Batman The Animated Series - A Look back at the greatest Iteration of Batman.

for years when it came to batman on the small screen the main association was the batman 1966 show with adam west the canopy show with the [Music] it was usually the first thing casuals thought of when it came to batman the comic books were a massive success during the golden age of comics batman has had plenty of artists and writers depicting him in various versions over the decades he has made other tv appearances like on the super friends animated show and the batman superman hour show from the 60s add to that the 1989 flick with michael keaton and you had a fully established pop culture icon but as history has it this was only the beginning of his legacy and to batman the animated series making its debut on september 5th 1992 batman the animated series breathed a whole new life into the batman franchise and took it to even greater heights the show was a dark noir animated take on the cape crusader and had a much more mature feel to it than in any other previous incarnation it was very drama and action based and very well acted out thanks to the world-class voice directors and voice actors more on them later the show three months after its launch was moved to prime time sundays in the us further showing that it wasn't necessarily a kids show but more of a contemporary show aimed at more mature audiences but due to the ratings not being what was needed for that particular time stop it was moved to an earlier schedule which was more in tune with younger audiences over here in uk was part of a saturday morning show which is where i watched it most times but my first encounter with this show came from watching the animated movie batman mask of the phantasm it was unlike previous batman iterations i had seen up until that point and i was at an age where i was really into my action cartoons x-men the animated series was riding height this time period from marvel so it was only fitting that dc were in on the act and what a double dose of comic book animated shows to be having at this particular point in time the show in its initial first season was primarily focused on batman and his double life as bruce wayne and as the caped crusader the self-appointed protector of gotham protecting it from a large number of villains which in themselves have added to the success of the batman mythology for most of the first season it's batman on his lonesome until around episode 19 when robin makes his first appearance on the show and then goes on to join batman and here you have the show's take on the batman and robin dynamic that was first seen during the 60s show and in the comic books batman has quite a large rogue gallery in previous videos i have done i have stated that spider-man arguably had the best rogue gallery but if you watch this show then you know batman has quite the assortment of villains to deal with and given the uniqueness of each of them batman would always be with the shout of having the greatest gallery of villains now here i will go through a couple of key characters that made the biggest impact on the show there is catwoman batman's love interest even though they operate on different sides of the coin which made for an interesting dynamic between the two the penguin was another one and the reason i remember him is pretty much due to danny devito's depiction of the character in the batman returns movie which had also released the same year the anime teacher made its debut in the cartoon he wasn't as scary and menacing but he was still a memorable character now another villain who has gone on to become quite popular in the dc universe is poison ivy the character made her debut in episode 9 of season 1. she was dating harvey dent and during the episode she kissed him but she was secretly poisoning him batman ends up having to retrieve the antidote from her to save harvey but not before having to save himself as he too was poisoned poison ivy is all about protecting all plant life from corporate destruction will go to any length whatsoever to protect the green life this is a nice little segue into another interesting villain in the form of two-face this character i was only familiar with from billy d williams portrayal in the 89 batman movie and then by tommy jones in 95's batman forever they had a clever and compelling way of bringing him into the show with a two-part story simply entitled two-face harvey is struggling more and more to keep his repressed dark side in check and gangster rupert thorne blackmails him with his secret unless he agrees to a few favors from diaz office this brings up harvey's bad side big bad half and all chaos ensues batman is on the scene to try to make rescue but during the attempt there is an explosion and harvey is unfortunately caught in it at the hospital and in the scene very reminiscent to the revelation of jack nicholson's joker harvey dent's face is revealed and after shocking his wife he says goodbye and permanently becomes two-face armed with his infamous two-headed coin which he uses to decide if he will inflict pain on his enemies in one last ditch effort harvey's wife attempts to reason with him but he fails due to thorn's interference in the final showdown two-face is about to gun down thorne but decides he needs his coin to make that choice batman steps in and throws a barrage of coins which two-face gets angry and confused insisting he needs the coin to make that decision he's then taken to a psychiatric world fair evaluation or more famously known as arkham of all the villains brought onto the show he was the most intriguing from a story perspective with all the psychology involved another very impactful villain from the show is reish argo not rasagul raish as i've been told one of batman's more unique pros as he is several centuries old and he has honed all his combat skills during this time he is also rejuvenated with the help of the lazarus chamber which restores his youth once he reaches an old age his mission is for a world with the perfect environmental balance which means the elimination of most of humanity as is the norm for villains in comic book universes here the two-part full-on introduction to the show called demon's quest talia ghoul is racial's daughter and she has a complicated love relationship with bruce which began when she made her appearance in the season 1 episode 44 episode off balance which set the stage for reish to make his appearance on the show appearing right at the end of this episode reish sees batman as his hair and wants him to take over by marrying talia and carrying out his quest to which batman promptly rejects this leads to a one-on-one showdown between the two in order for bats to stop racist plan from succeeding it seems he's defeated when he falls into the pit but it was so obvious that he had survived [Music] [Laughter] given the involvement of talia and her sharing her father's vision but not methods of executing it racial ghoul was one of batman's more fierce and complicated falls but of course when it comes to complicated they don't get much more complex than batman's greatest enemy the most popular villain in his world gallery the joker with his presence him and bats make the definitive hero and villain duo now if you claim to be a batman fan or a fan of the animated show and you have no idea who the joker is please just remove yourself even casual audiences know who the joker is his depiction in this series is considered arguably the best version of the character ever now the joker's origins remain a very big mystery in the 89 batman movie he was a gangster who murdered bruce's parents and became the joker when he was accidentally dropped into a vow of chemicals but in this show that is not the case here his origins are touched upon in the animated movie batman muscular phantasm when he was the chauffeur of the gangsters in that movie but there is still no true origin story on to how he became the joker the name jack napier is mentioned in the episode dreams of darkness which was the joker's name in the 89 movie before he was dropped into the vat of chemicals during the course of the show he shows up in gotham a number of times with new sinister schemes to run the city and take out the batman his mood ranges from being gleeful to outright evil with his signature laughs [Music] [Music] [Laughter] for me one of the joker's more memorable lines from the show was jingle bells batman smell robin laid an egg the batmobile lost the wheel of the joker [Music] that was brilliant what made the jockey even more revered was the person who voiced him growing up for some reason i was always fascinated by the end credits from shows and movies and i was a fan of the original star wars trilogy and to my great surprise luke skywalker mark hamill i saw was the voice of the joker it came so out of left field for me because the two characters were miles apart in terms of personality and it showed what a talented actor mark hammer was with his great range and for me and millions of joker friends he is the joker another key element to the joker in this show was the character known as harley quinn batman animated series created the character from scratch and she makes her debut in the episode joker's favor in season one at first she was just his lacking henchwomen but that dynamic grows over time and it extends beyond the batman animated show and into the comic books and into the movies where they were lovers in a somewhat abusive relationship harley would go on to become a solo act in her own right and would feature in many other mediums i don't know about genius but i do got a phds funny in case you hadn't noticed nobody's looking it up creation of harley quinn to an extent shows further how this series made an impact it is responsible for the creation of one of the most popular dc female villains ever so case in point without batman the animated series there would be no harley quinn [Music] i think we should talk alone man-to-man from this face it teddy matt hagan is history this time for good he's never coming back again we've come too far to have our plans jeopardized by some environmental fanatic i'm here to help you forget your recent heartbreak gotham can be a wonderland well done batman but have you wits enough to save two people at the same time so we've seen batman's villains but what about his allies well his most famous alley is of course the boy wonder robin dick grayson for this show he was much more mature and serious in keeping with the tone of the show as compared to the 66 version played by brook ward even though his role is largely as batman's partner he did have his own story arcs like the two-part story robin's reckoning where we have flashbacks to dick as a young boy and saw the murder of his parents by gangster tony zuko batman in his own way is protecting dick and seeks out zuko on his own much to robin's frustration and upon learning of zuka's re-emergence grayson goes after him and comes face to face with the gangster nearly succumbing to his anger robin is stopped by batman from taking zuko's life with batman revealing the reason he went solo was because he couldn't stand the thought of possibly losing robin to vengeance or death showing that he was more than just a partner but a friend and a confidant it's not until the spin-off the adventures of batman that dick transitions into nightwing and the mantle of robin is taken up by young boy tim drake there is commissioner gordon batman's liaison with the police who usually ends up signaling batman into action and works in secret with him to apprehend gotham's villains he works alongside detective harvey bullock who has his own reservations about batman and constantly disagrees with his methods however in the episode a bullet for bullock harvey is forced to eat humble pie and ask batman for help as he believes someone is out to kill him which batman reluctantly agrees to help forging a truce between the two and then there was batgirl also known as barbara gordon the daughter of the commissioner she makes her first appearance as batwoman in the two-part story shadow of the bat when her dad is arrested and accused of corruption she takes matters into her own hands and becomes batgirl along the way she runs into robin and the two end up having to work with each other in order to take down the suspect involving framing commissioner gordon she ends up teaming with both batman and robin to take down two-face who is at the heart of gordon's framing after her father is cleared of all charges robin and batman are welcoming of her being part of the gang although both are not yet aware of her identity she resurfaces again in the episode batgirl returns when she teams up with catwoman and robin whilst investigating the theft of a statue and in the dream sequence she has the hots for batman with his track record that's not a good idea and last but not least of batman's allies is alfred the butler and ever present in the show and most of batman's long and storied run in the comics and the movies largely bruce is confident rather than just the family butler and is the closest thing to a father figure to bruce for the most part he was largely in the background but he did have his moments in the episode the lion and unicorn it was revealed that he was a government agent for the british security services and in this episode he has to help a friend who is being held to ransom by the villain red claw who wants the access code to a missile as she intends to wipe out london unless she's paid five billion pounds well look at that for once it's the streets of london that's in peril and not america or in this case gotham so they expanded from there alfred has also had to play the role of rescuer in the episode forgotten when bruce is captured and has amnesia forgetting who he is a tracker is left in one of his vehicles which alfred finds and he follows the trail which leads to bruce so there was more to alpha than just being a butler with all i've covered with batman animated series it's hard to definitively put in towards the massive cultural impact this show is made it was a show that presented batman in a whole new light in terms of dark mature settings as compared to his previous tv outings it was the show that created the popular villain harley quinn who has herself become a pop culture icon in her own right now right alongside x-men yen maintenance series in the early 90s it was responsible for taking the superhero genre to a brand new level in terms of storytelling and it was no longer the basic and can't be good guy wraps to save the day he had so many more levels to it adding several shades of grey to the already complex characterization of the batman the impact of the show is so vast that it essentially started what is known as the dc animated universe it would go on to extend the batman mythology by expanding into the adventures of batman which would include dick grayson as nightwing a new robin tim drake and batgirl being featured more prominently alongside batman it was inevitable that in this universe we would get the man of steel superman who julia arrives in his own show superman the animated series set in the same universe as the batman that is a show i will cover in a future episode and it's one that i'm looking forward to further adding to the dcau we got a futuristic batman in terry mcguinness in batman beyond their old bruce wade has given up the cape and cow and is now mentoring the younger mcginnis in his exploit as the new batman following the success of this show the dc animated universe expanded into the team game and created the show's justice league and justice league unlimited where dc's finest batman and superman are joined by wonder woman the flash green lantern hot girl and martian manhunter and then it's follow-up justice league unlimited with a whole host of other characters and heroes from the dc universe and just to add to this universe is the show's static shock in which batman and some of the adjusted league guests are in so it's amazing to think that this whole sequence of shows spawned from batman the animated series so had there not been a batman animated series there wouldn't be a dc animated universe just to take it one step further batman the animated series depicted a more dark gritty and violent take on the batman character on television which at one point seemed limited only to the live-action movies but the show paved the way for future batman and other dc characters for future projects in the form of animated feature films batman the animated series had its own animated films features and then later on you had all the other dc52 films and the other animated features which took cues from batman the animated series but pushed the envelope even further in terms of sexuality and violence basically taking the pages from the comic books and bringing them to life on the animated stage a very long-winded way of me saying batman tas set the tone and in recent development at dc fandom 2021 it was announced that there will be a new animated batman show entitled batman caped crusader i really believe this will be another hit the heart and soul of the batman animated series is the man behind the voice the one and only legend that is kevin conroy for me and millions of batman fans he is the definitive voice of the dark knight portraying him as a dark brooding tragic figure while switching it up as a jovial bruce wayne to keep the two personas separate he was there from the very beginning and now 30 years on he still does the voice which is just simply incredible when reading the comic books the only voice you really hear when batman speaks is kevin conroy now there have been loads of other voice actors over the years who have voiced batman and have done very well with it but kevin conroy will forever be known as the voice of batman i am vengeance i am the knight i am batman [Applause] [Music] [Applause] batman the animated series will go down in history as not just one of the greatest comic book animated adaptations but one of the greatest animated shows period fantastically written stories tremendous voice acting an amazing consistency will make the show an all-time favorite and further elevate the storied legacy of the character known as the batman you

Channel: SMUG FACE ENTERTAINMENT

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Keywords: Arkham, Batgirl, Batman, Batman 66, Batman 89, Batman Returns, Batman The Animated Series, Bruce Greenwood, Bruce Wayne, Commissioner Gordon, DC, DC Comics, Danny Devito, Dick Grayson, Frank Miller, Gotham, Harvey Bullock, Harvey Dent, Jim Lee, Kevin Conroy, Margot Robbie, Mark Hamill, Marvel, Michael Keaton, Penguin, Poison Ivy, Rino Romano, Robin, Superman, Superman The Animated Series, The Dark Knight, The Joker, Xmen, dc universe, gotham city, the batman

Id: u4UDAqTYr5M

Length: 20min 57sec (1257 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 29 2022