My Review of Batman: The Animated Series · 10:21pm Aug 4th, 2022
My TV Show Rating Score:
5/5: It is an awesome show!
4.5/5: it is a great show albeit not perfect
4/5: It’s a good show with minor flaws
3/5: It’s overall okay/guilty pleasure
2/5: It’s bad but not awful
1/5: Look, up in the sky! It’s super bad!
0/5: MY EYEEEESSS!!!
Greetings, everyone! This is Mr. J back with another TV show review for today! This afternoon, I will be reviewing the legendary—the one and only—one of the most famously renowned shows of the 1990s—Batman: The Animated Series! I am very pleased to share my thoughts with you all on this amazing series that provided the most definitive adaptation of DC’s most beloved superhero and stoic Caped Crusader. Even though I admit that 2004’s The Batman cartoon introduced me to the franchise, I do acknowledge the fact that this show introduced so many beloved characters into the DC Animated Universe and ultimately for future series from that time forward. It is so iconic yet so well-written in every sense of the word. As a matter of fact, if it weren’t for this series, we wouldn’t have the latter shows that most of us dearly prize more.
I don’t even feel the need to provide an adequate summary of this show; it basically shows us the Dark Knight spending his nightly activities in beating up criminals and supervillains, stopping them from harming Gotham City, and helping those who are in need.
Here is something unique about this version of the Batman which is sadly something the latter and modern Batman shows fail to both recognize and learn from: Batman here is more human and more heart-warming whenever he utters line of dialogue or whenever he talks to Robin. Plus, he actually tries to help certain villains who were in need of help and tries to do everything he can to help them recover from whatever thing they’re struggling with. It often bugs me that Batman in the following series or animated films depict him as cold and emotionless and stick to that type of character. True, he may be stoic as it is shown here, but he is also human—someone with emotions and feelings. That’s the type of Batman I want to see which is shockingly rare nowadays.
Of course, we can’t forget the iconic, well-beloved villains from his rogue gallery: Two-Face, Poison Ivy, Penguin, Killer Croc, Scarecrow, and even my favorite baddie of all time: The Joker. Every single voice actor/actress did a fantastic job in bringing life and energy to their respective characters. Kevin Conroy—I don’t need to emphasize his spectacular Batman voice. Mark Hamill—the same thing applies. The late Bob Hastings was great as Jim Gordon, Loren Lester was pretty good as Dick Grayson, Arleen Sorkin was also wonderful as the popular Harley Quinn, and I can go on and on! Nothing more or less!
The animation looks pretty solid, even in this day and age. The episodes themselves were all equally interesting, awesome, and well-developed; not a single episode was bad or boring in any way.
One of other things I find interesting about this show is that it is filled with a number of sympathetic villains, certain villains that have pretty logical motivations, or some villains with twisted, sick reasons for being bad. Mr. Freeze is a perfect example of the first category. When you make a villain like that, you can understand where they’re coming from, and you can, to some degree, feel sorry for them despite their villainy. In fact, they wouldn’t even be considered “villains” in light of their motivations and how different they are from the rest.
And then you have the Mad Hatter who simply could not overcome his creepy obsession with a girl who had no interest in him, Clayface who unfortunately ruined his own career by making bad choices and being with the wrong people, and Killer Croc who does his best in “being himself” by stealing, maiming, and hurting others for his own benefit. For Joker……do I need to say it? Chaos needs no explanation.
This show truly does live up to its popular reputation in being the best Batman show to exist in animation history. I will gladly give it a solid 5/5: DARK AND COOL!
Batman: I am Vengance. I am the Night. I AM BATMAN!
I think this along with Adam West's take on the Caped Crusader - don't laugh or dismiss 60's Batman, especially since this show brought him in as the Gray Ghost - are my definitive takes on Batman. I mean, yeah...it can be kind of fun to witness a human overcome threats that even stronger heroes can't overcome but...I think this show gave us three versions of Bruce, thanks to Mr. Conroy:
1. Playboy Billionaire Bruce
2. Dark Knight
3. Bruce when speaking with Alfred or his allies.
Even though I haven't watched the actual show itself, I still love it very much. It has great animation, amazing music, and phenomenal storytelling. Also, it does a great job finding a balance between sympathetic and malicious in terms of its villains and knows how to write sympathetic villains very well.