I was going to do another failed pilot but frankly it was so boring to me that I couldn’t stay interested in it. So look up the 1954 pilot of The Shadow sometime and see what you think.
It’s been some kind of week. Family emergency cut my writing short (thankfully it wasn’t as bad as we first thought) and a family gathering happened today. So it threw my schedule off, but family comes first. So for tonight I grabbed Heart Of Batman, a 90+ minute documentary on the making of Batman: The Animated Series. For it’s time the show was something different. It was a Batman cartoon for an older age group than previous ones, something both kids and adults could enjoy. This meant they got away with some things you couldn’t in the old Saturday morning days, and even did things the syndicated kids shows didn’t try at the time. Fox’s move into weekdays afterschool instead of just Saturdays like the older networks at the time was rather bold, yet successful, and Kids WB would follow suit…thus killing the first run syndicated timeslots entirely. Then all the kids shows leave the networks in favor of a handful of kids only channels because kids don’t need to be entertained. Especially when the parent groups and psychologists got involved. Fox and Kids WB too some serious risks.
The documentary (as of this writing) is on the Warner Brothers Entertainment YouTube channel, so I can bring you this look at the series…and a few corrections that need to be made. This recording is from a livestream presentation in 2020, with the late Kevin Conroy live-tweeting and whoever was running the stream responding to the chat. You’ll have to go to the actual page for the live chat replay but that’s why there’s an interlude during the show. Enjoy.
Of course the big one is trashing my childhood. Yes, you couldn’t get away with the same stuff you did with Fox Kids, but they also weren’t made for adults, they were made for kids. They don’t have to play to kids, and to be honest some of those shows I still can watch and enjoy beyond the nostalgia. Among the few actual adventure shows they brought up (surprised they broke out Kwicky Koala of all shows) were Thundarr The Barbarian and Galtar And The Golden Lance, the latter of which wasn’t even a Saturday morning show. It aired as part of the syndicated programming block package “The Funtastic World Of Hanna-Barbera”. It aired in Saturday mornings only in places it didn’t air on Sundays like it did in my area. And of course they had to trash Superfriends because it wasn’t edgy enough. Notice they didn’t mention Super Powers Team and one of the best Batman stories out there. Look, I loved the show and I’ll defend the daylights out of it. Only Scooby-Doo and Power Rangers have lasted longer than Superfriends incarnations when it comes to TV kids shows, and certainly with Saturday morning shows. It’s your restrained predecessor, not your enemy!
And they have to take the shot at toy tie-ins. Ignoring that sometimes the show came first, sometimes the toy came first, but both of them started with an idea somebody had and a story was made around it is getting on my nerves as well. There’s a reason that Transformers and He-Man are still popular while Convertors and Galaxy Warriors aren’t. They had good shows. ThunderCats was a show first and the toys paid for the show, and I can list a bunch of others. Kids want to play the adventures they see on TV. That’s why there were toys for existing shows long before they were allowed to make shows based on toys. Please stop looking down on a show because there was a toyline. You aren’t selling that like with crap shows.
Also, once again Frank Miller, Alan Moore, and Tim Burton are getting credit for pulling Batman out of the Silver Age and the “goofy” Batman. No mention of the late Dennis O’Neil or any of the writers of the 1970s comics that brought him into the Bronze Age and into a proper balance of darkness and light. That’s a bit of history ignorance that needs to be fixed.
Please don’t misunderstand. This is the best Batman show, animated or live-action. It was something kids and adults could both enjoy. Fox even put it in their Sunday night lineup (7 PM ET), probably the first time there had been an animated action series in Prime Time since Johnny Quest, and while not the last all you get now are lame attempts at comedy and the shows they’re trying to emulate so past their prime that even the creator wants to stop it. Superhero stories are now preschool and grown-up (possibly college age) with nothing in-between and that makes me sad. This show also gave us the DC Animated Universe with Superman, Batman Beyond, The Zeta Project, Static Shock (grandfathered into the DCAU as originally the characters were in the Milestone “Dakotaverse”, where the comic was just called Static, thus avoiding the confusion that exists today that Virgil’s superhero identity is called Static Shock, ), and both incarnations of Justice League (Unlimited). I just don’t think my childhood favorites deserve to be crapped on. I can enjoy the Fleischer Superman AND the Ruby-Spears Superman and every other Superman before or since…once they start making good Superman again.
I do love a good logo, but I have to agree that the show didn’t need it, which they also brought to Superman: The Animated Series. They finally used a title logo for Adventures Of Batman & Robin and The New Batman/Superman Adventures out of necessity. You needed to know the name of the show in those cases, and it continued through the rest of the DCAU shows for the same reason. Batman and Superman as the sole hero however really don’t need an introduction at this point. You don’t have to be American to know who they are. JAPAN had their shows even before this.
The only design I never really cared for was Penguin’s. It looked less like the comic and more like the Tim Burton version, which I still hate. While I tend to be neutral to negative to the New Batman/Superman Adventures redesigns, the Penguin was the best change they could make.
What’s so “wacky” about Bruce Timm being self-taught? You CAN learn to draw without a teacher and look…let’s be honest, better than me. A lot of creators were self-taught and did great artwork. Lou Scheimer mimicked the old newspaper strips to form his style. Josiah “Jazza” Brooks on YouTube is all about what he calls “systemic learning” when it comes to art tools. Some people learn better without a teacher than with, which is a benefit to those who can’t afford one. It’s even better now with so many artists between YouTube and various teaching sites instructing people that way, plus all the “how to draw” books that have been out there for years and decades. “Wacky”? That struck me as such an odd thing to say.
As far as the whole “Batman is the real guy/Bruce is the real mask” thing, I did a whole article on my opposing viewpoint. It’s something that never felt right and recently realized why. I do agree that giving “Bruce” and “Batman” distinct voices is a good idea, and I wish Kids WB not only let him continue that but had Tim Daly do the same for Superman and Clark. When it comes the “Joker Mount Rushmore” I do agree that Jack Nicholson and Mark Hamill should be on it, but Heath Ledger didn’t get to play the Joker. He played some crazy guy in make-up, and you can tell it was make-up and not acid-bleached skin and hair. Caesar Romero better be on there, though.
If you want more behind the scenes check out my review of the writer’s guide for Batman: The Animated Series. It’s been released on the internet and it’s quite fascinating to see what happened between the initial guide and the actual episodes. It’s also where the character models I used in this article to break the text wall came from.
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