I think this new cartoon should open with a live-action version of the original show’s animated credits.
Okay, so I’m a little behind on this, but I’m thrilled this is happening…Adam West, Burt Ward and Julie Newmar returning as Batman, Robin and Catwoman for a new animated feature based on the ’60s Batman TV show.
There’s a trailer at the link…the animation looks nice, West and Ward’s voice work sounds good…it feels like West may be pushing the “jokiness” of his voice a bit more than we got in the show (similar to his voice work in Lego Batman 3) which sort of gives Batman more seeming self-awareness of the inherent ridiculousness of his circumstances. In the show, the joke was Batman was deadly earnest about everything, and making him in on the joke would undercut the show’s tone. HELLO, I’M THE GUY NIT-PICKING A NEW ADAM WEST BATMAN THING — I’m sure it’ll be fine, and will be perfectly happy getting new Adam West Bat-anything. I mean, I’m sure my voice won’t sound exactly the same 40 years from now. I’m just glad that The Bat-Powers That Be were able to get this accomplished while West and Ward and Newmar were…still available to perform, shall we say.
I’d love for there to be a series of these films, but I’m going to hazard a guess and say that one’s all we’re getting. Besides, they’ve already done an animated Dark Knight Returns adaptation, which is basically the only other story I’d insist on West voicing.
At the very least, it’ll be nice to have a new Batman direct-to-home-video cartoon that kids can watch, as opposed to the Killing Joke flick that was released a few weeks ago. I haven’t yet seen it, and I’ve been hesitant to do so after hearing about a wholly unnecessary and distasteful expansion to the story, with Batman and Batgirl having a sexual relationship. (Apparently to give Batman more reason to be angered at what the Joker ultimately does to her, since “the Joker seriously injured my crime-fighting partner” isn’t enough.) From what I hear, the adaptation of the actual comic itself isn’t bad…I mean beyond the problems with the actual story itself, which has undergone quite a bit of reconsideration in recent years…though apparently the ending is made less ambiguous. What I’ve been most curious about is Mark Hamill’s voice work on the pre-Joker Joker…I want to know what he does with that. Ah, well, maybe if the price on the Blu-ray drops a bit more, I’ll pick it up, or I can just Netflix it eventually.
Maybe instead of tacking on that unnecessary prologue, they could have used that portion of the disc’s runtime to adapt a different Joker story? Like “Dreadful Birthday, Dear Joker.” They didn’t do an adaptation of that already, did they? Or while I’m thinking of it, how ’bout a series of two or three discs adapting this series? Sure this scene needs to exposed to the cartoon-viewing public.