Though a few too many of Batman’s villains were reintroduced as tragic losers, the strength of the best reimaginings certainly earned their place in the ongoing Bat-canon. This quality threatened to devolve into self-parody when, in the wake of the acclaim garnered by the show’s reimagined Mr. The term “dark” usually implies scary, violent, and tonally dark content, of which there was plenty (though perhaps less than you remember), but what really set Batman: The Animated Series apart from other “mature” content wasn’t its S&P-bending use of firearms (most other shows at the time were forced to use fictional laser guns), occasional bloodshed, or barely-concealed fetishistic kinks – it was its willingness to slow the pace and dig into complex and ambiguous emotional stakes. Still, the crux of the style remained and the creators never dialed back their impressionistic instincts.īatman: The Animated Series was also more adult-oriented than most kid-aimed animated shows, at least once the creative staff hit their stride (I’d personally mark episodes 10 and 11 – Two-Face parts 1 & 2 – as the point that the show shifted from interesting to great). Eventually, much of the look was reconfigured to fit a larger universe, including a sister show in Superman (1996-2000), a future-set spin-off in Batman Beyond (1999-2001), a superhero team-up series in Justice League (2001-2006), Static Shock (2000-2004), the first superhero show built around a predominantly black cast, and an oft-forgotten spin-off that was spun-off of that future-set spin-off called The Zeta Project (2001–2002). The results were an impossible blend of disparate elements and anachronisms that somehow felt like an entirely natural stage for the characters. In turn, Radomski’s backgrounds and props took on the Art Deco appearance of Fleischer’s shorts, while the greater atmosphere was tinged by the moody Gothic noir popularized by Burton’s films. The character designs, based largely on Timm’s illustrations, refused to adhere to the established models of early ‘90s comic books or cartoons, opting instead to adapt the burly figures and clean lines of Dave Fleischer’s 1940s animated Superman serials. Theoretically, it was this built-in popularity that allowed the creative staff – which included Bruce Timm, Eric Radomski, Paul Dini, Alan Burnett, and Dwayne McDuffie, among others – to take unique creative chances. One of the most high-profile cartoons of the era, Batman: The Animated Series, was destined to be a hit, because it was riding the boffo box office coattails of Tim Burton’s Batman (1989) and Batman Returns (1992), and was based on the exploits of one of the two or three most prominent comic book franchises of all time. characters/concepts, namely Tiny Toons and Animaniacs. Fox’s aforementioned yellow-skinned sitcom family set the tone early, alongside Nickelodeon’s Sunday morning Nicktoons block ( Doug, Rugrats, Rocko’s Modern Life, and Ren & Stimpy), and revamped classic Warner Bros. A new generation of channel executives, showrunners, producers, writers, and artists opted to assume that children were more than extensions of their parents’ wallets and studios started the long, slow stroll towards the prestige television animation that we see today. As the ‘90s rolled around and The Simpsons took over primetime, Saturday mornings and weekday afternoons began to rise above the ultra-formulaic toy commercials of the previous decade. These days, television animation is aimed at adults as often as it is children, but, not too long ago, it was seen as strictly kid’s business.
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