The Laughing Bat

**"The Laughing Bat"** is the twelfth episode of the second season of *The Batman* and the twenty-fifth episode overall.

## "The Laughing Bat"

### Episode

12 (production order)4 (airing order)
25 (overall)

## Synopsis

People in Gotham become worried when Joker decides to become the "Batman" and go after anyone, no matter who they are or what crime he perceives they have done. Seeking to have an arch-rival, Joker soon targets Batman and injects him with a new concoction of his gas called Joker Venom. With the venom soon beginning to affect him and transform him into the new Joker, Batman must recover the Venom in order to create an antidote before planning to take down Joker, who soon collides with the Penguin when the latter commits a bank heist.

## Plot

The episode starts with a jaywalker getting attacked by a mysterious shadow which has the same appearance as Batman. It is then revealed to be none other than Joker, who has decided that if he couldn't beat the Batman, he'd be the Bat, with Batman arriving all too late for him to save the jaywalker from becoming a victim of a new strand of "Joker Gas", which Batman's antidote apparently fails to cure.

Although the Joker is enforcing the law throughout the episode, he does so through alarming methods, using his Joker Gas to apprehend "criminals" for the most minute and unreasonable reasons, such as cops breaking the speed limit in a car chase, and an elderly lady for driving three blocks with her left-turn signal turned on. In addition to that, he demanded payment from Gotham, stating that "crime-fighting isn't charity work". After attacking the Mayor's wife, Sheila, Joker tries to gas two girls playing on a side walk by drawing on it with chalk, claiming that they are "scum" and what they are doing is "graffiti", but is stopped by Batman.

A short confrontation ensues, which results in the Batman's defeat at the hands of the Joker, who states that if he is going to be the Batman, he needs a "Joker of my own", and injects him with a Venom which "injects a bit of humor" into the Batman. Later at the Batcave, Alfred patches up Bruce and insists Bruce stays here until his blood is fully scanned of the Venom. Bruce,however, goes to the hospital to take a blood sample from Sheila. After a disastrous meeting with the mayor, Bruce Wayne finds out that the Venom actually infects the nervous system and causes the body to increase in fits of laughter, which kills his enemy after a few hours. Batman devises a cure, but it requires a sample of Joker's Venom as well, and Bruce has an hour left to live.

Meanwhile, the Penguin breaks into the Gotham Museum of Art. The Batwave then goes off, and Bruce goes away. At the Jokercave,the Jokerwave goes off, and Joker suits up and drives to the crime. Batman and Joker try to stop Penguin. After a short scuffle, Penguin is injected with the Venom by accident as well, which leads to Batman and Joker facing off once again in one-on-one combat.

Despite the Joker's near victory, Batman ultimately defeats the Joker by stealing the Venom from Joker and curing himself. With the Batman finally cured, he defeats the Joker and tells a short joke, which results in the Joker laughing uncontrollably, with the Batman telling him (with an uncharacteristic smirk) that "that's the Joker he (the Batman) knows" whilst pulling off the Joker's cowl. The episode then ends, with both the Joker's and the Penguin's laughters echoing throughout Gotham.

## Cast/Characters

* Rino Romano as Bruce Wayne/The Batman
* Alastair Duncan as Alfred Pennyworth
* Kevin Michael Richardson as The Joker
* Adam West as Mayor Grange
* Tom Kenny as The Penguin
* Kimberly Smith
* Sheila

## Events

- Character debuts:

* Kimberly Smith
* Sheila

## Trivia

* This episode features a reference to Superman with a scene in which Joker, wearing glasses and a coat with slicked back hair, witnesses his version of the Batwave go off and proclaims, "This looks like a job for Batman", a take on the trademark line.
* Interesting enough, Batman-Joker and Laughing-Batman are fighting in this episode together against the Penguin - more or less.
* It could be possible that the Joker being Batman and Batman being under Joker's effect in this episode could have foreshadowed **The Batman Who Laughs**.
* Batman's line in the first episode "I'm the Batman" is used by Joker (disguised as Batman) here.
* While Bruce is infected with Joker's Venom,he nicknames Alfred 'Al'. The nickname would later be used in **Batman: The Telltale Series** and **Batman: The Enemy Within**.
* Batman telling Joker a joke with the latter laughing at it happened again in the conclusion of *Batman: Arkham City*.
* Bruce should be 28 as of this episode, since the episode before this was on Halloween, October.