I was very shocked to find on the internet full episodes of the most excellent Batman: The Animated Series, especially from a source such as AOL. I haven’t gotten the chance to verify the quality or how well they are actually provided, but I was just surprised to see them on there at all, typically all AOL is good for providing is the latest scoop on Britney Spears or other vomit-inducing news, possibly sometimes a sadly distorted “look inside” piece on gaming, but this is honest-to-goodness pure Batman providence!
For those of you that aren’t yet familiar with it, Batman: The Animated Series was a traditionally animated cartoon that first came out between 1992 and 1995, and quickly became one of the most iconic representations of the character in motion ever to exist. The show was revolutionary in creating a distinct film-noir / art-deco feeling by using backgrounds painted on black paper rather then the typical white. This meant that every scene of the show was created as negative space in a dark world, which is really the only way Batman should be animated.
The show also featured extremely high quality voice acting, with actor Kevin Conroy becoming the only voice for Batman/Bruce Wayne that really fit, Mark Hamill as the insanely brilliant voice of the Joker, and smaller roles performed by actors such as Adam West and Ron Perlman (as Clayface). The show inspired the surprise hit spin-off cartoon Batman Beyond in 1999, which kept Kevin Conroy on as an elderly (yet still somehow badass) Bruce Wayne who has burned out from being the Dark Knight due to age and fraying nerves. This show followed the story of a young man who becomes Wayne’s page and serves as Batman to the future. Trust me, when I first heard about it I rolled my eyes and figured it was a victim of the “new-cartoons for kids” syndrome, but when I finally took the time to watch an episode or two, I was pleseantly surprised with it. It was not to the pinnacle of quality that the Animated Series reached, but I’m not really sure there are many cartoons that do.
If you haven’t seen any of these yet, I highly recommend them, and thankfully now AOL is providing much of the first season online for you to check out. If you like what you see, head over to our Amazon store and check out all of the excellent DVD sets there!
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