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Blabbin 'Bout Batman: The Animated Series - Trial

🕑 Added 2021-12-03 05:01:01 +0000 UTC

Comments

Matt LS

Please, please cover Harley and Ivy in the next Blabbin About Batman season!

Olympian Comics

Really love this episode, it is pretty much as others have said the answer to the Dark Knight Returns and outside critics of the Batman creating his villains argument. Something I have noticed about Dini's writing is that while he does make the villains sympathetic he always makes it clear that they were bad people. Even Harley Quinn in Mad Love OGN slept her way to graduating with a doctorate, and planned on writing a tell-all. So even as Harleen she wasn't a good person. Same with so many other characters. Just bad people who became worse and just wore a costume because this is the world of Batman.

To Boldy Joe... Moore

Great podcast as always, guys. ^_^ If Henry does get round to playing LEGO DC Super-Villains, he won't have long to wait to hear Liane Schirmir as Montoya, as she literally has the first line of dialogue in the game. And yes, I (one of the writers of said game) stuffed as many B:TAS references into it as I could. Have fun spotting them. :D

Kevin Peterson

I remember being frustrated because they didn’t rerun this episode, or Avatar, until 1995, because the rule when it moved to Saturday mornings, and officially became Batman & Robin they’d only air the Batman and Robin episodes of the first season. And the show going to once a week instead of weekly for a full year was cruel. I might be jumping ahead but will you guys mention the THIRD opening title sequence when the show resumed weekday airings in 1995, which returned to the Elfman score but was still clips. It’s not on any of the dvd or Blu-ray collections. That’s the version I have on all of my VHS recordings, as I wanted to keep all the episodes in case the show was pulled off again.

ShyRanger

Henry mentioned the one similarity to Dark Knight Returns with the new DA, but the more I think about it, there's a couple more similarities. In Dark Knight Returns there is also a bit of a "is Batman good or harmful" argument. When the story starts, the Joker is in Arkham basically a vegetable, but immediate gets reinvigorated as Batman returns. And while that part is a good subtle idea, the rest of the "harm or good" argument is very badly done. A lot of news interviews (kinda like this episode) but there's more of them and they kinda get in the way. Also everyone arguing for Batman are older while the "it's good Batman is gone" side is depicted by younger uppity people, and it really reeks of a "damn this new generation" energy. And lastly without going on for too long a lot for the pro-Batman stuff in DKR also has a lot of fascist tone to it, so it really makes that story hard to go back to. So to sum up, Trial is a better take on this since it's shorter, focuses more on Batman and the characters (rather than the people making the argument), and doesn't imply any "Batman is the best because he should be totalitarian" argument.

Frank Grimes

One of my favorite episodes

Dylan (batmanboy11) Freitag

I really like that this show tackled the idea of "does the superhero create his villains/ would they exist without him" and does it so eloquently even. In part, I love it so much because of how much I love THESE versions of the characters, and seeing so many interact like this is such a rare treat in the show, outside of a few episodes like this, Almost Got 'Em, and The Strange Secret of Bruce Wayne. It's a testament to the casting and voice direction that it's just so fun to see the crossplay and cross-talking of these villains. It's also nice to just see them playing around in this world they've built a little, with Harley's background being referenced a little more, and Ivy and Two-Face's backstory coming up once again - though I wish Riddler actually got to speak in this episode since he's used SO sparingly in the show overall. I think so many of these iterations will be the definitive ones for me for the rest of my life no matter how good some newer takes are (both in comics and other media). Most of them haven't even really been challenged or created another iconic version in some kind of voiced (or live-action) medium, but I will say it's a testament to both Dini & Timm's work defining her, and the creators of her solo show that Kaley Cuoco's Harley actually does take up space in my brain alongside Arleen Sorken's, which I can't say I would've ever expected. -- Also Mark Hamill voicing that waiter was something I did not remember and seems very odd