Home > TV > OUR FIVE FAVORITE EPISODES OF 'BATMAN: THE ANIMATED SERIES'
OUR FIVE FAVORITE EPISODES OF 'BATMAN: THE ANIMATED SERIES'
'Wizard' takes the a look back at the best animated adventures that the Dark Knight ever had!
By Steve Sunu
Posted 11/13/2008
Here's a Bat-signal for you—"Batman: The Complete Animated Series" is out on DVD now and ready for watching.
If you've been waiting to pick up the individual seasons of this classic animated hit, now's your chance to get this 17-disc set with every episode from the original series plus a bonus disc with never-before-seen special features. In preparation for this bat-tastic collection, we got a hold of longtime series writer Paul Dini to talk about some of our favorite episodes.
"ALMOST GOT 'IM"
At a criminal dive bar, some of Batman's rogues, including Joker, Killer Croc, Penguin and Two-Face, swap "fishing" stories about how they almost killed the Caped Cruasader.
"That just seemed like a fun idea to me. A lot of episodes just popped into my mind at times when I wasn't even at work or really thinking about Batman, but I would hear a little something or observe a little bit of life and suddenly a little light would go off in my head. I had been thinking about the idea of people sitting around a poker table telling stories and I thought, ‘Boy, that would be really fun if the Batman villains got together and did that.'"
"HEART OF ICE"
Mr. Freeze takes center stage when he pursues a cold-blooded vendetta against a sleazy businessman who wronged him.
"I think that was the first episode that Bruce [Timm] had actually directed himself, and it was just absolutely wonderful. I remember I was watching it in rough cut in silence. It was just the two of us in his office and we're watching it in amazement. Afterwards we just shook hands and said, ‘Well done.' It was a great moment."
"MAD LOVE"
Harley Quinn attempts to prove her love to the Joker by pulling the greatest prank ever—killing Batman!
"I love Harley [Quinn]. She's the greatest. I was just writing dialogue for her today and she keeps popping up in my life like a jack-in-the-box. The last couple of days, I was just happy to be using Harley again! Let's write some more dialogue for her, she's so much fun!"
"OVER THE EDGE"
When Barbara Gordon (as Batgirl) is killed fighting Scarecrow, Commissioner Gordon looks to even the score against Batman. (Don't worry, Babs didn't croak; it was exposure to Scarecrow's fear gas.)
"We wanted to give the audience something real and unexpected at the end, so that's where the ending came from. [Commissioner Gordon] knows Barbara's Batgirl, but he can't really say she's Batgirl. It's just something that's unspoken between them. I thought that as long as the gift to the audience was something real and in a way, quietly dynamic without getting a lot out of it, they would buy the fact that it had been largely a dream episode."
"GROWING PAINS"
Robin gets a starring role as he runs afoul of Clayface while trying to help a little girl against a mysterious pursuer.
"I like the fact that this little piece had broken off of Clayface and become a person on their own and basically had to die when it went back to him. This was also a good episode for Robin. He's out with Batman every night. Batman is dark and grim, let's throw a little tragedy Robin's way. It looked beautiful and it was really moving."
