Vintage Interviews with the Makers of the DCAU

[Yojimbo]

“Catwoman is a very strong character,” Dini says. “At one point, we talked about doing Batman-related spin-offs; a Catwoman series or a Robin series. I don’t think those are going to happen at the moment. Catwoman is so strong, she could work without Batman. Bruce and I came up with a really good development for her. We take her out of Gotham City and treat her like an adventurer.”​

In the proposed series, Catwoman is a freelance thief/adventurer. “That makes her a deadly seductress. In a Catwoman series, we could really open her up and make her everything we didn’t have a chance to make her on the show. Catwoman is really interesting and we would have been able to do much more with her. There was talk of both Robin and Catwoman shows, but the one we really wanted to do was Catwoman.

Hmm, I think this is the first time I heard this ungreenlit series would have made Catwoman traveling around the world as a freelance thief/adventurer. Very intriguing. Funny how it more or less was done just recently in Catwoman: Hunted. Only took nearly 20 years, lol.

 

[Revelator]

Serious Heavy [Excerpted from the longer article “Animated Antagonist”]​

By Kyle Counts (Starlog #188, March 1993)

In the animated Batman series, [Richard] Moll does assorted voices voices—including “a computer, a thug, a guard” and other small roles—but he was hired principally to provide the voice of District Attorney Harvey Dent, a.k.a. Batman’s arch-villain Two-Face.

Explains Moll, “Dent gets acid spilled on his face and turns into this really horrendous character who says things like, [menacing, breathy voice] ‘Forget the kid; it's Batman I want.’ He has this low, growling voice. I guess some of the acid got on his vocal chords. He has a split personality, because half of his face is still the handsome Harvey Dent. The other half is all messed up.”

Reportedly, Moll’s audition was so eerily effective that the entire Batman production staff stopped dead in their tracks upon hearing it. “Really? How cool,” Moll enthuses, obviously hearing the story for the first time. “I’m glad to hear it. Mission accomplished.”

“I’ve done a lot of voiceover auditions, and it’s tough to get in,” he continues. “So, it was a delight to get something like Batman. They’re making 65 episodes, and I’m in a number of them. When I first came in, they wanted more of a Marlon Brando kind of thing [he imitates what sounds like a slowly-dying Brando], so I did that. Then, when I started to read on the first episode, I was trying that, but it wasn’t quite happening. So, I went into the voice I used for the sorcerer Xusia in The Sword and the Sorcerer [breathy, growling voice]: ‘Why do you have need of me? You are a king with an army.’ The producers said, ‘That’s it. Stick with that,’ so that became the voice.”

Moll takes a very straightforward approach to character acting. “You just to try to think the thoughts of the character and imagine the situation he’s in,” he remarks. “And perhaps substitute people you don’t really like for the people you’re talking to! Basically, you just get as nasty as you possibly can. You bring out your worst self and just go for it.”

In Moll’s opinion, the animated Batman “has much to offer that’s special. The graphics are quite extraordinary—it has the look of well-drawn comic book. I come in to do looping and I see actual animation. It’s quite impressive visually; it’s almost like cartoons by Rembrandt. The stories are very interesting, too; it’s an adult cartoon. They go pretty deep: They deal with tragedy and sickness and all kinds of strange things. It’s not Tom and Jerry, let’s put it that way.”

Each recording session for the show takes “a couple of hours. Everyone sits in their own little booth in a semi-circle, like a bunch of racehorses getting ready to take off out of the gate. We each have a microphone in front of our face. It’s like a play reading: You stop and go. You read it through first, and then you have a little break. Then we come back in and do it.”

Is the process enjoyable? “Oh yeah. I have a lot of fun,” he chuckles. “I goof off a great deal. I make salty comments and things like that—none of which they can use.”

 

[Revelator]

Metropolis Daze and Gotham Knights​

When it’s time to animate both Superman & Batman, Paul Dini answers the call.

By Bob Miller (Starlog Presents: Batman & Other Comics Heroes #1, 1997)

Just as Batman & Robin unleashes a new wave of comics, toys and other merchandise, Warner Bros. is relaunching the animated adventures of Gotham's greatest detective.

Already available is a new 90-minute, direct-to-video feature which, not surprisingly, stars Mr. Freeze (Michael Ansara). Written by Randy Rogel and Boyd Kirkland and directed by Kirkland, Sub-Zero closes a chapter on the villain’s tragic life.

“When we did Mr. Freeze for the initial batch of Batman stories, we gave him this sad sack story, which provided motivation the character never had before,” says series producer Paul Dini, who revitalized Freeze in the Emmy Award-winning “Heart of Ice.” Dini gave scientist Victor Fries a love interest, who was stricken with an incurable disease and placed in cryogenic suspension until a cure could be found. An impatient executive, Ferris Boyle, causes an accident that ruins the experiment and transforms Fries into a man who can't survive outside a subzero environment.

“It’s something that I think everybody—not only connected with the show, but in other parts of the DC/Warners Universe—has realized is an important part of the character,” Dini relates. “So, elements of that story are popping up in Sub-Zero and are also popping up, to a degree, in the new live-action Batman & Robin.

“It’s a very moving story. But we’ve done just about everything we can do with the idea of him trying to revive his wife. They brought that story to a certain amount of closure in the Sub-Zero video.

“So, we’re planning something new for Mr. Freeze. I don’t want to say exactly what. It’ll be a surprise. We want to make him somebody who you’re going to empathize with, even though he’s one of the more terrifying villains in Batman’s Rogues Gallery It’ll be kind of a shock, and definitely not what people are expecting.”

Dark Designs​

Sub-Zero is the last appearance of the Batman cast as you’ve seen them in the animated series over the years. That’s because producer/designer Bruce Timm is upgrading their designs.

“When Batman started, everybody involved had a lot of enthusiasm and expertise, but, in many ways, we were novices,” Dini explains. “In the five years since, we’ve learned how to make the show look better, to make the characters cleaner-looking, to come up with better ways of storytelling. We wanted to give the show a complete overhaul. That included changing some of the designs, making-them a little more streamlined, in some cases a little more cartoony, and in many cases less detailed. That was refined to great degree when Bruce designed the Superman characters.

“It’s just to give the show a facelift. Why not change Batman a little bit? They do it in the comics all the time. It’s a look everybody’s going to like, I think. It’s the same old characters, but with a bit of a new look. Also, it keeps the show visually exciting.”

Returning to the cast are Kevin Conroy as Batman/Bruce Wayne, Loren Lester as Dick Grayson, Efrem Zimbalist Jr. as Alfred Pennyworth, Bob Hastings as Commissioner Gordon, Lloyd Bochner as Mayor Hamilton Hill and Robert Costanzo as Harvey Bullock. On the villains’ side, Mark Hamill is back as the Joker, Arleen Sorkin as Harley Quinn and Adrienne Barbeau as Catwoman.

The new episodes occur two years after Sub-Zero. Dick Grayson has left Gotham City, traveled abroad and has come back as a more experienced and much more opinionated young hero, now called Nightwing. Batman chooses a new Robin, Tim Drake (Matthew Ventura [sic]), who’s much younger and inexperienced, but tougher and more streetwise. Batgirl (Tara Charendoff) also works with Batman on specific cases.

“We won’t see all of these heroes together in each episode," Dini says. “It’ll be either Batman and Batgirl or Batman and Nightwing or Batman and Robin. They’ll all be together in episodes where there’s a large disaster.”

Team-ups with other DC superheroes are possible, but such visits will be limited, according to Dini. “We are thinking of bringing in other characters who would fit into Batman’s world, such as the Creeper, the Demon, some occasional crossovers with Superman—and more DC characters as we need them, or as they’re available to us.”

The superhero crossovers will be minimal because, as Dini points out, “The show’s energy is pretty much Batman and his relationship to his other allies. We have to really work to find reasons for other DC heroes and villains not normally associated with Batman to show up. We’re not saying it’s impossible; we’re just saying that, when you do a show like this one, the main focus of your entertainment is on your leads. So, bringing in characters such as Hawkman or Green Lantern gets to be more of a stunt. If there’s a reason for it, fine. If not, it’s a stunt and it tends to detract from your core group of characters. That’s why we don't do that as often as the fans would like us to do it.

“We’ll spend more time with Batman and his allies, as opposed to stories where Batman takes a subordinate role to the villain. Batman himself will be as he always is: grim, dark, moody. He’s just working more with a group of allies now, rather than a particular one, as he did with Robin.”

Cats & Quinns​

In his third season [sic] episode “Catwalk,” nominated for an Annie Award, Dini turned Catwoman into a full-time criminal, and she will remain a villain in the new episodes.

“Catwoman is the one villain who seems to be the most akin to Batman; and if he was going to stray with one of the villainesses, it would be Catwoman, long before anybody else,” Dini says. “She’s too much like him, in many ways. And so, she’s always a temptation for Batman. She’s just there on the other side of the line. She’s close enough to see and almost to touch, but she’s going to remain a serious temptation—which is a good role.

“We changed her from the ‘good girl gone slightly bad,’ as she was in the first season, to somebody who’s very much a creature of the night. She has a very strong attraction to Batman and he to her. But still, she’s the forbidden fruit.”

The production team will adapt the Batman Adventures Holiday Special Dini wrote in 1993, which was illustrated by series directors Timm, Ronnie del Carmen, Kevin Altieri, Dan Riba and Glen Murakami. Several stories in the comic will form the basis for an animated Christmas episode, but at least one story won’t be adapted.

“We’re going to leave out the Mr. Freeze sequence because the events happening in Sub-Zero—and our own revised take on Mr. Freeze—will make it problematic for us to adapt that story. Also, we looked at it as way too long. Something had to go, so we’re keeping the other elements of that story involving Clayface, Joker and Harley & Ivy.”

Continuity buffs will point out that Clayface actually died in the second season’s “Mudslide,” when his body dissolved in ocean surf. How did Dini resurrect him for the Christmas special? “Death in cartoons and comics is just a temporary thing,” he remarks. “This just happens to be another story with Clayface in it. So, if you don’t think about the continuity too much, it won’t bother you. Don’t ask questions. Just…enjoy it.”

Dini’s Harvey and Eisner Award-winning graphic novel, Mad Love, is another contender to be adapted as an animated episode. “Mad Love is the official origin of Harley Quinn, so whether or not we do a verbatim adaptation of the book or we tell just certain elements of Harley’s past as they appeared in Mad Love remains to be seen. We will be doing a detailed story of Harley Quinn and her life which will involve elements of Mad Love, if not telling that story outright.”

Currently, the WB Network plans to air 24 new episodes of Batman with 41 episodes of Superman, six days a week. The rotation will be Superman one day, Batman the next. The season will kick off this fall with a “World's Finest” three-parter, with special appearances by the Joker and Harley Quinn. There’s also a budding romance between Bruce Wayne—and Lois Lane.

“Lois will find herself attracted to many more people than Superman or Clark Kent,” Dini says. “We will see some progression in their relationship, but we don’t plan on them getting married any time soon.”

With Batman and Superman being made for the WB Network, the production team finds more creative freedom than they had at the Fox Network, with less interference from WB’s broadcast censors. “Generally, the network has been less strict on Superman,” Dini says. “On the other hand, you can throw just about anything at Superman and he’s not affected by it. Batman and most of his enemies are mortal. So, the things that Superman and Metallo can do to each other, you can’t have Batman and the Joker do to each other. But I think it’s a good chance we’ll see a little bit harder edge to the action on the WB.”

In the second season Superman episodes, the Man of Steel will encounter more of his particular Rogues Gallery, such as Bizarro, Mr. Mxyzptlk and the villains from the Phantom Zone.

“Darkseid will continue to be a major player in our show,” Dini says. “We have a big two-part episode (story by Timm, teleplay by Rich Fogel) which has Superman and the New Gods fighting Darkseid, who’s leading an all-out invasion of Earth. And that one really has it all—drama, action, comedy, tragedy—and almost all of Jack Kirby’s Fourth World characters. It’s really going to be a high point of the entire series.”

The new season will also introduce Supergirl (Nicholle Tom of The Nanny) as a recurring character. “Supergirl is going to appear in a two-part episode, and she’s fast evolving into one of our favorite characters,” Dini says. “She comes from a sister planet to Krypton, from the same solar system, which was thrown out of its orbit when Krypton exploded. Superman finds and revives her on Earth, and more or less adopts her as a member of the Kent family.

“Although she’s a true heroine in every sense of the word and has a strong sense of right and wrong, she’s also a 16-year-old and has a strong, independent stubborn streak in her. More than anything, she would like to be a heroine out on her own. But she’s still a little green at this point, and her enthusiasm far outweighs her judgment. So, we have a two-part episode which introduces her and shows her getting in way over her head confronting a plot by some of Darkseid’s agents from Apokolips to take over Earth.”

With Supergirl available for superhero duty, what would keep Superman from using her every time there’s a crisis? “He doesn’t have to use her for every situation he gets involved in. In fact, he would prefer not to,” Dini says.

“She’s still a new arrival to Earth. She has to get used to life on this planet, and Superman would prefer for her to take it slow, and perhaps not even become a super-heroine, if that’s her choice. He’s mostly concerned with saving the life of a young girl—and the fact that she develops these abilities is beside the point. He’s mostly concerned with her happiness and well-being.

“If she wants to utilize her abilities to help him, that’s fine. But Superman must instill in her a better sense of judgment, that she can’t just put on her homemade Supergirl suit and go off and fight crime. There are consequences to this. There are dangers involved. Superman himself is still vulnerable to those dangers, and that’s the thing he’s most concerned about with Supergirl. As he says to her in her. first episode, ‘I didn’t save your life just so you could throw it away fighting some ray gun-toting maniac.’

“So in most cases, he will not call Supergirl. She’s living with his adopted folks back in Smallville. Sometimes she really hates being stuck down on the farm, but she made a promise to him and she’s going to keep it. But certainly, if there are events where he needs somebody with similar powers, he will call on her.”

Dini promises many surprises in the upcoming Superman/Batman series. “That’s what makes the show fun for us.”

Despite the changes in Batman’s designs and format, Dini feels confident that viewers will adjust quickly. “We’re always going to be changing things here and there, refining our characters somewhat, broadening relationships in some cases. We’re picking up as we go along, and taking the characters on what we feel is a natural progression for them to go.

“We’re not going to do anything drastic, like marry off Bruce Wayne. But we’re going to do things that will intrigue and surprise people,” Paul Dini says. “We think everybody who has been clamoring for Batman’s return will be more than pleased to see the character back and will really like what we’ve done with the show.”

 

[Pfeiffer-Pfan]

So, if you don’t think about the continuity too much, it won’t bother you. Don’t ask questions. Just…enjoy it.”​

This reminds me... what's going on with season 3 of B:TAC?

Weird that they are talking about the ''already released'' Sub-Zero. I guess WB really did pull it at the last minute.

 

[GrantM]

Metropolis Daze and Gotham Knights​

When it’s time to animate both Superman & Batman, Paul Dini answers the call.

By Bob Miller (Starlog Presents: Batman & Other Comics Heroes #1, 1997)

Just as Batman & Robin unleashes a new wave of comics, toys and other merchandise, Warner Bros. is relaunching the animated adventures of Gotham's greatest detective.

Already available is a new 90-minute, direct-to-video feature which, not surprisingly, stars Mr. Freeze (Michael Ansara). Written by Randy Rogel and Boyd Kirkland and directed by Kirkland, Sub-Zero closes a chapter on the villain’s tragic life.

“When we did Mr. Freeze for the initial batch of Batman stories, we gave him this sad sack story, which provided motivation the character never had before,” says series producer Paul Dini, who revitalized Freeze in the Emmy Award-winning “Heart of Ice.” Dini gave scientist Victor Fries a love interest, who was stricken with an incurable disease and placed in cryogenic suspension until a cure could be found. An impatient executive, Ferris Boyle, causes an accident that ruins the experiment and transforms Fries into a man who can't survive outside a subzero environment.

“It’s something that I think everybody—not only connected with the show, but in other parts of the DC/Warners Universe—has realized is an important part of the character,” Dini relates. “So, elements of that story are popping up in Sub-Zero and are also popping up, to a degree, in the new live-action Batman & Robin.

“It’s a very moving story. But we’ve done just about everything we can do with the idea of him trying to revive his wife. They brought that story to a certain amount of closure in the Sub-Zero video.

“So, we’re planning something new for Mr. Freeze. I don’t want to say exactly what. It’ll be a surprise. We want to make him somebody who you’re going to empathize with, even though he’s one of the more terrifying villains in Batman’s Rogues Gallery It’ll be kind of a shock, and definitely not what people are expecting.”

Dark Designs​

Sub-Zero is the last appearance of the Batman cast as you’ve seen them in the animated series over the years. That’s because producer/designer Bruce Timm is upgrading their designs.

“When Batman started, everybody involved had a lot of enthusiasm and expertise, but, in many ways, we were novices,” Dini explains. “In the five years since, we’ve learned how to make the show look better, to make the characters cleaner-looking, to come up with better ways of storytelling. We wanted to give the show a complete overhaul. That included changing some of the designs, making-them a little more streamlined, in some cases a little more cartoony, and in many cases less detailed. That was refined to great degree when Bruce designed the Superman characters.

“It’s just to give the show a facelift. Why not change Batman a little bit? They do it in the comics all the time. It’s a look everybody’s going to like, I think. It’s the same old characters, but with a bit of a new look. Also, it keeps the show visually exciting.”

Returning to the cast are Kevin Conroy as Batman/Bruce Wayne, Loren Lester as Dick Grayson, Efrem Zimbalist Jr. as Alfred Pennyworth, Bob Hastings as Commissioner Gordon, Lloyd Bochner as Mayor Hamilton Hill and Robert Costanzo as Harvey Bullock. On the villains’ side, Mark Hamill is back as the Joker, Arleen Sorkin as Harley Quinn and Adrienne Barbeau as Catwoman.

The new episodes occur two years after Sub-Zero. Dick Grayson has left Gotham City, traveled abroad and has come back as a more experienced and much more opinionated young hero, now called Nightwing. Batman chooses a new Robin, Tim Drake (Matthew Ventura [sic]), who’s much younger and inexperienced, but tougher and more streetwise. Batgirl (Tara Charendoff) also works with Batman on specific cases.

“We won’t see all of these heroes together in each episode," Dini says. “It’ll be either Batman and Batgirl or Batman and Nightwing or Batman and Robin. They’ll all be together in episodes where there’s a large disaster.”

Team-ups with other DC superheroes are possible, but such visits will be limited, according to Dini. “We are thinking of bringing in other characters who would fit into Batman’s world, such as the Creeper, the Demon, some occasional crossovers with Superman—and more DC characters as we need them, or as they’re available to us.”

The superhero crossovers will be minimal because, as Dini points out, “The show’s energy is pretty much Batman and his relationship to his other allies. We have to really work to find reasons for other DC heroes and villains not normally associated with Batman to show up. We’re not saying it’s impossible; we’re just saying that, when you do a show like this one, the main focus of your entertainment is on your leads. So, bringing in characters such as Hawkman or Green Lantern gets to be more of a stunt. If there’s a reason for it, fine. If not, it’s a stunt and it tends to detract from your core group of characters. That’s why we don't do that as often as the fans would like us to do it.

“We’ll spend more time with Batman and his allies, as opposed to stories where Batman takes a subordinate role to the villain. Batman himself will be as he always is: grim, dark, moody. He’s just working more with a group of allies now, rather than a particular one, as he did with Robin.”

Cats & Quinns​

In his third season [sic] episode “Catwalk,” nominated for an Annie Award, Dini turned Catwoman into a full-time criminal, and she will remain a villain in the new episodes.

“Catwoman is the one villain who seems to be the most akin to Batman; and if he was going to stray with one of the villainesses, it would be Catwoman, long before anybody else,” Dini says. “She’s too much like him, in many ways. And so, she’s always a temptation for Batman. She’s just there on the other side of the line. She’s close enough to see and almost to touch, but she’s going to remain a serious temptation—which is a good role.

“We changed her from the ‘good girl gone slightly bad,’ as she was in the first season, to somebody who’s very much a creature of the night. She has a very strong attraction to Batman and he to her. But still, she’s the forbidden fruit.”

The production team will adapt the Batman Adventures Holiday Special Dini wrote in 1993, which was illustrated by series directors Timm, Ronnie del Carmen, Kevin Altieri, Dan Riba and Glen Murakami. Several stories in the comic will form the basis for an animated Christmas episode, but at least one story won’t be adapted.

“We’re going to leave out the Mr. Freeze sequence because the events happening in Sub-Zero—and our own revised take on Mr. Freeze—will make it problematic for us to adapt that story. Also, we looked at it as way too long. Something had to go, so we’re keeping the other elements of that story involving Clayface, Joker and Harley & Ivy.”

Continuity buffs will point out that Clayface actually died in the second season’s “Mudslide,” when his body dissolved in ocean surf. How did Dini resurrect him for the Christmas special? “Death in cartoons and comics is just a temporary thing,” he remarks. “This just happens to be another story with Clayface in it. So, if you don’t think about the continuity too much, it won’t bother you. Don’t ask questions. Just…enjoy it.”

Dini’s Harvey and Eisner Award-winning graphic novel, Mad Love, is another contender to be adapted as an animated episode. “Mad Love is the official origin of Harley Quinn, so whether or not we do a verbatim adaptation of the book or we tell just certain elements of Harley’s past as they appeared in Mad Love remains to be seen. We will be doing a detailed story of Harley Quinn and her life which will involve elements of Mad Love, if not telling that story outright.”

Currently, the WB Network plans to air 24 new episodes of Batman with 41 episodes of Superman, six days a week. The rotation will be Superman one day, Batman the next. The season will kick off this fall with a “World's Finest” three-parter, with special appearances by the Joker and Harley Quinn. There’s also a budding romance between Bruce Wayne—and Lois Lane.

“Lois will find herself attracted to many more people than Superman or Clark Kent,” Dini says. “We will see some progression in their relationship, but we don’t plan on them getting married any time soon.”

With Batman and Superman being made for the WB Network, the production team finds more creative freedom than they had at the Fox Network, with less interference from WB’s broadcast censors. “Generally, the network has been less strict on Superman,” Dini says. “On the other hand, you can throw just about anything at Superman and he’s not affected by it. Batman and most of his enemies are mortal. So, the things that Superman and Metallo can do to each other, you can’t have Batman and the Joker do to each other. But I think it’s a good chance we’ll see a little bit harder edge to the action on the WB.”

In the second season Superman episodes, the Man of Steel will encounter more of his particular Rogues Gallery, such as Bizarro, Mr. Mxyzptlk and the villains from the Phantom Zone.

“Darkseid will continue to be a major player in our show,” Dini says. “We have a big two-part episode (story by Timm, teleplay by Rich Fogel) which has Superman and the New Gods fighting Darkseid, who’s leading an all-out invasion of Earth. And that one really has it all—drama, action, comedy, tragedy—and almost all of Jack Kirby’s Fourth World characters. It’s really going to be a high point of the entire series.”

The new season will also introduce Supergirl (Nicholle Tom of The Nanny) as a recurring character. “Supergirl is going to appear in a two-part episode, and she’s fast evolving into one of our favorite characters,” Dini says. “She comes from a sister planet to Krypton, from the same solar system, which was thrown out of its orbit when Krypton exploded. Superman finds and revives her on Earth, and more or less adopts her as a member of the Kent family.

“Although she’s a true heroine in every sense of the word and has a strong sense of right and wrong, she’s also a 16-year-old and has a strong, independent stubborn streak in her. More than anything, she would like to be a heroine out on her own. But she’s still a little green at this point, and her enthusiasm far outweighs her judgment. So, we have a two-part episode which introduces her and shows her getting in way over her head confronting a plot by some of Darkseid’s agents from Apokolips to take over Earth.”

With Supergirl available for superhero duty, what would keep Superman from using her every time there’s a crisis? “He doesn’t have to use her for every situation he gets involved in. In fact, he would prefer not to,” Dini says.

“She’s still a new arrival to Earth. She has to get used to life on this planet, and Superman would prefer for her to take it slow, and perhaps not even become a super-heroine, if that’s her choice. He’s mostly concerned with saving the life of a young girl—and the fact that she develops these abilities is beside the point. He’s mostly concerned with her happiness and well-being.

“If she wants to utilize her abilities to help him, that’s fine. But Superman must instill in her a better sense of judgment, that she can’t just put on her homemade Supergirl suit and go off and fight crime. There are consequences to this. There are dangers involved. Superman himself is still vulnerable to those dangers, and that’s the thing he’s most concerned about with Supergirl. As he says to her in her. first episode, ‘I didn’t save your life just so you could throw it away fighting some ray gun-toting maniac.’

“So in most cases, he will not call Supergirl. She’s living with his adopted folks back in Smallville. Sometimes she really hates being stuck down on the farm, but she made a promise to him and she’s going to keep it. But certainly, if there are events where he needs somebody with similar powers, he will call on her.”

Dini promises many surprises in the upcoming Superman/Batman series. “That’s what makes the show fun for us.”

Despite the changes in Batman’s designs and format, Dini feels confident that viewers will adjust quickly. “We’re always going to be changing things here and there, refining our characters somewhat, broadening relationships in some cases. We’re picking up as we go along, and taking the characters on what we feel is a natural progression for them to go.

“We’re not going to do anything drastic, like marry off Bruce Wayne. But we’re going to do things that will intrigue and surprise people,” Paul Dini says. “We think everybody who has been clamoring for Batman’s return will be more than pleased to see the character back and will really like what we’ve done with the show.”

25 years later fans are still divided over the redesigns.......even still I do understand why that was done. It don't bother me

 

[Revelator]

I've run out (temporarily, I hope) of material to scan and transcribe, but to compensate I found some links of interest.

Starburst magazine has uploaded three recent and lengthy interviews with BTAS alumni:

Andrea Romano

Loren Lester

Paul Dini

 

[-batmat-]

Interesting to read Mask Of The Phantasm is not one of Bruce Timm's favorite movies.

 

[Revelator]

Interesting to read Mask Of The Phantasm is not one of Bruce Timm's favorite movies.

Timm wasn't fully satisfied with the film's animation. He discusses this in the Modern Masters book:

"I think we could have done better. Which is really weird, because we spent a lot of money on it for the time. We had a much bigger budget for that show than we did for the regular TV show, and I don't think it really shows on the screen. I think it looks like an episode of Batman. I don't think it looks like a theatrical production. I mean, it's okay, the animation's good—it's definitely comparable to the other stuff we were doing at that time. If TMS had animated it, it would have had a little bit more finesse, a little bit more polish. It's not even so much the money, but the thing was cranked out really quickly. There was never enough time to finesse it to the point I would have been happy with. And again, it was never intended to be theatrical. If we had known going in that it was going to be a theatrical movie , we probably would have worked a little bit harder on it to broaden the scope of it, to make it a little more elaborate. I don't know, it's all hindsight, but I was never very satisfied with Mask of the Phantasm. It was a pretty good attempt, but I've always felt it was lacking in some respects."

 

[Fone Bone]

Timm wasn't fully satisfied with the film's animation. He discusses this in the Modern Masters book:

"I think we could have done better. Which is really weird, because we spent a lot of money on it for the time. We had a much bigger budget for that show than we did for the regular TV show, and I don't think it really shows on the screen. I think it looks like an episode of Batman. I don't think it looks like a theatrical production. I mean, it's okay, the animation's good—it's definitely comparable to the other stuff we were doing at that time. If TMS had animated it, it would have had a little bit more finesse, a little bit more polish. It's not even so much the money, but the thing was cranked out really quickly. There was never enough time to finesse it to the point I would have been happy with. And again, it was never intended to be theatrical. If we had known going in that it was going to be a theatrical movie , we probably would have worked a little bit harder on it to broaden the scope of it, to make it a little more elaborate. I don't know, it's all hindsight, but I was never very satisfied with Mask of the Phantasm. It was a pretty good attempt, but I've always felt it was lacking in some respects."

I think what @b.t. really needs to keep in mind about Mask Of The Phantasm, and why it was great, is because the script was phenomenal. Focusing on the animation failures is sort of missing the forest for the trees there. I believe an animation magazine noted back in the day that if Tim Burton's Batman had used that script for Batman '89 instead of the mess script it did it probably would have done two or three times the business and been the highest grossing film of all time.

The fact that the animation is shady doesn't change the fact that Mask Of The Phantasm is one of the best Batman theatrical films. I think only people could seriously argue The Dark Knight is better, and that's an opinion I don't actually share.

 

[-batmat-]

It's only natural to only see the flaws in your own product. I have the same issue with what I do. However, I think he was being unfairly tough on it. As Fone Bone said, the script is phenomenal. Half the work is done there. But I wouldn't say the animation is bad at all. It's comparable to the best animated episodes of the show, and then some, since it had bigger sets and a great atmosphere.

It would have been very interesting to see what Phantasm could have been if it had been intended for a theatrical release from the start and had not been rushed. But even so, it's still my favorite Batman movie, and a 10/10 in my book (except for that Tia Carrere song in the credits, ugh!)

I also wonder, what is @b.t. 's favorite DC animated movie? Bases on his comments above, I'd guess Return Of The Joker? Would be interesting to know, for sure.

 

[Ed Nygma]

Timm wasn't fully satisfied with the film's animation. He discusses this in the Modern Masters book:

"I think we could have done better. Which is really weird, because we spent a lot of money on it for the time. We had a much bigger budget for that show than we did for the regular TV show, and I don't think it really shows on the screen. I think it looks like an episode of Batman. I don't think it looks like a theatrical production. I mean, it's okay, the animation's good—it's definitely comparable to the other stuff we were doing at that time. If TMS had animated it, it would have had a little bit more finesse, a little bit more polish. It's not even so much the money, but the thing was cranked out really quickly. There was never enough time to finesse it to the point I would have been happy with. And again, it was never intended to be theatrical. If we had known going in that it was going to be a theatrical movie , we probably would have worked a little bit harder on it to broaden the scope of it, to make it a little more elaborate. I don't know, it's all hindsight, but I was never very satisfied with Mask of the Phantasm. It was a pretty good attempt, but I've always felt it was lacking in some respects."

I have to share Timm's opinion. I love the dark story and mature themes, but the animation is so weak it undercuts everything and makes it look so cheap. Even as a kid (I saw it in the theater) I could tell it wasn't even as good as the better episodes TMS did, and it badly needed about 10-15 minutes more of story to let the plot breathe and not rush though everything so fast. For example they waste an enormous amount of time setting up Carl as the red herring, then don't even bother to explain the logistics of how Andrea in the suit worked or was able to pass pitchforks through her body. Finesse, as he says, is key.

I'm one of those people who can't separate the animation from the overall grade- it's part of the appeal. It's like saying a poorly acted and miscast movie doesn't matter because the story is still good. I don't know. One of my favorite anime of all time is Akira- I love the themes- but the story is a bit of a confusing mess, the entire selling point is the animation so a rising tide lifts all ships. If Spectrum had animated that, no one would like it or revisit it. Whereas that had a mind melting 24 frames drawn per second, Phantasm at times looks like it has 2 frames per second.

 

[Pfeiffer-Pfan]

I disagree that the animation in Mask of the Phantasm is ''weak''. It's perfectly on par with what the TV series was producing at the time. No, it doesn't have a theatrical polish, but then it was never supposed to. It was designed for small, square television screens. Frankly, it's better animated than the 10 years younger Mystery of the Batwoman.

It's not a perfect movie, but the story, voice acting and music elevate it to being one of the most memorable.

 

[-batmat-]

Wow! Where's a "disagree" button!?

I liked that they didn't explain how The Phantasm's suit works. The movie wouldn't have been better because of it, and the mystery behind it is better, keeps you imagining how it was done! Gives it a fantastical feel that I love

 

[Fone Bone]

Wow! Where's a "disagree" button!?

I liked that they didn't explain how The Phantasm's suit works. The movie wouldn't have been better because of it, and the mystery behind it is better, keeps you imagining how it was done! Gives it a fantastical feel that I love

Unexplained mysteries are better than explained ones. Always. My caveat is there needs to be a reasonable conclusion the viewer can reach on their own to solve it. I don't like mystery solves being spoon-fed to me. On the other hand, pitchforks passing through Phantasm are a problem because there isn't a logical real-world solution the viewer could come up with themselves. It's hinted through that happening the Phantasm is magical or superpowered. If she's actually not, that doesn't fit.

 

[-batmat-]

The DCAU is not realistic. There's pits with a liquid that grant you immortality. There's other planets with inteligent life on them. Boom tubes. Shapeshifting people made out of clay. A pitchfork passing through smoke fits in that universe. If anything, it leaves you amazed and wondering "How did she do that?!" . I guess its up to each person.

 

[Fone Bone]

The DCAU is not realistic. There's pits with a liquid that grant you immortality. There's other planets with inteligent life on them. Boom tubes. Shapeshifting people made out of clay. A pitchfork passing through smoke fits in that universe. If anything, it leaves you amazed and wondering "How did she do that?!" . I guess its up to each person.

See, here is the thing. The reality (or lack of it) needs to be consistent the entire way through. If Batman hit Robin with a mallet and started bouncing off the walls like Daffy Duck we'd have a problem whether the show was previously unrealistic or not. All shows and movies, no matter what they are, should have their own standard of believability and it needs to be kept consistent. And they should stay in their lanes there.

And Phantasm's magic powers are pushing it for the DCAU. No question. It's worse for me because magic and superpowers DO exist in this narrative. But there's no way Andrea possesses either, which makes it an actual failing.

 

[-batmat-]

See, here is the thing. The reality (or lack of it) needs to be consistent the entire way through. If Batman hit Robin with a mallet and started bouncing off the walls like Daffy Duck we'd have a problem whether the show was previously unrealistic or not. All shows and movies, no matter what they are, should have their own standard of believability and it needs to be kept consistent. And they should stay in their lanes there.

And Phantasm's magic powers are pushing it for the DCAU. No question. It's worse for me because magic and superpowers DO exist in this narrative. But there's no way Andrea possesses either, which makes it an actual failing.

I disagree about that last bit. I don't see it as a failing at all. We just don't know how she does it. And that makes it interesting in a way, because it leads to talks like these. Maybe she covers herself with smoke and simply ducks, who knows, it doesn't really matter. It just looks awesome and we know there's a way she's doing it.

 

[ABrown]

Currently, the WB Network plans to air 24 new episodes of Batman with 41 episodes of Superman, six days a week. The rotation will be Superman one day, Batman the next.

See this isn't necessarily the way that I thought I was planned from the get go. Superman TAS had a 13 episode first season. After that Batman TAS was revamped into TNBA and combined with Superman TAS into The New Batman/Superman Adventures. I've pretty much always assumed that 52 episodes of The New Batman/Superman Adventures were ordered. That way a one hour block could be aired once a week/twice a year. For those 52
episodes, it ended up being 28 Superman episodes and 24 Batman episodes. As the three part World's Finest story was all considered Superman episodes.

After those 52 episodes, another 13 episode season of Superman TAS was ordered. But rather than ordering more episodes of TNBA, a 13 episode season of Batman Beyond was ordered. I mean maybe it was all planned from the get go. It really doesn't make a difference.

 

[Ed Nygma]

See, here is the thing. The reality (or lack of it) needs to be consistent the entire way through. If Batman hit Robin with a mallet and started bouncing off the walls like Daffy Duck we'd have a problem whether the show was previously unrealistic or not. All shows and movies, no matter what they are, should have their own standard of believability and it needs to be kept consistent. And they should stay in their lanes there.

And Phantasm's magic powers are pushing it for the DCAU. No question. It's worse for me because magic and superpowers DO exist in this narrative. But there's no way Andrea possesses either, which makes it an actual failing.

Yeah, I'm not sure why the opinion was being dragged so much but I would think it's common sense that you can't have a pick-axe magically levitate through a human being and not explain it, and it's in that area that Phantasm fails. I guess people are just undiscriminating and accept whatever's served up in front of them, but it's fair to expect more or bemoan a lack of finesse for a theatrical animated release. Not sure where Mystery of the Batwoman came into it but I actually think that has the worst animation ever done for the DCAU. It's just that Phantasm could've been so much more.

I agree that there needs to be rules for fiction of the fantastic and when they don't follow them, my suspension of disbelief cracks. I can buy that there's a magical flying man with super strength in Superman, and I guess I can then buy in to other characters who come from alien worlds too. In Batman, they present it as a realistic setting, so I chafe when they disrupt that 'logic' in episodes like Avatar or the Demon Within, where we have centuries-old mystic creatures. It clashes simply because they don't bother to explain it. Obviously I know if a person dressed up in a bat costume to fight crime they'd get shot on their first night out; I suspend disbelief for that, but the show then has to follow the rules it establishes. Andrea's supernatural abilities are never addressed simply because there is no clever explanation, and thus the pick-axe or ability to vanish for miles just because smoke emanates should never have been included.

This is a bit random but it reminds me of a similar problem in the 6th Harry Potter, where Dumbledore tasks Harry with extracting a vital memory from Slughorn in order to figure out Voldemort's plan. It's so important that instead of handling it himself and forcing Slughorn to tell him in a matter of minutes, it's delegated to Harry who takes an entire year to do it. In the book it "sort of" makes sense as a plot device, as Harry needs something to do and the story needs to extend a whole school year, plus the whole young adult novel tropes thing. In the movie, this makes no sense as they can control time and in fact the medium depends on compressing time frames, but they don't bother to explain it with even an attempt as why Dumbledore would entrust something this vital to Harry if it needs to be done now. It's sloppy, and I guess it just amounts to what you enjoy taking away from your entertainment.

 

[Fone Bone]

I disagree about that last bit. I don't see it as a failing at all. We just don't know how she does it. And that makes it interesting in a way, because it leads to talks like these. Maybe she covers herself with smoke and simply ducks, who knows, it doesn't really matter. It just looks awesome and we know there's a way she's doing it.

But I don't BELIEVE there's a way she's doing it. That's the failing.