The Sad Case of The Ventriloquist & Scarface | Batman the Animated Series

one thing that Batman the Animated Series should be praised for is shining the spotlight on obscure Batman villains sure everybody knows who the Joker Catwoman and The Riddler are but manbat Killer Croc Rochelle ghoul these names were most likely only known to the most hardcore of Batman fans the subject of today's video is another obscure villain in fact at the time the show aired he had only been in two stories let's talk about the ventriloquist and Scarface making his first appearance in Detective Comics 583 with a beautiful cover drawn by Mike mignola who designed the BTS version of Mr Freeze by the way the ventriloquist and Scarface are introduced as the primary source of a new drug called fever which sends people into a blind rage after Batman Witnesses a gang of pre-teen boys murdering an elderly Watchman while high on fever he sets out to cut off the supply of the source Scarface A demented puppet that strongly resembles Al Capone rules his criminal Empire from his ventriloquist nightclub one of Gotham's hottest night spots at first it seemed like the ventriloquist was The Mastermind behind the crime gang but it soon becomes clear that Scarface is the one in charge and that he is an entirely separate personality the joke is that the ventriloquist isn't actually that good because he can't pronounce the letter B so he has Scarface speaking with a speech impediment swapping his B's for G's think gatman's gig Gad utility guilt during the late 1980s there was something of a British Invasion of the American comic scene with writers like Alan Moore and Grant Morrison putting their stamp on slightly more obscure DC characters like Swamp Thing and Animal Man respectively this same Looting of the British comic scene led to writers John Wagner and Alan Grant taking over writing Detective Comics although John Wagner didn't stick around for too long leaving Alan Grant to handle the writing duties during this period a wealth of creative new villains were made the corrosive man Cornelius stuck amygdala the rat catcher and so on but of all the villains created at this time the ventriloquist and Scarface stood out most of all they had a really interesting gimmick making them feel like they stepped right out of the 1940s Batman comics which is part of the reason why they were selected to appear in Batman the Animated Series to Quest Bruce Tim from his Modern Masters book you think of classic villains like the Joker and Two-Face in the penguin they all have these really cool weird visual gimmicks and they all have some kind of weird Twisted psychological twist that makes them Batman villains you have to have that combination we were talking about it one day and all of the Batman villains who'd been created over the last 30 40 years very few of them had those classic features Scarface is one of the few characters in the modern era who had that kind of edge it's a really creepy Dick Tracy kind of visual with a definite psychological malfunction as an avid movie buff another thing that leaps out about the ventriloquist and Scarface to me is the similarities with Richard attenborough's 1978 film magic the film stars a young Anthony Hopkins playing a talented ventriloquist named Corky who is tormented by a seemingly malevolent puppet that compels him to do bad things the movie already has a direct connection to Batman because it co-stars Burgess Meredith the 1960s penguin but there are several scenes in which corki argues with his dummy fats while watching this film I could easily see a similar gritty psychological drama ala Joker starring the ventriloquist and Scarface the ventriloquist and Scarface didn't make their return to the comics until early 1992. coincidentally in the same issue that introduced Renee Montoya a b Test original character to the DC Comics but by this point B test was well into production artist Kevin Nolan had shared the primary design work he did for BTS characters in 1990 and you can clearly see two versions of the ventriloquist and Scarface in that document no specific origin had been given to the ventriloquist so the writers on the show could basically do what they wanted the first and really only significant change they made was to remove the speech impediment their ventriloquist is a master That Could Teach zatara the magician a thing or two about throwing his voice thing I really like about the ventriloquist design in particular is his glasses they completely hide his eyes and as the eyes are the gateway to the soul they really enforce the idea that this is a blank person Scarface is way more expressive than the ventriloquist despite being a block of wood it's also interesting to note that the ventriloquist name wasn't revealed until the new Batman adventures until that point he was only ever referred to as the ventriloquist again dehumanizing him when we meet Scarface it's made abundantly clear that he is a doll not some sentient puppet brought to life through witchcraft Batman literally touches his face after a neat fake out where his eyes suddenly opened and Scarface is clearly completely unaware of his presence their Scarface also likes to hide in the shadows arranging daring robberies he's not a drug lord broadcast standards and practices wouldn't allow references to specific drugs and he certainly didn't parade around in the spotlight for everyone to see their Scarface is cunning sneaky ruthless and paranoid the ending to his debut episode read my lips is just wonderful Batman deduces that the ventriloquist and Scarface are entirely separate personalities with no idea of what the other is thinking and so he sets the two against each other by telling Scarface that the ventriloquist has been ratting him out in exchange for legal protection we see Scarface turn his wrath against the ventriloquist read my lips is a really strong episode despite a little continuity blip how did Rhino and Co have and I really enjoy the Jazzy score by Shirley Walker showing once again how diverse a composer she was another side benefit of having a villainous inanimate object is that the show's team could come up with some truly horrific deaths for him including being gunned down classic gangster movie Style crushed with logs and set on fire or turned into sawdust however so long as the ventriloquist was around he could always make another puppet as Catwoman so succinctly puts it in the episode catwalk please I never hurt you Scarface he's another person not me really but he's inside you somewhere and I'm going to keep scratching until I find him we later learned the ventriloquist backstory in Batman and Robin Adventures number seven young Arnold Wesker of the wesca crime family witnessed his mother's murder as a child and little Arnold retreated inside of himself with his negative emotions manifesting in the form of Scarface sound familiar Arnold is a very Meek timid man that only seems capable of expressing himself through his puppets while Scarface embodies his Dark Side the ventriloquist also has been seen to express his more positive character traits through his puppets in Batman adventures annual 1 we see a rehabilitated ventriloquist working as a puppeteer on a children's television show and his relationship with his best friend croakie a frog puppet kroki personifies everything that is good within wesca and it's sad to see Scarface stamp it out speaking of Rehabilitation during the new Batman adventures era the episode double talk shows us what a rehabilitated Arnold Wesker might look like he's placed in the Wayne Gardens halfway house a home for ex-cons while they get back on their feet and works as a male cloak for Wayne Enterprises this episode is a great example of how compassionate the dcau version of Batman is some portray the character as the personification of Vengeance beating criminal senseless at every opportunity but the animated Batman is kind and compassionate he helps Arnold get back on his feet and genuinely seems to be happy while listening in on Arnold talking about getting his life back on track which is a bit creepy granted but you know he's Batman spying on people is what he does sadly despite Arnold's best efforts he winds up being dragged back into a life of crime by his former friends although Scarface claims to have been lying low in Arnold's psyche until the right moment to return and resents his henchmen for bringing him back too soon is Scarface lying about this honestly thinking back to what Catwoman said about him I think Scarface was being completely honest mental health isn't like a cold or the flu it's not something that will just go away on its own people with mental health problems will likely suffer from those problems periodically throughout their entire lives and I think this is doubly true of Arnold Wesker another thing I wanted to highlight is that in all of his appearances Batman won't allow the ventriloquist to be brutalized notice that Batman never hits him the only person that harms Arnold physically is Scarface by the end of double talk there is hope for Arnold and he seems to have turned a corner although during the Batman Beyond era there is an elephant in the room or should that be a puppet in the trophy case does this mean that Arnold was finally able to break free from Scarface or can we take it to mean that Arnold is no longer around to manifest him I've always liked to think that Arnold was able to overcome his mental health problems and live a normal life or as normal as he could but ultimately he is Scarface if you consider the tie-in comics Canon we learned that yes yes he did Relapse several times the mainline comic books introduced the idea that Scarface might be some sort of possessed demonic puppet he was carved from the wood of the Hanging Tree of Blackgate Prison possessed by all of the souls of the men that were hung there bringing misery and Misfortune that all that took ownership of him perhaps unsurprisingly I prefer BTS is more grounded take Arnold Wesker is a very unwell traumatized man and he's a great example of Batman's capacity for compassion foreign [Music] foreign

Channel: Serum Lake

Views: 126,901

Keywords: Batman, animated, anime, animation, cartoon, ventiloquist, scarface, read my lips, catwalk, double talk, new, adventures, robin, catwoman, arnold wesker, origin, real name, curse, Magic, film, BTSA, TNBA, Capone

Id: mSbPIuaSHv0

Length: 9min 33sec (573 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 07 2023