CREDITS: Written by Eddie Gorodetsky (an SNL and sitcom writer, it is his only DCAU credit); directed by Kent Butterworth (also, his lone DCAU credit).
REVIEW: I think we have to address the Joker's voice long before we get to the Sounds Like portion of the article. Everyone raves about Mark Hammil as the Joker, in part because he's so immediately iconic and has one of the best laughs given the character, but also I think because it's such a surprise. This lunatic voice is Luke Skywalker's?! Considering that Hammil more or less resurrected his career with that Joker voice, it's quite an achievement, and just as iconic as Kevin Conroy's Batman. And like Batman, this Joker needs no introduction. We don't need to see his first entanglement with the Bat, or how he landed at Arkham. We don't even need to see him in his usual costume. The show boldly says, you know who these guys are, let's just have fun.
And let's face it, this is really just a collection of Christmas gags , most dangerous (blowing up a train), but some silly (throwing a pie in Batman's face). So the Joker makes his escape on a rocket Christmas tree, gags his hostages with candy canes, uses (rather fragile) giant Nutcracker robots, and hosts his own Christmas special on pirate TV (a trick taken from the Burton film, which this series references fairly often early in the season). And of all the gags, the Joker actually singing "Jingle bells, Batman smells" has to be the most priceless. And Batman using a baseball bat. Nice. The action is a bit limp, I must admit, and needed a directorial boost. There's something anticlimactic about watching the locomotive fall off the cliff, which is just wrong, and Batman and Robin (also making his first animated appearance) stand around looking stunned a lot. Only the Joker really has energy on screen, but if you can only spend time on one character, he's a good choice. Oh, and one piece of advice for Batman, if you're searching for the Joker, that disused toy factory with the giant creepy clown face on the front should probably be the first place you look.
To me, the Joker's Holiday shenanigans are nevertheless secondary to the early scenes of Batman Scrooging things up while Robin tries to show him the value of that Yuletide feeling, and how people are at their best during the Holidays, a bright contrast to the Bat's foul mood. Bruce Wayne's never seen "It's a Wonderful Life" because he could never get past the title; a lovely touch. And though this is the perpetually gloomy Gotham, where kids skate on black ice, Robin is right, and there's some humor in Batman misunderstanding situations and discovering they were all very innocent and even uplifting acts of kindness. If it weren't for the Joker's rampage...
IN THE COMICS: The Joker first appeared way back in Batman #1 (April, 1940), and his look here is heavily influenced by Bob Kane's original. The red-headed woman taken hostage by the Joker is Summer Gleeson, a journalist who is a stand-in for Vicki Vale, but who has never appeared in the comics (but was referenced by name in the No Man's Land storyline). As the episode was always meant to air closer to Christmas, her proper introduction is in Nothing to Fear, which comes next. While Robin is a young adult Dick Grayson, his costume is really Tim Drake's, who was Robin in the comics at this time.
SOUNDS LIKE: Loren Lester plays Robin, and Mari Devon plays Summer; both are working voice actors. Mark Hamill is, of course, best known for starring in the Guyver film series.
REWATCHABILITY: Medium-High - Nice atmosphere and the debut of an iconic Joker, I just wish the action stuff was a little tighter.
Comments
There's also Summer Gleason having a fairly big role, something that will get much reduced as time goes on.
But yeah, Hamill is great, and I'm not sure there's much more that can be said about him. However, I don't think that Lester gets enough credit. I think he captures Dick Grayson perfectly. He's witty, charming, can smack-talk when necessary, and with just enough of a college boy snarky edge... you feel like if there's someone who can lift Bruce's perpetually mood, it'd be him.
Before BTAS my only real exposure to Batman had been the Burton movie and the 66 TV show. I remember seeing Robin's costume and thinking how much better it looked than the TV version (being of an age where I was starting to view Batman 66 as "silly nonsense". Thank god that wore off). I didn't realise for years that he's basically just wearing Tim Drake's costume. I always loved how his hair went from 60s to 90s college boy when he changed between Dick and Robin.
The problem is, there are 10 or 15 of those in Gotham...
Snell: Fair point. #WorstPlaceonEarth
It's just okay- not one of the Joker's best, save for the pie gag- but seeing it pretty much every time you go back to rewatch the series, or pop in the first disc, it wears out it's mediocre welcome VERY quickly.
I kept going back and forth with the rating for this episode, but went with the higher because it was historically important as the first Hamill Joker, and I really do love the opening sequence with Robin trying to show Batman Christmas is a hallowed time. I'd watch the first 5 minutes, then stop and move on to... well... Pretty Poison.
"I'd watch the first 5 minutes, then stop and move on to... well... Pretty Poison."
Good call. :-)
Anyhoo... it's an interesting "what if" scenario to consider, if nothing else...
As has surely been mentioned before, Wayne Enterprises should just go out and buy the abandoned amusement park, the cat-only pet store, the $2 shop where everything's sold in pairs, and the umbrella factory. He'd be saving himself a lot of trouble.
I actually really like Batman's final line here, where he acknowledges that, sometimes, it can be a wonderful life. We've just had Frank Milllar and were about to get at least 15 solid years of Grim and Gritty Batman. This line, said whilst his faithful butler and young ward are with him and he can let his guard down, does remind everyone that, for all its downsides, being Batman is really fucking cool.
(Why is Summer Gleeson in with Gordon and Bullock as representing law anyway? And why isn't she just Vicki Vale?)
It kind of seems like the rise of a Joker in Gotham was inevitable. Heck, I'd love it if some day they created an origin for him as a kid from the streets who was psychologically traumatized by the preponderance of creepy abandoned clown-themed factories until the pressure drove him to become the Joker.
Batman's patrol route really shouldn't be through the rooftops and alleys; he should just give all the abandoned buildings in Gotham a once-over, then call it a night. He'd probably catch most super-villains in the middle of setting up shop. (Perhaps crime is so high in Gotham because no one can get a job; the economy is so terrible, there seem to be more closed & abandoned factories than there are functional businesses.)
"(Why is Summer Gleeson in with Gordon and Bullock as representing law anyway? And why isn't she just Vicki Vale?)"
Or, as some have suggested, if only they'd just premiered Rene Montoya a trifle sooner...
Makes me wonder if they have an abandoned warehouse district like Angel Grove.
And I also thought the line 'Snipers !' was pretty funny, considering the fact the thugs are using machine guns and couldn't hit the side of a barn.