Batman: 13 I've Got Batman In My Basement!

Batman is a DC Comics character, and Batman: The Animated Series is owned by Warner Home Video. If you'd like to purchase this episode, you may do so here; if you'd like to buy the DVD box set, you may do so here. The story was written by Sam Graham and Chris Hubbell and directed by Frank Paur.

Deep brass instruments contrast with heavy use of the xylophone to give us a score both ominous and playful. A closet door is open, the light diminishing with each step down.

The moon is high in Gotham's sky, and we pan to the world's toughest looking window cleaners. They stop on a floor with a scintillating egg and proceed to steal it with finesse. Changing out of their jump suits on a nearby rooftop, they stop to remark how easy it was.

The incantation is complete – Batman is summoned! He quips, but before he can get to disassembling criminals, a giant bird knocks him down. (Like they do.)

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Chatting with Batman

Hey.

Hey Batman. I know you're online. Your little icon is green.

What do you want?

I can't do a recap this week. I've got to find an apartment.

Why are you telling me?






Well, I was kinda hoping you could do the recap. You know, sort of an "eyewitness" account? People would love it! All you've got to do is keep record of how many times you get sprayed with gas and knocked out. I've noticed it's been happening a lot lately.

Have you thought about covering the lower half of your face all the time, not just sometimes? It's worth thinking about.

Anyway, the Joker seemed pretty excited about the idea of collaborating with you on this. I gave him your contact info. He said he'd be in touch.

U MAD, DORK KNIGHT? lulz

Sorry everybody! New recap next week, I promise!

Batman: 11 Two Face, Part Two

Batman is a DC Comics character, and Batman: The Animated Series is owned by Warner Home Video. If you'd like to purchase this episode, you may do so here; if you'd like to buy the DVD box set, you may do so here. The story was written by Randy Rogel, and directed by Kevin Altieri.

We see a “previously on” clip show before cutting to the same title card. This time, the isolated xylophone strikes have unified into an ominous theme.

A Rolls Royce pulls up outside one of Rupert Thorne’s gambling establishments. In the back seat is what’s left of Harvey Dent. He flips a coin, and it lands bad side up - it’s time to dole out the punishment.

The Dent’s toothy chauffeurs kick the door down, brandishing Tommy guns. They look like larcenous versions of Howdy Doody.

The man himself walks in a moment later, pimped out in a half-white half-black suit.

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Batman: 10 Two Face, Part One

Batman is a DC Comics character, and Batman: The Animated Series is owned by Warner Home Video. If you'd like to purchase this episode, you may do so here; if you'd like to buy the DVD box set, you may do so here. The story is by Alan Burnett; the teleplay was written by Randy Rogel; and the episode was directed by Kevin Altieri. 

Shimmering ambient noise is paired with single strikes on a xylophone. A man stands in mid-coin flip, his manner and appearance a study in chiaroscuro.

In a fog shrouded dreamscape, The Dent is on the run from a gravelly voice. He encounters the source of the voice, a solitary figure flipping a coin in a beam of light. “It's time,” the figure says, and Harvey wakes up screaming on his office couch.

He's late to a police raid he planned, showing up just in time to almost get torn in half by a hail of bullets. Relax, Harv - that's just how people shake hands in Gotham! 

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Batman: 09 Be a Clown

Batman is a DC Comics character, and Batman: The Animated Series is owned by Warner Home Video. If you'd like to purchase this episode, you may do so here; if you'd like to buy the DVD box set, you may do so here. The episode was written by Ted Pedersen and Steve Hayes; and directed by Frank Paur.

Brass instruments play over calliope music, as a shadowy figure holds hands with a boy in front of that champion of the midway, a Ferris wheel.

Gotham Acres, where – holy shit, what's wrong with their faces?

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Batman: The Animated Series Drinking Game

I have created a drinking game based on Batman: The Animated Series, something my childhood self would never have dreamed to do. Back then, I was mainly concerned with duplicating the action on screen with my toys.

I never owned any of the villains; instead, I had an endless array of Batmen in different outfits, e.g. winter camouflage Batman, deep sea Batman, pizza chef Batman. I contented myself by thinking they were evil duplicates/clones/robots, forced to fight the real Dark Knight from atop their perch on Mt. Otherknee. I'd pivot the action figures in crude approximations of punches and kicks, the fused joint violence only an eight year old could dream up.

If you played a drinking game with Batman: The Animated Series as a child, please seek professional help.

Here are the rules I’ve come up with. I think they’re pretty comprehensive, but let me know if you have any additions/suggestions in the comments!

ONE DRINK

• Batman makes a joke or pun about the villain going to prison.
• Batman has an inordinate degree of compassion on the villain.
• Villain is some kind of scientist.
• Batman forgets he has a grapple gun.
• Bruce Wayne uses his Batman voice, or Batman uses his Bruce Wayne voice.
• Harvey Bullock expresses extreme disdain for Batman.
• Villain makes a pun related to their theme.
• Batman displays greater than reasonable human strength.
• Villain greets our hero by simply shouting "Batman!"
• Batman is assailed by a gas or a powder.
• Batman survives something that would kill a normal human.
• Alfred gets a bon mot in.
• Batman dangles above a pit.

TWO DRINKS

• Fire gets too close to gasoline, TNT, etc., creating a massive explosion.
• There is a sepia toned flashback.
• The Joker gives a fully unhinged laugh.
• Something that would psychologically scar a child happens.

SPECIAL RULES

• If Bruce Wayne wears his blue sweater instead of either his Batman costume or brown suit with yellow shirt ensemble, two drinks; if he wears something entirely different, three drinks.
• Chug while the "Batman is doing something awesome" music plays. You know what it sounds like.

People who have read my recaps, or dimly remember the show from their own childhood, may realize this game is designed for alcoholics. In fact, if strictly followed, you will never get to the end of an episode; it will be as if Batman himself snuck into your house, and took care of business - bat business.

Batman: 08 The Forgotten

Batman is a DC Comics character, and Batman: The Animated Series is owned by Warner Home Video. If you'd like to purchase this episode, you may do so here; if you'd like to buy the DVD box set, you may do so here. The episode was written by Jules Dennis, Richard Mueller, and Sean Catherine Derek; and directed by Boyd Kirkland.

A jailbird harmonica trills, accompanied by blues riffs and some bottleneck slide guitar. A chain-link fence topped with barbed wire clearly demarcates the boundary between worlds.

We delve from a bird's eye view of Gotham's gleaming spires to a crumbling pawn shop. In a nearby rescue mission, Bruce Wayne is – oh my, not wearing his brown suit with yellow shirt!

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Batman: 07 P.O.V.

Batman is a DC Comics character, and Batman: The Animated Series is owned by Warner Home Video. If you'd like to purchase this episode, you may do so here; if you'd like to buy the DVD box set, you may do so here. The story is by Mitch Brian; the teleplay is by Sean Catherine Derek and Laren Bright; and the episode was directed by Kevin Altieri.

As fits the episode title, the background could be a human brain, puzzle pieces, or swirling smoke. The score is funereal, but builds on a vaguely hopeful note.

A police car races like the devil chases it under a harvest moon. Gotham. Any night. Every night.

Renee Montoya is behind the wheel, and the rook she's partnered with grips the dashboard as she takes another fishtail turn. Amazingly, he's worried about being late, not dying in a crash. They're on their way to meet Bullock at a sting.

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Batman: 06 The Underdwellers

Batman is a DC Comics character, and Batman: The Animated Series is owned by Warner Home Video. If you'd like to purchase this episode, you may do so here; if you'd like to buy the DVD box set, you may do so here. The story is by Tom Ruegger; the teleplay is by Jules Dennis and Richard Mueller; and the episode was directed by Frank Paur.

Big brass instruments give us a skittering score, like shapes sneaking up behind you when you're not looking. Light is sliced into single servings by a sewer grate, and a cloaked figure hurries into the dark.

Ah, fair Gotham, where two towheaded children are driven to playing chicken on the roof of a train for amusement. Do they not have arcades? Batman lands behind them, shaking his head – he's a guy who beats up lunatics in their pajamas, and even he thinks this is stupid.

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Batman: 05 Pretty Poison

Batman is a DC Comics character, and Batman: The Animated Series is owned by Warner Home Video. If you'd like to purchase this episode, you may do so here; if you'd like to buy the DVD box set, you may do so here. The story is by Paul Dini and Michael Reaves; the teleplay is by Tom Ruegger; and the episode was directed by Boyd Kirkland.

The title tune is a subdued version of the bombastic scores of yesteryear, with an added melancholy undertone; if the little Universal studios plane was in evidence above the single rose bloom, it would likely crash.

We open on a groundbreaking ceremony in the past, as indicated by the sepia tone; it's either that, or they left the cels on the dashboard one sunny afternoon. Gotham's getting a new prison, thanks to Bruce Wayne's money and Harvey Dent's dream.

A mysterious gardener carefully transplants a rose, then watches the proceedings from a hilltop. 

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Batman: 04 The Last Laugh

Batman is a DC Comics character, and Batman: The Animated Series is owned by Warner Home Video. If you'd like to purchase this episode, you may do so here; if you'd like to buy the DVD box set, you may do so here. This episode was written by Carl Swenson and directed by Kevin Altieri.

Nosferatu by way of Bozo gives the viewer a buck toothed and off center grin, the eyes reminiscent of those found in Goya's Saturn Devouring His Son; the tune is an upbeat violin number with street swagger to spare.

A truck labeled the Gotham Globe drops off the Gotham News, bringing the total number of papers to four and confusing supply lines. A shot that lingers too long on a utility knife wants us to know April Fool's day has come to Gotham. 

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Batman: 03 Nothing to Fear

Batman is a DC Comics character, and Batman: The Animated Series is owned by Warner Home Video. If you'd like to purchase this episode, you may do so here; if you'd like to buy the DVD box set, you may do so here. This episode was written by Henry T. Gilroy and Sean Catherine Derek, and directed by Boyd Kirkland.

The ghostly shadow of a scarecrow is projected onto a whiskey colored backdrop, its smile equal parts mocking and conniving. The instrumental evokes images of the thing's too thin fingers creeping slowly along a wall.

A helicopter flies through Gotham at twilight, carrying a mysterious figure and a man with a Tommy gun. (I think they hand those out at Gotham city limits.) There's an event to save the university, which has been beset by robberies and vandalism. In other words, it's your usual college campus.

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Batman: 02 Christmas with the Joker

Batman is a DC Comics character, and Batman: The Animated Series is owned by Warner Home Video. If you'd like to purchase this episode, you may do so here; if you'd like to buy the DVD box set, you may do so here. This episode was written by Eddie Gorodetsky and directed by Kent Butterworth.

The Joker is hunched in a derelict Santa suit, his yellow eyes and equally yellow teeth beaming in the near dark of the night before Christmas. The cheerful Christmas anthem that plays is underscored by greasy brass notes, like aural pollution.

Arkham Asylum at Christmas, where the inmates butcher carols and the guards give suggestive glances above perfectly trimmed mustaches.

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Batman: 01 On Leather Wings

Batman is a DC Comics character, and Batman: The Animated Series is owned by Warner Home Video. If you'd like to purchase this episode, you may do so here; if you'd like to buy the DVD box set, you may do so here. This episode was written by Mitch Brian and directed by Kevin Altieri.

Opening

Moody strains of Danny Elfman's score play as the Warner Brothers logo fades out into the front of a police zeppelin, its yellow searchlights burning like eyes in a vaguely bat shaped face. Six seconds in, and we already have more foreshadowing than some programs achieve in six seasons.

More searchlights cut through the skyline of an art deco concrete jungle, before we settle in front of a bank. Unfortunately for the executives of BANK bank, the aggressive older brothers of the silhouette from the Mad Men opening credits are doing textbook surreptitious glances outside. 

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