HELP THE CHANNEL GROW: www.patreon.com/rowanjcoleman HONEST MISTAKE: I incorrectly credited Clancy Brown as the voice of Two-Face. He was actually voiced by Richard Moll.
Kind of amazing to me how you could make a mistake like that... For as much as the rest of this video clearly needed exhaustive research, listing the correct actor for Two-Face would have only necessitated a 10 second google search, wouldn't it?
More corrections: 14:07 On Leather Wings was NOT the first episode to air on Prime Time as the series showcase. The first episode to air as a preview for the series on Prime Time was actually The Cat And The Claw Part 1. A mandate was made to air the first broadcasted episode on Prime Time as being one with Catwoman to promote Batman Returns.
“up until recently the superhero genre dominated pop culture”… somebody needs to tell this 🤡 that the highest grossing film of 2024 is a superhero movie, that is also the highest grossing R-rated film of all time. And that the most anticipated film of 2025 is ‘Fantastic Four’ a superhero movie. 🤡
The “I threw a rock at him” is even more funny when you realize it’s Batman mocking all the other villains saying Killer Croc got the closest to killing him and all he had to do was throw a rock
Kevin Conroy is Batman as far as I'm concerned, when I read Batman comics, it's always Kevin's voice I'm hearing. Ps he was friends with Chris Reeves and Robin Williams at Julliard.
The line,” I didn’t count on being happy” hits me harder than it did at 40 than it does when I saw this movie in theater with my estranged father at age 12
Kevin Conroy's voice will always be the one I hear in my head whenever I read a Batman comic. His legendary performance and this phenomenally written, scored, and visualized show are THE definitive incarnation of Batman for me.
Especially Batman Beyond. It's no hot take to say that it successfully continued the legacy of the animated series with it's character writing, and narrative. Seeing how Batman changes and having come to a point where he simply can't keep it up himself, finding a reason to keep going and embodying a new role in the fight against crime, and giving us a radically different take on what the mantle of Batman can be with Terry.
I remember reading about a batkid show being developed in "Wizard" and thought it was a terrible idea (I was 13? and the "It's this but they're kids!" was still going fullsteam) and promptly forgot about it. Then Batman Beyond came out and it's easily one of my favorite things ever. Plus that theme song.
@@japzone Agreed. Static of Static Shock was the first successful teen hero in the vein of Spider-Man while having traits (timely social commentary, hip hop score, Black culture) to be unique.
Brown is usually Lex Luthor in that era for DC productions before he became Megastar "Mr Krabs". TBH. I thought it Brown as well, Mull was so ruined by "Bull" . Though as a crossover , Mull played a ripoff of Brown's "Kurgan" in the premier of the highlander the series.
Kevin Conroy and Mark Hamil are the greatest versions of those characters, the comic book brought to life. What the show creators and writers did should forever be remembered. It is the standard that i measure every DC media by and unfortunately they have lost their way. I loved that series as a kid and stopped watching it, but as soon as I played Arkham Asylum, it brought everything back. I collected all the Batman and Superman animated series after that. This is the greatest animated show ever created, I'm so happy that I got to grow up with this timeless show. R.I.P Kevin Conroy
Ok, I would have thought you first retrospective for an animated movie or show would be a great scify anime like cowboy bebop or gundam,😂but the best superhero cartoon ever? unexpected but welcome ❤
Excellent overture of my favorite animated series of all time. Giving Shirley Walker the highlight she always deserved was amazing to hear. Thank you for giving this "kids show" the elevation it deserved as clear and helpful as your Star Trek TNG and Stargate SG-1 coverage. Thank you.
Batman: Gotham Knight is "What if Animatrix was applied to Batman?" What did you think of it? It's not really the DCAU and not really a BTAS continuation. Still would like to know what you thought?
My favorite part about the Animated Series is when Batman wraps his cape around himself and the seams completely disappear and he becomes a silhouette with eyes. And then when he moves it's so fluid, you can't see his actual for so it just looks like a shadow with fists. It really adds this sort of mythical quality to him where you can hardly even tell he's human when he's in the shadows like that, and I've never seen any other adaptation match that.
Mask of The Phantasm Flashback are for me in my Headcanon are Canon to the comics book Batman. The Flashbacks, Year One and Zero Year all happen. It you put it all together it works
The actual first episode aired was The Cat and the Claw pt1 on Saturday morning. It was a naturalistic story for the debut like how live action shows were at the time.. The following night (Sunday) was On Leather Wings which is fantastical. The following five days introduced Joker's Favor among its episodes followed by another Saturday morning with Cat and the Claw pt2. Eight day premiere.
Depends on where it was being premiered, in the UK it was part of a saturday morning kids show which also made it kind of hard to nail down when it was actually being shown
@@Crosis101 In Chicago, too. Fox is a national broadcaster. You had Cat and the Claw on Saturday morning first before On Leather Wings. It was September, so no sports interruptions by local stations yet. Fox heavily promoted the 8 day premiere, too.
My favorite show as a kid...It was not only my introduction to Batman and his world, it was also the first time my young brain realized that villains could have tragic, relatable stories.
I'm currently watching the Superman the animated series with my son and he's loving it, but ill hold off on Batman until he's a little older and can understand the beauty and complexity of this show.
Always love to see a great BTAS retrospective. A show that was so important to so many of our lives. Ironic I didnt love it that much as a kid. I didnt hate it either and watched it either because of nothing else on or because of nothing else to do,being a little kid and all. It wasnt until being an adult that I looked back and realized how great it was. RIP Kevin Conroy. A great video Rowan!
As someone whom was in they very early teens when this came out. I remember sitting in front of the Telly on Saturday mornings to watch it when it aired here in Denmark. I still have sooo many fond memories of it as I grew up :)
I am very thankful that I actually got to meet Kevin Conroy, only a few years before we ultimately lost him. It was...surreal. It was like actually MEETING Batman. And he was the NICEST MAN Ive ever met.
I'm surprised that the episode "Growing Pains" wasn't mentioned at all. Seeing it back in the day was an intense and profoundly unsettling experience for me and opened the door to a new appreciation for tragedy. IT still makes my chest tight thinking back on it.
I grew up with this show and the other DC animated shows, Kevin is THE batman to me. I really appreciate your final words on about what he brought to the character. And I'd love to see more videos on this era of DC!
Excellent work. Only two notes. First, not every kids cartoon of the 80s and 90s was a "Saturday Morning Cartoon". Quite a few titles were intended for Weekday Monday through Friday airing, typically (but not always) in afternoon timeslots after school lets out; G.I. Joe and Transformers were among these, as was Batman: the Animated Series. Second, it may have been worth mentioning Mark Hamil's earlier performance as The Trickster in the 1990-1991 Live Action series centered around another of DC's characters, The Flash. It is very much an inadvertent workshopping of his later animated role.
This is a beautiful show, this is what showed me villains can be sad and tragic. Mr Freeze is so sad in the episode and when he comes back in Beyond it is heart wrenching.
Thank You. Just Thank You. To escape life for an hour and go back to a time in life where the one thing that brought joy in life to relive it was truly a blessing.
Rowan J Coleman yap sessions are the best yap sessions This was the beginning of what I still consider the high water mark of the material I can't wait for the full DCAU run-through
I'm actually in the middle of a re-watch for this series. It's my absolute favorite adaptation of Batman. I was a victim of the onion ninjas in few spots with the discussion of the show's emotional core and the lovely tribute to Kevin Conroy at the end.
I was the youngest person ever to get to write for the original cast. It was for a VR adaptation, which sadly no longer exists. Can't tell you what a thrill it was to sit down at my desk and start hammering out lines I knew that Kevin Conroy and Mark Hamill were going to read. Getting to be in the studio with everyone were some of the best days of my life, especially when Kevin had to come in for pickup recordings and it was just him, me and Andrea Romano together for an entire afternoon. Paul Dini was incredibly generous with his time and help as well. RIP Kevin... I was utterly gutted when he died.
The best superhero show ever hands down and one of the staples of my childhood in the late 90s/early 2000s. There will never be another animated show like it. The timeless art style that effortlessly combines 40s and 90s aesthetics which helps the show never become outdated, the incredible voice work by Kevin Conroy, Mark Hamill etc, the fantastic way in both improves on old characters like Mr. Freeze and invents compelling new characters like Harley Quinn, the great way in blends both emotional character-driven stories and more kid-friendly action-driven stories, the way the show celebrates all kinds of different versions of Batman from the campier 50s Dick Sprang era and 60s Adam West show to the 70s Neal Adams era to the 80s gritty Frank Miller era and the Tim Burton films is awesome. It's one of the greatest animated shows of all time. Also, and you can laugh if you want but I had a crush on the TNBA Batgirl when I was a kid XD
This show is so nostalgic for me, I remember going to the library rushing to look at all the vhs tapes for this show as well as spiderman and the justice league and getting to pick one out to watch but only after I picked a book to read too😂
Holy Brilliant Video Batman!!!! That was excellent, just brilliant video on THE best version of the Dark Knight. You nailed it Personally, Day of the Samurai and Night of the Ninja are a two story arch that does a lot for the character’s backstory. And yes, please make more! 🦇
Outside your wheelhouse?! This is one of the best of your videos that you've ever done, although I fully and gladly admit that part of is is because of the extreme nostalgia brought about by the usage of the greatest animated TV series of all time. I went to art college to get a degree in animation, so I know what I'm talking about! But in all seriousness, B:TAS, as well as some of the CG cinematics from the Blizzard of the day, as well as Pixar of course, were the actual reasons I went for an animation degree. This video helps to encapsulate the joy of B:TAS along with some highlights (though not every one) of its greatest hits.
Can we talk about him doing the Akira slide? (31:49) Like this was 1992-1993. Anime was not a huge thing in America yet, and Akira was only like 4 years old. Someone on that show was an OG weeb.
Anime was pretty big in US animation circles since the anime boom in the 80's. Japanese studios often did second team work on American animation productions, for example Sunrise was the second unit for Batman:TAS, and in fact that team would go on to create Big O, which is directly inspired by and draws from their work on Batman.
@@baronvonslambert Sunrise only did a relative small amount of work, especially during season 1. I would imagine they wouldn't be the cheapest hire in, as in that era Sunrise had quite a list of original successful projects in the first half of the '90s. Apparently the staff wasn't to impressed with them. interesting enough, Robin's Reckoning had quite some work done by Spectrum Animation, which had a lot of former TMS employees, establishing a connection between our Dark Knight and the fun-loving master-thief Lupin the IIIrd. Ignoring the fact TMS itself was responsible for many heavy weight episodes and apparently blew the staff away when TMS throw away their instructions from WB and went above and beyond animating Feat of Clay, Part II. Similarly Spectrum took the extra effort to airbrush Mr. Freeze's helmet in every frame in Heart of Ice.
I'll never forget when my friend told me Arnold Schwarzenegger was cast as Mr Freeze (We were both 15 at the time) I thought Arnold was gonna play him like the terminator and Freeze from this show, boy was I wrong! 😂
Ronan,, brilliant video..I thought i knew the animated series but you have made me aware of episodes & series i didn't know were out there.. i am with you on Mask of the Phantasm, best batman movie by a country mile.. Thanks for the video..
I remember seeing the commercials advertising this new batman show. Before BTAS my only experience with Batman was reruns of the old Adem West show and the 89 movie. BTAS along with Power Rangers and Ninja Turtles made up my early childhood... RIP Kevin Conroy.
I wish I could like this video multiple times to guarantee you continue doing retrospectives on the other main entries in the DC AU, I still love Justice League and JLU for being the natural culmination of all the previous Timm and Dini series that came before them
I never paid much attention to the animated series back when it was televised but I did catch a few episodes. After one episode, I forget which, I met up with a friend, he hadn't seen it but it his brother had, and we were talking about how great it was. Outside of our 80's favourites like Dungeons and Dragons that never happened and left a lasting impression. This video is a great homage so thanks for that.
1:03:40 Makes it even better when you realize the three kids are clear nods to the "other" Robins: Jason Todd, Tim Drake, and even Carrie from Dark Knight Returns.
This may be my favorite retrospective yet. This series defined my childhood but I didn’t know much about it beyond that it was fantastic. These retrospectives are always great but I think Coleman did an especially good job capturing what made this series so memorable and it was great to learn more about this fantastic series Edit to add: if anyone is interested in learning more about Kevin Conroy, Matt Baume did a great episode about him.
Excellent overview. One thing to mention: In the "Justice League Unlimited episode "Epilogue" (which was supposed to be the last episode of the series), they did a call back to "Batman: Mask of the Phantasm." Andrea Beaumont (The Phantasm) was hired by Amanda Waller to kill the parents of Terry McGuinness (the current Batman) but she refused.
I FEEL SO LUCKY I GOT TO SEE EVERY SINGLE EPISODE brand new on the hour never missed a single one or a repeat Used to eat chicken nuggets and fries with my sister for dinner watc hdragonball and batman and go to bed and think about the next episode ... Man good times
I really loved this. Your retrospectives are always amazing, and I appreciate that they always include commentary, history, and analysis, rather than little more than just brief recaps of every episode in order as so many other videos labeled "retrospectives" do. 31:23 I really appreciate you stating how Dick is the healthier Bruce, how he could've been with more parental support (no shade to Alfred) after his trauma. It seems crazy that I've never seen it laid out possibly like that nor come to that conclusion myself, but if I had I hadn't thought about it that clearly in a long while, and it made so many things click for me, especially why the two are so iconic in the gay community: wether read parentally or romantically, it's two men coming together to heal from similar tragedies and be the support the other needs, one giving the guidance and protection he didn't receive, and the other by receiving that support, growing into a person the other can count on while also allowing that other to give himself that support vicariously and retroactively by giving it to him.
