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Speaker 1: Too Much Information is a production of My Heart Radio.

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Speaker 1: Hello everyone, and welcome to Too Much Information, the show

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Speaker 1: that brings you the secret histories and little known fascinating

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Speaker 1: facts and figures behind your favorite movies, music, TV shows

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Speaker 1: and more. Where your two dark knights of Dorkery, your

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Speaker 1: vigilantes of verified tidbits, your nocturnal ninjas of nion, incomprehensible minutia.

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Speaker 1: I'm Alex Sigel and I'm Jordan runt Hog. And that

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Speaker 1: is an all time intro for you, my friend. Wow,

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Speaker 1: this is my super Bowls. This is my Waterloo. No, yes,

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Speaker 1: this is my this is my um. What was the

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Speaker 1: one that you probably nerded out the most recently, Revolver?

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Speaker 1: Probably Yeah, this is my Revolver today, Jordan, we are

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Speaker 1: talking about one of the towering achievements of the ever

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Speaker 1: widening gyre of comic book adaptations, the show that provided

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Speaker 1: a valuable waste station for fans, cotton draft of big

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Speaker 1: screen versions and a vision of the titular hero that

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Speaker 1: has outlasted bigger and more expensive versions across the decades.

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Speaker 1: That's right, we're talking about Batman, the animated series. With

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Speaker 1: the recent passing of Kevin Conroy, the beloved voice of

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Speaker 1: Batman and Bruce Wayne on that show and more other

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Speaker 1: Batman related properties, and you could shake a batter rang at,

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Speaker 1: I dug out my batsuit and I quartered Jordan in

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Speaker 1: a darkened alley to force him to let us do

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Speaker 1: this episode. Were you ever Batman for Halloween? I feel

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Speaker 1: like this is gonna No actually I wasn't. No, no,

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Speaker 1: no, no no, well, yeah exactly. I didn't want to steal

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Speaker 1: valor from from Batman. I was spider Man one year.

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Speaker 1: I would describe this is probably one of the big

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Speaker 1: four of sort of animated comic book properties of the

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Speaker 1: late eighties nineties. I mean, obviously we have teenage Mustan

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Speaker 1: Ninja Turtles, which I think everyone forgets was a comic first,

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Speaker 1: but that gets grandfathered in the Fox x men um,

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Speaker 1: which is also Man do that theme song is as

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Speaker 1: an all time banger, and Spider Man, which was I

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Speaker 1: think kind of a bit later, but you know, also

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Speaker 1: long running and kind of in that Fox animated slot.

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Speaker 1: I'm sure people would count Superman in there, but Superman sucks,

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Speaker 1: so we're not going to talk about it. You really

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Speaker 1: don't like Superman? I yes, actually that is probably the

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Speaker 1: dichotomy Superman is the wholesome one and Batman is the

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Speaker 1: dark one, and um yeah, I don't know, dude, Superman's

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Speaker 1: is boring. It's like the kid who like when you're

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Speaker 1: like playing with a kid and they keep like inventing

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Speaker 1: like things that they can do on the fly, like like, well,

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Speaker 1: my guy can shoot lasers and he's also the strongest guy,

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Speaker 1: and also you can fly, and also he can leave

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Speaker 1: both his whole buildings. Yeah, it's just so boring. And

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Speaker 1: he's so you know, he's so I think people have

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Speaker 1: done more interesting things with the character, Like you know,

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Speaker 1: there's like an extended like riff on Superman is like

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Speaker 1: an immigrant, which is kind of interesting, but it's just

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Speaker 1: so deadly dull, like he's virtuous and he has powers

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Speaker 1: and and like he's the most strong guy. Um yeah,

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Speaker 1: just boring and okay, yeah, so there's there's big ones.

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Speaker 1: Um and it's interesting. This series really like picked up

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Speaker 1: the slack between movies because you had Tim Burton doing

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Speaker 1: Batman and Batman Returns, which are like the pious grossing

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Speaker 1: that that original Batman like blew the doors off everything,

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Speaker 1: and then Batman Returns is one of the most like

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Speaker 1: beloved sequels of all time, not even in the superhero genre,

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Speaker 1: just like period it's like the Godfather two of superhero movies,

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Speaker 1: and then there was nothing for a long time. And

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Speaker 1: you know, I think someone will probably correct me on this,

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Speaker 1: but I think Tim Burton was working on a Superman

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Speaker 1: with Nicolas Cage, and you can actually find like shots

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Speaker 1: of Nicolas Cage and a Superman costume out there that

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Speaker 1: are really bad. And then that got derailed, and then

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Speaker 1: we the next one was Batman Forever, and that was

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Speaker 1: the Schumacher era that pretty much killed the French I

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Speaker 1: was dead within two years and two movies, although Batman

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Speaker 1: Forever gave us Kissed by Rose. Yeah, man, I was

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Speaker 1: just a perfect age for this, you know, like the

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Speaker 1: Tim Burton stuff are like it's such a great vision,

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Speaker 1: but it is like it's dark and like not necessarily

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Speaker 1: for kids, and we'll get into like how they show

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Speaker 1: sort of was also pushing the tonal envelope. But yeah,

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Speaker 1: like Danny DeVito is like scary. He like bites the

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Speaker 1: dude's nose and he's like using black ooze out of

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Speaker 1: his mouth all the time. Is just horrifying, and uh so,

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Speaker 1: like the Saturday Morning version of this is so just

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Speaker 1: like what I grew up in, and so like it

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Speaker 1: has such a unique vision of the look. And Kevin

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Speaker 1: Conroy is just perfect, man, I mean he's like, that's

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Speaker 1: like my Batman. I was already like old when when

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Speaker 1: the Christian Bale version came out, And obviously those are great,

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Speaker 1: and Heath Ledger is, you know, incredible in that role.

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Speaker 1: But it's like this was like the Batman I grew

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Speaker 1: up with. And like when I hear Batman's voice in

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Speaker 1: my head, as I frequently do, uh, it's Kevin Conroys. Okay, Um, yes,

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Speaker 1: I'm guessing though that you are disposition lee perhaps a

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Speaker 1: little more predisposed to let's say that Adam West version.

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Speaker 1: I don't mean that is shade because I also grew

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Speaker 1: up on that. I love my my mid century pop art. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I mean Adam West was really just one of the

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Speaker 1: only Batman Batman's at the plural Batman's Batman, and I

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Speaker 1: yeh Batman. I uh that I can really just name

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Speaker 1: off the top of my head. Um, I don't know

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Speaker 1: something about the movies. They just seem like stunt casting

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Speaker 1: to me, Like that's not Batman, that's George Clooney caused

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Speaker 1: playing as Batman. Oh those the Shoemaker ones, for sure.

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Speaker 1: But but I mean, yeah, well, the backlash to the

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Speaker 1: Burton ones is so interesting because you know he I

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Speaker 1: think he pretty much cast Keating off the strength of

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Speaker 1: Beetlejuice and then but people were like, who's the He's

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Speaker 1: a comedian. Yeah, yeah, Um, my knowledge of Batman and

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Speaker 1: this will become devastatingly apparent very soon. He's non existent.

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Speaker 1: I mean, comics in general sorely lacking. Um, but I'm

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Speaker 1: really excited to learn a lot from you today because

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Speaker 1: I know this is a subject very near and dear

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Speaker 1: to your heart. Um. I'm shocked you haven't mentioned this yet,

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Speaker 1: so I will. Years ago, not long after we first met,

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Speaker 1: high Gold invited me to join his band, not because

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Speaker 1: I had any innate musical talent, he just know that.

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Speaker 1: He just knew I had a base and was available. Uh.

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Speaker 1: And the name of that band was the World's Greatest Detective,

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Speaker 1: which was a phrase that meant absolutely nothing to me

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Speaker 1: at the time. Uh. In fact, I thought you just

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Speaker 1: were really in the Sherlock Homes. I'm serious. Um, But

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Speaker 1: I gradually pieced together that it was a reference to Batman,

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Speaker 1: and it's slowly donned to me what a major figure

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Speaker 1: he was in your life. Well, probably you saw the

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Speaker 1: Batman tattoo that I have. I know, I know, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I've got a Batman tattoo. I also, I was in

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Speaker 1: the run for an editor job at DC Comics for

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Speaker 1: a few months, and I think that tattoo kept me

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Speaker 1: in the running and sadly I didn't never materialize, but

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Speaker 1: that that was a great interview that I went on,

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Speaker 1: just like ranting to like two d C Comics editors

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Speaker 1: about how much I love Batman. They were like, what

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Speaker 1: about like the other stuff, like our our entire roster

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Speaker 1: of other comics, And I was like, no, probably hurt

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Speaker 1: me a little bit, but I mean, I love talking

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Speaker 1: about this with you because, in a classic hallmark of

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Speaker 1: male friendships, we've never actually discussed your look man Man. Yeah. Also,

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Speaker 1: I'm excited to learn from you and hear what he

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Speaker 1: means to you, because, as I said, this is a

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Speaker 1: huge blind spot for me, especially the animated series really

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Speaker 1: sort of in classic form for me. The only Batman

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Speaker 1: that I actually ever studied up on was the original

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Speaker 1: comic from nine, just because I did a story on

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Speaker 1: it for people a few years back for the eighth anniversary. Um,

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Speaker 1: that's where I learned that d C comics stood for

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Speaker 1: detective comics. Hence the world's greatest detective. Didn't know that. Uh.

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Speaker 1: I didn't know that Bruce Wayne is supposed to be

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Speaker 1: a descendant of the Revolutionary War general mad Anthony Wayne,

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Speaker 1: which rules. Uh. But yeah, that's the level of my

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Speaker 1: my Batman scholardom. So I'm excited to learn. Teach me

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Speaker 1: Zorba Zorba the Greek reference. Yes, it is now in

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Speaker 1: the the Batman Extended Universe orb of the Creek. That's

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Speaker 1: Cannon Well. From Kevin Conroy's youth as a Juilliard trained

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Speaker 1: actor who once roomed with Robin Williams and almost Superman. Uh,

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Speaker 1: to the second act. Yeah, to the second act it

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Speaker 1: provided to Star Wars icon Mark Hamill. To the dizzyingly

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Speaker 1: sophisticated imagery that went into the look of the show.

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Speaker 1: Here's everything you didn't know about Batman the animated series.

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Speaker 1: All right, well, bizarrely enough, but you gotta read the heading.

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Speaker 1: You gotta read the heading. Oh yeah, all of these

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Speaker 1: are Batman refs. This first one is the holy development

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Speaker 1: process Batman that God, have you ever gone through the

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Speaker 1: whole list of all the of all the Robin catchphrases.

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Speaker 1: I think we did on this show once, but I

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Speaker 1: couldn't for the like did. My favorite is the Holy

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Speaker 1: Shark Repellent bat Spray Batman. What episode would that have

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Speaker 1: possibly been for? That was one of the ones I

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Speaker 1: had taped because I remember it. They're climbing a ladder

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Speaker 1: that's suspended from a helicopter. It's actually crazy sequence concerning

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Speaker 1: has been done for a sixties television show, and they're

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Speaker 1: both it's stunted Man, obviously, but they're both dangling on

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Speaker 1: this ladder because they've been hoisted up from the ocean,

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Speaker 1: and there's a shark hanging onto hanging onto Batman's legs.

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Speaker 1: He pulls out the shark repellent, that spray shark explodes.

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Speaker 1: Is kind of great. Zapp pal Bam the BATWATTU. See, Okay,

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Speaker 1: we have to stay on track. Uh. The origins of

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Speaker 1: Batman the animated series lie not with murdered parents, but

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Speaker 1: with tiny tun adventures spect specifically a Batman spoof that

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Speaker 1: was part of that show called bats All Folks, which

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Speaker 1: was a parody that saw the character of Plucky Duck

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Speaker 1: assumed the mantle of Spruce Vane bat Duck medium funny.

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Speaker 1: It was for children, it was a different time. The

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Speaker 1: Warner Brothers Animation television division around this time, Lady Eighties

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Speaker 1: early nineties, was established by w B Animation president Jean

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Speaker 1: McCurdy uh and she brought in a lot of the

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Speaker 1: producer named Tom Rueger, a lot of his staff from

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Speaker 1: Hanna Barbara Productions Scooby Doo series Um Tiny Tune Adventures,

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Speaker 1: which for the uninitiated is like baby versions of the

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Speaker 1: Looney Tunes Babs and Buster Bunny No relationship, and that

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Speaker 1: was a big hit for that was their first big success,

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Speaker 1: and that short contained a number of very loving and

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Speaker 1: deeply specific Batman references, like lines of dialogue that they

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Speaker 1: lifted from the very first comic recreation of imagery from

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Speaker 1: Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Returns, which is very inappropriate

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Speaker 1: for children, but it's probably one of the more iconic

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Speaker 1: images of the series. It's like Batman silhouetted on a

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Speaker 1: like a building with like lightning flashing behind him, which

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Speaker 1: they also riff in the in the animated series and

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Speaker 1: the opening credits, and those were the work of one

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Speaker 1: guy named Bruce Tim who was not one of the

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Speaker 1: show's regular animators, but he was on this on this episode,

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Speaker 1: and he started his career with like stuff like he

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Speaker 1: Man Masters the Universe, g I Joe, And then he

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Speaker 1: also worked for Ralph Bakshi and Don Bluth on Secretive Nim.

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Speaker 1: We really got Slot in a Bluth episode, Um, well

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Speaker 1: they're all too They're all too sad, scary four times

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Speaker 1: too sad. Secret of Nim is too scary. All dogs

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Speaker 1: go to Heaven traumatizing. Uh. He also worked with Future

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Speaker 1: Wren and Simpy Headhan show, John Krick Flucy on Mighty Mouse,

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Speaker 1: and he worked on The Real Ghostbusters. Um, and they

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Speaker 1: enjoy Warner Brothers in eighty nine, which was the year

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Speaker 1: before Tiny Toon Adventures launched, and the Bruce Tim had

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Speaker 1: wrapped the first season on that show when McCurdy called

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Speaker 1: a meeting and she was like, hey, Warner Brothers were

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Speaker 1: gonna be expanding the slate. Tinytoons was a hit, uh,

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Speaker 1: the slate of animated properties, and Tim Burton's first Batman

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Speaker 1: movie had been such a world conquering success in eighty

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Speaker 1: nine and so they were like, we're gonna do Batman,

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Speaker 1: or that's one of the ones we're looking at anyway,

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Speaker 1: And Bruce tim was so excited and he got out

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Speaker 1: in a fit of peek, swept all of his Tiny

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Speaker 1: Toon Adventures stuff off his desk and started working on Batman.

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Speaker 1: And you know some of the visual influences of this show.

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Speaker 1: He was looking at Sleeping Beauty, the Disney version that's

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Speaker 1: sort of has this pared down, angular, more simplistic style,

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Speaker 1: and then the hand of Barbara sixty stuff like Space

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Speaker 1: Ghost Um, which you can really see the kind of

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Speaker 1: like lantern jaw of the characters, and these trapezoidal torsos

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Speaker 1: that Ruin has. Those backgrounds for Sleeping Beauty are incredible, gorgeous. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: very Disney like. I'm sort of amazed that it's like,

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Speaker 1: way too cool for Disney. I'm amazed that they got

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Speaker 1: away with that. He drew twenty different versions of Bruce

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Speaker 1: Wayne before he landed on the one, and that was

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Speaker 1: a combination of Doc Savage, who's this sort of forgotten

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Speaker 1: comic character from the mid century, and Dick Tracy sense.

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Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, and uh McCurdy loved the designs that he

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Speaker 1: brought to the next staff meeting, and she paired him

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Speaker 1: with a guy named Eric Radomski who had also been

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Speaker 1: working on Tiny Tuns as a background painter, and the

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Speaker 1: two of them didn't really work together. This is Bruce

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Speaker 1: Tim talking to Vulture for this incredible oral history they

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Speaker 1: did of the show in twenty seventeen. He said, we

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Speaker 1: weren't really thrown together a bunch before they were put

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Speaker 1: on this series together. But he said, once we were

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Speaker 1: on the Batman project, we really hit it off. And

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Speaker 1: there was there's another short piece about this in a

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Speaker 1: magazine called Back Issue, uh. And to them, Tim explained

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Speaker 1: that Warner Brothers had been in negotiations with Fox Kids

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Speaker 1: to actually do the show, and the negotiations had been

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Speaker 1: dragging on for a while, and Jean thought that this

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Speaker 1: might be a good way to kind of goose the process,

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Speaker 1: to show them some footage um, And she recommended that

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Speaker 1: they look at the Superman cartoons for inspiration for for

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Speaker 1: the look of the show, and they got to work

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Speaker 1: on this pitch rail, which essentially became the opening credits

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Speaker 1: for the show. UM. But it took them like, uh,

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Speaker 1: you know, ninety days to put this thing together and

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Speaker 1: the show was greenlit in the meantime side unseen so

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Speaker 1: and then she was basically like in a classic case

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Speaker 1: of like, hey, you did this thing, well, now you're

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Speaker 1: in charge of it. Like she was like, you guys

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Speaker 1: are in charge of this show now. And they had

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Speaker 1: never done this before. They were completely new to running

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Speaker 1: an animated show from the top down. Uh. There's a

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Speaker 1: great book on the animated series that I relied on

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Speaker 1: a lot of This has a lot of these beautiful

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Speaker 1: animation storyboards and stuff and um, but things pretty much

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Speaker 1: immediately hit a snag. Tim Wrights in the insure of

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Speaker 1: the book that, Uh, there was a story editor for

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Speaker 1: the show that was initially assigned to them, and they

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Speaker 1: immediately got into battles. Uh. They basically thought the scripts

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Speaker 1: weren't up to snuff, and the story editor uh quite

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Speaker 1: rightly felt that two artists with zero experience should be

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Speaker 1: giving her such strong feedback on her work. Uh, And

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Speaker 1: he wrote, certainly, egos were bruised and toes were stepped on.

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Speaker 1: There's no getting around the fact that we were pretty

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Speaker 1: damn brash and outspoken. I recently came across some old

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Speaker 1: script notes from those days in my files and was

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Speaker 1: positively aghast at how snotty and mean spirit I sounded,

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Speaker 1: which you know who among us um Jim McCarty shut

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Speaker 1: down production, and Bruce Tim told Vulture there was a

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Speaker 1: period in the early couple of months of production were

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Speaker 1: literally Eric and I didn't know if we were going

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Speaker 1: to show up and find the locks changed on our offices.

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Speaker 1: And part of this was that from the beginning that

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Speaker 1: they were aiming for this darker look and tone for

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Speaker 1: this show, more akin to the Tim Burton films than

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Speaker 1: Adam West version. And you know, it's really to her

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Speaker 1: credit that Jean McCarty took this leap of faith on them.

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Speaker 1: But she brought in a buddy of hers, Alan Burnett,

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Speaker 1: who told Vulture that he was basically upset after years

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Speaker 1: of dealing with like standards and practices and networks because

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Speaker 1: he's been working on the Smurfs and Ducktails for years

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Speaker 1: and he was trying to get out of children's animation

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Speaker 1: to altogether. It was just trying to leave the field entirely.

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Speaker 1: But he told Vulture what sold me was the trailer

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Speaker 1: that Bruce Tim and Eric Radomski had done for the show.

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Speaker 1: I said to Jean listen if you're gonna do Batman,

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Speaker 1: you're gonna have to have guns and fist fights, both

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Speaker 1: of which were completely verboten and children's animation at the time.

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Speaker 1: And that's when she showed me the trailer. I really

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Speaker 1: didn't believe that I would be allowed to have guns

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Speaker 1: and fist fights, but she insisted that I would have

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Speaker 1: the freedom, and so I came on over. Sylan Burnett

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Speaker 1: brought in writer producer Paul Dinny, and the team sat

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Speaker 1: down to create a one hundred and fifty page show

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Speaker 1: Bible for the series that laid out their vision. I

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Speaker 1: love show Bible, fun uh didn't was writing with an

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Speaker 1: eye towards like, as you mentioned, the seriously dark Batman

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Speaker 1: stories that had come out in the mid eighties, like

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Speaker 1: Frank Miller's aforementioned The Dark Knight Returns and Alan Moore

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Speaker 1: is the Killing Joke. And they laid down three ground

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Speaker 1: rules for the series. I love this so much. No aliens,

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Speaker 1: no ghosts, and no Humanitus Prize. And that's an award

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Speaker 1: that was established by a priest with a Catholic production

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Speaker 1: company that recognized the most emotional, heartfelt modeling in other words,

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Speaker 1: storytelling in film and television and just for comparison, mash

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Speaker 1: had won the most of these awards for his preachy

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Speaker 1: later era episodes. Among the additional rules, Batman works alone,

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Speaker 1: although this changed in the second season when Fox wanted

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Speaker 1: to include Robin as a young character to capitalize on

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Speaker 1: the toy market. And also, Batman does not work with

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Speaker 1: the police. Don't go to the police. Hell, yeah, you

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Speaker 1: and I are both silly, and we know this. I

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Speaker 1: mean and I mean, And this is where my little

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Speaker 1: bit that I know about Batman history comes into play here. Uh,

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Speaker 1: Batman initially started off as a detective. I mean because

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Speaker 1: as the world's greatest detective. This was d C comics,

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Speaker 1: detective comics. And uh, they initially brought in the Robin character.

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Speaker 1: The editors were extremely skeptical, but they brought him in

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Speaker 1: just to kind of have a character that could be

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Speaker 1: the kid's point of view that readers kind of glom onto.

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Speaker 1: And in the fifties there was I'm sure you know

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Speaker 1: the name for it. I don't. Offhand, there was basically

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Speaker 1: a big crackdown on comics. Again, this was in McCarthy era,

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Speaker 1: all sorts of comics on everything, the comics code, where

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Speaker 1: basically Batman went from fighting the mob and using guns

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Speaker 1: to fighting these way out characters like you know, the

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Speaker 1: crazy ones that we think of, especially towards the Adam

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Speaker 1: West where it becomes like, you know, real pop art

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Speaker 1: type stuff. So this is sort of more akin to

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Speaker 1: to where Batman started as a detective back in the

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Speaker 1: early comic book era. Yeah, and you know people always

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Speaker 1: think about like, oh, Commissioner he works with Commissioner Gordon

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Speaker 1: and stuff, and it's like, well, not really. He kind

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Speaker 1: of involves Commissioner Gordon when he wants to, and that's

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Speaker 1: what their whole thing with the animals show. They were like,

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Speaker 1: he uses the bat signal when they want to work together.

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Speaker 1: But they were like, it's so funny all this history

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Speaker 1: of animation, like all the really good properties are like

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Speaker 1: adult men who were like, we don't want to make

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Speaker 1: something for children, to make something for ourselves. But that's

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Speaker 1: the thing is that when you don't pander, you create

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Speaker 1: something that's actually good and lives on. And that's what

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Speaker 1: like the unifying theme and all of these different properties

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Speaker 1: that we've talked about, like it's just people working from

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Speaker 1: their gut and there make something that ye trying to

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Speaker 1: make something that's good and doesn't pander. You ever danced

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Speaker 1: with the Devil in the Pale moon Light? I don't

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Speaker 1: know the records. Oh that's what. Okay. So in the

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Speaker 1: original Batman with with the Burton one, that's what, um,

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Speaker 1: the red con it's so that the Joker is the

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Speaker 1: thief who killed Batman's parents, and that's his catchphrase, and

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Speaker 1: he says it right before he shoots Batman's parents, and

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Speaker 1: that's how Batman realizes that the Joker is the one

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Speaker 1: who did it. And it's Nicholson, Jack Nicholson obviously, so

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Speaker 1: it's he really makes a meal out of that line. Um,

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Speaker 1: I was reading today. I'm sorry, I'll probably cut this.

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Speaker 1: Uh Jon Stewart joke where he said, yeah, Hollywood is

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Speaker 1: really just a series of parties with a velvet rope

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Speaker 1: with a smaller party in the back, with another velvet

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Speaker 1: rope with a smaller party, play on that and another

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Speaker 1: velvet rope, and eventually you just get to one room

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Speaker 1: where it's Jack Nicholson sitting by himself in sunglasses, having

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Speaker 1: a party alone. Um. The team leaned into a style

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Speaker 1: of art that they termed dark Decko, which was partially

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Speaker 1: inspired by Burton's sort of like gothic vision. Yeah, it's awesome.

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Speaker 1: Partially inspired by Burton's Gothic vision of Batman. I mean

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Speaker 1: his big thing was German expressionism, like Cabinet of Dr

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Speaker 1: Caligari stuff, but also these like you know, Gotham looks

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Speaker 1: like a cathedral. It has all these crazy spires and

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Speaker 1: it's just ridiculous looking. But they wanted a cleaner look.

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Speaker 1: Eric Radomski told Vulture, we wanted it to be a

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Speaker 1: little more stylish and a little classier. So we leaned

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Speaker 1: away from just horror and gothic and we lean more

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Speaker 1: into the deco elegance in the forties in New York.

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Speaker 1: That birth this timeless feel where it felt very authentic

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Speaker 1: in a forties setting, but it was contemporary storylines that

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Speaker 1: we were telling. We could see mobsters and forties vehicles

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Speaker 1: and dirigibles. Uh, and yet Batman had technology that was

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Speaker 1: way beyond that time period. I don't think there's a

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Speaker 1: bat blimp rule that animated movie from. I think it

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Speaker 1: was based on a Japanese illustrated book and there's a

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Speaker 1: dirigible in it, and the movie is scary as hell. Um.

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Speaker 1: Some of the non comics visual influences that they picked

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Speaker 1: included the Big Sleep noir, detective noir classic, The Third

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Speaker 1: Man Orson Welles non citizen Kane masterpiece, The Night of

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Speaker 1: the Hunter, which is have you ever seen That of

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Speaker 1: the Hunter? A long time ago? Yeah, that's where Spike

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Speaker 1: Lee got the good and evil riff from from. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: Robert Mitchum is the bad guy in that. He's terrifying,

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Speaker 1: and that movie is just, uh has these beautiful, stark

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Speaker 1: black and white shots. I mean it almost looks like

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Speaker 1: kabuki theater or something. It's non It's like there's these

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Speaker 1: scenes where where he's just like holding these poses that

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Speaker 1: are just shot in these beautiful stark uh. There's there's

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Speaker 1: also this horrifying shot where it's spoiler alert. He's murdered

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Speaker 1: this woman and put her in a car that he

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Speaker 1: runs into the bottom of the lake, and there's this

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Speaker 1: horrifying shot of her at the bottom of the lake

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Speaker 1: with her throat cut and her hair waving water and

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00:22:48,720 --> 00:22:52,040
Speaker 1: like the fisherman's line going off of it. Yeah, how

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Speaker 1: did you get that in movie theaters at the time?

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Speaker 1: And Fritz Lang's Metropolis, which is always another one people

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Speaker 1: talk about this era of like black and white expressionist

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Speaker 1: influenced stuff. That's another one that always comes up. You've

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Speaker 1: almost certainly seen the shot of the female robot like

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Speaker 1: seated in a big throne with all the crazy lighting

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Speaker 1: and stuff behind it. And then they also liked Akira,

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Speaker 1: which anyone working in animation had probably been fallen under

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Speaker 1: the spell of a kiro which came out in a

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Speaker 1: D eight. It's but probably I mean, there's probably some

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Speaker 1: people who will correct me on this, but I would

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Speaker 1: argue it's like the Citizen Canyon of anime. It's got

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Speaker 1: like one of the broadest cross cultural impacts of any

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Speaker 1: Japanese animation product outside of the Miyazaki stuff. I would say,

425
00:23:35,320 --> 00:23:37,080
Speaker 1: I'm a bit of a dilettant when it comes to anime.

426
00:23:37,200 --> 00:23:40,320
Speaker 1: So someone who angrily tweeted us about that, it's interesting

427
00:23:40,320 --> 00:23:42,000
Speaker 1: to me that. I mean, two things that you mentioned

428
00:23:42,000 --> 00:23:45,240
Speaker 1: are very big influences on David Bowie Kabuki theater in

429
00:23:45,320 --> 00:23:48,560
Speaker 1: his Ziggy Stardust era and the cablet of Dr Caligari,

430
00:23:48,640 --> 00:23:52,359
Speaker 1: the German expressionist film. Uh. He actually used images from

431
00:23:52,440 --> 00:23:56,040
Speaker 1: that movie in his nineteen seventy four Diamond Dogs Tour,

432
00:23:56,480 --> 00:24:00,879
Speaker 1: which was his big like basically a Broadway musical style

433
00:24:01,080 --> 00:24:03,840
Speaker 1: tour that I think only last at halfway through the

434
00:24:03,840 --> 00:24:06,120
Speaker 1: tour before they were just like this is just too much,

435
00:24:06,160 --> 00:24:08,440
Speaker 1: and then he scaled it down. But yeah, I didn't

436
00:24:08,640 --> 00:24:12,000
Speaker 1: so many influences on Batman influence Bowie. We are working

437
00:24:12,000 --> 00:24:16,520
Speaker 1: towards the unified Bowie Batman universe here. Wow, he should

438
00:24:16,520 --> 00:24:19,800
Speaker 1: have played Batman Bowie. Oh, he should definitely should have been.

439
00:24:20,160 --> 00:24:23,320
Speaker 1: I could see him as a pretty good joker, that's true.

440
00:24:23,520 --> 00:24:27,280
Speaker 1: That's true on in his coke era, not not like

441
00:24:27,400 --> 00:24:31,040
Speaker 1: not like imbish elder Statesman Bowie, you know, not extra's Bowie.

442
00:24:31,160 --> 00:24:38,359
Speaker 1: We're talking like, yeah, coked out Bowie. H. As you

443
00:24:38,400 --> 00:24:40,920
Speaker 1: meditate on that, we'll be right back with more too

444
00:24:40,960 --> 00:24:55,320
Speaker 1: much information after these messages. The literal fabric of this

445
00:24:55,400 --> 00:24:59,000
Speaker 1: show was dark, speaking of all the background animation, whereas

446
00:24:59,040 --> 00:25:02,560
Speaker 1: traditional animation you his white background paper. Radomski, one of

447
00:25:02,600 --> 00:25:06,280
Speaker 1: the series drawn on true black background paper in order

448
00:25:06,280 --> 00:25:09,119
Speaker 1: to achieve the darker look they wanted, which kept the

449
00:25:09,160 --> 00:25:12,199
Speaker 1: deep vibrant tones they used for coloring from looking you know,

450
00:25:12,240 --> 00:25:15,800
Speaker 1: two cartoonish. He told Vulture, I don't recall anyone ever

451
00:25:15,840 --> 00:25:18,639
Speaker 1: doing that, other than maybe Mary Blair experimenting with some

452
00:25:18,720 --> 00:25:20,880
Speaker 1: Disney short films. Yeah, she was a very I think

453
00:25:20,920 --> 00:25:23,879
Speaker 1: she worked on Sleeping Beauty. What we were doing was

454
00:25:23,920 --> 00:25:27,199
Speaker 1: literally trying to interpret the night with an impressionist style.

455
00:25:27,359 --> 00:25:29,960
Speaker 1: That's incredible. If we did it wrong, it was gonna

456
00:25:30,000 --> 00:25:32,480
Speaker 1: look like the black velvet paintings that were popular in

457
00:25:32,520 --> 00:25:35,359
Speaker 1: the sixties and seventies. Yep. Bruce Tim added in this

458
00:25:35,480 --> 00:25:38,120
Speaker 1: Vulture interview, I've worked on a bunch of action adventure

459
00:25:38,160 --> 00:25:40,640
Speaker 1: shows for TV before, and every single one of them

460
00:25:40,680 --> 00:25:43,560
Speaker 1: I thought was overdesigned. They were trying to impress people

461
00:25:43,600 --> 00:25:46,240
Speaker 1: with the amount of detail. On g I. Joe especially,

462
00:25:46,280 --> 00:25:48,480
Speaker 1: it wasn't enough to draw a belt on a character.

463
00:25:48,760 --> 00:25:52,320
Speaker 1: The belt had seams and buttons and snaps and pockets.

464
00:25:52,520 --> 00:25:55,359
Speaker 1: There's no good reason to draw every shoelace on a shoe,

465
00:25:55,720 --> 00:25:57,960
Speaker 1: just making a simple shape. That was Eric and My

466
00:25:58,000 --> 00:26:01,520
Speaker 1: basic idea for the entire series, to simplify everything. There's

467
00:26:01,560 --> 00:26:05,159
Speaker 1: a famous, sort of controversial comics artists from the nineties

468
00:26:05,200 --> 00:26:07,840
Speaker 1: named Rob Lee Field who is famous for two things.

469
00:26:08,320 --> 00:26:12,440
Speaker 1: One is his inability to draw feet um and so

470
00:26:12,720 --> 00:26:17,560
Speaker 1: like all of his characters are these horrifically overmuscled steroid

471
00:26:17,760 --> 00:26:21,800
Speaker 1: nightmares that don't even have a semblance of anatomical reality,

472
00:26:21,800 --> 00:26:25,400
Speaker 1: and the women are all like horrific caricatures of femininity

473
00:26:25,480 --> 00:26:28,439
Speaker 1: with like these tiny wasp waists, and like, you know,

474
00:26:28,520 --> 00:26:32,640
Speaker 1: seventy percent of his action scenes all have these perspective

475
00:26:32,640 --> 00:26:37,360
Speaker 1: shots where like the overmuscled torsos and enormous guns are

476
00:26:37,400 --> 00:26:40,320
Speaker 1: all foregrounded, and then they taper into these tiny little

477
00:26:40,520 --> 00:26:43,480
Speaker 1: ballerina feet that are more often than not obscured behind

478
00:26:43,520 --> 00:26:45,840
Speaker 1: like a rock or something, and it's just become like

479
00:26:45,880 --> 00:26:48,120
Speaker 1: a running rip on him. That's just like he can't

480
00:26:48,200 --> 00:26:53,240
Speaker 1: draw feet. And his other thing was pouches, exact strainiest pouches,

481
00:26:53,400 --> 00:26:57,359
Speaker 1: like pouches around the thigh, like not just a beautility belt,

482
00:26:57,400 --> 00:27:00,960
Speaker 1: but like pouches around biceps and thigh and calves. It's

483
00:27:01,160 --> 00:27:05,480
Speaker 1: just ridiculous, Uh, that simplicity extended to these shows pitch

484
00:27:05,600 --> 00:27:08,200
Speaker 1: perfect opening which if you know nothing about this show,

485
00:27:08,600 --> 00:27:11,760
Speaker 1: just go look at the opening credits. They're gorgeous. Although

486
00:27:11,800 --> 00:27:16,680
Speaker 1: each episode's title is displayed in these beautiful nineties movie

487
00:27:16,760 --> 00:27:20,199
Speaker 1: theater style like lobby cards, like every episode title and

488
00:27:20,200 --> 00:27:23,240
Speaker 1: they're all like pulpy, like the very first episode where

489
00:27:23,280 --> 00:27:28,000
Speaker 1: Batman fights his polar inverse man Bat which is a

490
00:27:28,040 --> 00:27:31,960
Speaker 1: half man, half bat monster. It's called on Leather Wings,

491
00:27:32,520 --> 00:27:35,960
Speaker 1: which is so awesome. But these opening credits, there's no title.

492
00:27:36,080 --> 00:27:39,520
Speaker 1: You don't see the word Batman or animated or series anywhere.

493
00:27:39,880 --> 00:27:42,560
Speaker 1: It's just it's this beautiful film to a variation of

494
00:27:42,560 --> 00:27:45,359
Speaker 1: the Burton theme. And then you get these title cards.

495
00:27:45,800 --> 00:27:49,000
Speaker 1: And so there's a great article on that opening sequence

496
00:27:49,080 --> 00:27:51,960
Speaker 1: to the website, the art of the title, and Tim

497
00:27:52,000 --> 00:27:53,840
Speaker 1: said that was very much by design. He said, we

498
00:27:53,880 --> 00:27:56,280
Speaker 1: figured anybody in any language would be able to look

499
00:27:56,280 --> 00:27:59,040
Speaker 1: at these credits and go, oh, it's Batman. We want

500
00:27:59,040 --> 00:28:05,119
Speaker 1: expository information conveyed as visually as possible, stressing visual shorthand

501
00:28:05,200 --> 00:28:09,200
Speaker 1: over lazy expository speeches. That's from the show bible. Keep

502
00:28:09,240 --> 00:28:12,679
Speaker 1: the images and actions clear and vivid um. And then

503
00:28:12,680 --> 00:28:14,840
Speaker 1: there's a guy who directed some of these and he

504
00:28:14,880 --> 00:28:17,520
Speaker 1: was a storyboard artist. His name is Kevin Altieri, and

505
00:28:17,560 --> 00:28:19,760
Speaker 1: he's talking to back issue. He says the real difficulty

506
00:28:19,880 --> 00:28:22,240
Speaker 1: was in the layouts, because in the character layouts you

507
00:28:22,320 --> 00:28:25,040
Speaker 1: hire people with experience and layouts, and at that time

508
00:28:25,080 --> 00:28:28,760
Speaker 1: everyone was just doing goofy, funny, wacky cartoons. If people

509
00:28:28,760 --> 00:28:30,960
Speaker 1: had drawn action adventure, they hadn't done it for a

510
00:28:31,000 --> 00:28:33,440
Speaker 1: long time. Part of the reason the early shows looked

511
00:28:33,480 --> 00:28:36,119
Speaker 1: so good was that we had total control over the layouts.

512
00:28:36,400 --> 00:28:39,480
Speaker 1: It was done totally in house, and those were the

513
00:28:39,840 --> 00:28:42,200
Speaker 1: backgrounds were the work of a guy named Ted Blackman,

514
00:28:42,240 --> 00:28:44,440
Speaker 1: who's a real unsung hero of these shows. And he

515
00:28:44,520 --> 00:28:47,160
Speaker 1: was also a Tiny Tune Adventure alum. It will never

516
00:28:47,160 --> 00:28:48,800
Speaker 1: not be funny to me that these guys came over

517
00:28:48,840 --> 00:28:51,920
Speaker 1: from Tiny Toon Adventures. And the look of the show

518
00:28:51,960 --> 00:28:55,000
Speaker 1: is again these really bold, striking colors that are done

519
00:28:55,000 --> 00:28:58,000
Speaker 1: on these dark backgrounds. And a funny thing that once

520
00:28:58,000 --> 00:28:59,720
Speaker 1: you're cued into the visual language of the show, that

521
00:28:59,760 --> 00:29:02,320
Speaker 1: you can pick up on is that the shadows move

522
00:29:02,400 --> 00:29:06,520
Speaker 1: independently of light sources, so like they they're just these

523
00:29:06,680 --> 00:29:10,320
Speaker 1: enormous like swaths of dark shadow and like spotlight lighting

524
00:29:10,360 --> 00:29:12,640
Speaker 1: that just do not obey the laws of physics. But

525
00:29:12,680 --> 00:29:15,480
Speaker 1: they used air brushes to color these backgrounds, and so

526
00:29:15,520 --> 00:29:19,640
Speaker 1: they're these really oversaturated palette and then that will kind

527
00:29:19,680 --> 00:29:24,040
Speaker 1: of taper off into the patented sort of airbrush diffuse texture, uh,

528
00:29:24,080 --> 00:29:27,640
Speaker 1: And then to differentiate the backgrounds versus the foregrounds, they

529
00:29:27,640 --> 00:29:31,320
Speaker 1: would use like sponges or deliberately get kind of more

530
00:29:31,360 --> 00:29:34,959
Speaker 1: splatter textures from the air brushes. It's just such a

531
00:29:35,040 --> 00:29:39,080
Speaker 1: sophisticated visual language. This next section is titled ein klined

532
00:29:39,360 --> 00:29:43,640
Speaker 1: Bock bat music box music, not like bok but like bat.

533
00:29:44,480 --> 00:29:50,600
Speaker 1: Get it. That's good. I liked it. Okay, okay. The

534
00:29:50,600 --> 00:29:53,520
Speaker 1: show's main theme that I sang earlier beautifully is based

535
00:29:53,600 --> 00:29:56,400
Speaker 1: on Danny Elfman's theme from the Tim Burton movies. But

536
00:29:56,560 --> 00:29:58,240
Speaker 1: I would like to shine a spotlight on the woman

537
00:29:58,280 --> 00:29:59,800
Speaker 1: who did the bulk of the work on the show,

538
00:30:00,040 --> 00:30:03,960
Speaker 1: Shirley Walker. She is a prodigiously talented composer and pianist.

539
00:30:04,120 --> 00:30:06,360
Speaker 1: She played with the San Francisco Symphony when she was

540
00:30:06,400 --> 00:30:08,800
Speaker 1: a teenager, and she got her start in Hollywood in

541
00:30:08,880 --> 00:30:14,800
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy nine playing synths on the score of Apocalypse. Now, um,

542
00:30:14,840 --> 00:30:17,280
Speaker 1: this is asinine. I didn't know this. This took until

543
00:30:18,480 --> 00:30:22,200
Speaker 1: damn two for a female composer to earn a solo

544
00:30:22,320 --> 00:30:25,560
Speaker 1: composer credit on a major Hollywood motion picture, and that

545
00:30:25,640 --> 00:30:30,400
Speaker 1: was for a depressingly movie. My beloved John Carpenter's Chevy

546
00:30:30,480 --> 00:30:34,720
Speaker 1: Chase starring Memoirs of an Invisible Man, which is part

547
00:30:34,720 --> 00:30:38,160
Speaker 1: of Chase's downward slide and carpenters for that matter. Sorry,

548
00:30:38,240 --> 00:30:40,760
Speaker 1: j C, please forgive me. He would murder me if

549
00:30:40,760 --> 00:30:44,160
Speaker 1: he heard me say that. I feel like he would agree. No,

550
00:30:44,600 --> 00:30:48,840
Speaker 1: he's he's I think he's very like. He's very cute

551
00:30:48,840 --> 00:30:51,120
Speaker 1: into the fact that Hollywood sort of did him dirty.

552
00:30:51,160 --> 00:30:53,720
Speaker 1: But you know, there's a there's a really funny clip

553
00:30:53,760 --> 00:30:56,479
Speaker 1: of someone being like at a comic convention of somebody

554
00:30:56,520 --> 00:30:59,640
Speaker 1: being like, escape from New York was great? What happened

555
00:30:59,640 --> 00:31:01,720
Speaker 1: with this from l A? And he just gives him

556
00:31:01,720 --> 00:31:07,800
Speaker 1: the finger and yells you um and And it's funny

557
00:31:07,800 --> 00:31:10,440
Speaker 1: because Carpet notoriously does a lot of his scoring himself

558
00:31:10,480 --> 00:31:12,600
Speaker 1: to save at least in the early days, was to

559
00:31:12,600 --> 00:31:15,360
Speaker 1: save money. But he would collaborate with her again on

560
00:31:15,400 --> 00:31:18,600
Speaker 1: the aforementioned movie Escape from l A, which is a

561
00:31:19,760 --> 00:31:23,600
Speaker 1: a film in which Kurt Russell and Peter Fonda surfboard

562
00:31:23,760 --> 00:31:26,120
Speaker 1: together on a on a tighter way through Los Angeles.

563
00:31:26,200 --> 00:31:27,880
Speaker 1: Is that how they get out of l A? Or I?

564
00:31:27,880 --> 00:31:31,800
Speaker 1: I guess, I don't know. If they escape they get through. Yeah,

565
00:31:31,960 --> 00:31:34,880
Speaker 1: it's bad, dude. It's scored a like ventures like surf guitar.

566
00:31:35,120 --> 00:31:40,200
Speaker 1: It's so is it meant to be funny. Who's to say,

567
00:31:42,760 --> 00:31:45,640
Speaker 1: doesn't Shirley Walker like do the scoring by hands? But

568
00:31:45,800 --> 00:31:47,840
Speaker 1: she does her own engraving. She did her own engraving

569
00:31:47,840 --> 00:31:50,400
Speaker 1: by hand. Oh my god, wild. I mean, all these

570
00:31:50,400 --> 00:31:52,360
Speaker 1: people work with teams like that, and there were there

571
00:31:52,400 --> 00:31:54,440
Speaker 1: were a lot of composers credited on this show, but

572
00:31:54,520 --> 00:31:56,400
Speaker 1: you know, she did the bulk of this thing. There's

573
00:31:56,400 --> 00:32:00,000
Speaker 1: an incredible video that everyone should look up where she's

574
00:32:00,120 --> 00:32:02,560
Speaker 1: exceeded at a piano doing an interview and she plays

575
00:32:02,640 --> 00:32:06,400
Speaker 1: that that main theme that Dona Na Na, and then

576
00:32:06,520 --> 00:32:10,040
Speaker 1: harmonizes it and then shows all the different variations that

577
00:32:10,120 --> 00:32:12,240
Speaker 1: it goes through, like a rise. It's all these like

578
00:32:12,280 --> 00:32:15,560
Speaker 1: composition terms like you invert it, which means you play

579
00:32:15,560 --> 00:32:18,280
Speaker 1: it upside down, or you retrograd that you play backwards.

580
00:32:18,560 --> 00:32:20,680
Speaker 1: And so there's all these rising and falling themes that

581
00:32:20,720 --> 00:32:23,040
Speaker 1: she harmonizes in different ways or talks about how they

582
00:32:23,040 --> 00:32:27,080
Speaker 1: would orchestrate like really busy strings running over it, and

583
00:32:27,120 --> 00:32:29,880
Speaker 1: she's just like sitting at a keyboard like ripping all

584
00:32:29,920 --> 00:32:31,760
Speaker 1: of this stuff off the top of her head as

585
00:32:31,760 --> 00:32:34,320
Speaker 1: she talks about it. It's amazing, And she came to

586
00:32:34,400 --> 00:32:37,720
Speaker 1: the showrunners attention because she was working on Danny Elfman

587
00:32:37,840 --> 00:32:40,400
Speaker 1: on the TV series The Flash, which is something I

588
00:32:40,480 --> 00:32:44,840
Speaker 1: know nothing about. I guess there was a Flash TV

589
00:32:45,000 --> 00:32:47,680
Speaker 1: series that predated the current running one, and she was

590
00:32:47,720 --> 00:32:53,200
Speaker 1: actually Elfman's conductor on Batman and also scrooged and supposedly

591
00:32:53,240 --> 00:32:55,880
Speaker 1: this is an interview that I heard. She put this

592
00:32:55,920 --> 00:32:58,400
Speaker 1: in an interview when they were scoring Batman in London.

593
00:32:58,520 --> 00:33:01,480
Speaker 1: She said it was a record at the time from

594
00:33:01,480 --> 00:33:05,120
Speaker 1: the most recording sessions for any score for emotion. Picture

595
00:33:05,520 --> 00:33:08,840
Speaker 1: was unable to verify that, but I believe her any

596
00:33:08,840 --> 00:33:11,440
Speaker 1: movie ever, not just her personal best. Yeah. I don't know,

597
00:33:11,440 --> 00:33:13,560
Speaker 1: because she said the symphony like some of the members

598
00:33:13,560 --> 00:33:15,760
Speaker 1: like like they cent her a thank you card or something,

599
00:33:15,800 --> 00:33:20,760
Speaker 1: and it said, here's to another take, which is so great.

600
00:33:21,080 --> 00:33:23,360
Speaker 1: She worked for Hans Zimmer for a long time and

601
00:33:23,400 --> 00:33:26,120
Speaker 1: she did all the bunch of the Final Destination movies,

602
00:33:26,160 --> 00:33:28,920
Speaker 1: which is great. Uh, And this is so wild man.

603
00:33:29,160 --> 00:33:32,160
Speaker 1: Other studios at the time, especially for kids animation, they

604
00:33:32,200 --> 00:33:35,800
Speaker 1: were relying on stock music music libraries, and Bruce tim

605
00:33:35,960 --> 00:33:38,000
Speaker 1: told Vulture again to this woman's credit, that it was

606
00:33:38,040 --> 00:33:41,000
Speaker 1: Gene McCurdy who insisted that they have original compositions for

607
00:33:41,040 --> 00:33:45,960
Speaker 1: each episode. Scored directly to the specific scenes of that episode,

608
00:33:46,320 --> 00:33:50,080
Speaker 1: so surely her team and Bruce Tim would all collaborate

609
00:33:50,160 --> 00:33:53,760
Speaker 1: on eleven to fifteen minutes of original scoring for these

610
00:33:53,800 --> 00:33:58,320
Speaker 1: episodes and were recorded by a thirty piece orchestra in

611
00:33:58,440 --> 00:34:01,680
Speaker 1: scoring stages. And for the future length movie that takes

612
00:34:01,680 --> 00:34:04,440
Speaker 1: place in the series universe, Mask of the Phantasm, they

613
00:34:04,480 --> 00:34:07,080
Speaker 1: scored that with a hundred piece orchestra at a twenty

614
00:34:07,160 --> 00:34:10,720
Speaker 1: five voice corral. It's really funny. People have long wondered

615
00:34:10,800 --> 00:34:14,040
Speaker 1: what this corral is actually saying, and they are saying

616
00:34:14,120 --> 00:34:16,840
Speaker 1: the names of the different people and the creative team backwards,

617
00:34:17,239 --> 00:34:20,839
Speaker 1: Tim Radomski, Burnett and members of her composing team, and

618
00:34:20,880 --> 00:34:22,640
Speaker 1: you can actually hear it. It's funny, like once you

619
00:34:22,719 --> 00:34:24,800
Speaker 1: listen to it, you hear like you're like this haying mitt,

620
00:34:26,640 --> 00:34:43,279
Speaker 1: Yes they are. She won a Daytime Emmy Award for

621
00:34:43,320 --> 00:34:47,600
Speaker 1: the Music Director uh for the for this um and

622
00:34:47,640 --> 00:34:49,920
Speaker 1: then she picked up another one two one for Batman

623
00:34:49,960 --> 00:34:57,960
Speaker 1: Beyond and in ASCAP the American Songwriting and Composers Associated

624
00:34:59,320 --> 00:35:01,880
Speaker 1: right sounds yeah because ask Cappa and bm I are

625
00:35:01,880 --> 00:35:06,880
Speaker 1: the two big songwriting composer guilds, or or I should

626
00:35:06,880 --> 00:35:09,400
Speaker 1: know this. I remember b m I. They inaugurated the

627
00:35:09,400 --> 00:35:13,200
Speaker 1: Shirley Walker Award to honor those whose achievements have contributed

628
00:35:13,239 --> 00:35:17,040
Speaker 1: to the diversity of film and television music. But has

629
00:35:17,080 --> 00:35:20,240
Speaker 1: the Batman Animated series soundtrack been enshrined in the Library

630
00:35:20,280 --> 00:35:24,759
Speaker 1: of Congress Hygel god willing. If my life has purpose, yes,

631
00:35:24,760 --> 00:35:28,759
Speaker 1: it will be by mine own hand. Well. With the

632
00:35:28,800 --> 00:35:30,520
Speaker 1: look in the sound of the show in place, the

633
00:35:30,520 --> 00:35:34,279
Speaker 1: show's creative team began the unenviable task of casting the

634
00:35:34,320 --> 00:35:37,560
Speaker 1: new voice of Batman and also the Joker, Catwoman, and

635
00:35:37,600 --> 00:35:40,239
Speaker 1: the rest of the property's cast of characters. And we

636
00:35:40,320 --> 00:35:43,399
Speaker 1: say unenviable because bear in mind the series premiered less

637
00:35:43,400 --> 00:35:46,920
Speaker 1: than three months after Batman Returns it hit theaters, so

638
00:35:47,040 --> 00:35:50,560
Speaker 1: Michael Keaton's Bruce Wayne slash Batman voice was looming large

639
00:35:50,560 --> 00:35:53,480
Speaker 1: in the popular consciousness, not to mention Jack Nicholson as

640
00:35:53,520 --> 00:35:56,840
Speaker 1: the Joker, Danny DeVito as the Penguin, shelf Iffer's Catwoman,

641
00:35:57,480 --> 00:36:03,080
Speaker 1: and the rest. Voice director Andrew Romano told Vulture for

642
00:36:03,080 --> 00:36:06,480
Speaker 1: their incredible oral history on the Batman Animated series. Just

643
00:36:06,560 --> 00:36:10,080
Speaker 1: for Batman himself, I listened to five hundred voices, then

644
00:36:10,080 --> 00:36:12,600
Speaker 1: we did callbacks, and we auditioned a hundred and twenty

645
00:36:13,160 --> 00:36:15,080
Speaker 1: Bruce Tim and I narrowed it down to about four

646
00:36:15,200 --> 00:36:17,560
Speaker 1: or five actors, none of whom we were gaga four.

647
00:36:17,880 --> 00:36:20,040
Speaker 1: So I asked my roommate, he was a casting director.

648
00:36:20,120 --> 00:36:22,719
Speaker 1: I said, any actors you know? And he said, you know,

649
00:36:22,880 --> 00:36:25,320
Speaker 1: there's this wonderful actor who has a lot of stage

650
00:36:25,360 --> 00:36:28,239
Speaker 1: experience and a lot of TV and soap opera experience.

651
00:36:28,320 --> 00:36:33,439
Speaker 1: And his name's Kevin Conroy. Kevin Conroy man Long Island native.

652
00:36:33,480 --> 00:36:37,000
Speaker 1: Kevin Conroy received a scholarship to Juilliard after graduating high

653
00:36:37,000 --> 00:36:40,160
Speaker 1: school early at the age of seventeen. Had a difficult childhood.

654
00:36:40,200 --> 00:36:44,080
Speaker 1: His father was an alcoholic I think a pan Am executive.

655
00:36:44,600 --> 00:36:47,319
Speaker 1: A very commonly repeated part of Conroy's bios that he

656
00:36:47,400 --> 00:36:52,760
Speaker 1: once shared an apartment with Robin Williams. Uh and yeah.

657
00:36:52,960 --> 00:36:56,040
Speaker 1: He tweeted in twenty eighteen that he knew Christopher Reeves

658
00:36:56,080 --> 00:36:59,200
Speaker 1: from Juilliard and that those two even talked about rooming

659
00:36:59,239 --> 00:37:01,920
Speaker 1: together a Christopher Reaes I guess was living in Soho

660
00:37:02,000 --> 00:37:04,920
Speaker 1: at the time. And uh. Kevin Conroy said that the

661
00:37:04,920 --> 00:37:07,400
Speaker 1: two hundred dollars a month it would have cost him

662
00:37:07,440 --> 00:37:10,759
Speaker 1: to room with Christopher rees was too expensive. And they

663
00:37:10,840 --> 00:37:13,319
Speaker 1: handed up with Robin Williams where they divvied up their

664
00:37:13,360 --> 00:37:16,759
Speaker 1: apartment with half height walls to save money. So I

665
00:37:16,760 --> 00:37:19,719
Speaker 1: guess it would have looked like an office like pubical thing,

666
00:37:20,080 --> 00:37:23,919
Speaker 1: just like the four foot walls like divvy it up. Um. Yeah,

667
00:37:24,000 --> 00:37:26,799
Speaker 1: that means that if you abscribed to the multiverse theory,

668
00:37:26,800 --> 00:37:30,680
Speaker 1: there's somewhere world where Batman and Superman were struggling actors

669
00:37:30,719 --> 00:37:34,440
Speaker 1: living together, and so wow, that's a sitcom I'd like

670
00:37:34,520 --> 00:37:39,759
Speaker 1: to see. I've read that Kevin Conroy was also a

671
00:37:39,760 --> 00:37:44,360
Speaker 1: classmates at Juilliard with Kelsey Grammar too, which is interesting

672
00:37:44,400 --> 00:37:46,520
Speaker 1: to me for a sad reason. Kelsey Grammar had a

673
00:37:46,560 --> 00:37:49,919
Speaker 1: younger sister, Karen, who was murdered when Kelsey was about

674
00:37:49,960 --> 00:37:51,640
Speaker 1: twenty years old, which would have been around when he

675
00:37:51,640 --> 00:37:54,319
Speaker 1: was at Juilliard, and it's believed that one of the

676
00:37:54,360 --> 00:37:57,520
Speaker 1: men who was involved with the murder actually got away

677
00:37:57,560 --> 00:38:01,319
Speaker 1: and was never apprehended. So I wonder if any of

678
00:38:01,360 --> 00:38:07,040
Speaker 1: this somehow factored into Kevin Conroy's performance of Batman, given

679
00:38:07,040 --> 00:38:09,560
Speaker 1: that he probably knew Kelsey Grammar around this time and

680
00:38:09,680 --> 00:38:13,200
Speaker 1: Batman's whole origin story about avenging his parents who were

681
00:38:13,239 --> 00:38:15,040
Speaker 1: murdered in front of him. I don't I don't know.

682
00:38:15,120 --> 00:38:18,359
Speaker 1: I just think that's interesting. Did you know that about

683
00:38:18,440 --> 00:38:23,279
Speaker 1: him about Kelsey Grammer's depressing in life. Yeah, dude, it's

684
00:38:24,280 --> 00:38:27,160
Speaker 1: it's it's brough. He had like idea her himself. Oh

685
00:38:27,160 --> 00:38:31,880
Speaker 1: it's terrible. Yeah, yeah, don't google that one for if

686
00:38:31,880 --> 00:38:33,640
Speaker 1: you see the video where he talks about how he

687
00:38:33,680 --> 00:38:37,880
Speaker 1: got the voice for side show Bob No. So, I

688
00:38:37,920 --> 00:38:41,880
Speaker 1: guess he was like a man servant man boy Friday,

689
00:38:42,120 --> 00:38:45,279
Speaker 1: handyman for this like blow hard stage actor when he

690
00:38:45,360 --> 00:38:48,719
Speaker 1: was struggling in New York and this guy would like

691
00:38:48,800 --> 00:38:51,320
Speaker 1: come home and Kelsey would be like painting his cabinet

692
00:38:51,400 --> 00:38:54,600
Speaker 1: or whatever, and he would just he'd be like, Oh,

693
00:38:54,640 --> 00:38:56,799
Speaker 1: I forget the guy's name. He's like actually a known guy.

694
00:38:56,880 --> 00:38:59,200
Speaker 1: But he was like like, oh, yeah, hey man, how's

695
00:38:59,239 --> 00:39:01,480
Speaker 1: your day. I'm just and up their cabinets or whatever,

696
00:39:01,520 --> 00:39:10,279
Speaker 1: and oh Kelsey ah and he goes he goes, yeah,

697
00:39:09,840 --> 00:39:12,600
Speaker 1: I'm going to use that later. He like bookmarked that

698
00:39:12,719 --> 00:39:22,600
Speaker 1: voice thing low and I do around the house. Kelsey. Wow,

699
00:39:22,680 --> 00:39:27,600
Speaker 1: that's amazing. Uh. In the late nineteen eighties, Kevin Conroy,

700
00:39:27,640 --> 00:39:31,200
Speaker 1: who was gay, started in a Broadway production of Eastern Standard,

701
00:39:31,480 --> 00:39:33,840
Speaker 1: in which he played a TV producer secretly living with

702
00:39:33,880 --> 00:39:37,640
Speaker 1: AIDS and growing up closeted. But the strict religious family

703
00:39:37,719 --> 00:39:39,800
Speaker 1: was something that he said he brought to his audition

704
00:39:39,880 --> 00:39:43,200
Speaker 1: for Batman, the animated series. He said, I began to

705
00:39:43,320 --> 00:39:46,520
Speaker 1: speak and a voice I didn't recognize came out. It

706
00:39:46,600 --> 00:39:50,600
Speaker 1: was a throaty, husky, rumbling sound. It seemed to roar

707
00:39:50,719 --> 00:39:55,480
Speaker 1: from thirty years of frustration, confusion, denial, love and yearning.

708
00:39:57,239 --> 00:40:00,359
Speaker 1: I think it's beautiful, Kevin said he was isn't even

709
00:40:00,400 --> 00:40:02,359
Speaker 1: really a span of the comics at the time, and

710
00:40:02,400 --> 00:40:04,200
Speaker 1: this was his first audition that he went on for

711
00:40:04,239 --> 00:40:06,920
Speaker 1: animation work, and he said, when I went into the audition,

712
00:40:06,960 --> 00:40:08,920
Speaker 1: they asked me if I had any questions, and I

713
00:40:08,960 --> 00:40:10,680
Speaker 1: said something about how I assumed they were doing the

714
00:40:10,719 --> 00:40:14,120
Speaker 1: show like in nineteen sixties Adam West Batman series. This

715
00:40:14,160 --> 00:40:17,719
Speaker 1: is him talking to DC dot Com in interview, and

716
00:40:17,800 --> 00:40:20,040
Speaker 1: of course the response was something like no, no, that's

717
00:40:20,040 --> 00:40:23,360
Speaker 1: not it at all. And Bruce Tim's talking to Vulture,

718
00:40:23,360 --> 00:40:26,320
Speaker 1: he said, we had him read both Bruce Wayne Dialogue

719
00:40:26,320 --> 00:40:28,760
Speaker 1: and Batman dialogue, and right out of the gate, without

720
00:40:28,760 --> 00:40:32,359
Speaker 1: any direction from us, he just nailed it and this

721
00:40:32,400 --> 00:40:34,520
Speaker 1: is really interesting to me. Once he looked at the script,

722
00:40:34,560 --> 00:40:37,399
Speaker 1: I guess Kevin Conroy thought that the supporting character roles

723
00:40:37,440 --> 00:40:41,080
Speaker 1: like Commissioner Gordon and one of the Gotham PD detectives

724
00:40:41,080 --> 00:40:44,600
Speaker 1: were meteor and asked to read for them instead, and

725
00:40:44,760 --> 00:40:48,759
Speaker 1: the voiceover director Andrew Romano, I guess, told him, if

726
00:40:48,800 --> 00:40:51,480
Speaker 1: you're Batman, you'll be in every episode. Stop trying to

727
00:40:51,480 --> 00:40:55,880
Speaker 1: talk instead of hiring you. There's a really beautiful comic

728
00:40:55,960 --> 00:41:00,800
Speaker 1: that they did for the DC Pride anthology Amountain Pride

729
00:41:00,800 --> 00:41:04,799
Speaker 1: Month in two, and it's um. It just talks about

730
00:41:04,840 --> 00:41:07,719
Speaker 1: how he was struggling as a closet gayman growing up

731
00:41:07,760 --> 00:41:10,120
Speaker 1: and working as an actor before he was cast as Batman.

732
00:41:10,600 --> 00:41:13,600
Speaker 1: And they made it available to read for free online

733
00:41:13,680 --> 00:41:16,799
Speaker 1: when he died, so it's called Finding Batman. It's really good.

734
00:41:17,200 --> 00:41:20,520
Speaker 1: Kevin Connery would ultimately voice Batman for three decades in

735
00:41:20,600 --> 00:41:25,720
Speaker 1: nearly sixty different productions, including fifteen films, fifteen animated series

736
00:41:25,760 --> 00:41:30,719
Speaker 1: across four hundred episodes, and two dozen video games. Luke

737
00:41:30,760 --> 00:41:33,279
Speaker 1: Skywalker himself Mark Hamill, who as well discuss in a

738
00:41:33,280 --> 00:41:36,520
Speaker 1: minute voice Batman's prime foil the Joker for the show,

739
00:41:36,920 --> 00:41:40,240
Speaker 1: told Male magazine in their oral history of the show's

740
00:41:40,360 --> 00:41:43,759
Speaker 1: first episode featuring the Joker, Christmas with the Joker, that

741
00:41:43,880 --> 00:41:46,960
Speaker 1: Conroy's voice is like a massage on the back of

742
00:41:47,000 --> 00:41:50,759
Speaker 1: your neck. It's so rich and textured. That episode, by

743
00:41:50,760 --> 00:41:53,920
Speaker 1: the ways, where you get the classic grade schoolers chant

744
00:41:54,000 --> 00:41:57,160
Speaker 1: of jingle bells, Batman smells, Robin laid an egg, the

745
00:41:57,200 --> 00:42:00,040
Speaker 1: Batmobile lost to where on the Joker got away. I

746
00:42:00,040 --> 00:42:02,440
Speaker 1: can't believe that. I just assumed that was something that

747
00:42:02,480 --> 00:42:06,600
Speaker 1: was around just in schoolyards since time immemorial. I didn't

748
00:42:06,600 --> 00:42:08,920
Speaker 1: know that that was like, I really didn't know that

749
00:42:09,000 --> 00:42:11,760
Speaker 1: was something that was from a sanctioned Batman property. First

750
00:42:11,800 --> 00:42:16,280
Speaker 1: of all, Wow, it's like chaucer uh and that DC interview.

751
00:42:16,320 --> 00:42:19,440
Speaker 1: Connor explained that since the voice director, Andrea Romano started

752
00:42:19,480 --> 00:42:22,400
Speaker 1: as an actor herself, she pushed for the voicecast to

753
00:42:22,480 --> 00:42:25,120
Speaker 1: record together, which they did for almost every episode in

754
00:42:25,120 --> 00:42:28,520
Speaker 1: a fashion that he likened to producing a radio play.

755
00:42:28,680 --> 00:42:31,120
Speaker 1: They spent double the amount of money on an episode

756
00:42:31,120 --> 00:42:33,719
Speaker 1: that was customary. He told Mail Magazine. It was a

757
00:42:33,719 --> 00:42:36,239
Speaker 1: beautiful show with this timeless noir look to it, which

758
00:42:36,239 --> 00:42:38,680
Speaker 1: is why it still looks so new today. There's also

759
00:42:38,719 --> 00:42:40,560
Speaker 1: a big cast with eight or ten people in the

760
00:42:40,560 --> 00:42:43,800
Speaker 1: recording studio at once and a full symphony to score

761
00:42:43,880 --> 00:42:48,760
Speaker 1: each episode show, when does that happen in animation? Great question, Kevin.

762
00:42:49,360 --> 00:42:52,240
Speaker 1: The third episode, Nothing to Fear, features the most famous

763
00:42:52,280 --> 00:42:54,759
Speaker 1: line of the show, regularly used in the advertising. I

764
00:42:54,800 --> 00:42:58,040
Speaker 1: am Vengeance, I am the Night, I am Batman. And

765
00:42:58,080 --> 00:43:01,640
Speaker 1: he told Vulture, you can't approach that as a silly line.

766
00:43:02,000 --> 00:43:05,719
Speaker 1: It was Bruce Wayne talking to himself, reaffirming his own identity.

767
00:43:06,080 --> 00:43:08,120
Speaker 1: It was like, if I'm about to go on stage

768
00:43:08,160 --> 00:43:10,920
Speaker 1: and I'm terrified and i think I'll never remember anything

769
00:43:11,000 --> 00:43:15,359
Speaker 1: and I'll have a panic attack, it's Kevin Conroy saying, dammit, Kevin,

770
00:43:15,560 --> 00:43:18,080
Speaker 1: you are an actor. You are a good actor. You

771
00:43:18,160 --> 00:43:20,640
Speaker 1: know this role. You can do this role better than

772
00:43:20,680 --> 00:43:24,239
Speaker 1: anybody do it. I love that he approached it like

773
00:43:24,280 --> 00:43:34,560
Speaker 1: he was psyching himself up. I am the Knight, fat man,

774
00:43:38,080 --> 00:43:42,279
Speaker 1: but voice so good. There's a Frank Miller comic that

775
00:43:42,440 --> 00:43:46,759
Speaker 1: where he says, I'm the damn Batman. Just really funny.

776
00:43:47,080 --> 00:43:48,640
Speaker 1: I don't think they would have got We'll talk about it.

777
00:43:48,600 --> 00:43:51,360
Speaker 1: They probably wouldn't got away with that. With standards and practices.

778
00:43:51,960 --> 00:43:55,239
Speaker 1: There's and there's Also, this is probably irreverent an exodan

779
00:43:55,320 --> 00:43:58,440
Speaker 1: this on, but it's so funny, he said into Vulture.

780
00:43:58,480 --> 00:44:00,800
Speaker 1: He's talking about recording this. He says, in children's animation,

781
00:44:00,840 --> 00:44:04,280
Speaker 1: you can't actually kill anyone. So whenever Batman beats anyone

782
00:44:04,360 --> 00:44:06,040
Speaker 1: up or throws them off a cliff and they hit

783
00:44:06,080 --> 00:44:08,399
Speaker 1: the ground, there's what they call the stay alive moan,

784
00:44:08,920 --> 00:44:11,000
Speaker 1: so you know the character is not actually dead. You know,

785
00:44:11,040 --> 00:44:13,080
Speaker 1: when he was voicing a thug or whatever and somebody

786
00:44:13,120 --> 00:44:15,760
Speaker 1: got punched off a building or whatever, they go, okay,

787
00:44:15,760 --> 00:44:19,000
Speaker 1: stay alive moan, and they go, ah, you know, because

788
00:44:19,000 --> 00:44:21,640
Speaker 1: it's like it's like he was only grievously injured, he

789
00:44:21,719 --> 00:44:27,280
Speaker 1: wasn't killed. But he keeps Yeah, he says, they didn't

790
00:44:27,280 --> 00:44:29,799
Speaker 1: they do that. Oh the Ninja Turtles movie when the

791
00:44:29,800 --> 00:44:34,400
Speaker 1: henchman beats up, Yeah, oh he'll be okay. After he

792
00:44:34,440 --> 00:44:36,759
Speaker 1: beats a man to death his bare hands, the A

793
00:44:36,880 --> 00:44:40,399
Speaker 1: D R aligne like, oh, he's just he's just slightly dead.

794
00:44:40,440 --> 00:44:45,840
Speaker 1: He's just mostly dead. Um, and Kevin Connery continues, it

795
00:44:45,840 --> 00:44:49,919
Speaker 1: always sounded slightly sexualized. So one episode, I was doing

796
00:44:49,920 --> 00:44:54,680
Speaker 1: the stay alive moan and I went, ah, Andrea in

797
00:44:54,800 --> 00:44:57,840
Speaker 1: the place erupted. It just sounded like the most post

798
00:44:57,880 --> 00:45:02,480
Speaker 1: coital moment between Batman and Drea Romano. She hold and said, Okay,

799
00:45:02,520 --> 00:45:04,680
Speaker 1: I'm taking that one home with me tonight. It got

800
00:45:04,760 --> 00:45:06,960
Speaker 1: to be a tradition. Whenever I would get in a fight,

801
00:45:06,960 --> 00:45:10,800
Speaker 1: it would be Andrea. And then she added to Vulture

802
00:45:11,080 --> 00:45:13,640
Speaker 1: every session I've done with Kevin, and I believe we're

803
00:45:13,640 --> 00:45:16,960
Speaker 1: probably into the thousands of sessions I've done with Kevin Conrey.

804
00:45:17,000 --> 00:45:19,479
Speaker 1: At some point, every time he gives me a level

805
00:45:19,560 --> 00:45:21,799
Speaker 1: a level reading for sound, he says he ends it

806
00:45:21,880 --> 00:45:26,759
Speaker 1: with Andrea, and some people who aren't savvy to the

807
00:45:26,840 --> 00:45:29,560
Speaker 1: joke for from years ago, they're scratching their heads, going

808
00:45:29,600 --> 00:45:33,360
Speaker 1: like what does that mean? Anybody else who's in there, like, okay,

809
00:45:33,719 --> 00:45:36,080
Speaker 1: now we can start the session. It's official, Kevin has

810
00:45:36,120 --> 00:45:41,080
Speaker 1: said Andrea in the Batman voice, We're going to take

811
00:45:41,120 --> 00:45:43,359
Speaker 1: a quick break, but we'll be right back with more

812
00:45:43,480 --> 00:45:56,440
Speaker 1: too much information in just a moment. Well, outside of

813
00:45:56,520 --> 00:45:59,440
Speaker 1: Kevin Conroy, the actor most connected with Batman the animated

814
00:45:59,480 --> 00:46:02,360
Speaker 1: series is undoubtedly Mark Hamill, the voice of the Joker.

815
00:46:03,120 --> 00:46:06,960
Speaker 1: H Hamill actually originally appeared as an ancillary thug character

816
00:46:07,000 --> 00:46:10,280
Speaker 1: in the episode Heart of Ice which is the series

817
00:46:10,440 --> 00:46:14,399
Speaker 1: incredible introduction to the Mr. Freeze character, whom Bruce tim

818
00:46:14,400 --> 00:46:18,240
Speaker 1: originally wanted Anthony Hopkins because me, Sir Anthony Hopkins the voice.

819
00:46:18,800 --> 00:46:21,840
Speaker 1: That episode is incredible and it really rehabbed Mr like

820
00:46:21,960 --> 00:46:24,400
Speaker 1: Mr Freeze. His name is Mr Freeze. It sounds like

821
00:46:24,440 --> 00:46:28,480
Speaker 1: an ice cream guy. But that episode is so sad.

822
00:46:28,960 --> 00:46:32,200
Speaker 1: His entire motivation for being a super villain is to

823
00:46:32,280 --> 00:46:35,400
Speaker 1: cure his wife's terminal disease, and that's how he gets

824
00:46:35,400 --> 00:46:37,800
Speaker 1: trapped in the Mr Freeze suit, is that he's working

825
00:46:37,800 --> 00:46:40,480
Speaker 1: on a cure for her. And that's where they got

826
00:46:40,520 --> 00:46:44,000
Speaker 1: the whole Arnold Schwarzenegger storyline in Batman and Robin. It's

827
00:46:44,120 --> 00:46:48,880
Speaker 1: entirely down to the animated series version of it. Ah.

828
00:46:48,920 --> 00:46:51,200
Speaker 1: I mean, it's now like the definitive version of the character.

829
00:46:51,360 --> 00:46:54,640
Speaker 1: And there's this they wanted this image of the where

830
00:46:54,640 --> 00:46:56,880
Speaker 1: they were going to end this episode, this whole episode

831
00:46:57,239 --> 00:46:59,440
Speaker 1: where he's revealed to be this villain who's just trying

832
00:46:59,480 --> 00:47:01,799
Speaker 1: to you know, sure his wife's cancer and he has

833
00:47:01,880 --> 00:47:06,480
Speaker 1: to us to get diamonds or something to fuel his machine.

834
00:47:06,560 --> 00:47:10,160
Speaker 1: Maybe that's in the movie, but anyway, obviously he loses

835
00:47:10,560 --> 00:47:13,080
Speaker 1: and he's an Arkham Asylum. They were going to close

836
00:47:13,120 --> 00:47:15,520
Speaker 1: the episode with a shot of him crying and his

837
00:47:15,640 --> 00:47:20,160
Speaker 1: tears slowly turned into snow flakes and drift away. It's

838
00:47:20,200 --> 00:47:25,360
Speaker 1: like Holy that is gunning for a children's animated property.

839
00:47:25,760 --> 00:47:27,560
Speaker 1: And at one one of the at one one of

840
00:47:27,600 --> 00:47:29,759
Speaker 1: the Emmy's that the show picked up four Emmy's the

841
00:47:29,800 --> 00:47:38,080
Speaker 1: show one I used to meet you. It's pretty widely

842
00:47:38,120 --> 00:47:39,839
Speaker 1: known at this point. Even I knew this that Tim

843
00:47:39,880 --> 00:47:43,120
Speaker 1: Curry was originally cast as the Joker and Bruce. Tim

844
00:47:43,160 --> 00:47:45,840
Speaker 1: told Vulture everybody who came to the audition for the

845
00:47:45,920 --> 00:47:49,200
Speaker 1: Joker was doing basically the Adam West era Joker actor

846
00:47:49,280 --> 00:47:52,160
Speaker 1: sees a Romero, which is really broad. They weren't treating

847
00:47:52,160 --> 00:47:54,880
Speaker 1: the character seriously. All of the actors that we tested,

848
00:47:54,920 --> 00:47:57,960
Speaker 1: we're all doing these really silly and bizarre voices. None

849
00:47:57,960 --> 00:48:00,640
Speaker 1: of it had any serious threat to it at all. Bitch,

850
00:48:00,880 --> 00:48:05,160
Speaker 1: And then you called Tim Curry. We talked about in Ferngully,

851
00:48:05,480 --> 00:48:09,439
Speaker 1: who took it way too far Prouce, Tim continued, Tim

852
00:48:09,480 --> 00:48:11,880
Speaker 1: Curry actually came in and gave us something really close

853
00:48:11,920 --> 00:48:14,239
Speaker 1: to what we wanted. It was funny and weird, but

854
00:48:14,320 --> 00:48:17,839
Speaker 1: also definitely had some menace to it, so we hired Tim.

855
00:48:17,920 --> 00:48:20,280
Speaker 1: He did about three episodes for us, and then Alan

856
00:48:20,320 --> 00:48:22,439
Speaker 1: Burnett came to me after we did the third one

857
00:48:22,560 --> 00:48:24,839
Speaker 1: and we listened to the assembled tracks and he said,

858
00:48:24,920 --> 00:48:27,960
Speaker 1: I think we have to replace Tim Curry. And there

859
00:48:27,960 --> 00:48:30,480
Speaker 1: have been a bunch of reasons floated for Tim's replacement.

860
00:48:30,680 --> 00:48:33,280
Speaker 1: There was a claim that his performance was too scary

861
00:48:33,360 --> 00:48:36,440
Speaker 1: for a children's television show, which, again, given that they

862
00:48:36,440 --> 00:48:38,880
Speaker 1: said the same thing talking about his original voice tracks

863
00:48:38,920 --> 00:48:45,440
Speaker 1: for Hexas in Ferngully, extremely plausible. But in speaking at

864
00:48:45,560 --> 00:48:49,319
Speaker 1: Fan Expo Canada with screen Geek, Tim Curry talked about

865
00:48:49,320 --> 00:48:51,080
Speaker 1: this himself. He said that the reasoning was a bit

866
00:48:51,080 --> 00:48:53,840
Speaker 1: more mundane. He said, I did play joker for a while,

867
00:48:53,960 --> 00:48:56,840
Speaker 1: but I had bronchitis and they fired me and hired

868
00:48:56,840 --> 00:49:01,200
Speaker 1: Mark Hamill. That's life. I challenged that because they'd recorded

869
00:49:01,239 --> 00:49:03,680
Speaker 1: a bunch of episodes that they had Mark Hamill do over,

870
00:49:04,719 --> 00:49:08,040
Speaker 1: so they had his stuff in the vault, so why

871
00:49:08,080 --> 00:49:10,920
Speaker 1: would they not. This is a real, real you know,

872
00:49:11,000 --> 00:49:14,560
Speaker 1: pitting mom and dad against each other, like Mark Hamil

873
00:49:14,680 --> 00:49:17,520
Speaker 1: or Tim Curry? Can you do? Can you do a

874
00:49:17,560 --> 00:49:20,959
Speaker 1: Mark Hamil? I can't. I mean I didn't I didn't

875
00:49:20,960 --> 00:49:22,880
Speaker 1: want to do this or Batman because I just like

876
00:49:23,080 --> 00:49:27,279
Speaker 1: enshrined for me. Mark Camill is genuinely terrifying. Is that

877
00:49:27,760 --> 00:49:32,080
Speaker 1: I was very unfamiliar until earlier today, and I found

878
00:49:32,560 --> 00:49:34,920
Speaker 1: some clips on YouTube of him, like in the studio

879
00:49:35,040 --> 00:49:39,320
Speaker 1: doing the Joker laugh, which he's he's entired me and

880
00:49:39,600 --> 00:49:43,319
Speaker 1: mean just changes over like as Kevin Conford talks about,

881
00:49:43,360 --> 00:49:46,799
Speaker 1: it's just like it's like it's really yeah, you don't

882
00:49:46,800 --> 00:49:48,759
Speaker 1: want to live in that in that space, and it

883
00:49:48,760 --> 00:49:51,320
Speaker 1: comes from another bizarre place, much like Batman. The animated

884
00:49:51,320 --> 00:49:55,560
Speaker 1: series sprung from Tiny Too Adventures. Mark Hamill's terrifying performance

885
00:49:55,560 --> 00:50:00,320
Speaker 1: as Joker sprung from Mozart. He was telling about mag Bazine.

886
00:50:00,400 --> 00:50:03,160
Speaker 1: After Star Wars, I'd gone to Broadway to take advantage

887
00:50:03,200 --> 00:50:05,920
Speaker 1: of the character parts that were available there. I did

888
00:50:05,920 --> 00:50:08,600
Speaker 1: the first national tour of Amadis and then I did

889
00:50:08,600 --> 00:50:10,920
Speaker 1: it on Broadway. I didn't know that, but he was

890
00:50:11,040 --> 00:50:14,440
Speaker 1: also a huge comics nerd, and he was reading about

891
00:50:14,480 --> 00:50:18,080
Speaker 1: the show, the development of this animated series in the

892
00:50:18,280 --> 00:50:24,680
Speaker 1: Comics Buyer's Guide, that's a deeply nerdy trade publication, and

893
00:50:24,760 --> 00:50:25,920
Speaker 1: he wanted to be a part of it. So he

894
00:50:26,000 --> 00:50:28,560
Speaker 1: literally got his agent to call them and was like,

895
00:50:28,600 --> 00:50:30,000
Speaker 1: Mark really wants to be a part of the show,

896
00:50:30,400 --> 00:50:33,520
Speaker 1: and so they cast him as this business guy, evil

897
00:50:33,520 --> 00:50:36,680
Speaker 1: businessman in in the Mr. Freeze episode, and he said

898
00:50:36,719 --> 00:50:38,560
Speaker 1: he told Vulture, I went in and I just let

899
00:50:38,600 --> 00:50:42,040
Speaker 1: my geek flag fly. I was asking them all these questions,

900
00:50:42,120 --> 00:50:44,279
Speaker 1: are you gonna do Rosaul? Are you gonna do Dr

901
00:50:44,360 --> 00:50:48,600
Speaker 1: Hugo Strange? And then Andrea Romano told them Luke Luke.

902
00:50:49,600 --> 00:50:54,440
Speaker 1: Mark pulled me. Mark pulled me aside, poor guy man pull.

903
00:50:54,520 --> 00:50:56,080
Speaker 1: Mark pulled me aside at the end of the session

904
00:50:56,080 --> 00:50:58,040
Speaker 1: and said, I had so much fun doing this and

905
00:50:58,080 --> 00:51:00,360
Speaker 1: thank you for bringing me in. But I want to

906
00:51:00,360 --> 00:51:02,120
Speaker 1: be a part of the series. I don't want to

907
00:51:02,120 --> 00:51:04,719
Speaker 1: just come in and guest star and disappear. So when

908
00:51:04,719 --> 00:51:07,400
Speaker 1: it comes time to replace Tim Curry, they call in

909
00:51:07,760 --> 00:51:10,600
Speaker 1: our Camel And initially he didn't want to. You know,

910
00:51:10,640 --> 00:51:12,840
Speaker 1: not only was there the season Romero version of the character,

911
00:51:12,920 --> 00:51:16,080
Speaker 1: but Jack Nicholson had just done this a few years later.

912
00:51:16,280 --> 00:51:19,839
Speaker 1: People loved um, so he asked to do another more

913
00:51:19,920 --> 00:51:21,840
Speaker 1: minor villain. He was like, oh, you know, could you

914
00:51:21,840 --> 00:51:24,640
Speaker 1: guys maybe have me do to Face or Clay Face

915
00:51:24,800 --> 00:51:34,799
Speaker 1: or possibly a third option also face related bad face um.

916
00:51:34,880 --> 00:51:42,160
Speaker 1: And he also assumed, what else you gotta keep developing? Uh.

917
00:51:42,480 --> 00:51:44,279
Speaker 1: He also assumed that there would be a big fan

918
00:51:44,360 --> 00:51:47,279
Speaker 1: backlash against having, you know, Luke Skywalker play one of

919
00:51:47,320 --> 00:51:50,120
Speaker 1: the most evil comic book villains of all time. That

920
00:51:50,320 --> 00:51:55,400
Speaker 1: killing joke the Alan Moore storyline, Joker shoots Charmissioner Gordon's

921
00:51:55,520 --> 00:51:59,719
Speaker 1: daughter and paralyzes her. That is a plotline in that

922
00:52:00,120 --> 00:52:05,840
Speaker 1: Mick he's grim um damn. Yeah and uh in uh,

923
00:52:05,920 --> 00:52:08,680
Speaker 1: I think it's in it's in the Oh, it's in

924
00:52:08,719 --> 00:52:11,560
Speaker 1: the dark. Knight returns, he frames Batman for killing him

925
00:52:11,600 --> 00:52:14,799
Speaker 1: by breaking his own neck. Uh. So this is the

926
00:52:15,000 --> 00:52:18,440
Speaker 1: milieu into which Mark Hamill assumes the mantle of Joker,

927
00:52:18,920 --> 00:52:20,600
Speaker 1: and so he's like, He's like, yeah, man, I didn't

928
00:52:20,760 --> 00:52:22,600
Speaker 1: I didn't really think I was going to cast for this.

929
00:52:22,719 --> 00:52:24,400
Speaker 1: I was going to read for it. I didn't know

930
00:52:24,400 --> 00:52:26,680
Speaker 1: how people were going to react to Luke Skywalker being

931
00:52:26,719 --> 00:52:29,560
Speaker 1: cast as Joker. So he says, I went into the

932
00:52:29,560 --> 00:52:32,000
Speaker 1: audition thinking, well, it's too bad they can't cast me,

933
00:52:32,239 --> 00:52:34,319
Speaker 1: And then he said, I'm going to make them feel

934
00:52:34,360 --> 00:52:37,279
Speaker 1: really sorry that they can. One of the notes on

935
00:52:37,320 --> 00:52:41,040
Speaker 1: the script said, don't think Nicholson, and so he mentions

936
00:52:41,120 --> 00:52:44,759
Speaker 1: that I had just a Mozart and Amadeus in the

937
00:52:44,760 --> 00:52:48,480
Speaker 1: tour and on Broadway, and he had this sort of

938
00:52:48,640 --> 00:52:52,719
Speaker 1: ghastly laugh, is how he described it. That through everybody.

939
00:52:53,280 --> 00:52:55,759
Speaker 1: There's an uncided quote that made the rounds when the

940
00:52:55,800 --> 00:52:58,200
Speaker 1: movie version of Amadeus was released in the eighties, and

941
00:52:58,200 --> 00:53:01,400
Speaker 1: it's supposedly from an acquaintance of Mozarts who said that

942
00:53:01,440 --> 00:53:06,400
Speaker 1: he quote laughs with an infectious giddy like metal scraping glass.

943
00:53:07,239 --> 00:53:09,880
Speaker 1: But again it's uncited, so there's a chance that that

944
00:53:09,960 --> 00:53:14,000
Speaker 1: might be made up. Uh. And then he said in retrospect,

945
00:53:14,040 --> 00:53:17,040
Speaker 1: after getting that part, I asked Andrea Romano, how did

946
00:53:17,080 --> 00:53:19,160
Speaker 1: I get it? What was the process? How did you

947
00:53:19,200 --> 00:53:21,320
Speaker 1: know that you wanted me? And she said the laugh.

948
00:53:21,760 --> 00:53:24,239
Speaker 1: We gotta punch one of those, Yeah, yeah, yeah, we do.

949
00:53:33,280 --> 00:53:35,680
Speaker 1: Kevin Connery Towd Mail Magazine. Tim Curry had done the

950
00:53:35,719 --> 00:53:38,520
Speaker 1: Joker for a few episodes before he was replaced. He's

951
00:53:38,560 --> 00:53:41,080
Speaker 1: a wonderful actor and I didn't understand why they were

952
00:53:41,080 --> 00:53:43,680
Speaker 1: replacing him until I saw what Mark Hamill did with

953
00:53:43,719 --> 00:53:47,160
Speaker 1: the role. Originally I only knew Marcus Luke Skywalker, so

954
00:53:47,200 --> 00:53:49,080
Speaker 1: when I heard he was coming in as the new

955
00:53:49,160 --> 00:53:52,320
Speaker 1: voice of Joker. I thought, Mark Hamill, that's gonna be weird.

956
00:53:52,719 --> 00:53:54,920
Speaker 1: But he would just go to this crazy place with

957
00:53:55,040 --> 00:53:59,000
Speaker 1: his voice and his whole face became so rubbery. Yeah, listeners,

958
00:53:59,120 --> 00:54:01,960
Speaker 1: I beg you, I I am not in any way

959
00:54:02,080 --> 00:54:05,879
Speaker 1: steeped in the bat milieu. I spent so much time

960
00:54:05,920 --> 00:54:09,040
Speaker 1: this afternoon watching videos of Mark Hamill and the vocal booth,

961
00:54:10,080 --> 00:54:12,800
Speaker 1: especially doing the laugh, which will haunt my dreams forever.

962
00:54:13,239 --> 00:54:16,480
Speaker 1: Check it out. It's insane. I love what I mean.

963
00:54:16,840 --> 00:54:19,279
Speaker 1: Watching the best vocal artists do their thing in the

964
00:54:19,320 --> 00:54:22,680
Speaker 1: studio is so cool because their whole meatablize changes like

965
00:54:22,760 --> 00:54:25,280
Speaker 1: it's it's not just something that comes from their throat,

966
00:54:25,520 --> 00:54:28,520
Speaker 1: like everything about them morphs. It's just it's so wild.

967
00:54:28,560 --> 00:54:30,960
Speaker 1: I love it. So Mark Hamill had the challenge of

968
00:54:31,040 --> 00:54:34,880
Speaker 1: working with animation that had been done to Tim Curry's recordings,

969
00:54:35,120 --> 00:54:37,440
Speaker 1: so he says he wasn't really able to bring his

970
00:54:37,480 --> 00:54:39,480
Speaker 1: own rhythms to the characters until they ran out of

971
00:54:39,520 --> 00:54:42,200
Speaker 1: these episodes that Curry had already done. Um, which has

972
00:54:42,239 --> 00:54:45,960
Speaker 1: gotta be tough. Man, imagine doing recording your own voice.

973
00:54:46,040 --> 00:54:49,440
Speaker 1: Part two. Lip movements that have been animated around someone

974
00:54:49,440 --> 00:54:51,800
Speaker 1: else's entire readings. Well, we talked about that in hocus

975
00:54:51,840 --> 00:54:56,239
Speaker 1: Pocus too, and they they got somebody to do the

976
00:54:56,360 --> 00:55:01,160
Speaker 1: voice of oh Kid, Yes, y, because they thought the

977
00:55:01,200 --> 00:55:03,799
Speaker 1: original guy sounded to modern. Yeah, but this is where

978
00:55:03,800 --> 00:55:06,520
Speaker 1: I think that Tim Curry's excuse about having bron cute

979
00:55:06,560 --> 00:55:09,480
Speaker 1: is garbage, because he had already recorded a bunch that

980
00:55:09,520 --> 00:55:14,520
Speaker 1: they decided a junk. So, yeah, I guess that's better

981
00:55:14,560 --> 00:55:17,480
Speaker 1: than I was too terrifying. Oh, I would own that.

982
00:55:17,560 --> 00:55:21,280
Speaker 1: You kidding? That's true? And have you all seen Hexes? Yeah,

983
00:55:21,440 --> 00:55:24,440
Speaker 1: that's why those of you who aren't aroused by the character,

984
00:55:25,840 --> 00:55:29,759
Speaker 1: we'll have nightmares forever. Uh Conroy continued to vulture. Luke

985
00:55:29,840 --> 00:55:32,840
Speaker 1: Skywalker is the nice young leading man, and most times

986
00:55:32,840 --> 00:55:36,600
Speaker 1: in films that's probably the least interesting character. Well, Mark

987
00:55:36,640 --> 00:55:39,640
Speaker 1: Hamill could not be further from that. This madman came

988
00:55:39,680 --> 00:55:42,480
Speaker 1: into the recording studio and he was totally eccentric and

989
00:55:42,520 --> 00:55:45,879
Speaker 1: goes a million miles an hour. The other voice cast

990
00:55:45,920 --> 00:55:49,520
Speaker 1: for this show is wild Paul head of ASCAP and

991
00:55:49,640 --> 00:55:53,960
Speaker 1: writer of Rainbow Connection. Williams was the voice of the penguin. Well,

992
00:55:54,040 --> 00:55:55,719
Speaker 1: I didn't know that he did a lot of weird

993
00:55:55,760 --> 00:55:57,200
Speaker 1: bit parts he was on He had a bit part

994
00:55:57,239 --> 00:56:01,479
Speaker 1: in like Mash. I think Adrian Barboa, who's uh genre star.

995
00:56:02,000 --> 00:56:05,520
Speaker 1: She was also the original Rizzo on Broadway, John Carpenter's

996
00:56:05,520 --> 00:56:08,640
Speaker 1: ex wife. She's in the swamp Thing movie. She's Catwoman.

997
00:56:09,680 --> 00:56:14,080
Speaker 1: Roddy McDowell, Um, is he doctors ais or No? He's

998
00:56:14,080 --> 00:56:18,120
Speaker 1: seen Yeah. In Plan of the Apes, he's a villain

999
00:56:18,160 --> 00:56:21,720
Speaker 1: called the Mad Hatter. Ron Perlman comes in as clay Face,

1000
00:56:21,719 --> 00:56:26,200
Speaker 1: Big Old Lantern, jaw Rod Perlman, gambled Dotorro favorite friend

1001
00:56:26,200 --> 00:56:31,319
Speaker 1: of the pod, Ron Perlman, Uh, David Warner British Icon,

1002
00:56:31,560 --> 00:56:35,960
Speaker 1: Acting Icon, David Warner's rosal and Ed Asner Perennial New

1003
00:56:36,040 --> 00:56:40,680
Speaker 1: York Times Crossword clue ed Asner as himself and starring

1004
00:56:40,680 --> 00:56:44,360
Speaker 1: at Asner as himself. Well with the conscious attempts to

1005
00:56:44,360 --> 00:56:46,880
Speaker 1: push the envelope in terms of children's animation tone, the

1006
00:56:46,920 --> 00:56:49,319
Speaker 1: show's tone and content got a lot of notes from

1007
00:56:49,320 --> 00:56:51,439
Speaker 1: the higher ups, though Bruce tim wrote in the book

1008
00:56:51,440 --> 00:56:54,360
Speaker 1: on the show that some people Fox were relatively lenient

1009
00:56:54,400 --> 00:56:56,400
Speaker 1: as far as that went. He said one of the

1010
00:56:56,480 --> 00:57:00,759
Speaker 1: unsung heroes of the series was Avery Coburn, Fox's broadcasting

1011
00:57:00,800 --> 00:57:04,000
Speaker 1: standards and practices liaison. He wrote, we were getting in

1012
00:57:04,040 --> 00:57:06,840
Speaker 1: a new territory with this show, and every understood exactly

1013
00:57:06,880 --> 00:57:09,480
Speaker 1: what we were going for. She changed the rules for

1014
00:57:09,600 --> 00:57:12,880
Speaker 1: daytime animated series, which were long overdue for an overhaul.

1015
00:57:13,280 --> 00:57:16,080
Speaker 1: In past Saturday morning shows, the hero wasn't even allowed

1016
00:57:16,120 --> 00:57:19,960
Speaker 1: to make a fist, much less hit anyone with it. Wow. Yeah,

1017
00:57:21,000 --> 00:57:23,120
Speaker 1: Some of these notes that are included in the book

1018
00:57:23,200 --> 00:57:27,760
Speaker 1: are so a quick quick sampling of them, although there

1019
00:57:27,760 --> 00:57:31,520
Speaker 1: were multiple ones I omitted that included the nature of

1020
00:57:31,640 --> 00:57:34,960
Speaker 1: the strikes Batman were allowed to use in dealing with

1021
00:57:35,000 --> 00:57:38,680
Speaker 1: criminals and the points on the villain's body where he

1022
00:57:38,760 --> 00:57:41,240
Speaker 1: was allowed to deliver them. So that's how grand you're

1023
00:57:41,320 --> 00:57:43,560
Speaker 1: like out with this stuff. But here's a here's a

1024
00:57:43,600 --> 00:57:46,560
Speaker 1: small sampling. The network says it is not their practice

1025
00:57:46,600 --> 00:57:49,720
Speaker 1: to show animal excrement hitting anyone on a children's show.

1026
00:57:50,000 --> 00:57:52,120
Speaker 1: They want us to cut the bat guana landing on

1027
00:57:52,160 --> 00:57:57,400
Speaker 1: Alfred's jacket. Network has a problem with Bruce's line I'll

1028
00:57:57,440 --> 00:58:03,720
Speaker 1: see you in hell. That's great. Penguin's joke about picking

1029
00:58:03,800 --> 00:58:07,120
Speaker 1: up all the soap in prison is out. The third

1030
00:58:07,200 --> 00:58:13,200
Speaker 1: thug must be Caucasian. Oh wow, Bs and p s

1031
00:58:13,240 --> 00:58:15,720
Speaker 1: has Bane picking up Robin by the head is too

1032
00:58:15,720 --> 00:58:17,800
Speaker 1: easy for a kid to copy with a pet or

1033
00:58:17,880 --> 00:58:23,280
Speaker 1: smaller kid. It has to be clear through Harley's dialogue,

1034
00:58:23,400 --> 00:58:25,600
Speaker 1: I think I made a mess on your cape that

1035
00:58:25,760 --> 00:58:30,800
Speaker 1: she only barred. There's a lot to read into it, Okay,

1036
00:58:32,320 --> 00:58:35,600
Speaker 1: Sensor wants us to figure out someplace for Catwoman to

1037
00:58:35,760 --> 00:58:44,880
Speaker 1: land other than on her face or breasts. They also

1038
00:58:44,920 --> 00:58:47,240
Speaker 1: pitched the plot line where they wanted to turn Batman

1039
00:58:47,280 --> 00:58:50,360
Speaker 1: into a vampire, but uh Fox put the kai bosh

1040
00:58:50,400 --> 00:58:53,160
Speaker 1: on that. Another of the show's Emmy's came from an

1041
00:58:53,160 --> 00:58:56,200
Speaker 1: episode in which Robin's parents the acrobats are killed in

1042
00:58:56,240 --> 00:58:58,440
Speaker 1: the middle of their act, and they got around this

1043
00:58:58,520 --> 00:59:01,520
Speaker 1: in a really really interesting way. They obviously couldn't show it,

1044
00:59:01,880 --> 00:59:04,960
Speaker 1: so they have this series of shots where they're performing

1045
00:59:05,000 --> 00:59:08,800
Speaker 1: their act silhouetted against the backdrop, just in black silhouette,

1046
00:59:09,040 --> 00:59:12,520
Speaker 1: and they swing out of frame and then the trapeeze

1047
00:59:13,200 --> 00:59:19,880
Speaker 1: trapeeze I trapeezes. They swing back in Batman, they swing

1048
00:59:20,000 --> 00:59:23,640
Speaker 1: back into frame with the rope severed. Just this image

1049
00:59:23,640 --> 00:59:25,880
Speaker 1: of them swinging back into frame emptied, and then they

1050
00:59:25,880 --> 00:59:27,960
Speaker 1: cut to the crowd like the crowd in the in

1051
00:59:27,960 --> 00:59:31,000
Speaker 1: the circus, just like a ghast. It's just so so

1052
00:59:31,200 --> 00:59:33,600
Speaker 1: artful man, just so much they did, They did so

1053
00:59:33,680 --> 00:59:35,960
Speaker 1: much with this show. In other words, it was a

1054
00:59:36,000 --> 00:59:43,800
Speaker 1: delicate bat dance. Batman the animated series premiered on the

1055
00:59:43,840 --> 00:59:47,760
Speaker 1: Fox Broadcasting Companies children's block Fox Kids in September five

1056
00:59:49,320 --> 00:59:52,880
Speaker 1: and aired in that block during weekday afternoons at PM.

1057
00:59:53,360 --> 00:59:57,000
Speaker 1: Christmas Day a very happy one for you, I imagine,

1058
00:59:57,040 --> 01:00:00,880
Speaker 1: because I saw the release of Batman. Mask of the

1059
01:00:01,000 --> 01:00:03,560
Speaker 1: Phantasm scared out of me when I was a kid.

1060
01:00:03,760 --> 01:00:06,160
Speaker 1: I this is the feature length that I say that right,

1061
01:00:06,200 --> 01:00:11,000
Speaker 1: fantastic Okay. It's a feature length film set in the

1062
01:00:11,040 --> 01:00:13,880
Speaker 1: show's universe, and it contains a scene with Batman at

1063
01:00:13,920 --> 01:00:17,880
Speaker 1: his parents grave that moved Andrew Romano, the vocal director,

1064
01:00:17,920 --> 01:00:20,720
Speaker 1: to two full minutes of weeping. When you heard Kevin

1065
01:00:20,760 --> 01:00:23,600
Speaker 1: Conroy recorded, she said she had to leave the room.

1066
01:00:23,800 --> 01:00:26,080
Speaker 1: She was like, uh, like she watched him do the

1067
01:00:26,120 --> 01:00:29,040
Speaker 1: take and then and then was like, I I need

1068
01:00:29,120 --> 01:00:31,720
Speaker 1: some time, and like walked out of the recording studio.

1069
01:00:33,120 --> 01:00:37,960
Speaker 1: But despite the emotional punch that this film delivered, it

1070
01:00:38,000 --> 01:00:40,280
Speaker 1: didn't do very well at the box office and failed

1071
01:00:40,280 --> 01:00:42,320
Speaker 1: to recoup his budget. Did you go see it. He

1072
01:00:42,400 --> 01:00:44,560
Speaker 1: must have been really young. I guess, uh yeah, I

1073
01:00:44,720 --> 01:00:49,000
Speaker 1: was five, so no, but I remember this scaring me.

1074
01:00:49,160 --> 01:00:52,160
Speaker 1: Like the phantasm is like a darker, like a gritty,

1075
01:00:52,280 --> 01:00:55,120
Speaker 1: gritty version of like and it just like it said,

1076
01:00:55,160 --> 01:00:56,680
Speaker 1: it looks like a grim reaper and they have like

1077
01:00:56,720 --> 01:00:59,200
Speaker 1: a site for like a blade for hand, and I

1078
01:00:59,320 --> 01:01:01,600
Speaker 1: remember being like scared of it as a kid. A

1079
01:01:01,640 --> 01:01:04,120
Speaker 1: lot of this show actually did scare me. I remember

1080
01:01:04,160 --> 01:01:08,280
Speaker 1: being like deeply haunted by um clay Face, who is

1081
01:01:08,320 --> 01:01:10,800
Speaker 1: this like act that's the Ron Perlman character as an

1082
01:01:10,840 --> 01:01:14,920
Speaker 1: actor who was like trying to preserve his looks, and

1083
01:01:15,000 --> 01:01:18,320
Speaker 1: so he was he like got this experimental like something

1084
01:01:18,360 --> 01:01:20,200
Speaker 1: done on him, and it turns him into this giant

1085
01:01:20,440 --> 01:01:24,840
Speaker 1: mud monster who can change shape but only for limited

1086
01:01:24,840 --> 01:01:28,240
Speaker 1: amounts of time. And during the his like end scene

1087
01:01:28,240 --> 01:01:32,440
Speaker 1: with Batman, he like keeps changing into his past roles

1088
01:01:32,640 --> 01:01:38,080
Speaker 1: that he's played. It's just it's like a like adult

1089
01:01:38,200 --> 01:01:40,640
Speaker 1: like stuff in this show is And the first episode

1090
01:01:40,680 --> 01:01:47,000
Speaker 1: features a giant bat and monster like again, so good um.

1091
01:01:47,040 --> 01:01:53,840
Speaker 1: The show's original run ended on September after episodes, at

1092
01:01:53,880 --> 01:01:55,640
Speaker 1: which point a lot of the team then went over

1093
01:01:55,680 --> 01:02:00,520
Speaker 1: to Superman. The animated series, which again Superman sucks. So

1094
01:02:00,560 --> 01:02:03,600
Speaker 1: they subsequently retooled the original animated series for the New

1095
01:02:03,600 --> 01:02:08,959
Speaker 1: Batman Adventures, which premiered in September after the aforementioned long

1096
01:02:09,080 --> 01:02:12,680
Speaker 1: national nightmare of Batman and Robin being in the theaters.

1097
01:02:13,240 --> 01:02:16,880
Speaker 1: Um and that film just again just tanked Batman in

1098
01:02:16,920 --> 01:02:19,840
Speaker 1: the popular consciousness until Batman Begins. I was ten years

1099
01:02:19,920 --> 01:02:24,000
Speaker 1: later in two thousand five. Those Nolan Batman's That Man

1100
01:02:24,360 --> 01:02:27,480
Speaker 1: Joel Schumacher, May he Rest in Peace, really did a number,

1101
01:02:28,960 --> 01:02:32,560
Speaker 1: but a New Batman Adventures continue to January when it

1102
01:02:32,680 --> 01:02:35,680
Speaker 1: was replaced by Batman Beyond, which is a show about

1103
01:02:35,680 --> 01:02:38,000
Speaker 1: an aging Bruce Wayne mentoring a new Batman. And even

1104
01:02:38,040 --> 01:02:40,000
Speaker 1: though that show was a hit, it did sort of

1105
01:02:40,040 --> 01:02:43,200
Speaker 1: signal the death knell of of the property. And this

1106
01:02:43,240 --> 01:02:44,840
Speaker 1: is Bruce tim talking to Vulture. He said, we got

1107
01:02:44,920 --> 01:02:48,160
Speaker 1: a call from the head of Kids w B, Jamie Kellner,

1108
01:02:48,440 --> 01:02:49,960
Speaker 1: and he liked what we were doing with the shows,

1109
01:02:50,200 --> 01:02:51,560
Speaker 1: but he wanted to figure out a way to make

1110
01:02:51,600 --> 01:02:56,200
Speaker 1: them even more kid friendly. Yeah, at the time, one

1111
01:02:56,240 --> 01:02:58,240
Speaker 1: of the big shows on wb was Buffy and so

1112
01:02:58,280 --> 01:03:01,680
Speaker 1: everything he was saying was kind of moving in that direction. Literally,

1113
01:03:01,720 --> 01:03:03,440
Speaker 1: at one point in a meeting, he said, what if

1114
01:03:03,480 --> 01:03:06,439
Speaker 1: we made Batman a teenager? And we all freaked out.

1115
01:03:06,760 --> 01:03:08,600
Speaker 1: We tried to keep a straight face because you don't

1116
01:03:08,600 --> 01:03:10,560
Speaker 1: want to say to the head of the WB network

1117
01:03:10,720 --> 01:03:16,160
Speaker 1: that's a really stupid idea, but we were all thinking it. Actually,

1118
01:03:16,160 --> 01:03:18,240
Speaker 1: at that meeting, I threw out the idea of, well,

1119
01:03:18,280 --> 01:03:20,800
Speaker 1: maybe if the original Batman Bruce Wayne got too old

1120
01:03:20,800 --> 01:03:22,840
Speaker 1: to be Batman and he hadn't kind of had to

1121
01:03:22,840 --> 01:03:25,760
Speaker 1: pass the mantel a young kid. And Jamie really liked

1122
01:03:25,760 --> 01:03:27,760
Speaker 1: that idea. And then we walked out and said, God,

1123
01:03:27,800 --> 01:03:31,160
Speaker 1: what the hell are we going to do again? Backed

1124
01:03:31,160 --> 01:03:33,720
Speaker 1: into the backed into the classic corner of pitching something

1125
01:03:33,800 --> 01:03:37,640
Speaker 1: you don't like that your bosses do, Tim continued to Vulture.

1126
01:03:38,080 --> 01:03:40,600
Speaker 1: We met with Jamie again. We pitched him my idea

1127
01:03:40,680 --> 01:03:43,440
Speaker 1: for Batman Beyond. Then he said, great, you've got the

1128
01:03:43,440 --> 01:03:46,040
Speaker 1: green light, now go make that show. And we said,

1129
01:03:46,080 --> 01:03:48,280
Speaker 1: but what about the Batman show that we're doing right now,

1130
01:03:48,640 --> 01:03:50,840
Speaker 1: and he says, well, we'll cancel that one and now

1131
01:03:50,880 --> 01:03:55,520
Speaker 1: you have to do Batman Beyond instead. So but you know,

1132
01:03:56,440 --> 01:03:59,960
Speaker 1: noble end of Batman animated series. But you know, I mean,

1133
01:04:00,080 --> 01:04:02,440
Speaker 1: people really love Batman beyond and it's it's it is good.

1134
01:04:02,480 --> 01:04:05,360
Speaker 1: But um yeah, I mean, they had a great run. Um.

1135
01:04:05,400 --> 01:04:09,160
Speaker 1: And critics always loved this show. I mean, Entertainment Weekly

1136
01:04:09,240 --> 01:04:12,080
Speaker 1: just called it one of the best television series of

1137
01:04:12,200 --> 01:04:15,960
Speaker 1: the year. Um and that was when Wings was on.

1138
01:04:16,960 --> 01:04:22,320
Speaker 1: Uh uh. As the generation who grew up with it

1139
01:04:22,560 --> 01:04:25,560
Speaker 1: have ascended into the ranks of the of the halls

1140
01:04:25,600 --> 01:04:28,520
Speaker 1: of critical power, if you will, that reputation has only grown.

1141
01:04:29,680 --> 01:04:32,160
Speaker 1: I g N listed it as the best adaptation of

1142
01:04:32,200 --> 01:04:35,800
Speaker 1: Batman anywhere outside of the comics, the best comic book

1143
01:04:35,800 --> 01:04:38,680
Speaker 1: cartoon of all time, and the second best animated series

1144
01:04:38,720 --> 01:04:41,920
Speaker 1: of all time after The Simpsons. Wizard Magazine, which is

1145
01:04:41,920 --> 01:04:45,280
Speaker 1: probably the biggest comics magazine, ranked it number two the

1146
01:04:45,320 --> 01:04:49,320
Speaker 1: greatest animated television shows of all time, also after The Simpsons.

1147
01:04:49,720 --> 01:04:52,880
Speaker 1: TV Guide ranked at the seventh greatest cartoon of all time.

1148
01:04:53,360 --> 01:04:56,080
Speaker 1: And you know, it's funny considering that she's one of

1149
01:04:56,120 --> 01:04:59,280
Speaker 1: the biggest figures in the DC Cinematic universe right now.

1150
01:04:59,320 --> 01:05:02,440
Speaker 1: Margot Robbie is Harley Quinn. That character just comes from

1151
01:05:02,480 --> 01:05:05,240
Speaker 1: this show and the Brooklyn and the voice too, that

1152
01:05:05,440 --> 01:05:08,560
Speaker 1: that like sort of New York Jewish Brooklyn accent, that

1153
01:05:08,640 --> 01:05:11,040
Speaker 1: she does is the uh that was a woman on

1154
01:05:11,120 --> 01:05:15,560
Speaker 1: Days of Our Lives And apparently in one of those episodes,

1155
01:05:15,600 --> 01:05:18,520
Speaker 1: she was wearing like a Harley Quinn, like the classical,

1156
01:05:18,600 --> 01:05:22,760
Speaker 1: like Harlequin Joker kind of outfit. And when Tim and

1157
01:05:22,800 --> 01:05:25,400
Speaker 1: Radomski were creating it, they were like, Yeah, let's just

1158
01:05:25,400 --> 01:05:27,760
Speaker 1: bring her in and make her look exactly like that.

1159
01:05:27,880 --> 01:05:31,280
Speaker 1: We'll give Joker a girlfriend. And it became this Harley Quinn.

1160
01:05:31,320 --> 01:05:33,640
Speaker 1: It became one of the most beloved people in the

1161
01:05:33,680 --> 01:05:37,080
Speaker 1: Batman franchise, to the point where she's like a proper

1162
01:05:37,120 --> 01:05:41,280
Speaker 1: heroine now. And it all came from Batman, the animated series,

1163
01:05:41,720 --> 01:05:44,120
Speaker 1: So if nothing else, we got that going for us.

1164
01:05:45,280 --> 01:05:48,160
Speaker 1: And you know, again, Kevin conray Man, what more to

1165
01:05:48,200 --> 01:05:51,320
Speaker 1: say for you know about him? It's just amazing that

1166
01:05:51,760 --> 01:05:54,080
Speaker 1: he was this the voice of that character for so long,

1167
01:05:54,120 --> 01:05:56,360
Speaker 1: for so many people who grew up with it. I

1168
01:05:56,400 --> 01:05:59,280
Speaker 1: don't really think it could be overstated enough that you know,

1169
01:05:59,480 --> 01:06:04,120
Speaker 1: the voice of this very archetypally masculine character was an

1170
01:06:04,120 --> 01:06:06,160
Speaker 1: out gay man, very proud of it, and and just

1171
01:06:06,200 --> 01:06:09,280
Speaker 1: this year has that incredible story about it that again

1172
01:06:09,320 --> 01:06:12,560
Speaker 1: I encourage everyone to go look up and I don't

1173
01:06:12,560 --> 01:06:14,600
Speaker 1: have much else to say other than rest in peace.

1174
01:06:14,640 --> 01:06:20,280
Speaker 1: Kevin Conroy, you were the night, you were Vengeance, you

1175
01:06:20,360 --> 01:06:25,960
Speaker 1: were Batman, well said. Thank you everyone for listening. Thank

1176
01:06:26,000 --> 01:06:29,000
Speaker 1: you Jordan for putting up with this. This has been

1177
01:06:29,560 --> 01:06:33,120
Speaker 1: too much information. I'm Alex Heagle and I'm Jordan run Todd.

1178
01:06:33,240 --> 01:06:40,640
Speaker 1: We'll catch you next time. Too Much Information was a

1179
01:06:40,680 --> 01:06:43,800
Speaker 1: production of I Heart Radio. The show's executive producers are

1180
01:06:43,840 --> 01:06:47,240
Speaker 1: Noel Brown and Jordan run Talk. The show's supervising producer

1181
01:06:47,320 --> 01:06:50,440
Speaker 1: is Michael Alder June. The show was researched, written, and

1182
01:06:50,520 --> 01:06:53,560
Speaker 1: hosted by Jordan run Talk and Alex Hegel, with original

1183
01:06:53,640 --> 01:06:56,560
Speaker 1: music by Seth Applebaum and the Ghost Punk Orchestra. If

1184
01:06:56,560 --> 01:06:58,600
Speaker 1: you like what you heard, please subscribe and leave us

1185
01:06:58,600 --> 01:07:01,080
Speaker 1: a review. For more pud Gas and I Heeart Radio,

1186
01:07:01,240 --> 01:07:04,240
Speaker 1: visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever

1187
01:07:04,320 --> 01:07:09,160
Speaker 1: you listen to your favorite shows. M