Charlie and Steve Watch Stuff

Charlie and Steve Watch Stuff - "On Leather Wings" and "Christmas with the Joker"
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[00:00:00] Hi friends! Welcome to Charlie and Steve Watch Stuff, your one stop shop for two friends that like to talk about the nerdy stuff that they watch all the time. My name's Steve Selnick, and I'm joined today by my friend, and while he's never watched It's a Wonderful Life because he couldn't get past the title, he sure did watch these episodes of Batman The Animated Series.

I'd like to welcome in, Charlie Peppers. Charlie, how's it going, buddy?

I'm going good. So glad to be here. Also, I have something in common with Bruce Wayne. We both never saw It's a wonderful life. 'cause I just fucking can't with that title.

Have you, wait, have you, is this actually real? Have you never

this is actually, I'm not, I'm not pulling your leg. I've never, I've never seen it. But that's a habit I need to get out of. Whenever something is so . In the zeitgeist, I feel like I don't need to watch it because I know what purpose it serves for the culture. Like I know what happens. He

How's A

Wonderful Life?

yeah.

Everyone knows that plot and what it does.[00:01:00]

Charlie, let me tell you another reason why we're friends. I, too, have never seen It's A Wonderful Life.

Especially not in full. Should we have, should we add that to Charlie and Steve Watch Stuff?

We should

a Christmas episode?

should

actually. It should definitely be a Christmas episode.

Well, Charlie, I didn't talk to you about this beforehand, but I just wanted to cover a little bit of pleasantries because something big happened, I think, in your life that I, I would love to hear your opinion on. Since the last time we've talked and just to kind of give this little timestamp and when this is happening in the world. The WGA came out of strike and they came to agreement with the studios and they're moving into potential production and all that stuff again. And I just wanted to quickly hear how you're feeling about all of that as a member of the association yourself.

And you don't have to go into too much detail, but I'd love to hear if you're getting back onto the grind and, and sharpening the old writing acts again,

Yeah. Pencils up bitches.

So let's go. I am 80% thrilled and very proud of my union. We did [00:02:00] it and I think this is a very . Very powerful time in American history because we're seeing a lot of people unionized right now. We're seeing a lot of people rally with their workers boots on the ground and really advocate for what they want and how they deserve to be treated, and how everyone deserves to be treated is making a living wage and being able to support themselves when we're experiencing just

A massive housing crisis, not only in Los Angeles, but places like San Francisco where you're currently based, and places like New York City where I was born and raised. So I'm so proud of my union, 20% cautiously optimistic because these changes have happened, but we also don't know how they'll be enacted in the process of getting room staffed and how, you know, the lower levels are coming up and if they're having room to grow, you know?

So I'm very . Thrilled, but also cautiously optimistic, [00:03:00] and I'm absolutely writing and talking to my reps again. So that's something to be celebrated.

Yes, it is indeed. And I thank you for that very well parsed opinion on all of that stuff. So thank you for sharing that. But hey, let's, let's get into the reason why we're here. And, and that is the Caped Crusader himself. If you didn't listen to our intro episode or you're just jumping into...

the podcast fresh from the start. Well, we're stoked to have you here. And we are going to be covering Batman, the animated series from its humble beginnings, which is where we're going to start today all the way through it's a well documented and extended endings. I think we've actually joked that if this goes well, we're going to be watching all the way through the end of justice league and limited.

So here we go. Episodes one and two coming at you. So without further ado, We're going to be covering the first two episodes chronologically in Batman, the animated series. The first of which is actually the pilot for Batman, the animated series titled on leather wings. On leather wings was released on September 6th, 1992.

It was directed by Kevin Altieri [00:04:00] and written by Mitch Brian. And the plot of this episode is Batman finds himself tangling with a Jekyll and Hyde bat creature after it attacks a night watchman and the police wage war. Um, The dark night now, before we go any further, since this is the first episode, the pilot episode, I feel like we would be absolutely remiss if we didn't talk a little bit and give a little bit of love and acknowledgement to the opening animated sequence of Batman, the animated series.

And this is where I want Charlie to come in because I would love to just have you talk about the kind of vibes, the feels, the, the tone that it sets for us kind of jumping into what we're about to view for the next 20 or so minutes.

Well, right off the bat, I wanna say this intro makes me so happy. It is one of the . Images that is just seared into my consciousness. 'cause I've been watching it since I think I was four or five years old. And it not only set the tone for different things that I would like and seek out and pop culture [00:05:00] and in TV and film, but it really lets the audience know what they're in for.

We know that . Each episode is gonna be structured, not around Batman, but about Batman reacting to a villain in Gotham City. So, boom, the bank explodes. Batman reacts to that, and he chases the villains. The villains are cornered by Batman, and they don't know what to make of this mysterious figure in the darkness.

But then Batman is able to . out with them. Men just really rise to the occasion and be the hero, and then the cops come in afterward just to see that the criminals have been tied up so hidden. Inside of that intro, we have the structure for every episode of the show. Beat by beat. That's what happens every single episode of Batman, the animated series, it's simple, it's tight, it's concise.

The animation looks gorgeous. I love that closeup on Batman's eyes where they [00:06:00] just narrow and you know that he's about to fuck shit up. I really think it's great. This is why it's my favorite version of Batman.

And I think something that. makes this series so popular and stand the test of time is I think Portions of it have been used and reused in many ways and as you talked about Sort of the vibe that that intro sets up I've immediately transported into the opening moments of the new Matt Reeves Batman and how Robert Pattinson is introduced where it's the it's the bad guys first that are messing with an innocent person and all of a sudden Batman comes out of the shadows and then shit goes down and He's beating the crap out of some bad guys So I think That just shows such a base understanding of what we're in for, and a base understanding of what works for the character, and it's been used over and over again because it works.

absolutely. absolutely. And before we move on, I also have to give love to Batman 89, the opening of that.

Oh

Where the kid's like, same answer. [00:07:00] The kid's like, we're going the wrong way. And the dad's like, I know where I'm going. Little did he know ? He was about to get knocked the fuck out and Saved by Batman.

A little bit, a little bit stiffer of the neck

on that Batman, just a little bit less mobility on that one.

Oh, oh

totally.

putting new definition to head on a swivel

God.

Absolutely.

anyway, bad jokes aside. So let's get into the episode itself. We have the opening with a man bat, the iconic man bat. I don't know if iconic is truly the word that we can use for man bat, but he is the inverse of the Batman kind of buzzing a.

police blimp, and then we are transported into a room with a lot of important people. And I would love for you, Charlie, to give a breakdown of all of these important people that were immediately introduced to. And again, what that kind of does as a table setter for a pilot episode to kind of toss you in a room with all of these people and not necessarily take the time to explain who they are, but you know who they are.

Oh, [00:08:00] absolutely. Well, right off the bat we have Commissioner Gordon, who we know is eventually gonna become one of Batman's greatest allies, but right now he's not really checking for Batman. I think . He's pretty neutral on him. He's knows of his existence and I think that Gordon is playing it pretty smart.

I'm sure that secretly he appreciates what Batman's doing and he sees why he's going outside of the law to really get things accomplished, but he is more so. No, I don't think we need a task force to take down Batman. Let's just . Do it ourself. And then we have Harvey Bullock, who is a little bit of Commissioner Gordon's right hand man.

And Harvey Bullock is such an interesting character because he, in some ways, I think that he's a little taken aback and maybe on some level jealous of Batman. [00:09:00] and the fear and respect that he's getting from the underworld. I think that Bullock wants that for himself. And if you look at a lot of . Their animosity throughout the show.

I think that Bullock is projecting a lot onto Batman and kind of on a very low level, not quite Lex Luther level of, I'm obsessed with Superman and I want to be Superman. I don't think that Harvey is self-aware enough to realize what's happening, but I think he is intimidated and almost feels a little neutered by Batman, honestly, because he should be the one taking down all these bad guys. Then we have the mayor who doesn't really have a strong opinion either way. He kind of acquiesced to Harvey and, oh yeah, we can give you a task force to take down the Batman. So I think that that shows that the Mayor

Throughout the show doesn't have the strongest backbone, he can kind of acquiesce to [00:10:00] whatever's happening. He's kind of the middle man then you have a total fourth player and person who doesn't fit into I any three of these arguments. And we have Harvey Dent, who he knows gonna become two phase and

He is concerned about justice and order and the law first and foremost, which is interesting because Batman represents Law and Order. So you know that there's gonna be a connection between these two. So all in all, great table setting and great character work.

You put them in front of me and I'll put them in jail. I, I do want to quickly rewind back to Gordon and Bullock because I, funnily enough, had a very different read on both of them than you did.

Interesting.

I actually kind of feel like it's cool that we're we're discovering this for the first time and I think that this is again like you're someone who has watched this a lot of times and you have like a very deep understanding of the characters and the plot points and stuff like that.

So I actually see [00:11:00] this as more of a misunderstanding on my part than anything else. And maybe I'm being influenced by previous Batman media that I've taken in, but I think. And especially through the Nolan films, we're so used to the notion of a dirty cop and a cop on the take. And even through the, that Gotham Fox show with the Carmine family being

Oh wow.

and yeah.

Oh, I watched that shit for at least a season. But there was just, I think there's such a. Parallel of Batman and dirty cops that you can't trust. So he has to do it on his own with the exception of the help of commissioner Gordon, that I read Harvey is dirty.

Really? Okay.

I read Harvey is dirty and

trying to get rid of Batman for someone like, maybe not a two face, but like, I'm sure penguins popping around at some point, like any of the crime family bosses that have a cop on the take. I didn't even consider that. This is just like. A macho piece of shit that's still a cop and just [00:12:00] feeling like he's getting his nuts chopped off by a guy in a bat costume. I think that's also, and we can get into this later when we talk about the next episode, it was partially why I was so surprised that he was one of the characters that the Joker captured.

Mm-hmm.

was like, wait, I thought that was the dirty guy. But anyway, and so, and honestly, the thing that surprised me about your opinion on Commissioner Gordon, and I guess I could have read it this way, is that I just assumed that they've been in cahoots from the start. That there's already a relationship there. Not like that Gordon's like, Oh no, let this guy do his thing. He hasn't done anything wrong yet. He's actually been helping us. But the way that you're explaining it makes it feel like that there's no actual connection that's been made yet. And that's, of course, maybe my lack of understanding of what's about to happen, because you do know what's about to happen.

So, are you saying that there hasn't been any contact between them yet? Or do you think that it's been, minimal, there's no, like, actual agreements between the two of them yet?

so if we're looking back, commissioner Gordon, he did have a role in Batman, mask of the Phantasm, and that's

the

a prequel.

Which is a prequel to the series and [00:13:00] explains a lot of things and how they came to be., but I know that even if they are in Kahoots, they're not tight

yet.

There's no bad signal.

I don't believe so at this point.

Well, I feel like we would have been seeing it

if, especially in the next episode, if Joker's breaking out Arkham Asylum, that's the first thing that's getting thrown into the sky.

Let's jump into the theme that jumps off of this, because we have this little meeting between Commissioner Gordon and Harvey Bullock and Harvey Dent and the mayor, and the result of it is that this force is created. This task force is going out to get the Batman. So I think this then brings us into... One major theme that we're going to be seeing over and over again throughout this series and honestly like kind of superhero media in general Especially when it's vigilante superhero media. It's when the main character in this case Batman is actively avoiding The cops coming after them, while at the same time actively trying to [00:14:00] figure out the mystery and who the real bad guy is.

And I think that this episode does a really, really great job of navigating that the first time. So Charlie, why don't you dive into, like, some of the, some of the strategies, some of the some of the angles that Batman plays as he is trying to navigate not getting caught by the cops, but at the same time doing the cop's job for them.

I think this is one of the most ingenious parts of this version of Bruce Wayne. And I'm gonna start by pointing out the different voices that he uses the fact that. Batman sounds like this. And he's like, commissioner I I, I have an idea for, but then Bruce Wayne kind of sounds like a dope.

He's like, oh, hi Jim. You know? So the fact that Batman knows exactly the knife's edge walk that he's doing in terms of playing both sides of it is very interesting to me. 'cause we can see his intelligence. So clearly in this episode and how he is able to tap into [00:15:00] forensics when he's trying to figure out what's going on with Babat.

He's listening to the sound that Babat uses. So we see that he has strong detective skills. We see that he is able to just go into his Bruce Wayne persona and go visit the scientist. Out of curiosity because he has a quote unquote, That problem that he's trying to get them to help him with.

Can I quickly interrupt you and just, we can quickly park on the fact that that is the most ridiculous screech ever played to human ears, and then the guy just tries to play off like, eh, it's a brown bat, you just got normal ass brown bats.

If normal

brown bats sounded like that, I would be so terrified of bats for the rest of my life. That is just like, I just laughed at how like much of a obvious like, come on,

It's so funny, Steve, because I didn't even blink. I think that I'm so like, oh, cartoon, you know, but

I, I feel that, I feel like [00:16:00] it's absurd, of course, 'cause cartoon

but.

when he played it and, and it will come back to that moment as well of just like the moment of it being played, I think it's just so jarring, the sound, that it like, even beyond cartoon, I just thought the noise itself was like extra ridiculous and it made me chuckle, and I just enjoyed the fact that I got to chuckle at the

Oh, absolutely.

So many shenanigans you haven't in. You

haven't even seen it yet. Wait till you get to the baby doll episode.

I can't wait.

So there's an element of him being a little bit Sherlock Holmes, a little bit Colombo, a little bit Magnum pi. I think so many elements of . A lot of great detectives we can see wrapped up into this early iteration of Bruce Wayne slash Batman. Even down to him, like you said, changing his voice and switching from, oh, hi Jim, to Hello commissioner.

You know, and just using those [00:17:00] octaves effectively, just there's so much. I love this performance of Batman so much, just . His intelligence, how he is able to be different people around different people, how he knows exactly what he's doing outside of the law and the danger of that never escapes him. So we get to see him do a lot of stuff in what essentially for this episode is kind of structured like a horror film a little bit.

I hesitate to say that Batman solves this mystery, because he really just figures out that the guy was lying to him about the sound, and then he shows up at the place. And then the bad guy just kind of tells him everything. Like, that's essentially what happens here. Like, he doesn't actually really

They'll, they'll get better, they'll get better

They do. That's for

sure. I just

feel like it and, and of course you only have so much time.

yeah, they

took a very confident, a very confident, like off center swing [00:18:00] for this first episode and I don't think that they had enough time to wrap it up in a way that they will wrap up further episodes. 'cause I

don't .They like Batman doesn't really have too as much screen time as you would expect him to have

in this first episode, which was smart.

I, and we can maybe on final thoughts of the episodes, we can talk about, like, the overall merits of how this works as a pilot.

For what we now know is this like 200 plus episode series that we love so much I I do think it is interesting that they go like part of the way of showing how brilliant of a detective they that he is and then they're just kind of like okay and then the bad guys actually just gonna have a lot of hubris and Tell him his plan and then just try and transform into a monster and and kill him, which I guess If you need to fit that into the last six minutes, it's a lot easier to do than doing all of like the Whatever other narrative work you have to do, but let's talk about that moment He breaks into the lab where he had originally gone in [00:19:00] to give the sample and Kirk Langstrom the the husband of The the daughter of this doctor that he was originally working with And basically does his bad guy monologue almost immediately. Doesn't really, Batman's just kind of like, you were lying. And the key was like, I will lie, I was lying, and let me tell you exactly how I was lying. And then essentially just like antis everything up by actively turning into the man bat in front of him. Now the thing that I want to acknowledge and talk about after that is something that I recognized.

Because I've played the video game Arkham Knight and one of the side quests that you can get almost immediately when you start Arkham Knight is taking down the man bat. And it's structured almost exactly on how this went down. You essentially have to find the man bat flying around Gotham and Grapple or fly onto him in some way and you have to do it more than once to take him down the video game But this is essentially how it goes down.

He shoots his grappling hook. He hooks onto his leg He rides him around the city and he eventually gets him to crash land and knock himself out so I would love to get your take [00:20:00] on Just that little action sequence as like a first takedown of a bad guy and then the ensuing Results of that action sequence because I think that's a little bit different on how it plays out And I think it also plays into a theme that you touched on on our intro episode So charlie, why don't you why don't you wax poetic on that for a minute?

I. Well, one, I love that side quest in a night. It is so scary. It is the best jump scare I've ever experienced. You're just, you climb onto a building, you pull yourself up and just the, the man batts in your face. You're like, whoa, what just happened there?

And whenever I play AUM Knight, I will just glide around hoping that I'll run into man batt and have that jump scare again, because it makes the game feel even more alive.

But I digress. And back to the animated series. I really love that. I love that we get that image. I love that we get that [00:21:00] bad guy monologue and I think that we got that bad mo guy monologue right off the bat because the episode tried to make it a light. Who done it? Like I think they wanted us to think that man batt could have been several people.

Definitely the very cranky. Older doctor is who was the red herring. That's who

everyone assumed it would be. Not the handsome, younger Kirk, you know? They did a lot of their work, a lot of their table setting in that meeting that Bruce had when he came to speak about his bat problem.

So I think the payoff of the episode was him. Getting the bad guy monologue because he already did all of his leg work and all of his detective work earlier in the episode. So I didn't really mind it, but I definitely see how it could've felt rushed because again, these are very ambitious stories they're telling in 20,

In 20 minutes.

Yeah,[00:22:00]

it's impressive. It's also hard.

It is that and I think that like whatever the quote unquote you want to put around new media today kind of like Makes me more sensitive to this stuff because I think I just and I I think I almost feel like this is how people 10 years ago Or even 20 years ago looked at like the Adam West Batman like whenever you hear something really hokey You just can't help but to like kind of laugh at it, especially when it feels different It's I'm reminded of the meme where it's like it's 2008 a new darker more brooding Batman has been released It's 2014 a new more brooding Batman has been like Batman has only gotten darker and more brooding as the years have gone on So when you get these moments of levity, they're more impactful and they also just like They ring out louder, I feel like, because we're so used to, like, sad boy and sad, sad coroner being sad,

Said

boy.

fighting people about it.

Yeah. I definitely agree.

So let's, let's.

transition here [00:23:00] into kind of how this all resolves itself, which you made the point in our intro episode that one of the best parts about this Batman is the fact that he genuinely wants to help his quote unquote adversaries and his villains. And so when Man Bat is knocked out, and he has the opportunity to just leave him there for the cops to take care of, What does he actually do?

He wraps man bat in his cape and brings him home. And offers a solution that isn't all about turning in the bad guy. He is able to recognize man batts humanity, and I think that that is, man batt is in some ways a metaphor for, I would say Bruce's darkness. And also Kirk is . kind of serving as a mirror image for the duality within Bruce.

So I think Bruce, on some level recognizes that Kirk had something inside of him that he couldn't control, and that [00:24:00] came out of him wanting to, on some level, make the world a better place. But it got

warped and it got out of hand and it kind of became this beast. And Bruce, because he has that no killing criminals rule.

Is afraid that he could become something like Man batt, that is just this killing machine that has no humanity. So Bruce going out of his way to protect the humanity of man batt is reinforcing how much he doesn't wanna lose his humanity. how much he really wants to put the people of Gotham that include the villains, because the villains do include the people of Gotham under his production.

And it makes Bruce a more complicated, more heroic and more compassionate person to be following for 200 something episodes. I love it.

I also love it. And I, I do think that's a perfect way to kind of wrap our synopsis of this episode as we kind of go into like [00:25:00] the final thoughts and the quick hits and the ratings of it all. Do you have any other final thoughts about any of the characters that we met in this first episode, Batman himself, the man back Kurt Langstrom, detective Harvey Bullock, commissioner Jim Gordon, Harvey Dent anything else about those characters that you noticed, saw anything like that, that you want to talk about before we, we move on to our guy, Alfred.

Actually, I was gonna bring up Alfred. So let's just go to

Alfred. That's,

section for

that's, that's the only person I wanna talk about right now.

Let's go

Let's talk about Alfred. Alfred is by far the funniest part of this episode,

and I feel like that's going to be a running theme. The first moment where I laughed out loud is when he asked with a sly smirk on his face if he should cancel Batman's date with me.

Bambi was her name. I thought that shit was so fucking funny. Just the sly acknowledgement of like, this guy doesn't get a shit. He just wants to go do his Batman stuff.

The moment where he was playing the screech of the bat, he just walks up and goes, I didn't realize you had taken a listening to rock and roll. [00:26:00] I legitimately laughed out loud when he said that. And then the moment where he walks in and Man Bat is played across the table, the only thing he says is Like what is what kind of shit have you seen

I have a theory.

be normal?

I have a theory. I'm wondering if the creators saw Fresh Prince of Bel Air. And just saw Jeffrey and they're like, ah, that's how we're writing Alfred, because Alfred is giving Jeffrey, he is giving sass. He is the moment. I love it so much.

You literally just made me choke on my laughter that was so funny That's well now just imagining like Alfred as yeah, that's a good that's a good picture you just painted for me right there

And it's, I, I feel like he's obviously underutilized at this point. There, there's going to be more Alfred moments, but I

Oh, he gets entire episodes

oh yeah. And I, I just do think that painting him as this like dry, nonplussed, I [00:27:00] think assistant is too light of a term, but partner to Batman and to Bruce Wayne and all of them. These endeavors was like, my opinion, pitch perfect, and it just made me want more Alfred as much as possible. So the fact that there is more coming is obviously pretty nice.

Yeah. He ties Bruce to his humanity. And we need

that. We always need somebody who reminds Bruce of his humanity.

Before we move on to our Riddler trophies, are there any final thoughts on Alfred you'd like to cover?

No, just more. I want more

More Alfred. More! More! Alright. So, we're introducing a little segment that we are obviously stealing from the Arkham video games.

They're called Riddler Trophies. If you're not familiar with the Arkham series, the Riddler Trophies were essentially the collectibles in the game that you could collect just by walking up to them and getting them, but a lot of them were hidden behind blocks. puzzles and Easter eggs and stuff that you had to solve.

So we are dedicating our Riddler trophy section to Easter [00:28:00] eggs or fun facts or anything else that we found in our research or that we just saw for ourselves in the episode. I think the first most, one of the most obvious ones I want to point out is that when we're introduced to Harvey Dent, he's flipping his coin.

I think that's a very obvious Easter egg for what he's about to become and his whole, Dick with two face about whether or not the side of the coin you're gonna get dictates whether or not you live or die but the one fun fact that I found I think you're going to be hearing the many voices of kevin conroy the legend may he rest in peace But the the voice of the blimp pilot at the start of this episode when man bat buzzes across is actually kevin conroy The voice of batman and bruce wayne himself

Oh, I would recognize that dopey voice anywhere. May he rest in peace. But Kevin Conroy, when he chooses to talk like this, he's definitely playing

a side character. You, you hear it and that's part of what makes it God, he's gonna be missed so much. What a talented dude and just

I know

what a versatile.

Performer in terms [00:29:00] of what he's able to convey just through speaking with these characters in this world.

Well without further ado Charlie, my friend, we have to give this episode on leather wings our first battering rating. Now this is going to be on a scale of five batterings, and we can use half batterings if we'd like to, because Batman is resourceful like that. So Charlie, I'd like you to have the honors.

How many batterings would you be rating on leather wings, and why?

okay. I've struggled with this because there are so many great episodes of Batman, the animated series

to choose from. And if I could give easily three quarters of them, five batter rings, I would.

So I'm gonna, I'm gonna be the bad cop on this.

I'm gonna be a little tougher on my ratings. So for this, I'm gonna give it three batter ranks.

I'm gonna give it three batter rings because it's good. It [00:30:00] didn't do anything that bumped me, that made me think I can't believe people kept watching this.

I. It did everything perfect. I think that it's serviceable. The script is tight. There is a lot of table setting. I don't think that it's nearly as interesting as some other stuff we'll be getting into.

This was definitely more of an ammo B,

Mm.

anything,

of what's to come. And I would say if we're gonna give something, at least, if I'm gonna give something for better rings, that means it was great.

But not quite perfect. And if I give it five better rings, it's flawless. And just one of the greatest things I've seen on tv, period.

I gave this two and a half batterings.

you're the bad cop. You

bitch

I'm a worse cop than you on this one.

I love that. I'm so nice that I thought three batter eggs

That's

was harsh,

when you said that. I actually [00:31:00] agree with a lot of the same takes that you have on this. I think in terms of an overall pilot, I actually think it's kind of weak. I think that they, they don't explain enough. And they, in terms of like, if I was coming into this fresh on Batman, which I'm not, but if I was, if I was like a listener who was coming into this, like, I have no idea what's going on.

I don't know who this is. I know that's hard to do. Or I've never watched the show before. I don't know how. Stoked I would be continue because

I think a lot of the times, and I think a lot of the shows suffer because you're told you have to get through X, Y, Z amount of episodes until it gets good, which I don't necessarily think is the case for this, but in the age of like, there's a million hours of content out there for all of us.

This definitely wouldn't be the episode that I would show someone to get them into Batman, the animated series. So I, I do think it does a good job of setting the tone, but it didn't like knock my socks [00:32:00] off to even get into a three range for me. And who knows, I think I'm also maybe starting my skill a little bit lower, so I'm not immediately putting myself into a rough place when it comes to better quality episodes,

in my opinion.

I, yeah, so, I, we're both pushing ourselves a little bit lower than I think we maybe would have, and who knows, maybe we'll go back and we'll have We'll have battering Mulligan's at some point to be fair, batterings do always return to us. So we have another opportunity to throw them again. And that's some smart shit that I just came up with right now.

A,

do you, do you have any other feelings?

on, on leather wings before we move on to our next episode?

No. Let's move on.

I.

Right on, let's do it. Alright, so our second episode is titled Christmas with the Joker. It was released on November 13th, 1992, directed by Kent Butterworth and written by Eddie Gorodetsky. The plot of this episode is on Christmas Eve, the Joker broadcasts a pirate Christmas special on television after escaping from Arkham Asylum.

Batman and Robin have until [00:33:00] midnight to fight their way past Joker's hidden traps all over town and rescue Commissioner Gordon. Harvey Bullock and Summer Gleason. Now, I want to start with this one on what is truly, and I don't use this term lately, but in my opinion, an iconic moment in pop culture history, because I sang this goddamn song so many times as a kid

and did not realize that the words came from this episode, which is the Jingle Bells song with the words changed to say Jingle Bells, Batman smells Robin laid an egg, the Batmobile lost a

lost

and the

and Joker

got away. .

I was like

shocked that this was when it happened somewhat because I forgot, and I guess I was just shocked that I forgot that this was the source. But

right when it started happening, I was like, no

Steve. Steve. So not only, I forgot too, I didn't know until this episode that that's where this came from because we take that song so for granted because [00:34:00] it just, that song just exists for all I know. It could have come from the seventies or something.

Right, it feels so intrinsically tied into our childhoods that it just felt like it was around for longer than maybe a couple years than when we started singing it ourselves because like I Was singing that song to people when I was like five or six so like a couple years after this came out

So like this was happening right away and I think I always just assumed kind of like you said that was from like Because the song itself is so old and Batman is no spring chicken himself at this point

in terms of how long the character has existed for.

So I was surprised. Obviously, you were surprised as well. That's all we have to say about it. The Joker drinks out of jail. What's new? We're, we're, we're immediately getting back into the swing of things. But before we talk about the Joker more, I would actually like to talk about. Batman sidekick that is introduced to us in this

Robin.

is Robin. Robin, Robin is, and it's funny because I was thinking about the song and I'm like, Oh, so they, they better be introducing Robin to us if they're literally referencing [00:35:00] Robin in this song. And so lo and behold, he's coming out right away. And, and Robin is immediately pitching. Batman on kickin back and enjoying the holiday and watching It's a Wonderful Life together. And one of the wildest moments of this episode, in my opinion, is Robin trying to compare the main character of It's a Wonderful Life to Batman. By basically being like if you weren't around everything would change for everybody and I'm like my son that is a stretch is definitely a stretch But I think it's interesting that like I it's another indication as a kid He just wants to kick back and enjoy the holiday where Batman is like no like you don't know this Joker guy And I think it also establishes That there is history here.

That we're not just going in fresh. This is not an origin story. We're being tossed into this, like, in the middle of the momentum of Batman. Like, him and Joker already have history. He's probably the reason why Joker was in jail in the first place. And there's something that is eating at Batman. He knows that danger. is on its [00:36:00] way. And there wasn't really as much of a question in there, but if I would love to just hear you talk about like how we receive Robin at first and kind of the differences on how Robin's handling this situation versus the more experienced, wiser Batman.

You know what struck me the most about this version of Robin on first viewing of this episode? 'cause I watch it three times to prepare for a pod. This is really. The happiest that Bruce and Dick Batman and Robin will be together. And I think that that is a consequence of them not really digging into how fraught their dynamic can become and how tend it can be at times just

Batman was so gentle with Robin this episode. He definitely put his foot down, but not as much as he will in future episodes, which really plays into how as Bruce gets deeper and deeper in his career as Batman, he starts to [00:37:00] isolate himself from the people who matter most to him, and Robin is definitely . Top tier person in his life. Love how optimistic Robin is. Love his corny jokes, like, oh, you're literally Batman. You know, just, I have so much love for the Robin character in general and what he represents.

cool. So we've, we've established Batman and his fearless sidekick Robin. Now let's talk about the Joker for a second. And Charlie, I want you to take this away because. We get into the next portion of the episode. We finally figure out what the Joker has planned. He has taken over the broadcast waves with his own Christmas special.

And it's very messed up Christmas special one, where he's taken a few hostages, commissioner Gordon, detective Harvey Bullock and summer Gleason. And I want to talk about Joker's motivations really quick.

Because my read of. Joker's motivations for all this basically being like it's Christmas, and I don't have a family, so I'm gonna cause chaos. Doesn't feel very Joker ish [00:38:00] to me. It's just never felt that, it's always felt more chaotic and less directed at one thing. Like him just being like, well, I don't have a family, so I'm going to be pissed and I'm going to blow shit up. So I would love to kind of hear your read on this first take of the Joker and whether or not you think it hit, whether or not you think the writers think it hit and sort of like where, so just your initial read on, on what is a truly, maybe one of the most iconic villains in, in comic nerd culture history.

Oh, absolutely. This is my joker. This is how I

see the Joker, and it's how I think the Joker should be written, but I don't think they're there yet. And even . Bruce, Tim said, oh, I don't think that we quite nailed, or it might've been Paul Dini. Either one of those guys said that they didn't quite nail joker until they introduced Harley Quinn

as a counterbalance to him.

The way that I see this version of the Joker is that he is [00:39:00] deeply narcissistic. He is murderous. He is doing this for attention. First and foremost, he wants . To show Batman what a good joke he can put together. But his version of a joke are these schemes that kill hundreds and hundreds of people and just throw Gotham in extreme risk.

So I think the writing for the Joker. Doesn't do it for me in this episode, but Mark Campbell's performance so good. He hit the ground running. I love his performance, but the writing doesn't have all the layers that will make Joker one of the most compelling villains of this show one of the most compelling takes on the character across all media for me at least.

So I think he definitely feels a little, he feels a little flimsy.

Doesn't really feel as great [00:40:00] as I know he'll become, so I was very meh.

I agree with that. I think inconsistent is the word that comes up for me because I think he has moments where you're like, Oh yeah, I see the vision here. I see like, I see what I remember. I think that's especially evident in the very, very beginning and the very, very end of the episodes, which are two of his more, like, truly unhinged moments, which are ironically two of the moments where he's in Arkham. But yeah, there were moments where I even was like, oh, this doesn't even sound like him. Like, I, the, like, even the way in which he is emoting doesn't quite sound... Where I know it's going to go, and I think that's actually a really good point about Harley Quinn, because that, as some of you may or may not know, Harley Quinn was a Batman animated series creation.

She wasn't in the comics before she was in this animated television show, so the fact that they were able to concept and create this character that aided this other one into sort of like, Pantheon status is is super interesting and I'm very excited to dig into Harley when we get to [00:41:00] episodes where she's a part of things so I just want to quickly cover kind of like the and again, I think this is a General theme that we're gonna see throughout Batman the animated series, which is him and whoever his allies are completing a Various set of tasks, feats of strength, feats of brain power, feats of whatever challenges in order to reach the end result and to get the bad guy and stuff like that.

So we have them saving the train from the bridge that had been blown out from Joker's goons. We have the, them thinking that they're going to find him at the observatory, but the observatory is actually a giant cannon that starts shooting at them in the huge city, which... That one was a lot. And then the toy factory and the resolution and all of the booby traps that are also booby traps, very, very synonymous with the joker as well.

So that was kind of in there right away. But then also the resolution where the booby trap was actually just a pie

and. So, and then he just cut the rope anyway, so it's, it's, it's funny [00:42:00] cause I feel like actually that sort of randomness is very much so on track with, with the Joker, and we can get to that at the end, but kind of talk through your your observations and your, your feelings as Batman and Robin were kind of jumping through, for lack of a better term, these hoops in order to save these people.

Hmm.

Yeah, the teamwork was really good. I like how they relied on each other. It felt a little Adam West, Bert Ward, 1966, Batman to me in certain points, and I think that that was the writers. not quite knowing what the tone of episodes were. Robin was gonna be a factor, what those episodes would feel like, and I felt it a lot in this episode.

Well, again, it's Christmas with a Joker, so the episode is gonna feel a little superfluous in parts and a little just tongue in cheek at parts. But I feel that when it came to the action, it didn't . Hit that sweet spot that I know the show can hit, especially [00:43:00] once we reach things like Justice League and Justice League Unlimited, where the fight scenes are on par with John Wick and really great kung fu battles.

I think that this was just, I kind of hated it. I kind of hated a lot of the action in this episode. It felt very . . when I'm watching Batman, there's some part of me that acknowledges that it's animated, but I don't think of it as a cartoon cartoon, if that makes sense. And I definitely was thinking, oh, I'm watching a cartoon right now.

As I went through this, it kind of lost a bit of its prestige for me.

I totally agree with that. And. I think that's actually what really lost me during that when he opened the package and it was just a pie that smacked him in the face and then he cut the rope anyway. That just felt too hokey for some reason.

Mm-hmm.

I, and maybe there's something that, that tracks back on that, but I totally agree with that.

And it just felt like a very although going into that, his jacket with the hands slipping off of him [00:44:00] felt very on character. So like at some points the hokiness works and at some points it didn't for me this time around. So like you said, and like we've kind of said, I think that they're going to find. They, they've even said themselves, they didn't quite nail it this time. I think we see that and, but there's definitely groundwork laid there that we're going to see them take really extrapolate the good and amplify that,

Oh,

Holly Quinn.

for sure.

And wait till you see the difference between Christmas with the Joker and return of the Joker. . Is enormous, the things that they do with the Joker and Return of Joker. I'm so fucking excited for you to see that tie in film. Dude, it just, that is what they're talking about when they say we didn't nail the Joker.

The way that they write him in that film is all of their hard work across 200 plus episodes paying off and them just knowing the character that well.

So before we get out of here and [00:45:00] give this a final battering rating and say farewell from our first episode, I just wanted to dive into our notable themes and moments. I really only had one Riddler fact for this one. It's another appearance of Kevin Conroy.

He's actually one of the Joker thugs that sings the Jingle Bells theme song for a second time when they blow up the bridge. So one of those voices is again, our man Batman. The legend, Kevin Conroy. So until there's other Riddler facts that come through or others that we dig up through our half assed internet research there's probably just going to be a lot of references to the other voices that Kevin Conroy got to do.

These Ridler trophies are a lot easier to find

than they were in aum.

yeah, we haven't had to shoot any question marks with electrical charges yet.

Yet.

So moving on to the batarang grading you did it first. So I'm going to do it first this time because I'm, I'm going to establish myself as the extra bad cop again. I'm giving this one two batarangs out of five.

I did not enjoy it as much as the last one, so I feel like it needs to get a little bit. lower of a rating than on Leatherwings, in my opinion. And again, I [00:46:00] think I'm setting the bar a little bit lower so then I can celebrate the ones that exceed those expectations a little bit higher. So yeah. I mean, that said, I'm still very excited to be doing this just because these episodes weren't necessarily like banger bangers to us.

It doesn't mean that we didn't extrapolate a lot from it and didn't enjoy it immensely. I think part of it is to dig a little bit deeper than that, which is sort of the point of why we just sat here for the past hour chatting with y'all about it. So Charlie. Without further ado, what is your batarang rating for Christmas with the Joker?

I'm gonna give it a two. Just a pure meh. Will probably not watch it again unless I decide to do a whole nother rewatch of Batman. It wasn't terrible. And I think it wasn't terrible because they, I give them a lot of grace 'cause it's one of the earlier

ones and they really do come to nail the character of the Joker in such an incredibly nuanced way.

So I'll give them a pass, but also I don't wanna watch this shit again.

[00:47:00] fair enough. Well, that's why we get to do this so we can move on to the next episodes. Well, that has been our first episode of Charlie and Steve watch stuff. We've done it, Charlie.

We did it.

Joe. We, did it. Joe

Oh my goodness. We were, we've been dreaming this for. Probably longer than we'd like to admit in the fact that we're sitting down and recording this together.

It doesn't matter if two or two million of you listen to it. We're having fun and that's all that matters.

So this has been our first episode of Charlie's D of Watch Stuff covering Batman the Animated Series. We're gonna be back in the next episode covering episodes three and four on this first season.

They are titled Nothing to Fear. and The Last Laugh, so we'll look forward to coming back next time and discussing those episodes and whatever else is on our mind with you. So for myself and for my good friend Charlie Peppers, thank you for being here and we'll see you next time.

Bye.

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