham City
• Fridge Logic: If Superman followed Batman home the first day they met to learn his secret identity, then he must have known that the Bruce Wayne tweeting about how dumb he is was actually Batman.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: Several bits of dialogue and plot points in The Dark Knight Rises are oddly similar to this musical.
  • Batman criticizes people who think Robin is lame in this musical and in Rises, John Blake is revealed as the Nolanverse's Robin.
  • The same applies to the musical's relationship between Batman and Superman compared to Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice.
  • The LEGO Batman Movie is also suspiciously similar story-wise. There is a brooding Batman that beats up criminals for fun, a Beleaguered Assistant Alfred that treats Bruce like a son and is taken for granted, and a Boy Wonder who breathes life into Batman's life.
  Nick Lang: Yeah we saw the Lego Batman Movie, and... well, it was a lot like our show.
  • The fate of Robin is determined by a poll, created by Sweet Tooth. While Sweet Tooth and Batman fully believe the Gotham citizens voted to sacrifice Robin's life, it is revealed that despite how much they hate him, they still voted to save him because at the end of the day, he's still a child. Flash forward to The Trail to Oregon!, and the fate of one of the five main characters, including Son and Daughter, is determined by an audience poll. When Son or Daughter is chosen to die, Mother cries out, "If given the choice to kill any one of us, who would chose one of the children?!" And who created The Trail to Oregon? Sweet Tooth's actor, Jeff Blim.
• Ho Yay: It's a parody musical of Batman that has the adoption of Robin as its main story. Does more really need to be said? ...Yes, actually, because much of the rest of the play consists of attractive men running around in tights and underwear.
  • Batman also has some very... 'close' moments with nearly every male main character in the cast. Viewers have commented they almost expected Batman and Superman to kiss at one least one point
    • They also rip off each other's underwear during 'To Be a Man'
    • Superman isn't the only one Batman looks like he's about to kiss.◊
  • 'The Dynamic Duet'. In addition to featuring Batman and Robin dancing around in spandex and singing about how much they care about each other, Robin having an interesting reaction to Batman touching his cheek, the song ends with Robin jumping into Batman's arms and kissing him on the forehead
  • When Alfred gives Batman advice on whether he should save Gotham or Robin he tells him a story from when he was in the war about a man who had to make a similar decision about his wife
  • Batman refers to Robin as his 'life partner' at one point. Although this could refer to their position as Heterosexual Life-Partners, it's not uncommon for people in Real Life to use it to refer to spouses in a same-sex marriage.
  • When Evil-Sherlock Holmes is shot in the knees by Batman he laments that he will "Never be able to walk Evil-Watson down the aisle!"
• Genius Bonus: The one Gothamite repeatedly calling Superman "Captain Marvel" is already funny. But it gets even funnier when you remember the original Captain Marvel (aka Shazam) was created as a Superman knockoff. He actually surpassed Superman in popularity for years, until DC Comics sued Fawcett for copyright infringement over it. So, it was an easy mistake to make!
• Memetic Mutation: "GET YOUR BROKE ASS OUT OF HERE, TWO-FACE"
  • "I'm Bruce Man - fuck! I'm Bat Wayne - fuck! Can I start over? I'm Batman - fuck! I'm Bruce Wayne."
  • "Have you ever heard of [obscure DC villain]? No. That's right. That's 'cos [Superman] does his damn job."
  • "HMB is a better Batman vs Superman story than the actual movie."
  • Robin's "I wanna be a modern dancer" line from "Super Friends" became this on Tiktok in late 2020
• Narm Charm: The whole musical runs on it, with the lack of special effects and obviously choreographed stage punches adding to the humor. A person can't take Superman being carried by a stunt person seriously, but they can see the danger when a mobster is turned into a people-bomb with some pop rocks and cola. You can see that the creators did their homework in portraying the Batman mythos accurately, to go with Batman's Manchild tendencies and Sweet Tooth's Vile Villain, Saccharine Show moments.
• Nightmare Fuel:
  • Sweet Tooth is a walking moment of this with how he casually kills Penguin's bird lackey and sets his sights on hurting Robin, even wanting to murder him. The other villains are scared of him, and rightfully so since he's faster than he looks, with a bad sense of humor.
  • The scene where Sweet Tooth sends some "disturbing footage" and an ultimatum. He reveals that he's taken Robin and Rachel Dawes hostage, and as a giant candy Warhead. Scary? Not until his mooks force Rachel's mouth to the Warhead, making her take a lick after covering her nose, and her head explodes. (Take their word for it since this show has few special effects.) Robin throughout it has a horrified Death Glare since he was trying to rescue Rachel from them, and he gives a Big "NO!" when Rachel dies. Afterward, he remains Defiant to the End. Sweet Tooth then says he's dropping it into the water supply, unless Gotham citizens vote on Facebook to either order Sweet Tooth to put a bullet in Robin's brain or lower the Warhead into the water supply. It's their choice.
  • Sweet Tooth doesn't force-feed the Warhead to Robin though it's implied he could easily do it. He just plans to put a bullet into his brain at dawn if Gotham chooses that. When Batman storms the villains' barricade a few hours early, Sweet Tooth gets a better idea: drag Robin to an abandoned candy factory and drop him into a vat of boiling hot chocolate, which would leave him drowned and burned at those temperatures. Batman tries to avoid Unhand Them, Villain! by specifying not to drop Robin into the vat, but Sweet Tooth "accidentally" lets Robin fall. When Sweet Tooth taunts Batman that the latter is not a killer, Batman shows that he is by punching him into the vat. The worst part? Sweet Tooth dies laughing and activates the Warhead. He won either way.
• One-Scene Wonder: Egghead and Calendar Man.
• Redundant Parody: Avoiding this is largely the reason that the Joker was replaced with Sweet Tooth.
• Suspiciously Similar Song: "Rogues Are We" is very similar, at least in the intro, to "Heart of Rock and Roll" by Huey Lewis and the News.
• Tear Jerker:
  • The show's opening lines, which wouldn't be out of place in a dead-serious Batman musical.
  One shot, two shots in the night, and they're gone
  And he's all left alone, he's just
  One boy, two dead at his feet and the blood stains the street
  And there's nothing, no there's nothing he can do
  • At the end, Gotham's citizens choose to save Robin rather than themselves in Sweet Tooth's Facebook poll. One person says that Robin is a "little kid" and he didn't ask to be put into this mess. Seeing this makes Batman go My God, What Have I Done? that he was going to abandon the citizens to their fate. Robin tells him to pull himself together, swallow his pride, and apologize to Superman so they can save everyone.
• Theiss Titillation Theory: Robin is a rare male example considering through 80% of the musical he is running around wearing only underwear.
• Unexpected Character: Rather than doing the obvious and having the Joker, Poison Ivy, Scarecrow or some other well-known Batman villain as the Big Bad, the makers of HMB dug up Sweet Tooth, a C-list Batman villain who has had exactly two appearances in official Batman media. First as the villain in an episode of The New Adventures of Batman, where he commits crimes with a candy motif and weaponised sweets: a corny villain, even by the standards of the cartoon he was in. His second appearance was a cameo in Batman: The Brave and the Bold. Understandably, Sweet Tooth never caught on, and with the new, darker age of Batman stories, has been almost completely forgotten and ignored by all. Except this musical, that is. They even manage to go the extra mile and actually make him threatening. Completely ridiculous, but threatening. He ends up playing like a candy-obsessed Joker.
• Wangst: As is to be expected from a Batman parody, Batman gets a good deal of it, especially before he meets Robin. Superman also gets quite a bit of it regarding his lack of popularity.

---