CineTV Contest #44 - Batman - The Animated Series

Hello All!

I know that I created this CineTV contest but after thinking about my own response, I felt like I needed to share my choice with the community. If you want to see the latest contest you can fund it here: https://peakd.com/hive-121744/@cinetv/cinetv-contest-44-favorite-batman-film-or-tv-show

I admitted in the contest that I love comic books. I read them adamantly as a child and collected what I could. This led me to watch most of the comic related movies and T.V. shows. Batman and the X-Men (especially Wolverine!) tended to be my favorites. It could be argued that there is an element of both Batman and Wolverine being a little rough around the edges and a sort of anti-hero.

While I enjoyed the Tim Burton movie version of Batman, my love of Batman was solidified forever with the release of the cartoon: Batman the Animated Series!

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The show came out when I was a tad too old for cartoons but the writing, the drawing style, the stories were just too well done to ignore. The series showed a tough as nails Batman but softened his demeanor a bit. Batman was still a world class athlete with no super powers but had the wealth and resources to fight crime in secret.

I think the main thing that drew me to this series was the likeability of Bruce Wayne and how he related to Alfred and the rest of society. He was still the aloof billionaire but he cared about people, important causes and really tried to improve the lives of the people in Gotham City. He could be doing charity work one minute and then change into costume and be fighting the myriad of villians that attacked the city.

Speaking of villians, this is one advantage that the Batman series has over just about any other comic or super hero series. While the movies tended to revolve around one or two villains at a time, this cartoon allowed the viewer to see a different villain every show (unless it was more than one part!). Think about the great villains in the Batman stories: Scarecrow, Mad Hatter, The Riddler, Poison Ivy, The Penguin, Mr. Freeze, Catwoman, Clayface, Two-Face, Bane, Harley Quinn and who can forget the iconic Joker!

A little known fact about this show is that Mark Hamill (Luke Skywalker fame) voiced the character of The Joker. He did an amazing job and brought that iconic character to life in the series.

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If you like Batman, this is a can't miss series that has great and familiar story lines. I decided when I had children that this would be something that we would watch together and so I bought the DVD box sets and we have binge-watched the episodes many times. I highly recommend this series because it is kid friendly with much less darker themes than the comics and still has the excitement and fun.

Thanks for reading my post about Batman: The Animated Series! Let me know if you have seen it and what you think about it.