"An era can be said to end when its basic illusions are exhausted." - Arthur Miller

Wednesday, September 06, 2017

Happy 25th Anniversary Batman the Animated Series

Batman: The Animated series turned 25 today. September 5, 1992 is considered the official debut date of Batman: The Animated Series on Fox Kids. The cartoon series is considered by many (including me) to be the greatest cartoon series of all times. Happy Birthday. Shame it can't come back as still don't have a good super hero series of the same caliber. Batman: The Animated Series remains the gold standard on how to improve and update characters, especially villians.

I still use it as a source of comparison when continue to see mostly poor attempts by writers to add their own often silly little spin to Batman’s Rogues Gallery. The TV show Gotham suffers from this regularly. I get their doing their own thing, which is fine...but when you have a template on how to do it right you have no excuse for failing cause if your take is crap, just copy theirs (which they have but its like a copy of a copy of a copy like their take on Mr. Freeze and his origin). With BAS, when they tweaked an origin or added to them, it always tied directly into the personality and behavior of the character. It wasn’t done as a gimmick, might look or sound cool, it was a choice of true characterization that is often missing today’s comics and media adaptations.

At the end of the day I wish more writers and directors would follow a simple rule - if I cut this scene, sequences, plot point does it impact the story or the characters? If the answer is no, then its got to go and be replaced with something that follows that rule. BAS seemed to always have that in the back of their head for many episodes with is an amazing accomplishment for a cartoon series at kids and one that almost no television show in the last few decade or so can match.

Read more: How BAS Change Superhero Adaptations | Behind the Scenes Interview with Voices of Show

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