Vintage Interviews with the Makers of the DCAU

[Yojimbo]

Wow, didn't expect a heavy discussion about Phantasm. I assumed she used the rest of the money her father embezzled to go on a similar journey training around the world like Bruce but probably more of the criminal ilk and acquired her suit and equipment i.e. voice synthesizer and holographic projector in helmet, hook hand, gas glove apparatus. And in that scene, she expelled the gas, simply ducked, projected her form to make it look supernatural with the pick axe mainly to scare the hell out of Buzz (a superstitious and cowardly lot) to her advantage, stood back up and proceeded to kill Buzz.

 

[Fone Bone]

Wow, didn't expect a heavy discussion about Phantasm. I assumed she used the rest of the money her father embezzled to go on a similar journey training around the world like Bruce but probably more of the criminal ilk and acquired her suit and equipment i.e. voice synthesizer and holographic projector in helmet, hook hand, gas glove apparatus. And in that scene, she expelled the gas, simply ducked, projected her form to make look supernatural with the pick axe mainly to scare the hell out of Buzz (a superstitious and cowardly lot) to her advantage, stood back up and proceeded to kill Buzz.

Pauses. Thinks about it. That's just crazy enough to work. Has @b.t. put you on payroll yet? You are pretty handy at explaining potential mistakes and discrepancies.

 

[Yojimbo]

Pauses. Thinks about it. That's just crazy enough to work. Has @b.t. put you on payroll yet? You are pretty handy at explaining potential mistakes and discrepancies.

Bwahaha. I think they need to squeeze their pennies right now but...

 

[Fone Bone]

Bwahaha. I think they need to squeeze their pennies right now but...

You could be his PR / Hype man.

Fan (to @b.t. ): "Yeah, but how does the static camcorder in "Heart Of Ice" change POV shots and do close-up inserts?"

b.t. turns to Yojimbo.

Yojimbo: "A wizard did it."

Fan: "..."

@b.t. (putting on Vandal Savage crown): "It's good to be king."

 

[Ed Nygma]

Wow, didn't expect a heavy discussion about Phantasm. I assumed she used the rest of the money her father embezzled to go on a similar journey training around the world like Bruce but probably more of the criminal ilk and acquired her suit and equipment i.e. voice synthesizer and holographic projector in helmet, hook hand, gas glove apparatus. And in that scene, she expelled the gas, simply ducked, projected her form to make it look supernatural with the pick axe mainly to scare the hell out of Buzz (a superstitious and cowardly lot) to her advantage, stood back up and proceeded to kill Buzz.

See, that's what I was looking for- that's an actual plausible explanation that makes sense, and I can buy into in a world where they have futuristic bat computers and Hardac. And it wouldn't have taken no more than an extra minute to add that bit, were it not cut to the bone at 75 minutes with no breathing room.

But this goes back to my original point, I'm sorry to say- showing (instead of telling) that explanation for how the suit works is something you could see coming across really well in Ghost in the Shell or The Incredibles, but there's no way to visually explain it here without (gasp) better animation! With the bargain bit budget, it just looks like a Looney Tunes sight gag.

 

[Yojimbo]

See, that's what I was looking for- that's an actual plausible explanation that makes sense, and I can buy into in a world where they have futuristic bat computers and Hardac. And it wouldn't have taken no more than an extra minute to add that bit, were it not cut to the bone at 75 minutes with no breathing room.

But this goes back to my original point, I'm sorry to say- showing (instead of telling) that explanation for how the suit works is something you could see coming across really well in Ghost in the Shell or The Incredibles, but there's no way to visually explain it here without (gasp) better animation! With the bargain bit budget, it just looks like a Looney Tunes sight gag.

Hm, in retrospect, they could have shown it as a quick montage during the flashback when Andrea returns home and the pre-Joker comes walking out and she finds her father dead off-screen. Instead of going back to the present, a few seconds of a training montage would have been enough to visually give us an explanation i.e. her testing the helmet's capabilities as she's assembling her costume or a jump cut to her POV during the earlier killings showing how she really did her moves. But yeah, as you say, maybe there was something like that but it got cut during editing to meet the run time.

 

[Fone Bone]

Hm, in retrospect, they could have shown it as a quick montage during the flashback when Andrea returns home and the pre-Joker comes walking out and she finds her father dead off-screen. Instead of going back to the present, a few seconds of a training montage would have been enough to visually give us an explanation i.e. her testing the helmet's capabilities as she's assembling her costume or a jump cut to her POV during the earlier killings showing how she really did her moves. But yeah, as you say, maybe there was something like that but it got cut during editing to meet the run time.

Honestly, your explanation is good enough for me. Because it's possible in my head now, it doesn't require me to have the producers spell it out. You done good here.

 

[-batmat-]

Andrea jumping on Bruce and managing to take him down (even if he wasn't expecting it) is more than enough foreshadowing that she's had training, even before all the stuff with her dad went down.

At the point in the movie where we find out Andrea is the Phantasm, the movie is more about actually revealing only that, since thats the mystery of the movie, and we know the final showdown is coming, so stopping the movie to explain Andrea's training and scientific explanation of her suit's abilities seems like a waste of time, and completely pointless.

Not everything has to be spelled out and explained. A little mystery is always good, leaving it to ourselves to fill the blanks. Does not knowing exactly how Andrea's suit works affect the emotional story of the movie? Not for me, but I guess it's different for everyone.

And if that bothers you, I'm guessing there's so many other things that must bother you! How did Batman save a huge chicken soup container in his belt? Or in 'Joker's Wild' when the belt opens up with the grapple gun seemingly coming from inside his body? How does the Joker spits acid from his flower if we don't see him move at all, or pressing any button? He doesn't seem to have one since we don't see it... etc , etc , etc

 

[Otaku-sempai]

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

Honestly, I've been with -batmat- on this; my assumption was that Andrea used her smokescreen to dodge the projectile and quickly return to her original position before the smoke cleared. Awkward and less than convincing, but plausible.

 

[Ed Nygma]

Andrea jumping on Bruce and managing to take him down (even if he wasn't expecting it) is more than enough foreshadowing that she's had training, even before all the stuff with her dad went down.

At the point in the movie where we find out Andrea is the Phantasm, the movie is more about actually revealing only that, since thats the mystery of the movie, and we know the final showdown is coming, so stopping the movie to explain Andrea's training and scientific explanation of her suit's abilities seems like a waste of time, and completely pointless.

Not everything has to be spelled out and explained. A little mystery is always good, leaving it to ourselves to fill the blanks. Does not knowing exactly how Andrea's suit works affect the emotional story of the movie? Not for me, but I guess it's different for everyone.

And if that bothers you, I'm guessing there's so many other things that must bother you! How did Batman save a huge chicken soup container in his belt? Or in 'Joker's Wild' when the belt opens up with the grapple gun seemingly coming from inside his body? How does the Joker spits acid from his flower if we don't see him move at all, or pressing any button? He doesn't seem to have one since we don't see it... etc , etc , etc

I don't know that anyone was saying that; I think I kicked off this latest discussion by mentioning the pick-axe, but it was a small part of my larger point- that I think the animation could've been better- to just agree with Bruce's point about finesse. It's kind of hard to make examples that fit perfectly, but I don't know that it has to be either no complaints, perfect/or scorched earth. The chicken soup never really bothered me, you can get away with certain sloppiness on a weekday show (I figured it was in a pocket his cape) but I simply hold Phantasm to a higher standard because it was a theatrical release.

Anyway I feel we might've deviated off-topic from the thread's original purpose, but I don't think anyone is disliking Phantasm. I just share b.t.'s point and get what he meant. There was a theatrical Animaniacs short that debuted with a movie at almost the same time as Phantasm's release, and the animation was miles better (both from WB Anim) because it was always intended for the big screen.

 

[Pfeiffer-Pfan]

I think the only logic jumps that ever really bothered me in B:TAS, where it was hard to suspend disbelief was the moment in ''Joker's Wild'' where Batman pops up a full size grapple gun from the front part of his belt (storyboard artist or AKOM's fault?) and that bit in ''Lock-Up'' where Bruce glaringly uses a bit of smoke in a crowded restaurant to change into his Batman outfit.

I mean, there's no way people didn't see that transformation. Excellent episode otherwise though.

 

[Revelator]

Tomorrow’s Knight

There are heroic things to come for this future Batman

By Pat Jankiewicz (Starlog #259, February 1999)

Brave new Gotham City, make room, make room for some old-fashioned caped crusading.

Time waits for no man—even Batman. While Gotham City has raced into the next century, growing from a bustling city to a sprawling, futuristic metropolis, the Dark Knight has gone grey and senescent. Bruce Wayne’s crime-fighting days are over, but crime still runs wild in his beloved city.

The solution? Herald in the century’s new Batman—only this modern hero will confront evils never imagined by his predecessor. Welcome to Batman Beyond, a 13-episode trek into the Dark Knight’s futuristic adventures from producers/storytellers Alan Burnett, Paul Dini and Bruce Timm, the talented team behind The Batman/Superman Adventures. It debuts Saturday mornings on Kids’ WB this month.

“I wrote the story for the pilot, and Paul and I wrote the script together,” states Burnett, who also co-scripted Batman: Mask of the Phantasm. “Even though Batman Beyond takes place about 40 or 50 years in the future, we fudge the date because we don’t want to get too specific on how old Batman was when he was the big thing in Gotham, and how old he is now.”

Bat Pending

Gotham’s new Dark Knight, or “Tomorrow Knight,” is Terry McGinnis. “A teenager,” Burnett notes. “Besides being the new Batman, Terry is a 16- or 17-year-old high school senior. Terry is a tough street kid, though he still has a roof over his head. He has a short fuse which he always has to hold back. Through some tragic circumstances, he ends up putting on the last Batman costume that Bruce Wayne made for himself, before Bruce decided to hang up his cape.”

Though he no longer wears the cowl, billionaire Wayne still plays an active part in Batman’s life. “Bruce Wayne, as we will show, is pushing 80, and has become a complete recluse. He’s still living in Wayne Manor outside of Gotham City, which is nearer the city now because Gotham has built upon itself and become a real megalopolis. Gotham looks nothing like it does right now. There are all kinds of changes to society.

“Bruce has become a bitter old fart,” Burnett notes. “We actually show the last time he puts the suit on and what caused him to say that he couldn’t do it anymore. His reasons are not as physical as they are psychological. In the very first scene, two minutes into the show, you’ll see Batman do something you’ve never expected him to do in all of your life.”

Born of mutual tragedy and brought together by shared need, the senior citizen and the student form an unlikely friendship—something Burnett finds challenging. “Even though it’s a future show, the heat for me and everybody is not the SF aspect, but the relationship between this kid, Terry, and this old guy, Bruce Wayne. It’s not really a friendly relationship. They learn to respect each other, but it starts off edgy and remains so. They’re not patting each other on the back,” he cautions. “They test each other. That’s the crux of the series.”

As for Batman’s friends and sidekicks, many are no longer around. “Alfred the butler is gone now, departed. We toyed for about 45 seconds with actually having Alfred as the voice of the new Batcave computer, until we looked at each other and said, “ ‘No, that’s too maudlin.’ We suspect Alfred could be buried right there on the estate.

“Commissioner James Gordon, Harvey Bullock and Summer Gleeson are all gone. Catwoman is mentioned, and there’s always the chance you’ll see an 80-year-old lady crossing the street with a bunch of cats,” Burnett smiles. “In the first season, we haven’t dealt yet with what happened to Robin and Nightwing. We’re saving that for the second 13 episodes.”

Despite the secrecy, Burnett does finally allude to a possible less-than-rosy fate for Wayne’s ex-wards. “Let’s put it this way: We hint that whatever occurred among Bruce, Robin and Nightwing, and whatever happened between Robin and Nightwing, was not happy. Maybe [Robin and Nightwing had] a falling out or maybe they’re not even on this planet anymore,” he says coyly. “We have an idea, but we’re not saying.”

Dark Powers

But not everyone from Batman’s past has died or disappeared. “Barbara Gordon is still here and still kicking. She’s no longer Batgirl; she has hung up her cape and is now Police Commissioner. Barbara is voiced by Stockard Channing, and Paul Winfield voices her husband, Gotham City’s District Attorney. It’s amazing to watch these two Oscar-nominated performers up there doing a show. Barbara hasn’t seen Bruce in quite some time-and for a very good, personal reason.

“There’s a lot of new stuff with a feeling of the old history,” Burnett explains. “For example, the school Terry attends is Hamilton Hill High School, the only reference we have to [former Gotham Mayor] Hill. The past does pop up every once in a while in different ways, and of course there’s the Batcave, with all the paraphernalia from the past that Terry wants to find out more about. Otherwise, we have a brand new show.”

Sadly—or happily, depending on your viewpoint—the Clown Prince of Crime is also merely a statistic. “We consider the Joker dead,” he states. “He has been gone for quite a while. There are a loose group of biker types in town, the Jokerz, who have taken on the Joker persona. Paul likens them to the gang in A Clockwork Orange—a nihilistic group out to make trouble for kicks, so in that way, the Joker’s spirit lives on.”

As for any of Batman’s rogues’ gallery haunting future Gotham, it’s unlikely—with one cool exception. “You will see one, but it’s not Ra’s al Ghul, whom everyone expects. The character makes perfect sense when you hear it.” (Here’s a hint—he hates warm weather.)

But classic villains are the least of the Tomorrow Knight’s worries. The future holds a greater evil—one that lurks remarkably close to home. “Our recurring villain, the Lex Luthor of the series, is Derek Powers. Derek is a brand new character, a corporate hotshot who managed to take over Bruce Wayne’s corporation. He’s now a major stockholder, chairman of the board and President of the company. It’s now Wayne/Powers. As Bruce has gone into his reclusive state, Derek has been taking over more and more.

“We also feature a villain called Inque [pronounced “Ink”]—we’re sooo clever,” he jokes. “Inque is a shapeshifter who has the ability to turn inkish; she can transform into a liquid state. She’s a corporate saboteur hired by Powers.”

Ironically for the megalomaniacal Powers, it’s his dark scheming that brings Terry and Bruce together. “The new Batman is seeking vengeance for his father’s death. It’s a big story with the groundwork laid out pretty extensively. Terry’s father used to work for Wayne/Powers, and something happened there that caused his death. Terry is hellbent on uncovering the plot that his father got involved in. We’ve put a lot of thought into this story.”

To keep up with the rising crime rate, this new hero is equipped with the latest Bat-gear, updated for the coming century. “The new Batsuit that Terry wears gives him additional powers that the old Batman didn’t have. He glides more and has more strength than we saw in the Old Batman,” the writer/producer declares.

Despite their zeal regarding the classic crimefighter, putting a kid in the cowl gave the team a new enthusiasm. “It’s fun to do this character as the new Batman,” Burnett admits. “We’re all true-blue Batman fans, but nobody was really sure about doing another franchise based on the character. There was, however, interest from the corporate side to spin off the Batman show, and this is what we came up with. It’s what we thought might be intriguing.”

Of course, Batman Beyond occasionally gets a bit confusing thanks to its heroic variations. “It is difficult right now because Batman is no longer Bruce Wayne,” Burnett admits. “Andrea Romano, our voice director, keeps referring to Kevin Conroy as Batman and then catches herself and says, ‘No, you’re Bruce and Will Friedle is Batman.’ Will, a regular on Boy Meets World, is our new Batman. He’s really good—when you hear his voice, you know he was the right choice. Teri Garr plays his mother.”

Does Conroy, who also voices the contemporary Batman, feel he’s being put out to pasture in Beyond? “Actually, he has the best of both worlds,” the writer/producer laughs. “The traditional Batman still goes on, so he’s playing himself at ages 30 and 80. He’s happy, and great as old Bruce. He’s still the regular Batman/Bruce Wayne on The Batman/Superman Adventures. His performance on that and as Old Bruce are wonderful.”

Night Crusades

The show’s title went through some alterations. “It was originally called Batman Tomorrow,” he reveals. “Everyone was satisfied with that, but the on-air Promotions Department got nervous about it. They said it would sound like ‘Today on Batman Tomorrow’ or ‘Tune in tomorrow for Batman Tomorrow.’ We said that they do the same thing on The Today Show, ‘Tune in Tomorrow for Today,’ but they pointed out that we’re dealing with kids, who could be more easily confused. Everyone is happy with Batman Beyond. The very first title was gonna be The Tomorrow Knight, before we found Marvel Comics had a character with that name.”

Batman’s future looks as compelling and visually exciting as his present, since both shows share the same pool of creative talent. “We’re using the same team of writers and directors we’ve used on Batman and Superman. Glen Murakami is our art director and he’s really an unsung hero on all three series, as well as our usual terrific gang, Dan Riba, Curt Geda. Andrea continues with voice direction and Leslie Lamers on casting. Shirley Walker and her crew are doing a completely different musical score, more like hard-driving rock, with pounding rhythm. Batman Beyond sounds different not only from Batman/Superman Adventures, but from every other Saturday-morning series.”

Since Batman Beyond takes place in the future, one wonders if there is a chance of seeing any members from a budding Legion of Superheroes, or other futuristic DC characters. “Initially no, but we have been talking about where Superman is in this world,” Burnett muses. “We’re including the Royal Flush Gang [JLA villains, each resembling a playing card character] in Batman Beyond. We tried to use the Royal Flush characters on Batman and Superman; we toyed with them, but it wasn’t until Batman Beyond that we found a way to bring them in. We’re always looking at the personal character angles to these shows; it’s not enough that our heroes are good and our villains bad, we have to hit upon what their personal story is.”

Burnett is clearly excited about this latest Bat-venture, and expects that Batman Beyond has a successful future ahead of it. “I’ve been in the game of writing scripts for superheroes for some time, going back to the ’80s [as story editor for Superfriends: Galactic Guardians]. I wrote them at a time when superheroes couldn’t make a fist, let alone hit anybody. When I finally got on Batman, I couldn’t believe that we were actually going to do this sophisticated show. Now, if you asked the crew what show they would rather work on out of all the superheroes we’re doing, it would be Batman Beyond,” Alan Burnett smiles. “It has captured everybody’s imagination.”

 

[Frontier]

I love Batman Beyond and Terry .

 

[#TeamMike]

“In the first season, we haven’t dealt yet with what happened to Robin and Nightwing. We’re saving that for the second 13 episodes.”

If only this happened for Nightwing.

The only missed opportunity of ROTJ was not having Dick Grayson at the end when Bruce and Barbara visit Tim at the hospital and start patching things up.

If there's one thing I could add to any DCAU show or movie, that would be it.

 

[Yojimbo]

If only this happened for Nightwing.

The only missed opportunity of ROTJ was not having Dick Grayson at the end when Bruce and Barbara visit Tim at the hospital and start patching things up.

If there's one thing I could add to any DCAU show or movie, that would be it.

It was pity they didn't explore it. There was a handful of mentions during Beyond, a brief visit to Bludhaven in "Untouchable" and Barbara's line in ROTJ "has he got stories" especially would have been great foreshadowing of perhaps a sequel DTV co-starring Dick Grayson. I recall DC Comics attempted to do their take on Dick in the Beyond era but I checked out pretty quickly on it. But we did get the cameos on JL and JLU at least (and the B&H DTV and BTAC but meh) and overall the Lost Years mini-series gave greater context from Dick's POV. I still wonder from time to time what that Nightwing spin-off would have been like.

 

[Karkull]

And that's an article I was unaware of, Revelator. I just bought Starlog #259 on Amazon. Thanks for the tip.

 

[Revelator]

Batman: The Animated Series: A Look Back ​

By Alan Burnett (Comic-Con International 2017 Souvenir Book)

This September will mark the 25th anniversary of the debut of Batman: The Animated Series, a show with which I have some familiarity.

As one of the producers, I was late coming into it. Even though it was the show I always wanted to do, I was wary. I had been through a decade of writing for children’s programs and had my fill of arguing with broadcast standards, as I’m sure they had their fill of me.

I began my animation career in the early ’80s, most significantly on the last two seasons of Super Friends. They tried to hype it up with flashier names—Galactic Guardians and another one I can never remember—but a more restrained and constricted superhero show you could not imagine.

Since the network wanted the option of scheduling the show early in the morning, when two-year-olds watched, it had to be appropriate for preschoolers. I learned very quickly never to use the word “violence” in meetings with ABC. It was always “action,” and none of the action we discussed could be impactful. I was working in a genre that’s all about fights without ever being able to show one.

Sometime before the very last season of Super Friends, I started discussing the possibility of doing a serious Batman show with Jean MacCurdy, who was the vice president of current programs at Hanna-Barbera at the time. The show would be designed for late in the morning, when we could target older kids.

DC and the network had their misgivings, but anyone who knows the ebullient Ms. MacCurdy knows that when she’s enthusiastic about a project, she can get very serious. “I wrote a letter to DC,” she said. “I may still have it on my computer. I said ‘You will either be on the cutting edge...or you won’t!’” She laughs. “It was very dramatic.”

Eventually, she got her way, and I wrote a Batman pilot. The reaction from the network was polite but a pass or, as Jean remembered them saying, “Umm, no, no, no, no, no.” So our folly was over, but at least something came of it. I got the chance to re-tool the Batman story for a Super Friends episode. I’m proud to say it was the first time the murder of Bruce’s parents was shown on television, let alone Saturday morning. (You never saw a gun, of course, and lightning was substituted for gunshots.)

I mention all this because if ever there was an executive primed to do a dark and serious Batman series it was Jean MacCurdy, and she would have her chance five years later as president of Warner Bros. Animation.

“Tim Burton’s dark vision came out and I said, ‘YES, we have to do that’” said Jean. She knew there would be interest from consumer products to extend the life and continue on with Batman one way or another in an animated form.

At the same time, Fox Kids wanted to get Tiny Toon Adventures, which was a big hit in syndication. To do so, they would have to make an overarching deal with Warner Bros. Animation that would include several new series, including Batman.

The first time Bruce Timm heard anything about it, he was finishing up boards for the first season of Tiny Toons. Jean had pulled the entire crew into a meeting. She told them she wanted to keep them together to develop other shows, particularly Batman. “I got real excited about that,” says Bruce. “I thought, ‘that's right up my alley.’ And so I did some drawings of Batman, basically a sheet of paper with a bunch of different poses.”

Eric Radomski, who was painting backgrounds on another crew, also got excited. He produced three concept paintings to give an idea of the look of the show. At the time, he and Bruce didn’t really know each other.

That would change in the next crew meeting. Jean loved Bruce's “cartoon Batman” and Eric’s backgrounds and teamed them up. While Fox was wrangling over the details of the deal, she also saw an opportunity for them to develop a short demo reel of what their Batman would be like.

She remembers talking to them about the Fleischer Superman shorts, which she loved. (She used to watch them in the studio on Moviolas.) “That design approach, I really thought was awesome.”

Bruce started producing a board. For those of you who haven’t seen the short on the net, it was a scene of Batman thwarting a group of thuggish armed jewel robbers in a rooftop fight—a two-fisted, no-holds-barred piece of action, punctuated with gunfire.

Jean loved the board and put it into production without telling anyone. “We were doing enough business overseas that we just sort of snuck it in under the radar and just went ahead and produced it.”

Two months later, it was finished. “Of course, you know it was way over the top in terms of the guns and violence and all that,” said Jean, "but it was so striking in its design, in the look, in the atmosphere that it just blew everybody's mind.”

By this time, Fox had picked up the series. Eric thought he and Bruce had reached the height of what they were going to do on the show. “At the very most, we thought they’d let us art direct, ’cause neither of us had any substantial producing experience. To our surprise, Jean came back to us and asked if we’d be interested in producing the series, and we said immediately, ‘Yes.’”

But when they returned to their office and thought about the mountain of work ahead, Eric said it was like, “Holy sh*t, what are we going to do? It was an immediate order for 65 episodes!” But after the initial shock, they decided they’d figure it out as they went along.

“I thought, ‘If they’re so devoted to this and they’ve got a vision for it, they should be the producers,” said Jean. “That was crazy, but that’s the way I was running things at that time, by the seat of my pants.”

There was one last hurtle. Early on, Fox thought that since Steven Spielberg was connected to Tiny Toons, it might be great if Tim Burton were similarly attached to an animated Batman. “So, we reached out to him,” said Bruce, “and he’s like, ‘Yeah, maybe. I don’t know. I’m kinda busy.’ And this dragged on for weeks. We couldn’t even start script development.”

Finally, there was a meeting. “I have a real vivid memory of sitting in Bob Daly’s office with Tim Burton looking at the art,” says Jean, “and Tim’s saying, ‘Yeah, yeah, yeah, this is fine.’” Essentially, Burton signed off on it, and that would pretty much be the extent of his involvement.

At this point, there was a need for a producer to oversee story, and that’s when Jean came to me. Even though we were great friends and she assured me I could have my guns and fistfights, I didn’t believe it.

Then she handed me a copy of the demo reel, which had already been through Fox Kids. I must’ve looked at it 20 times. The next day—the last day I could get out of my then current contract—I called her up and said I’m coming over. Not long after, I met Bruce and Eric, who were young, but they knew what they wanted and they were talking the show I wanted to do. I told myself I was going to forget every Broadcast Standards rule I ever learned.

There were two writers already on the crew, Sean Derek and Laren Bright, who I knew from my Smurfs days. There were also two bibles: one, tough as nails, which Bruce developed with writers Mitch Bryan and Paul Dini, and a second, which was more kid-friendly. To this day, I’m not sure who wrote the second one. I gravitated to the first one.

I knew one thing: I didn’t want to write a third. I like finding the show as you write it. (I’m also lazy.) So I gathered all the producers, directors, and writers in a three-day meeting, and we just talked out the show we wanted to do.

Those were the days of healthy broadcast network budgets. We had five directors at the start: Kevin Altieri, Boyd Kirkland, Frank Paur, Dan Riba, and Dick Sebast. I brought in three more story editors. The first was Marty Pasko, who is a significant part of DC history, having written Superman and many other titles before moving his career into television and animation. I also hired Michael Reaves, a very prolific television writer and novelist, who seemed to know everyone in the business of horror and sci-fi. He would bring in the great Joe R. Lansdale for a couple of my favorite episodes.

And then there was Paul Dini, with whom I’ve been writing on and off ever since. He was a freelancer at Hanna-Barbera when I was there, and we probably passed each other in the hallway, but I only knew him as the guy George Lucas grabbed for his Ewoks series back in the ’80s. That was big news in Saturday morning circles.

Even though he contributed to the bible, Paul’s head was in Tiny Toons. “A lot of that was my own comfort,” he said. “I got used to being on the show, and Batman was the great unknown.”

However, Tiny Toons was wrapping up, and something called Animaniacs was coming down the line, and he wasn’t sure if he was going to be part of it. That was all the space I needed to stick in a hook and pull him away.

His first script was for “Heart of Ice,” which would forever establish Mr. Freeze’s tragic origin. His second would introduce the Joker's impish gal pal—Harleen Quinzel. I don’t think there was any looking back from that point. By the time the second season was picked up, he was a producer.

Paul simply has an extraordinary talent for bringing out the humanity of costumed characters. It comes from his love of early Marvel, especially the warped family dynamic of the Fantastic Four.

“I remember being captivated by them more than the supervillains they were fighting. I remember Spider-Man’s struggle as Peter Parker more than his individual adventures. I remember the dark tone of the Neal Adams Batman—that was more exciting to me than the individual stories. It was world building.”

The world our crew was building was all around the studio. Sketches, models, backgrounds, boards...the place was wallpapered in Batman. It seemed to me that Bruce was more into models and story, while Eric handled the nuts and bolts of production, but they overlapped each other greatly, and it’s a credit on how well they worked together that I thought their partnership went back years.

They are both, by the way, quick to credit art director Ted Blackman for the way the show looked. He was the city’s architect who made the back alleys and villainous lairs so creepily inviting.

Eric’s idea to paint on black background paper gave an additional depth to Gotham and made the colors pop. It was such a new idea that some of the overseas studios were painting white background paper black at first, which looked odd. When Jean recalls this, it still makes her crazy.

The red skies of Gotham came from the experimental impressionist paintings Eric did as a young artist in Cleveland, capturing the skies over the steel mills at night. I told Eric that I remembered those skies. My father worked in those mills.

Our Gotham was a pulpy, ’40s, “dark deco” city with rotary phones and tommy guns, and yet it still had computers when we needed them, though we tried not to need them too often. The fact is the Batcave felt a little empty without one.

We had a tremendous crew and a wonderful cast. I’m very conscious of leaving out names as I write this, but if I start, I won’t know where to stop. There’re so many who contributed greatly to the show.

I will mention three women, however: Andrea Romano, our casting and voice director, who brought in more name players to our series than any voice director in the history of children’s programs; composer Shirley Walker who, along with her team of composers, invested B:TAS with a musical grandeur that continually elevated the visual; and Avery Coburn, who was our wonderful network Broadcast Standards person.

I began this article talking about my battles with Standards, but there were never any battles with Avery. She understood what we were trying to do and that the series was going to attract an older audience. (For a while, the show created a new demographic: 9-14 year olds.)

I’ve told this story before, but we had one episode that hinged on a suicide—Bruce Wayne was trapped in a dream created by the Mad Hatter and the only way to escape it was for him to jump off a building in his dream. I called Avery to let her know what we were thinking. She was cautious but said okay. She was also okay with the script. But the board became too realistic, and for a second we thought we’d have to lose the episode. But she sat down with us and helped edit it. The “suicide” jump became abstract enough not to impact young ones and yet older viewers would understand what was happening. To me, Avery’s like the unsung hero of the series.

We were also lucky to have as our executives at Fox Kids president Margaret Loesch and vice president of creative affairs Sidney Iwanter. They encouraged us to push the envelope, so much so I was surprised when Sidney told me late in production that the executives above them didn’t know what they were in for. “They’re expecting—‘Kapow, Bang!’—the Adam West TV show. They aren’t comic book readers.”

However, when the show finally debuted, there was no push back from the network or anyone. It seemed to be a hit from the start. We were even a hit with two-year-olds. (I was told it was because the show had pretty colors and was relatively quiet. Indeed, there were stretches on the soundtrack where there’s nothing but room tone.)

It certainly felt different from Saturday morning. Rarely did we go into a commercial on a cliffhanger. We would always finish the action with Batman discovering a new piece of information that would raise the stakes in the next segment. It felt less like a kids’ show and more like a mini-movie.

Plus, we had guns. And fights. Big, blessed, impactful fights.

The animated series did so well, we got a shot at primetime. Fox put us on against 60 Minutes for 13 weeks. We didn’t make a dent in the ratings, but we did end up winning a primetime Emmy for Best Animated Series. That was the year The Simpsons decided it belonged in the situation comedy category and took itself out of the running. I'm sure we thanked them at the ceremony. If we didn’t, we should have.

The series also spawned a movie, Batman: Mask of the Phantasm. Originally it was supposed to be a DVD, but one of the executives from the main lot came over and saw the opening credit sequence. It was a flight through a CG-animated Gotham City at a time when CG was new and different. It was the only CG scene in the movie, but when the exec said he should make this a feature, who were we to argue?

We never got extra time or money for production. I remember asking for some last-minute changes, which Bruce was rushing to do on the board even as Eric was grabbing the pages from him to ship. This is when I learned how fast Bruce could draw. I’ve never seen anyone faster.

I don’t think the overseas studio ever knew their animation was going to end up on the big screen and, in truth, it probably plays better on the home screen. But we did have Shirley Walker, and you can bet that even with limited animation, Mask of the Phantasm sounded like a movie.

Sadly, it only played in matinees for a week or so. The reviews weren’t great, but there were some positive ones. I had a good time watching the audiences, as they seemed to enjoy it. But then it went away, and that, I thought, was that.

About a year later, I got an excited call from Jean. “You gotta watch Siskel & Ebert! They reviewed Phantasm! They’re raving about it!” It was true. The movie was coming out as a DVD, which is how it got their attention. Siskel even apologized for skipping the movie run because, in his words, “It’s terrific!” Imagine that. A taste of redemption, made even sweeter coming from two guys who had never seen the series.

It's one of the great memories I have from a television show that gave me many.

Jean has long since retired from the business and lives in San Francisco, where she has a gorgeous and much-deserved view of the bay. Bruce continues producing at Warner Bros., expanding the “Timmverse,” as his legion of fans has named it. Eric left B:TAS to produce and develop projects galore, including Spawn and Howard Stern’s Doomsday. He’s now a senior VP at Marvel and co-executive producer on all of Marvel’s animated series. Paul wrote last year’s much-acclaimed graphic novel, Dark Night: A True Batman Story. Since leaving Warner Bros., he’s written for Lost and Tower Prep, which he created for Cartoon Network, and so much more.

As for me, I’ll be entering my third glorious week of retirement when you read this. In the last year, I have had the privilege of producing Justice League Action, which felt a little like a return to Super Friends, but in the best way. During the course of production, I met a lot of young writers, either staffed or about to be staffed on DC’s primetime shows. When I asked why they wanted to squeeze in an animation script, most of them mentioned being fans of B:TAS, how they used to rush home from school to catch it, and how it influenced them to become writers. I’ve heard similar accounts from Bruce about artists.

It has made me think that if a show has any legacy, inspiring new talent would be the best legacy of all.


Alan Burnett has written and produced animation for 36 years, the last 26 for Warner Bros. Animation. He has won four Emmy Awards, three Annie Awards, two Humanitas Prizes, and an Animation Writer of the Year Award from the Writers Guild. In addition to B:TAS, he’s produced on Superman, Batman Beyond, Static Shock, and numerous home videos under the DCU banner.