I've seen the show before. I saw episodes as a kid, as it played on reruns on channels. Born in the early 90s so obviously it was well before my time, but I enjoyed it unironically as a kid as kids don't pick up on all the silliness.
Then seen about a season of it in my late teens to early 20s on like netflix or something and enjoyed it for it's silliness.
Now watching it again, and yes, I see the bad acting, the campiness, the goofiness, the comedy, and it's all charming and enjoyable, but one thing in particular I absolutely love is that the Joker is just an over the top criminal with a clown gimmick. That's all he is, and it's great.
After all this post-modern waxing poetic from midwit pseudo intellectuals about the deep complexities of Batman and how "isn't it crazy how Batman and the Joker contrast each other...Bats are dark, but he is a symbol for good, and clowns are happy, but he's an agent of chaos" or "they need each other, they both would feel empty if either were gone"
Yadda yadda yadda.
This show, which was more in line with the older Batman comics, which I've never read, is like, "nope, Batman is a deputized member of the police and the Joker is just an eccentric goofy guy with clown makeup who pulls off zany heists."
It's refreshing after decades of Joker obsession from the pop culture/internet.
To me, Tim Burton Batman is the absolute darkest Batman needs to go. Batman 1989 is fun while having a more serious edge, but doesn't go too far with the "seriousness" like with the Nolan crap where it's deep philosophical musings involving a guy running around wearing bat ears.
Nolan Batman is so eye roll inducing....the pretentiousness.
Give me goofy Adam West camp over this "heckin realistic and serious" Batman any day of the week.
60s Batman, Tim Burton Batman, and Batman Forever (yes I like that movie, shut up). That's Batman to me. Everything else is garbage. I like the Arkham games too and a few other miscellaneous Batman stuff, but you get the idea.
Batman and Robin is also garbage. Just stating the obvious so you don't think I'm a contrarian with my enjoyment of Batman Forever. Joel Schumacher got lucky with Batman Forever and I think it's fun and the right amount of goofy whereas Batman and Robin went right off the cliff into the realm of retardation.
I hate the people that say Batman needs Joker. Joker definitely needs the caped crusader, but Batman would probably be relieved to never have to deal with Joker again. He would be sad that he couldn't help save him, like he is with every villain and criminal, but wouldn't be wishing for him to return.
I also hate the idea that Batman is responsible for killing his villains because they always break out. That's the fault of the State for not giving these guys the death penalty, or some random cop/citizen who get's fed up and shots a villain themselves. Batman isn't judge, jury and executioner.
It's kind of downplayed but Bruce Wayne gives tons of money to Arkham specifically to rehabilitate criminals. He is trying to stop them from recidivism
How many times has he sponsored treatments for his rogues gallery? I can think of several for Harvey Dent off my head alone.
Gotham is a no-death-penalty state, alas for the law-abiding population. The only people who die are innocent civilians, and nameless minions of the "main" criminal elements.
The points against no-death-penalty are "you aren't 100% sure they did it", pretty much... I'd love to see the 75th trial of The Joker with him in court going "oh yeah, I did it. Murdered them all. Laughed the whole time, too, their screams were hilarious. I plan to do it again next week when I break out again!" and the jury looking at the death penalty and going "but we can't be 100% certain..."
I agree. Batman is a private citizen. Performing a citizen's arrest and turning them over to the authorities is him doing a good deed. If that's not good enough, it's not like the police couldn't shove the handcuffed Joker down a flight of stairs once Batman's turned him in.
In TAS episode Trial, Batman says he wants a Gotham where he's not needed. Also Joker admits the criminals created Batman and not the other way around.
Comic books are weird in the sense that almost all the iconic, memorable villains got dumped on Batman's doorstep, the only hero with no powers at all.
If the Joker didn't exist, we'd still have Catwoman.
If we didn't have Catwoman, we'd have The Penguin.
If we didn't have The Penguin, we'd have The Riddler.
No Riddler? Bane. No Bane? Poison Ivy. No Poison Ivy? Two-Face. Scarecrow. Mr. Freeze. And so on, and so forth. Batman has about 10 all-timer villains on his roster and yet, the most iconic hero of them all, Superman, never really had any. His most well-known foil is literally just Batman's day job but evil, aka a rich fuck with no superpowers, and a bunch of generic aliens you might recall from watching Chris Reeve in your childhood.
Julie Newmar's Catwoman would defag the faggots
All 3 ladies who played Catwoman were terrific! They all stole the show. Yeah Julie was smokin hawt!
Stole the show... Catwoman... a cat burglar stole the show? 😹 I crack me up!
Not an unexpected reaction from someone with the username 5Cats?
I think she had something to do with my perfectly healthy love of catgirls 😻
The Catwoman movie did nothing for me though, just an embarrassment.
https://cdn.imgchest.com/files/7kzcaja8b27.mp4
Cesar Romero was sort of a dashing, Valentino type actor and he thought the Joker's getup was ridiculous so he played into it
That's also why he never shaved off his mustache. He was Mr. Smooth and didn't want to lose it.
The makeup over his mustache is really the best part.
He was also way older than any Joker actor who came after him.
He was in his 60s when Batman was on the air. Could you imagine them making a Batman film with Willem Dafoe as The Joker nowadays?
Joker is just a fantastic character in general because you can go in pretty much any direction with him and still tell a good story. He can be a goofball with a lapel flower that squirts water in Batman's face after he gets caught in his scheme to steal all the birthday cakes in Gotham, or he can be a deranged psycho with a lapel flower that squirts acid in Batman's face after he gets caught trying to pump toxic smoke into a maternity ward.
My favorite joker story is the animated episode where he tries to kill a patent officer worker because he won’t let him copyright chemically mutated fish.
That's one of the reasons why the Arkham Origins game has one of the best depictions of him. It bounces around between being a legitimately unnerving monster, always one bad line from going off, that nobody knows how to react to to being a straight goofy clown screwing around for the hell of it. And not being invincible either, as shown by his vision of Batman being a literal tentacle demon from the shadows.
It actually felt free to tell a story with him (due to being a B team spinoff) instead of letting Mark Hamill say something loudly as the joke.
I love the 60s Batman and all its campiness.
Yeah it's great, I love how everything is meticulously labelled to an absurd degree.
He'll be like "Robin, let's go take a look at the illuminated wireframe overhead map of Gotham city" and they'll walk over and the camera pans to the map and the label on the map thing will say "illuminated wireframe overhead map of Gotham city". The exact wordings to a tee. Hilarious.
Yep. Love it. As well as the guy who says same bat time same bat channel
I forget which episode or movie this was from, but I loved:
Gordon: "...Bruce Wayne."
Batman: "You mean millionaire Bruce Wayne??"
Back when a million was still impressive.
Curious what you think of The Animated Series with all of the above said, although it's perfectly fine to dislike it just for being a cartoon.
My favourite Batman in any media is the first 2 Arkham games, since to me (not necessarily a Batman aficionado) they are the perfect blend of Burton Batman, The Animated Series and the comics mythos, voiced by Kevin Conroy. However they are essentially darker than the Burton Batman and they are susceptible to the whole Batying/Jokeryang, over-emphasis on the Bat and Joker relationship that you mention.
This became egregious by the point of Arkham Knight (4th game) where Batman's now fighting the Joker in his head and the Jokerspawns created by left-behind Joker blood. I understand this is somewhat of a reference to newer comics which I haven't read ('The Batman Who Laughs'), but for some of the reasons you said, this is just 2edgy4me.
Eh...I just can't do it with cartoons. I've tried getting into it after hearing the praise. I don't get the huge hullabaloo about Mark Hammil's Joker. To me he sounds like a cartoon made for kids Joker. Nothing special.
It's not because Mark Hammil's a lefty either. His leftism hasn't ruined Luke Skywalker for me....I just don't see why people crow about his Joker like it's special.
I like him as Joker in Arkham games, but in the cartoon, it's just too cartoony.
I'll watch cartoons that are comedic like Loony Tunes or Futurama, Family Guy, etc, or the occasional classic cartoon like Scooby Doo or something.
But drama/action cartoons I can't get into.
I have the series on my Plex, and I've watched some of it. I like Mr Freeze in the animated series a lot. His voice, characterization and writing is really good.
But in general, there's too much of that WB Kids cartoony-ness that prevents me from getting into it.
There's something about live action where the camp and the cheese works for me because I'm watching real people, whereas something I don't like with animation (dramatic/action animation at least) is every single thing is too intentional. No facial expression is accidental. The artists draw it exactly how they want it. And in most cases the expressions are too overly expressive, having no subtlety. And that's why I can't get into animated acting. Radio is different. Radio you use your imagination and voice acting shines there.
But cartoons take the advantage of voice acting and meticulously detail every facial expression taking away the advantage of imagination, while also not having the benefit of live actors with their imperfections and body language choices.
That would be my best guess as to my rationale as to why I can never get into a cartoon, besides comedic cartoons.
The Animated Series is really a product of its time, and lot of its high points were rooted in that. From the production value, to how dark it was willing to get, to having legitimate VAs like Hamill, all of this was way out of the norm at the time. It stood out as something special. If you don't have nostalgia for it, its unlikely to ever get you.
Batman The Brave and the Bold is apparently also really good (haven't seen myself) and is a completely comedic series that was dedicated to obscure and campy villains that will never get acknowledged again for being too funny or ridiculous.
Might be more your alley in this regard.
Batman has a special place in my heart. I wanted to be a butler when I grew up, but only for a super hero like Alfred or Puck.
There's some really dark Batman comics, and some really campy ones. Writers go back and forth.
The Dark Knight unironically ruined both the Joker as a character and Batman as a property forever.
Literally no one was talking about the Joker as this deep philosophical symbol of chaos/anarchy prior, other than some real nerds who did that with everyone. He was just one of the main villains and had a gimmick who was a foil to Batman, as the loud, colorful to his brooding, dark. Not pretentious shit, basic bitch level.
For example, during the famous Batman/Spiderman crossover in the 90s when Joker teams up with Carnage, an actual symbol of chaos character, they break up because Joker is more concerned with theater and fucking plans than actually killing people. Including being grossed out at the thought of having to do it himself.
TDK as a movie is a solid movie, and Ledger puts in a great performance. But the hype it reached has basically destroyed everything about the character and it can never go back. People meme'd a reality into existence about him, and now every writer has to address it.
The Batman Forever soundtrack really slapped.
Yeah Kiss from a Rose is one of the songs I most associate with my childhood.
When I rewatched Batman Forever for the first time in a long time years ago I was surprised that song wasn't in the movie, except as like the second song after the orchestra in the end credits.
I associated that song so heavily with that movie, they were so tied together in pop culture and in my mind that I figured it showed up SOMEWHERE in the actual movie or at least immediately when the credits play. Was surprised it wasn't more prominent in the actual movie.
Kiss from a Rose is one of the best songs ever made imo
That’d be incorrect. While the older comics aren’t as intense philosophical treatises like the newer movies, they were “serious” crime fighting stories more akin to Agatha Christy novels or Sherlock Holmes than campy stories.
You can thank Frank Miller for turning Batman into a deep philosophical study with his Dark Knight series that completely changed how fans felt about the character.
I still love the 60s series too for the same reasons you state, though.
Yeah Batman was supposed to be Sherlock Holmes.
To be fair, the Silver Age of comics was from like '55 into the 70s which is over half a century ago and more. That's very old for a media property, even if there was even older before it too.
1966 Joker was the "le epic troll" Internet Tough Guy.
https://videy.co/v/?id=l0EO5KuG1 (0:21s)
Hilarious!
60s Batman was a comic book brought to life. It's scenes mimicked comic book panels, right down to the crazy angles, over the top colors, and even the POW! BAM! SWOOSH! balloons.
It is a masterpiece.
What does a show being “campy” mean?
having the quality of camp.
Not like sleeping in the woods camp.
Campy in this context means it's goofy in a tongue in cheek, absurd, funny, and fun sort of way.
It's kind of like cheesy, but not quite the same. I assume you're a younger generation?
Millennial and older know what camp means in terms of media.
It's kind of like the word based. Hard to explain to someone who doesn't already know it, but it's something where you know it when you see it.
You ever heard the term theater kid? How they are over dramatic and exaggerate their motions? That's what camp means, or you know kitschy fun
I hate Christopher Nolan movies. My dislike of his films and my assessment of him being a pretentious filmmaker are not limited to the Batman movies.
Inception, what a dull and boring way to make a movie where you can do litereally anything, because you're exploring dreams.
Tenet. Cut it off after 15 minutes on account of not being able to discern a single line of dialogue.
Interstellar....was ok, but when you're ripping off 2001 a Space Odyssey by an actually incredible film maker, you're bound to at least arrive at being decent, which Interstellar is by Nolan standards.
If all he ever made was Memento, he would have been seen, in my opinion as a creative guy with a bright future ahead of him. Interesting concept, interesting execution.
Instead he is associated with the 2010s mumble acting, grey washed out color palates, movies taking itself far too seriously, hyperfocus on plots that aren't even good with very little atmosphere, characters who speak like plot point dispensers rather than actual human beings, and in general films that feel like the movie equivalent of being a Zoloft zombie. His movies look and sound like what depression feels like. There's nothing fun or enjoyable about his movies. I feel like a vampire is sucking out every bit of life from me when I watch his crap.
Now I'll give credit where it's due. I enjoyed all three of his Batman movies in theaters.
I also enjoyed Avatar in theaters and quickly realized it's a piece of crap.
The Nolan Batman movies, over time revealed themselves for what they were, which is painfully of the times 2010 malaise type movies that do not hold up.
Batman 1989 feels as timeless today as ever. Nolan Batman epitomizes they style of film-making and acting that is the reason I have like barely a handful of films I'll watch past the year 2006 or so.
The more time went on, the more the Nolan Batman films became evident that they are Christopher Nolan movies, and as time went on I realized how much I despise Christopher Nolan movies.
Similar thing with Casino Royale. Enjoyed it at the time, but now hate everything to do with Daniel Craig's Bond because of what it represents and the sheen wore off once some time goes by and you can assess it objectively.
The point of comparison of Nolan's Batman and the 60s Batman is the gravity given to a guy wearing a batsuit who fights clowns who commit crimes is way disproportionate.
The 60s Batman for all it's corniness gives an appropriate weight to things, which is that it doesn't give it any weight. That's fine, and Burton's Batman is also fine which gives it some weight, but not the type of weight that Nolan or that one with the guy from Twilight gives it.
To me that is pretentious when you give Superman that level of gravity like Zach Snyder, or Batman that amount of gravity with Christopher Nolan.
No, I'm not an atheist. I'm a Christian. Are you a teenager? Because thinking your movie tastes make you smart or elevated like the rick and morty copypasta is a teenage sort of mindset.
Let's set a few things straight here.
"Embarrassing take. When you knowingly have autism, you should think twice before proclaiming your retarded opinions."
All I was doing was expressing something I dislike. I like Tarantino movies for instance. I guarantee you there's people here who despise Tarantino who see him as subversive, anti-white, and even pretentious. I wouldn't necessarily say they're wrong, but I think his films are enjoyable. If someone ripped into Tarantino, I wouldn't insult them, I'd offer my perspective.
If you like Christopher Nolan, by all means enjoy him. There are movies and directors that I like that any number of these people on this forum could make fun of and tear apart because they don't like them. Everyone has opinions and they're free to say my takes are stupid, which people have done in the past.
You went too far with the personal attacks and implied I was making up my opinion, essentially lying about what I like and don't like to be contrarian which is why I elaborated and expressed that I don't like Christopher Nolan as a director full stop.
As for your argument that the "majority" of people like. That's ridiculous.
The majority of people like the Marvel constant quipping movies, but I bet you a good chunk of the people on this forum don't like that.
The majority of people in the 70s preferred ABBA over something like Pink Floyd or Black Sabbath. It didn't mean people who hated ABBA were morally bankrupt or lying. There was a time where Disco was super popular....I suppose the disco haters were just contrarians?
As far as pop culture goes, I don't like modernity, so most of entertainment falls into that realm.
Breaking Bad is my favorite TV show of all time. It's also one of the most popular shows in the eyes of the public of all time.
In that case, the popularity and my tastes match up. That rarely happens.
Video games didn't start embracing that modernity crap until around 2013 or so, so from the time I was a gamer until late PS3 generation, my tastes and the popular games of the time also lined up pretty well.
Now because I don't play modern games, my tastes don't line up.
I don't know how old you are, but I'm 33. If you live long enough, you'll reach an age where you hate the things that are popular.
My late grandpa basically only watched Gunsmoke, Bonanza, Columbo, John Wayne Western movies and sports. Because at some point his tastes and the tastes of the popular culture passed each other never to be seen again.
It happens to every person eventually, it's just because of the nature of modernity and my experience and displeasure with it, it's happened to me at an earlier age than it did typically to people in past generations.
EDIT: One other thing, I also want you to know that I have no desire to rob you of enjoyment of Christopher Nolan movies. There are movies that I refuse to look at analytically because they make me happy, either because of nostalgia or some other reason and no critic no matter how "smart" or well spoken they are is going to force me to view certain things the way they view it. My opinion was just that, an opinion. If his movies succeeded in entertaining you than he did his job. I'm just expressing my personal tastes.
I don't like Michael Bay. My mom likes Michael Bay. I've expressed why I don't care for his movies, and she's fine with it and it doesn't rob from her, her enjoyment of his movies. Just because I think analytically about certain things, doesn't mean you have to or even that if you did you would arrive at the same conclusion. I've always been an analyzer type of person, but I don't always have a negative opinion in my analysis nor do my analysis always align with people who are equally analytical. Movies are the type of thing where you can have 5 people get 5 different takeaways, or 5 people disliking it for 5 different reasons or 5 people liking it for 5 different reasons.
There's some people here, heck just this past week where I made a post about Indiana Jones and someone said that it's all pedophiles and Harrison Ford is a Jewish pedo and so is Steven Spielberg. There's some people who can't enjoy any level of Hollywood entertainment because to them it's all "Jewish propaganda". If that's their mindset, I'm not going to try to convince them to enjoy what I enjoy nor is it my job to.
I paid that comment no-mind. No one is going to argue me out of enjoying Indiana Jones or other Spielberg movies, and I don't expect that I am going to argue you out of enjoying Nolan films nor would I have any desire to take from you something you enjoy. My opinion wasn't an attack on Nolan enjoyers, but was actually shared for the people who also share my opinion on Nolan Batman. It doesn't bother me that you enjoy Christopher Nolan, and it shouldn't bother you that I don't enjoy Christopher Nolan. They're just opinions on film and personal tastes.
By the way, seeing someone apologize on the internet is something very rare and it's sad that it's hardly ever seen by anyone nowadays.
It takes someone with character to do that.
Wanted to let you know that I respect that, and that you possess a rare and good quality with that.
No worries brother! God bless!
Ahhh Tenet, my wonderful child. Such a fun concept, shame it takes 4 watches while also having the flowchart open to understand what’s going on.
Still love that movie though.
First Nolan movie? Pretty good.
Second? Good if you didn't think about it at all. But the second you start wondering how the hell Joker pulled off all the logistics in that movie with nothing but an army of mentally ill psychos, well, it kind of gets silly.
Third? Aside from the Bane memes, it was pretty much hot garbage.
https://videy.co/v/?id=2ee9lxSF1
I didn’t mind the Nolan Batman. But what I really hated about it was the dumb voice they have Batman put on.