50 Fun Facts About Batman: the Animated Series

Which pair created Batman: The Animated Series, pitching it with a wordless short film?

Bruce Timm and Eric Radomski had never produced a series when their pitch film won them the job, and the short was reworked into the opening titles.

On which network block did Batman: The Animated Series originally air?

Fox Kids launched the show in September 1992, and that winter the network also aired it on Sunday evenings in prime time to reach viewers beyond children.

Why was the series retitled The Adventures of Batman & Robin in 1994?

To attract younger boys: the network feared the first season was leaving them behind, so it ordered Robin into every episode and added him to the title.

Who voiced the title hero throughout Batman: The Animated Series?

Kevin Conroy gave Bruce Wayne and Batman separate voices, an idea he took from Leslie Howard's double life in the 1934 film The Scarlet Pimpernel.

Which Star Wars actor voiced the Joker in Batman: The Animated Series?

Mark Hamill credits a long tour as Mozart in the play Amadeus, where he kept reinventing the laugh, for the arsenal of cackles that won him the part.

Which actor was first cast as the Joker in Batman: The Animated Series but replaced after early recording sessions?

Tim Curry has said a bout of bronchitis cost him the part; the producers' version is that they wanted to take the villain's voice in a different direction.

Which Night Court actor voiced Harvey Dent and Two-Face in Batman: The Animated Series?

Richard Moll, Night Court's bailiff Bull, voiced Harvey Dent on both sides of the coin, and he doubled as the calm voice of the Batcomputer.

Which actor did voice director Andrea Romano want as Ra's al Ghul but never manage to schedule?

Christopher Lee never turned her down, Romano recalled: she made him offers, but their schedules never lined up, and David Warner voiced Ra's in the series.

What was unusual about how the voice cast worked under Andrea Romano?

They performed together in one studio instead of taping each actor alone, and every later series in the same animated universe kept the method.

What nickname did the producers give Batman: The Animated Series' blend of film noir and 1940s architecture?

Dark Deco paired film-noir shadows with Art Deco skylines, and to get it the backgrounds were painted in light colours on black paper, the reverse of normal practice.

Whose shooting in the episode 'I Am the Night' leaves Batman ready to give up crime-fighting?

Commissioner Gordon is wounded in a stakeout shoot-out that Batman reached late, having stopped at Crime Alley to mark the anniversary of his parents' deaths.

Which episode was produced first, as the pilot of Batman: The Animated Series?

On Leather Wings pits Batman against the winged Man-Bat; though it was made first, it was the second episode to be broadcast.

Which comics artist designed Mr. Freeze for Batman: The Animated Series?

Mike Mignola, soon to be famous for creating Hellboy, drew the villain's look; by his own account he worked from an old drawing in a history of DC Comics.

Which star of the 1960s Batman TV series voiced Simon Trent, the washed-up actor behind the Gray Ghost?

Adam West voiced Batman's boyhood TV hero, a figure modelled on the pulp avenger The Shadow, who had helped inspire Batman himself.

Which Days of Our Lives actress inspired and voiced Harley Quinn?

Arleen Sorkin played a jester in a dream sequence on the soap; a college friend on the cartoon's writing staff saw it while home sick and wrote the Joker's sidekick for her.

Harley Quinn's red-and-black colour scheme was inspired by which 1940s character?

Daredevil here is a 1940s comics hero who predates Marvel's; her designer liked that character's red-and-black colour blocking and, in his own words, 'kind of stole' it.

Which composer led the scoring of Batman: The Animated Series and shaped the sound of its spin-offs?

Shirley Walker had conducted a Batman film score for Danny Elfman; he supplied the cartoon's opening theme, and she composed its own Batman theme and character motifs.

Which Hellboy actor voiced Clayface in Batman: The Animated Series?

Ron Perlman voiced Matt Hagen, a disfigured film star who becomes Clayface after an overdose of the face-reshaping cream he was hooked on.

Which singer-songwriter voiced the Penguin in Batman: The Animated Series?

Paul Williams, co-writer of 'Rainbow Connection', voiced a Penguin whose deformed, slick-haired look was redrawn to match Tim Burton's film Batman Returns.

Who voiced Catwoman in Batman: The Animated Series?

Adrienne Barbeau's Catwoman was drawn blonde at the studio's request, to echo Michelle Pfeiffer in that year's film Batman Returns.

Which Planet of the Apes actor voiced the Mad Hatter in Batman: The Animated Series?

Roddy McDowall voiced Jervis Tetch, a scientist who turns his mind-control devices on the office secretary he adores, a woman named Alice.

Which Star Trek captain voiced the terrorist Red Claw in Batman: The Animated Series?

Kate Mulgrew, later Voyager's Captain Janeway, voiced Red Claw, whose terrorist cell steals a military plague and holds Gotham to ransom in the two-parter that opened the show on air.

Which Back to the Future actor voiced the gangster Tony Zucco in Batman: The Animated Series?

Thomas F. Wilson, the films' bully Biff Tannen, voiced the racketeer whose sabotage kills the acrobatic Graysons in front of their young son, Dick.

Who wrote 'Heart of Ice', the episode that reinvented Mr. Freeze?

Paul Dini's script turned a gimmick villain into a grieving scientist fighting to save his frozen wife, and it won a Daytime Emmy for writing.

In 'Heart of Ice', which GothCorp CEO kicks Victor Fries into the cryonic chemicals?

Ferris Boyle's kick is what creates Mr. Freeze; at the end Batman hands the evidence to a reporter and leaves him half-frozen with a sarcastic 'Good night, humanitarian.'

What does Batman smash on Mr. Freeze's helmet to beat him in 'Heart of Ice'?

A thermos of chicken soup, packed by Alfred for Batman's cold: the hot soup hits the freezing helmet and the sudden change in temperature shatters the glass.

Which Gotham detective, created for Batman: The Animated Series, reached DC's comics before the show had even aired?

Renee Montoya was devised for the show, but DC liked her so much that she debuted in the Batman comic months earlier; in print she later became the faceless vigilante the Question.

Who voiced Andrea Beaumont, Bruce's former love, in Mask of the Phantasm?

Dana Delany went on to voice Lois Lane for the same producers, in their Superman series and on through Justice League.

The Phantasm is often compared to the Reaper, the vigilante villain of which Batman comic arc?

Batman: Year Two asked what would happen if a killer vigilante had stalked Gotham's criminals before Batman did, an idea critics call a clear influence on the film.

On which holiday did Mask of the Phantasm open in American cinemas in 1993?

Christmas Day was the date: planned for video, the film was rushed to cinemas in about eight months, flopped there, and found its audience at home after all.

Where is the Joker's hideout in Mask of the Phantasm?

The old Gotham World's Fair once showed off a bright future, and Bruce courted Andrea there; by the time she comes hunting the Joker it is a ruin he has made his lair.

On which network did The New Batman Adventures premiere in 1997?

Kids' WB paired it with the producers' Superman cartoon in one hour, The New Batman/Superman Adventures, and the characters were redrawn in that show's sleeker style.

Which 1999 animated series follows teenager Terry McGinnis, decades after Bruce Wayne's retirement?

Batman Beyond makes an elderly Bruce Wayne the mentor: a high-school student stumbles on his secret, takes the suit, and fights crime under his guidance.

Which episode adapted Steve Englehart's 1978 Detective Comics story about the Joker's bizarre copyright claim?

The Laughing Fish has the Joker dose Gotham's fish so each one wears his grin, then threaten the copyright clerks who tell him fish can't be trademarked.

In 'Almost Got 'Im', what game are Batman's enemies playing as they swap stories of nearly killing him?

Poker is the game, and the weakest story at the table is Killer Croc's: 'I threw a rock at him!'

What was Harley Quinn's profession before she fell for the Joker?

Psychiatrist: as Dr. Harleen Quinzel she was interning at Arkham Asylum, where therapy sessions with the Joker ended with the doctor falling for her patient.

What does the opening title sequence of Batman: The Animated Series famously leave out?

The name of the show never appears: its producers reasoned that anyone, in any language, would look at the screen and know it was Batman.

Which real-life columnist inspired the look of the Ventriloquist in Batman: The Animated Series?

George Will was the real-life starting point designer Kevin Nowlan was given for the meek ventriloquist, just as he based a tough henchwoman, Jesse, on the actress Rhea Perlman.

Who voiced Alfred Pennyworth for most of Batman: The Animated Series?

Efrem Zimbalist Jr., once the star of TV's The F.B.I., took over the butler after Clive Revill had voiced him in the first three episodes produced.

A scrapped season 2 episode would have teamed Catwoman with which hero?

Black Canary's team-up with Catwoman was pitched but never made, and she had to wait a decade to join the DC Animated Universe, in Justice League Unlimited.

Harley Quinn made her comic-book debut in issue #12 of which series?

The Batman Adventures, the cartoon's own tie-in comic, got her first; she didn't enter DC's main comics continuity until 1999, with a one-shot of her own.

Which Little House on the Prairie star voiced Batgirl in Batman: The Animated Series?

Melissa Gilbert, the prairie drama's Laura Ingalls, voiced the heroine in the original run; when the show was revamped in 1997 the producers wanted a younger sound and recast the part.

In which episode did Harley Quinn make her very first appearance?

Joker's Favor was meant to be her only episode: she was written as a one-off henchwoman, and the producers brought her back once they saw what they had.

Which 2020 comic miniseries picked up the story of Batman: The Animated Series where the show left off?

Batman: The Adventures Continue is set just after the show's final episodes and brings in characters it never used, starting with Jason Todd, the Red Hood.

Which star of The Batman (2022) cited Mask of the Phantasm as a model Batman story?

Robert Pattinson told a French film magazine that the animated film got inside Bruce Wayne's head in the way he hoped his own Batman would.

Which Warner animation president ordered a Batman series after the success of Tiny Toon Adventures?

Jean MacCurdy told her animators in 1990 that the studio wanted its own characters adapted, then asked two of them for a short pilot film to show the bosses.

Which villain created for Batman: The Animated Series has the real name Lyle Bolton?

Lock-Up was Arkham's security chief, sacked after inmates testified to his cruelty, who then began caging the people he blamed for Gotham's crime.

What is the real name of the Clock King in Batman: The Animated Series?

Temple Fugate is a pun on 'tempus fugit', Latin for 'time flies', fitting an efficiency expert who lives by the clock until a single late arrival ruins him.

Who voiced Bane in his animated debut on Batman: The Animated Series?

Henry Silva voiced the venom-fuelled assassin, hired by crime boss Rupert Thorne to kill Batman while secretly planning to take over Thorne's rackets himself.

Which rogue AI villain tries to replace humanity with robots in 'Heart of Steel'?

HARDAC, a supercomputer built by Karl Rossum, decides that mortal people are the flaw and starts swapping Gotham's officials for lookalike androids.