Charlie and Steve Watch Stuff

[00:00:00] Hi friends. Welcome to Charlie and Steve Tuff, and today we are watching Batman, the Animated series. I'm Steve Snick, and joining me as always, he just got back from his fresh hot chemical bath as Charlie Peppers. Charlie, how are you doing today, friend?

I'm doing much better after that. Chemical bath. It does the body well.

Red, hot and refreshing are the things that I felt about that chemical bath. it gave, it also gave Star Wars, which, you know, anything that gives Star Wars is good by me. But we are back here on Charlie and Steve. Watch Duff to watch the next episode in the line of Batman, the animated series. Now we're just covering one episode today, one, because we have a two-parter coming up next time, and so we didn't wanna like step on the two-parter and split it up.

We wanna have that cat and claw, two-parter to be all together because it deserves to be. And also it just kind of works out because this episode that we're gonna talk about today, heart of Ice, [00:01:00] and I, I think Charlie might agree with me, is a pretty damn iconic episode. Of Cartoon Batman superhero content. So without further ado, let's get into the episode that we're going to be discussing today. It is titled Heart of Ice. It was released on September 7th, 1992. It was directed by Bruce Tim, and written. By Paul Dini, and we're gonna get our first Riddler Trophy right here, right now. Charlie, I would love to know if you knew about this.

According to Alan Burnett, this episode was given to Paul Dini to write whatever story that he wanted, however he wanted, because Paul at the time was considering a career change that would take him away from WB and take him away from contributing to Batman, the animated series. And this is the episode that came as a result from that original idea.

And so this was also the first episode, both written by Paul and directed by Bruce. So I mean, these are two people that are going to be like really pillars of the series. [00:02:00] So imagine if Paul Dini walked away before this episode and we never got hard advice or any of the episodes that he was involved in moving forward.

Oh, that would've been such a tragedy. Paul Dini's, the man. He so responsible for a lot of, not only the voice of the villains that we get in the Batman Animated Series. He's responsible for the sensibility that impacted the way that a lot of these villains are portrayed in the comics, especially Mr.

Freeze, the way that. He writes, Mr. Freeze in this episode is so heartbreaking and so , pun intended, chilling. It, it's left such a mark on the character to this day. I can't imagine Mr. Freeze not being shown through this lens, if that makes sense.

a hundred percent and well for, and it's been used to get it again because it's, it's such a good introduction to Mr. Freeze and just those hot cold puns are just [00:03:00] completely on point throughout the entire episode, so he's got that going for him as well. But let's get into the plot of the episode. Quick synopsis before we start. Mr. Freeze thirsting for revenge against the sleazy CEO, who destroyed his life, begins to steal various equipment from goth court. Batman's sympathy is with freeze, but he first has to stop him from using the equipment to destroy a building filled with innocent people in order to carry out his vendetta. So the episode jumps right into introducing us to Mr. Freeze, and you get, again, like a, a very chilling introduction to this villain who's supposed to be surrounded by cold. I think both in the, you can feel that it's cold around him, and the stuff that he's talking about is very chilling in itself. And you, you kind of find

Out, you figure out right away.

that his wife is not alive, not with us anymore, and he's looking out for revenge.

before we get to the rest of the episode, I just wanna park on this introduction of Freeze and Nora. And it's very reminiscent of a term that [00:04:00] you hear

Very often

in popular culture, especially in film and television called Frig. And I would love for you to tell the audience what Fring means, especially in media.

Fring is when you introduced a character, specifically a love interest of a male character, to kill them off or kidnap them solely to motivate the male hero's journey. It's definitely something that's used in action. Movies, male characters can be Fri too, but it's usually a man seeing the woman that he loves get killed and then going all Punisher,

And it turns out that Paulini was actually telling the future here because

the actual.

term frig. Was coined in reaction to a 1994 greed lantern comic in which the hero comes home to find his nemesis. Major force has murdered his girlfriend and stuffed her corpse into his fridge, which is just seven different kinds of fucked up, and [00:05:00] that is where the term itself comes from. Although. You could have had it right here in 1992. Paul could have had that trademark already figured out for that terrible, terrible term. And we like seeing less of it here in 2023. But a last, we're gonna deal with some frig here in 1992. And while we're on the Riddler trophies, I wanna stop on another one, which is Mr. Freeze's voice in this entire episode. According to Bruce Tim, there was actually a lot of difficulty getting Michael Ansara to play freeze more flat and robotic. It was very frustrating for him because he felt like it was coming out flat and monotone and robotic. And if you're a voice actor, I have to imagine that you wanna put as much inflection and personality and life into your characters as possible, because that's all you get.

You just get the voices. So apparently there was a lot

Of pushback. but You can

see at the end result is that the flatter and more robotic is just kind of the

colder.

Mr. Freeze feels, and that's what we want from this fill. What do you think, Charlie?

I love how robotic Mr. Freeze [00:06:00] sounds in this performance. It makes, in a weird way, all of his ice puns not seem corny. It makes them seem really menacing, Because he's so . cut off from feeling an emotion. The only thing that he is about is vengeance and getting Nora cured, or, you know, getting revenge on the people who pretty much wanted him to pull the plug on her to begin with.

So the performance, even though it was hard to capture, I think that Paul Dini's frustration was worth it. And it also shows that he took an auteurs approach with this character because he heard it and he saw it so clearly and vividly inside his head that he wanted something very particular from the performer.

Well, let's keep moving into the episode. We smash cut from this introduction of Mr. Freeze to Summer Gleason on the television saying that even in the middle of the hottest summer in record in Gotham, it's the [00:07:00] hottest summer on record so far. Homer Simpson mean global warming nod. But while this big heat wave is happening, there's been a rash of burglaries that have involved this intense cold and more specifically a cold gun. And it's, you find out that you, the camera kind of zooms out and you see Batman in the bat cave doing his research thing.

We get a really funny moment where Alfred comes up and he is like taking up video games which was a fun little Alfred ism. But I, I, I know that you had a note here about the bat cave. What did you, what did you see in the bat cave this time around?

Oh, hell yeah. I have a note about the bat cave. It has never looked more gorgeous. The lighting on Batman literally made me press pause and gasp and just, I was looking at that image like it was a piece of art, which it is.

The bat cave looks great. Batman's lighting looks great. The opening image of freeze looks great. The image that we're gonna come up. On later what? The Batmobile on Ice [00:08:00] is stunning. Just top to bottom. This episode deserves all of the flowers it's been getting since 1992 because it really raised the bar not only for the show, but for animation in general.

I totally agree. I thought all of it, and I mean we'll get into all of this, but any moment with the ICE specifically I thought was like Creme de la creme. Really well done. And if we're still on another Ridler trophy find right here, as, as Batman is flipping through his bat computer and seeing all the newspaper clippings of the various robberies, you actually see clippings of him thwarting

Scarecrow,

from nothing to fear and him taking down poison ivy in the episode.

Pretty poison. So that's really cool to a, see those Easter eggs in the background. And B, it kind of also acknowledges that these robberies have been happening in real time while These other events and other things have been going on. So I think that's a cool kind of like, yeah, gotham's happening. It's not just one [00:09:00] villain's popping up at a time.

Like there's stuff going on in the background and Batman can't handle everything at once. He's just, as

you say, reacting to.

the thing that's coming up

also, number three, those new newspaper clippings validate the order that we're going in to cover these damn episodes. That's why it also, I was like, okay, cool, cool, cool. We're we're doing it the right way.

If we see Harvey debt and not Two-Face anytime moving forward, I'm gonna be so mad.

at myself I don't, I think we're good. I think we're good.

I do think we're

I'm pretty confident that two faces faces pretty messed

Here to stay. Yeah.

Yeah.

Batman being the great detective that he is, figures out that this guy has tried to build a giant cold gun stealing the pieces that he's stealing from the various Goth Corp locations. And he has

also figured

out where his

last place that he's gonna strike is gonna be.

now before

we

go to,

the first he with Mr. Freeze, I just [00:10:00] wanna quickly talk about the Goth Corp. CEO. Do you know who this is?

I don't tell me

it's Mark Hamill.

Really?

Yeah,

It's Mark Hamill. He's, yeah, he's the Goth Corp. CEO. And I mean, once you, once I've told you that if you go back and watch this episode, you can't not hear Luke Skywalker.

It's actually kind of funny. It also makes the two Star Wars references in this episode a little funnier because they would, both, the, both of the references are technically references that happened to Luke, and Luke is in the episode in a different capacity. But anyway, that's just Yeah. Mark Hamill coming

No shit. I did not clock that at all. I loved the voice performance. That was something I wanted to note later. But yeah, good catch.

Mark crutches it. So moving into the, the first heist of the episode um, see Freeze and his crew crushing through in a big armored tank. He's got a little hole to shoot his cold gun from. We have the scene that you just talked about where he freezes the road with the Batmobile chasing him and [00:11:00] the Batmobile kind of skids off the ice.

And you think that Batman's kind of out of the picture for a second. of course Batman's never outta the picture. So he comes in and he's doing his thing. He's beating up Hees and Mr. Freeze. Also the moment where Batman jumps down and he is like, freeze. And he is like, that's Myta freeze to you. And then he shoots his cold gun at him.

Like that's just like, that's the stuff superhero content dreams are made of. Honestly, it was super good.

It was so iconic and it didn't make me roll my eyes. I heard that. I was like, fuck yeah, you tell him your name, Mr. Freeze.

I mean, compared to the episode that we watched directly before this, I've got Batman in my basement in the introduction of the Penguin into Batman, the animated series, like I, both of these characters have those like quippy sort of, you could roll your eyes at it, but again, I agree with you.

I found myself not doing that for Mr. Freeze, but I was rolling my eyes at Penguin being like a, a Shakespeare laureate over and over because I [00:12:00] didn't quite get it. Whereas Mr. Freeze, I just felt like everything was connecting and you, you understood every part of him right away, and they

Did.

a really good job of defining him.

Also, I think for a villain to pun, he has to earn the right to throw out a pun, if the villain isn't threatening and he's punting, it's kind of like somebody peacocking at a party, but there's nothing impressive about them. You gotta back that shit up. Like Mr. Freeze. He could, I don't mean this sexually, but maybe I do a little bit.

He could get it. So a lot of what he says, I'm okay. Alright.

Charlie likes a cold man. You heard it here on Charlie and Steve. Watch stuff a, a frigid man. Gimme those, gimme those, those chili toes. All right, I'll stop. Um, , Let's, so in the, in the ensuing fight. Mr. Freeze hits one of his henchey with his cold gun and then also gets the best of Batman.

Batman has to cover up. He gets hit with a cold gun as well. [00:13:00] They get away. Mr. Freeze shows how cold he is by being like, leave him. His incompetence is gonna be the end of him. I don't care if he's gonna die. Peace out. We're outta here. We gotta go. And Batman breaks out of his ice barrier. I guess he's armored enough that it doesn't affect him, but this henchey is in trouble and Batman chooses to bring him back to the bat cave.

And this is the first Star Wars reference that I was talking about. Both of them actually happened to be from the Empire Strikes Back where the Henchey is in this hot chemical bath. It looks like he's in a back to tank. He's got the, the tube all up on his face and he's getting flushed out. And you can see that the ice is breaking away and that his legs are coming back together. And, charlie, I want you to hop in here because I think this is just another wonderful example of Batman caring about his adversaries, even as Alfred says, a henchman of someone who would not hesitate to leave him there to die if it was him in his place. So

It's a great example. One, the scoring of the scene [00:14:00] is really good. I think this is the first time on this show that I felt real sympathy for a goon, a hired, nameless goon who tried to attack Batman. Usually the goons on this show are such cannon fodder that you blink and you miss them, and you don't really care about them.

They all look the same. They're all in it for the same reason. This was a good example of showing the humanity of somebody who quite frankly, was about to lose their legs. And I put myself in that man's position and I started thinking, . For the very first time. Oh wow. What led him to take this job with Mr.

Freeze? What's his life after him doing crime on this level? Like is he gonna rehabilitate himself and try to, you know, be a useful member of society after this? This little moment of him holding on to another goons leg and the goon just shaking him

I am so sad.

It was so [00:15:00] sad. It put such a twinge in my heart over somebody who doesn't even have a name in this episode.

That is how well-written this is. And I also love the look. Of pure coldness that Mr. Freeze gives him as the door shuts. And I think that that moment, more than anything else in the episode, is what makes Mr. Freeze a villain. It's not him going after the corrupt CEO, it's how he treats the person that he hired to help him.

That is what makes him a monster because his vengeance and his need to commit violence because of the hurt that he went through is coming at the expense of the man that Nora no doubt fell in love with. And also one more thing, the little look that Batman gives guy with frozen legs and that he gives the truck. He looks back and forth a couple of times, and I'm glad that the animators did that because you [00:16:00] see Batman having a bit of a debate in his head, like, oh, do I chase after him or do I help him?

Do I chase after him? And it's not his first impulse to run immediately to the goon, but I like that he did it because that's my

he, yeah. And he, you want him to make that choice deliberately. So it's good that they show him making that choice. I like that. Good call. All right. Well, let's not forget also that this guy's headed to jail to figure out what he's gonna do next with his life too. Batman does say, I'm gonna drop him off at Gotham pd. So

Mm-Hmm.

that is next for him. But hopefully after that, maybe he's coming out a, a redeemed man, an

people don't stay in jail long in Gotham.

in Gotham. Not, no, not at all.

That's true. So some wall will explode in some co convenient way, and he'll be out of there, so the only thing that Batman got as a result from getting hit with a cold gun is a cold, and honestly, like Kevin Conroy. Kills it here. [00:17:00] his sick voice, his Bruce Wayne voice, his security guard voice that's coming up here. Like I'm sure

He wasn't

sick, but he sounded sick. Like the coughing and the sniffling and all that stuff sounded really, really well

done. And it all sounded.

like Kevin Conroy, like it all sound, you know how like if you're inserting coughing, sometimes it can sound like it's not actually you, like it actually sounded like it was Kevin who had the cold.

What did, do you agree with that?

I agree. Also, it wasn't over the top. Whoever directed him, definitely got him at the right level because the cold wasn't there the entire time. But when it came out, it was just the right amount of naly. It wasn't annoying, it wasn't disruptive.

It was also part of the story, which I appreciated.

And what else I appreciated is how good of a talker Bruce Wayne is and how he got Mark Campbell to just spill absolutely everything about what's going on. And I, I think it's maybe because he's like, I'm a rich board member. You can tell me what's going on. [00:18:00] But just the way that he like poses, he flows these questions, he's like, what could it be?

Does someone have it out for you? Could it be a jolted ex-employee? And just kind of like utilizes this, probably not friendship. 'cause it seems like Bruce hates the guy. kind of like leverages his position to get this guy to tell him a little bit more about what's going on and then he as Batman can go and figure out what's going on.

I wanna pause here quickly before we,

go into Batman visiting Goth Corp versus Bruce Wayne visiting Goth Corp. And it's how Bruce Wayne slash Batman seems to interact with other rich people because Bruce Wayne

is a billionaire and.

he

acted very disgusted

by

by

Mark Hamill

going, yeah, this whole family,

thing's a bit.

I'm getting a humanitarian

award, but actually I'm a huge piece of shit who couldn't care about humanitarian aid. I just don't want people wasting my money.

And so

what is

this moral compass like Is he [00:19:00] sitting on this moral compass?

of I'm

better than the other rich

people, because I dress up as a bat.

and beat up bad guys?

Like, is that how he justifies

being a

billionaire around these other people? It's like you have to have a

certain moral compass? as Well, or

do you think

he carries that energy?

for everybody, whether they're rich or poor?

I think he carries that energy for everybody, whether they're rich or poor. Also billionaires in general. I don't think that you become a billionaire without standing on someone, and I'm sure that Bruce Wayne's parents were. Abusive in their own way, which is explored in not only Matt Reeves, the Batman, but also Todd Phillips' Joker movie when it comes to Bruce Wayne and the intersectionality of not only his male privilege, but his whiteness and his class level.

I would say that he is aware in some ways and unaware in certain ways. I think that he is aware that a [00:20:00] lot of the people in his hemisphere have the luxury of being disconnected from the struggles of people who don't know where their next meal is coming from and don't know where their next paycheck is coming from and don't have access to affordable housing.

So I think that he's aware that . Money and power can corrupt, but what makes Bruce different is that he is using a lot of his money to not only fund an underground headquarters for crime fighting and spends most of his nights and days researching and combating criminals. I, I would say Bruce gets a pass most part, not for everything, but I give Batman a pass.

At least I give this version of, of Batman a pass for not only his compassion, but how wholeheartedly he cares about the villains. Like, look at how he helped the person whose legs could have been lost for life. I think that this version of [00:21:00] Bruce, and I hate the term, ugh, it's so annoying, but I feel like the alt-right have co-opted the term woke and just made it feel so icky to the point where

I feel like it belongs to them, and I no longer feel comfortable even saying that. I'll just say that Bruce is alert of a lot more things than somebody else in his position would be.

especially as someone with as much money as him would be. So I

agree with that. That's good stuff. That's

a wonderful explanation. Thank you for saying all of that.

Yeah.

So let's get to Batman's visit to Goth Corp. That that big

Humanitarian.

event is happening in the building. And Batman, the master of disguise, not Dana Carvey, Bruce Wayne in and the cop get up.

And I actually think that they inserted the cough here because I think if you weren't paying attention or weren't like really understanding what was going on, you wouldn't have gotten that. That was Bruce. With his co, with hi, because that co that voice is so different and it sounds like Kevin Conroy, again, if you're [00:22:00] familiar with his voice, but that like, Hey, I'm here to relieve you. Let me sound like Conde

Sylvester Stallone and that's

gonna pass

for

security. God.

It

was great. It was so good

so that's his in, and I think you had to insert the cough so you could be like, oh

shit.

Yeah, that's actually, that's Bruce Wayne doing his thing. That's actually skillful acting and that's kind of his in to dress, to change his dress to Batman and go exploring the area without any interruption.

Also, did he dye his hair

I

like he was blonde

either that or he

wore,

a wig, but

yeah.

that's this,

That's not the first time.

he is had different hair color,

but yes.

it's the first time I, I looked at him, I'm like, oh shit. Is, is Bruce about to go to the Abbey? This is definitely

a different . Fuck boy. Bruce Wayne

K, Ken, Ken, Dre, Wayne.

Kendall Bruce Wayne is

That's so good.

Good. Oh

He is Ken enough.

He's kid enough. Okay.

His job is,

crime fighting. His job is [00:23:00] Batman.

no, his job, his job is bat cave

His job is backing. His job is brooding.

Yeah.

All right. Well, Batman finds the recording of the incident that the, the Goth Corp, CEO kind of alluded to. It Freeze is there experimenting on his terminally ill wife. I thought it was funny where the files were flipping across and you just see Nora Free's diagnosis, positive .That's all it says. Just says her diagnosis is positive. It's again, another nameless illness that she has. He's in the middle of taping this experiment. The CEO Mark Campbell kicks the door through.

He's got a security there. He's like, you're wasting my money. I caught off funding for this months ago. Stop it now. And he's like, but my wife will die if you pull her out. And he goes, I don't care. You gotta do it now. And freeze gets the drop on him and tries knocking him out. And he gets pushed into these chemicals and you see him go into the chemicals and you assume that Nora dies.

And that [00:24:00] that's how he transforms into Mr. Freeze. And before we move into Batman being captured, 'cause this also helps Mr. Freeze get the drop on Batman and capture him yet again. Let's talk about the fact that this security camera taping had the camera angles of a multi-camera studio television production, fully including closeups I think the animators forgot that this was supposed to be a single camera observation footage.

I think that IW forgot that it was supposed to be single camera because I was pulled in. I was like, give me the angles,

it draws you in. But I was immediately like, wait a second. This is a This is him. Just like, it starts the same, just like taping himself and then all of a sudden we have multiple angles and closeups and stuff like that. It, it got

very dramatic.

my head canon is that the CEO is such a piece of shit that he probably shows this during his own dinner parties. He like edited it together from the multiple angles. Like, look, look, this is where I kick him. This is where I kick the guy

Look at what, look at what they did to me. It's not my fault.

[00:25:00] Watch Daddy, watch Daddy ,

Oh my God. watch, watch. Daddy freeze. He turns into daddy Freeze right here. Woo. We this, we like this episode and we're going off the reels. I like it. Well, we, this also, as I said before, allows Mr. Friese get the drop on Batman. He hits him with the cold gun.

He wakes up hanging upside down in a cave by ice. And this is our second Star Wars reference. I mean, also, it's funny that he's hanging upside down like a bat. It's still a bat reference, but in the Empire Strikes back when Luke is knocked out and captured by the snow, yet he is zombie thing. He's somehow hung from the ceiling of the cave by his feet in ice, and he has to use his lightsaber to cut himself down and then cut up the monster.

But instead of that, we.

get a bit of speech ation from Mr. Freeze and how his motivations has evolved a bit through this transformation of him becoming this villain. And yes, it's about revenge for Nora and taking it out on the people who wronged him. But [00:26:00] it's also, now I wanna freeze the goddamn world. I wanna take away everyone's ability to feel a hot summer breeze on their face. Or a warm hand waiting for them because I no longer have that ability to have those things because I can only survive an extreme cold. And my love was taken away from me. And honestly, like side me that fuck up, I was just

kind of like, yeah, man.

you've, you freeze that world dog. I, I'm rooting for you a little bit here.

Uh, What did you think of that, Charlie?

I mean, is he wrong though? Because global warming is a thing.

We could use him

we could use a little bit more cold to be real, but at the same time, the emotional spine of that character and his pain and Mr. Freeze is such a typical dude. He says, I don't have any emotions, but then he turns around and does the most dramatic shit ever.

Just like a [00:27:00] man who never stepped into therapy. this Is the thing that kills me about men. The thing that, and I'm, I'm one too, like kills me about men. I don't feel shit turns around and does something five times more dramatic than a woman ever would.

Just the cognitive dissonance between I never cry to then throwing the world's biggest temper tantrum to the point of building a freeze gun. It is so blatantly, like heterosexual man doesn't know how to talk about his feelings.

Yeah, I mean, you probably should have cried once or twice. Dude. Might have helped

I know the tears would've frozen, but it still would've gotten out.

but yeah, they, well, they dry on their own, right? As Amy says, well, we, we roll on here. Batman does escape and he's gonna go chase those goons down. But the goons and Mr. Freeze do manage to roll up to this party the giant freeze gun alerting. Nobody apparently, like even the valet was like, can I, can I take your keys?[00:28:00] Come on, dude. It's a giant fucking freeze gun. Call the cops, man. Anyway, that was, that was just kind of go goofy and funny. And Batman shows up as it's already going down and gets his chance to get into the party, to get his opportunity to tell Mark Hamill exactly who he is, what he was gonna do to him. And Batman does show up just in time to stop freeze from striking the killing blow. Now, a couple things here, and I, and I also, I liked this punch as well as Batman's making his way through the cold gun and knocking out the goons. He has that moment where he kind of like, no, look, Helga punches him with the back of his foot fist, which you, Charlie put in the notes here was an awesome nod to also to Batman 89. I say Helga punch because, do you know what I mean? From,

from Hey Arnold. Yeah. When she's like fawning over Arnold and that creepy, whatever his name is, starts like breathing behind her and she just [00:29:00] punches his face every single time and like breaks his glasses. That was what I thought of, but I'm glad that you caught the 89 reference.

I love this moment before Batman comes in and Mark Hamill starts to beg for his life like He's so selfish and doesn't see the irony in him begging for his own life when freeze was literally doing the same thing to him. And he's like, you are just all kinds of too late for this kind of behavior.

Dude. did you think about that?

he deserved it. I was kind of smirking while he was getting frozen up. I was fully, fully on Mr. Freeze's side for this one, and it's probably the first time I felt this way during this show. Not the last time, but the very first time that I was this invested in a villain, getting their moment.

Batman does swoop in, tries to fight freeze. Super outmatched, very convenient timing for freeze to tell us that his suit also triples his strength, which means that Batman is not gonna handle [00:30:00] him in one-on-one combat. And I, I do like how quick this is, I guess a Riddler trophy that I'm coming up with right now.

When you fight Mr. Freeze in Ham City, you can't just straight up fight him hand to hand because he's too strong and the armor like, it makes him super strong. It makes it so Batman has to do some sort of environmental damage to

Oh

to kind of like knock him out for a second before he can get in there and start to punch his face.

Yeah, man, I, I don't mind him coming out of nowhere to say. This suit also triples my strength because no shit at triples his strength, he charges in there like the Terminator. This is also the first time that a member of Batman's rogues gallery has been super terrifying to me. when the Joker kidnapped Jordan, who you thought looked like a 30 5-year-old man, by the way, I'm still, I'm never letting that go.

I

it's.

of Joker. I was scared of the Joker in that, but I would say that out of [00:31:00] everyone Batman's face so far, Mr. Freeze gave him the biggest run for his money. Even without any help, he could just one crush Batman, punch a hole through his head or. Freeze his legs off. I, I really do think that he is a formidable villain and just a yes.

And what you said about the Batman AUM City video game and that video game, you're in a laboratory and there are about eight different ways to sneak up on Mr. Freeze and attack him. You can hide in a grate, then pop up from behind him to do a take down and smash his helmet. You can do a take down from behind a window when he's creeping up around a corner.

You can place explosive gel on one of the destroyable walls. You can use a remote electrical charge on one of the electromagnetic transformers, which is very satisfying. Visually, you can hang from one of the ledges, which [00:32:00] honestly is always everybody's first go-to, because who doesn't love a gargoyle?

Am I right? can lure, freeze to two cables lying on the . Floor and then electrocute him in the pile of water, which is very crafty. You can crouch on the steps as he's walking up and take him down from around a corner. And lastly, you can use your disruptor gun to disrupt his freeze ray and then just start beating the shit out of him.

But what makes Mr. Freeze a really cool boss battle is you can only do these different attacks once and you have to change it up. So it gives the level its own immediacy and its own variety. And seeing the scene of Heart of Ice kind of gave me PTSD, but in a good way.

It was a hard pass buy. I remember that one that was my favorite was always the, the, I agree with you hitting the, the transformer with your electromagnetic gun. 'cause then it pulls him in to the transformer that you hit. I always thought that looked really cool. [00:33:00] the strategy that Batman implements to get the drop on freeze this time is just smashing him in the fucking face with a jar of chicken soup. And if you weren't aware when hot contacts with freezing colds, glass It cracks and it breaks. There's this video going around on the internet basically being like a Chicagoan reacts to this video and it's someone pouring like steaming hot water on their frozen windshield to defrost it immediately, and the person being like, Nope, nope.

Don't do that. Don't. It seems like a good idea, but nope, you're gonna literally destroy your windshield. It's gonna explode everywhere. And so that's kind of what happened to Mr. Freeze's protective shield right there. And as it was established, he can't survive outside of Sub-Zero temperatures. So when his glass is gone and destroyed, he's out of the picture and he needs to get put back in cold or else he's not gonna live for much longer. But before he gets hauled off to a very chilly jail, Batman does everybody a solid and still hands over the tape. The very well shot multi-camera sitcom [00:34:00] style tape of what the Goth Corp CEO Mark Hamill did to Nora Freeze. And so justice is what happens. Rather than vengeance. And then our final scene we see right here is a freeze in a snowy cell with the same snow globe that he started the episode with. And he kind of wells up a little bit and you actually find out that all he really wants is that warm hand that he could hold one last time rather than freezing the rest of the world. our final Ridler trophy that we're gonna uncover right here at the end of the plot here is that the original planned ending would've had freeze crying, and then those tears turning into snowflakes in his cell, which was then later used in Batman and Robin with our guy Arnold Schwarzenegger.

So that's a fun little reference of what almost came to be. I have a couple of points on Mr. Freeze and then I want to toss it over to Charlie for a, a little bit of what I call Charlie Expert Writer [00:35:00] time. I just made that up and I think it has a good ring to it. this episode provided such a boon in popularity in Mr. Freeze that his comics counterpart had his origins completely retconned immediately after this episode came out to more closely resemble this episode just because it was so successful. And Spectrum Animation Studios who created this episode added that hint of frost around freeze's helmet, giving it more of a sense of realism. Bruce, Tim wanted a thin white line around his head implying that it was a helmet, but he admitted that he was really impressed with how the final product turned out, and that ended up being the final design for his character. So Charlie, we did this for Pretty Poison and you did an amazing job. So I'd love to do this again. How would you bring Mr. Freeze into a live action Batman movie?

Oh man, there's so many different ways that you could go, but before we look to the future, I wanna look to the past Arnold Schwarzenegger's [00:36:00] portrayal of Mr. Freeze. I love Arnold. He is great at, as the Terminator loved him. In true lies kindergarten cop twins, jingle all the way. I am a Arnold fan.

Should he have been Mr. Freeze? Absolutely not. I don't think that he captured the melancholy of that character the way that he should have been captured on film. If we're gonna do Mr. Freeze in a live action bat movie Batman movie, particularly the Matt Reeves Batman films, which. Has been greenlit for a sequel.

We need a character that can not only be strong in imposing, but somebody who does gravitas really well and who just does angst very, very, very well. The people who come to the top of my mind as great candidates for Mr. Freeze, the first person is Michael Fastbender. He did Magneto in the second trilogy of X-Men films really well, and he [00:37:00] had glimmers of sadness and vengeance.

I, I think he would knock it out of the park as Mr. Freeze, but that seems like a very obvious choice. So if we wanted to come at Mr. Freeze sideways and do somebody that we wouldn't expect Idriss Elba Mr. Freeze would be a very unexpected. Choice because Idris Elba, you think does Shakespearean levels of anger really well.

He's sexy. He can do action, he can do drama. I would say giving Mr. Freeze like this undercurrent of righteous Fury would do a lot to sell those moments of bitterness and sadness underneath all the frost. My third person who I believe would do a really good job with Mr. Freeze and who would also be a very unconventional[00:38:00] choice.

You know what? Fuck it. I'm gonna say somebody who, I'm gonna say two people. Actually. I think that Ryan Gosling would make a good Mr. Freeze and not Ryan Gosling based off of. The incredible work he did on the Barbie film. I would say the incredible work he did in Lars and The Real Girl, the film where his character is in love with an inflatable doll that character being so disconnected from reality, but so committed the connection that he has to his doll and the joy that that and the safety that that connection provides him.

I think inside of Ryan is a great performance I think Ryan play it like somebody who is working at the 11th hour to save his wife and all of the villain stuff would be secondary, which is the right way to play freeze. Ryan would really tap into the humanity of that, then be a badass villain and you'd be on his side because Ryan [00:39:00] has a natural charm to him.

my second, actually, my fourth choice would be Christian Bale. I think not only was he a Batman before, so it would be cool to see him play a villain in a Batman movie. He is just like, Play-Doh. There's nothing Christian Bale can't do. I also think that he deserves another chance at playing a villain because the villain that he played in Thor Love and Thunder was great.

But I don't know, and I don't even know if this is a writing thing or a directing thing or an editing thing, I don't believe that the movie was sculpted in a way that supported what he set out to do with that performance. So something more grounded like a Matt Reeves Batman film. Here I am calling it Batman movie Grounded

I'm so biased, but I think that Christian Bale would be more supported and something like a Matt Reeves Batman movie. So those would be my four picks for Mr. Freeze in a Batman film.

Brilliant. I love it.[00:40:00]

Also just going off of how the Ridler was portrayed in the Batman movie, Mr. Freeze would no doubt be portrayed as a serial killer. if we wanted to go a Dexter route, a Dexter ish route and show Bruce Wayne, the Robert Patson version of Bruce Ray Wayne trying to reintegrate himself into the billionaires club, making more of an effort to hang out with his billionaire friends and show face so that nobody can tell that he is secretly the Batman.

It would be interesting if in the first act some of his douche bag friends members of Go Corp start going missing and maybe Bruce goes undercover as a board member and he realizes that they all screwed over Mr. Freeze and Mr. Freeze is trying to his wife back from the dead. And we could have Bruce going through the journey of how far would he go if he could bring his parents back from the dead.

So that would be a nice juxtaposition. Yeah. That, that's my take. That's all I [00:41:00] got.

I would again, 12 outta 10. Absolutely. Watch that movie. Just a lovely introduction to Mr. Freeze, and we look forward to seeing more of him in the future. Moving on to Batman. Loved the Bruce that we got in this episode. I thought the Bruce and the, the humanity of Batman, Bruce Wayne was really on display here, especially with him sitting at the CEO.

We, we kind of talked about this, the undercover scenes were really, really interesting and they worked for both of us, him saying goodnight, humanitarian, and at the end was, was just like a perfect cherry on top of, of putting the corrupt CEO away. Is there anything else you wanna touch on for Batman in this episode?

I love that moment of him saying goodnight, humanitarian. And it's so funny that Bruce had such a disdain for this dude when he went to see him in his office, but the CEO had no fucking idea. I. Because he is so used to people agreeing with him, and obviously he looks like Bruce. Bruce looks like him. So that was the greatest [00:42:00] moment of Bruce being undercover, but not really because the guy gave him everything.

'cause he thought that he was impressing. Bruce, that was brilliant.

Yeah, moving on to, to Alfred's before we head into the final battering ratings. Um, The, his line there, and this is a Ridler trophy as well, has lined with all the compartments on your belt.

You'd think there'd be one for tissues is a reference to the 1960s Batman series because that bat belt had literally everything on it. Like Adam West was pulling literally anything he needed out of that bat belt in the 1960s. So that was just kind of a funny, like reference from Alfred being like, there's no tissues on that thing.

What do you got? What do you even have it for? Do you have anything else for Alfred?

No, I just, I love this version of Alfred so much. Question for you. I'm gonna turn that back around to you. Steve, are you, has this new voice actor for Alfred won you over yet?

No.

Really. I think

Yeah,

such a great job.

I

think he's doing fine, but every time he talks, I'm like, I still think Clive would do it better. I, and I don't know if [00:43:00] that'll change and like, yeah, I don't know. I think I was so disappointed by the switch in what's the one where he goes to the jail, the whatever episode that was okay, where he flies the bat wing

Oh, and the dialogue was so cringe.

it was, the dialogue was so cringe he immediately had more to do than Clive ever did.

Like I just feel like that put a bad taste in my mouth and now it's painting how I see him moving forward. So I don't know, maybe he will have, I know you said that there are more Alfred centric episodes coming up, so maybe those episodes will do a little bit to like swing that opinion for me. But yeah, I'm having a hard time not missing Clive

I think you'll, you'll learn to love him.

sounds very Stockholm syndrome and I'm here for it.

shut the fuck up,

All right. Well, on that lovely note, let's head on to our final battering ratings for this episode.

Charlie,

would you please do us

the honor of,

giving your battering rating for heart of ice?[00:44:00]

well, this is a first for a episode of the animated series. Five out of five Bat Rings baby.

What?

Pew. PPPP. Pew, pew, pew, pew.

Pew. Pew, pew. Congratulations. Too hard of ice. In the Batman, the animated series, getting a five

Battering rating from

Charlie. The first five battering rating of the Batman Animated

Series Rewatch.

And Guess what Charlie, it's

getting

its second one.

right here. Five

Batter rings from this guy as well. This episode was awesome. I

watched

it four times

because I liked it that much. I do not.

watch these episodes four times. For all of these watch throughs that we do, I try to at least two, but not four. So

this episode was incredible It absolutely showed

the highs that

we,

could ascend to. And there's actually a few different places that have this episode listed as the greatest episode of [00:45:00] all time in Batman, the animated series.

Now, do you agree

with that? As the person who's seen all of the episodes a few times, do you agree with that top best episode ever?

I mean. I can see how someone would say that it's the best episode of Batman. The animated it series is, it's not my personal favorite. It's in my top 10, but it's not number one. When we get to my number one, I'll let you and all of our listeners know. But I think that it's a very worthy pick for somebody's favorite episode.

For sure. It is so damn perfect. I have zero notes about this episode from top to bottom. It's really great. But I think some other episodes that are coming up get to the heart of Batman as a character. So much better. and this one isn't so much digging into what makes Batman tick. It's more about Mr.

Freeze getting his flowers and having a homecoming. But yeah, [00:46:00] I, it, it, it's in the top 10, but it's not number one. What about you? Would you say that this would so far be your favorite?

Oh, so far without a doubt. It's not even close, I don't think, I did really like the two phase two parter. I think I gave one of the two, a four and a half. I believe the second one because I, I did think it soared really high. But yeah, I mean this one is just kind of even head and shoulders above that to, to net that five battering rating and to definitely my favorite of the series and of the watch these so far.

It makes me very excited for what's to come. 'cause I know we have a lot of really good two parters. And other stuff like that and other really iconic characters to cover coming up next. But that is going to do it for our coverage of this episode of Batman, the animated series. We just talked about heart of ice. And the next time we come back to talk about Batman, the animated series, we will be back with another two parter, cat in the claw, part one and part two. We're talking Catwoman again, baby.

We love Catwoman time.

wait. When I was a little boy, every time [00:47:00] Batman animated series came on, I would close my eyes and pray to God. Please, please let it be an episode with Catwoman. So, so excited to be covering Cat in the Claw.

Charlie's prayer is coming through right here in real time. Well, before we get outta here, we want to, Kind of set up something special that we're gonna be doing moving forward. This is Charlie and Steve Tuff, as we've established many times, and there are a lot of things that either of us have watched that maybe the other isn't super familiar with, hasn't watched in a long time, or hasn't ever seen at all.

And we want an excuse to content about it. So what we're gonna be doing here is setting up Our first ever

movie swap. We've each picked,

a movie, one that we are personally really familiar with and that we like a lot, and we're gonna go ahead and assign the other person to watch this movie, and then we're gonna come back. And record a full episode about it, maybe with a guest, maybe with just ourselves. Very much so. In the same [00:48:00] vein of that episode of Saltburn that you just heard, which if you haven't gone back and listened to it, it's in your feeds wherever podcasts are found. And we had a really good conversation with our friend Ian Carlos Crawford, about the movie Saltburn.

so we're gonna try and go back and do stuff like that. So, Charlie,

I

would.

like you to go first. What is going to be the first movie that you assigned to me in the Charlie and Steve Swap movies? That sounds so weirder that I wanted it to, but I'm keeping it

keep it, Bebe, keep it. The first movie that I'm gonna assign to you, sir, is The Devil Wears Prada.

I

Can't wait.

Yeah. And I'm assigning The Devil Wears Prada to you because not only is it one of the best paced films I've ever seen in my whole entire life, it also has one of Meryl Streep's greatest performances to ever be captured on film.

She's the villain of the piece, or is she? That's what I really want to dig into. When we discussed that movie, [00:49:00] what's your movie that you'd like me to watch?

So the movie that I'm going to have you watch is Such a Hard Left Turn from the Devil Worst Prada, and I'm going to have you watch the Michael Bay Classic. Bad boys. What you gonna do? What you gonna do when they come for you? one of my favorite movies to this day. I love it whenever it's, it's one of those movies, I don't know if you're familiar with the show, the re watchable, but the, the concept of a re watchable movie is that when it comes on tv you're like, oh, this part I'm in.

Like, I got 30 minutes. I'm just gonna watch from here. And it's totally good. Bad Boys is absolutely one of those re watchable for me. I can watch it coming in at any point, jumping out at any point. It's

a Fantastic film. It's

one of Michael Bay's Better movies. That's maybe something that we can discuss because that's probably a touchy subject based on the movies that Michael Bay started releasing later on in his career. I'd also love to hear your opinions about Will Smith and Martin Lawrence, both of them arguably at the peak of their powers, so Bad Boys, [00:50:00] is gonna be my assignment to you for this movie swap.

What do you think about that?

I am so damn excited.

Right on. Perfect. Well, you have two new episodes that have nothing to do with Batman, the animated series Coming Your Way in the Form of The Devil Worst Prada and Bad Boys. And then we will also be back next time talking about Batman, the Animated Series. With our two-parter of the Cat and Claw, part one and part two.

Thank you so much for listening to another episode of Charlie and Steve Tuff. Please rate and review us wherever you get your podcast, whether that's Spotify or Apple Podcasts, or Amazon. Those five star ratings always put a big smile on both of our faces. We love seeing them. We would love to see more of them if possible. Give us a follow on Instagram at Charlie and Steve. Watch Stuff Pod. We always post our battering ratings there. We would love to hear your battering ratings of these episodes as we roll through them. You're more than welcome to go back on the old posts and comment on them if you're catching up [00:51:00] on the shows as well. And we will always take submissions on things you would love for us to watch. So if you have something in mind that you would love to hear us talk about, please send us our way. Once again, that's at Charlie and Steve Watch Stuff Pod. So for myself, Steve Snick and my beautiful good friend Charlie Peppers, we will see you on the next one.

Bye.

Bye friends.​