Batman: The Animated Series

**Batman: The Animated Series** (also known as **The Adventures of Batman & Robin** for the last fifteen episodes) is an American superhero animated television series based on the DC Comics superhero Batman, created and developed by Bruce Timm, Paul Dini, and Mitch Brian, originally airing on Fox Kids from September 5, 1992, to September 15, 1995.

The entire series was made available on January 1, 2021.

## **Premise**

Heir to the Wayne family fortune, Bruce Wayne lives by day as a seemingly lavish playboy millionaire socialite, but by night assumes the role of his crime-fighting alter-ego: the caped crusader known as Batman. Throughout the show, Batman receives help from sidekicks Robin and Batgirl, as well as the Gotham Police Commissioner Gordon, in order protect the streets of Gotham City from a large rogues' gallery of criminals, lunatics, and nemeses.

## **Production**

### Conception

The series took influence from Tim Burton's live-action films, Batman (1989) and Batman Returns (1992), and the acclaimed Superman theatrical cartoons produced by Fleischer Studios in the early 1940s. In designing the series, Bruce Timm and Eric Radomski emulated the Burton films' "otherworldly timelessness", incorporating period features such as black-and-white title cards, police airships (although no such thing existed, Timm has stated that he found it to fit the show's style) and a "vintage" color scheme with film noir flourishes.

### Development

The visual style of the series was based on the artwork of Radomski, and the gothic look of Gotham City was derived from his initial designs. In addition, Radomski issued a standing order to the animation department that all backgrounds be painted using light colors on black paper (as opposed to the industry standard of dark colors on white paper). The distinctive visual combination of "noir" imagery and Art Deco design was dubbed "Dark Deco" by the producers.

The series initially took a variation of music written by Danny Elfman for the Burton films as its theme; later episodes of the series used a new theme with a similar style by Shirley Walker (Walker was occasionally Elfman's conductor for films). The score of the series was influenced by Elfman's work on the Burton films, as well as the music of 1940s film noir.

The series is more adult-oriented than many of the previous superhero cartoons. It depicts outright physical violence against antagonists, including realistic firearms (though only one character, Commissioner Gordon, was even depicted as having been shot, in the episode "I Am the Night"). First-time producers Timm and Radomski reportedly encountered resistance from studio executives, but the success of Burton's first film allowed the embryonic series to survive long enough to produce a pilot episode, "On Leather Wings", which, according to Timm, "got a lot of people off our backs". During the series' production, producer Alan Burnett wrote a silent episode (without dialogue) entitled "Silent Night" to explore more of Batman's sexual life, but this was never produced. Burnett also intended to make an episode featuring a female vampire that would bite Batman to suck his blood, but plans never materialized

### Release

For the final fifteen episodes, the series was given the on-screen title *The Adventures of Batman & Robin*, which was also used for reruns of earlier episodes. The series became the first in the continuity of the shared DC animated universe; spawning further animated TV series, feature films, comic books. and video games with most of the same creative talent.

*DC* announced in February 2020, that Paul Dini, Alan Burnett, and artist Ty Templeton would be leading a new mini-series Batman: The Adventures Continue, to be first published in April 2020, based on the animated series and following shortly after its conclusion, with Tim Drake still adjusting as the new Robin to Batman.

On HBO Max, Season 1 is the episodes aired under the *Batman: The Animated Series* title, Season 2 is those aired as *The Adventures of Batman & Robin*, and Season 3 is those aired as *The New Batman Adventures*.

## **Reception**

The series was praised for its thematic complexity, film noir aesthetics, darker tone, artistic presentation, and modernization of its title character's crime-fighting origins.

### Critical

*IGN.com* listed the series as the best adaptation of Batman anywhere outside of comics, the best comic book television show of all time.

*Batman: The Animated Series* has been consistently ranked as one of the greatest animated television shows ever made. IIt has been critically and commercially acclaimed for its sophistication, mature writing, voice acting, orchestrated soundtrack, artistic ambition, and faithfulness to the source material.

In his reference book, Batman: The Complete History, Les Daniels described The Animated Series as coming "as close as any artistic statement has to define the look of Batman for the 1990s." Animation historian Charles Solomon gave the series a somewhat mixed assessment, commenting that "the dark, Art Deco-influenced backgrounds tended to eclipse the stiff animation and pedestrian storytelling" and concluding that the series "looked better in stills than it did on the screen."

### Awards

In 1992, Entertainment Weekly ranked the series as one of the top television series of the year.

*IGN* listed The Animated Series as the best adaptation of Batman anywhere outside of comics, the best comic book cartoon of all time, and the second-best animated series of all time (after FOX's *The Simpsons*). *Wizard* magazine also ranked it #2 of the greatest animated television shows of all time (again after *The Simpsons*). *TV Guide* ranked Batman: The Animated Series the seventh-greatest cartoon of all time (out of 60).

## **Upcoming Revival**

On December 2020, it was announced that a revival of the series is currently in development for HBO Max. There are very few details about the revival so far, but Warner Bros. Pictures intends to reveal more in the future. On May 19th, 2021, it was revealed that the Batman: Animated series revival is actually a new original series called Batman: Caped Crusader, which has no canonical relation to the original 1992 show or its two sequels. It is described as a "thrilling, cinematic, and evocative of Batman’s noir roots while diving deeper into the psychology of these iconic characters." There has been no word on the voice cast or release date, though there is a possibility of a 2022 release.

## **Trivia**

* Due to the success of the show, Fox approached Bruce Timm to make a spin-off centered on Catwoman, but the project was abandoned shortly thereafter.
* Original scripts of numerous episodes were changed due to Broadcast Standards & Practice's demands:
	+ These episodes were Christmas with the Joker (1992), The Underdwellers (1992), and P.O.V. (1992).
* Batman's voice actor Kevin Conroy used different voices to distinguish between his portrayal of Bruce Wayne and Batman, a tactic used previously by Michael Keaton in Tim Burton's live-action films.
	+ Conroy based his dual-voice performance on the 1934 film adaptation of 'The Scarlet Pimpernel'.
* On the commentary track for "Heart of Ice" on the *Batman: The Animated Series*, Volume One DVD, producer Bruce Timm stated that Spectrum was responsible for airbrushing Mr. Freeze's helmet in every frame that featured him.
	+ Such attention to detail ultimately drove the studio to bankruptcy; most of their staff members are now working for Japanese animation studio Production I.G.