#i am learning the controls but it's a great romp just smashing people up like ya do in nevada

[dcarevu]

The Last Laugh

“When the going gets tough, the tough go shopping!”

Hey, guys. This is Collin. I know that we’re only four episodes into this blog now, and things are just starting to roll…but unfortunately, I’ve decided that the stress of college and work is too much, so I’m going to have to go on an indefinite hiatus…

April fools!

SPOILERS BEYOND THIS POINT

Villain: The Joker Robin: No Writer: Carl Swenson Director: Kevin Altieri Animator: Akom Airdate: September 22, 1992 Episode Grade: B

The Joker’s back on the show already, and again, he has formulated an overly-complicated plot which seems to be designed specifically to lead Batman directly to him. We start by seeing a boat full of repulsively green trash chugging through the Gotham river. It’s emitting an absolutely foul stench, and while we aren’t sure if this is a typical occurrence, knowing this city, I wouldn’t doubt it one bit. Char, my girlfriend and watching-buddy got the impression that Gotham is indeed an old, dark, gothic city, but this was her first exposure to the griminess that is often associated with it. This time, however, the griminess seems to be a little bit more pleasant; in fact every citizen who notices it seems to burst out laughing! The garbage is emitting a powerful laughing gas that doesn’t just cause a rush of giggles, but it also seems to send its victims completely out of control, and they start ignoring all of their surroundings altogether. It’s like they’re not even aware of their laughter, as the fumes get them as high as a kite.

Meanwhile, still in Gotham, but away from the city, we cut to a really great shot of Wayne Manor. Inside, Bruce is sprucing himself up, and we discover that it is April Fools’ Day thanks to Alfred once again being the lovable savage that he seems to be. Offering to “draw” Bruce a bath, he quite literally draws him a picture of a bath, hoping to at least get a smile out of him. But alas, when he’s not reaching for his rich playboy persona, we see that Bruce is actually quite the stick in the mud. I love Kevin Conroy’s way of creating two voices for the character, something that had never really been done before this show. I actually believe this was Kevin’s idea, which is no surprise given his acting background. He somehow does it in a way that makes the Bruce Wayne persona seem even more fake, despite that voice being closer to Kevin’s actual voice.

Bruce Wayne dedicating himself to living a lie like that must truly be tough. Think about how that must hamper his relationships, and it starts to explain the social state that he finds himself in later down the DCAU timeline. I’m someone who is an introvert, and sometimes the amount of energy required to socialize is more than I would like to admit. But if I had to pretend to be someone I’m not every day when my true self is as dark as Batman’s character (and let’s be real, Batman is our main character, Bruce Wayne only exists as a name on his legal documents), it would be a lot worse. The seeds were planted this early, and it shows the thought, consistency, and understanding that Radomski, Timm, and co had for the character right away. This wasn’t your average Saturday morning version of Batman.

Obviously as more and more people throughout the city begin to become affected by the laughing gas, it does not go unnoticed by news outlets. Bruce immediately comes to the same conclusion as many of us watching; The Joker. It’s merely a matter of finding him and figuring out what he is up to. Meanwhile back in the city, we find out just that; The Joker and two of his goons are using the gas-induced obliviousness of the citizens on the street to rob them right under their noses. Even police officers are in tears, not paying the least bit of attention. The Joker, of course, is cracking comments and laughing his ass off the whole time. Some of his lines are legitimately hilarious in this episode, I’ve gotta say! While he was entertaining as all hell in Christmas With The Joker, it was more in a simple whacky, over-the-top, cartoon way. He still has some of that aspect here, but a lot more of it comes from genuinely clever writing. Some of his most well known lines from the show come from this episode. “So we’ll just punch some air holes!” and “YOU KILLED CAPTAIN CLOWN!” to name a couple, the latter being downright legendary.

So far, this episode gives the simple vibe of a fun Joker romp without much meat on its bones, and much of it is. But the stakes do raise as we cut back to the Batcave. Batman is analyzing some of the gas, and learning that it causes “permanent insanity”. We’ll come back to this a little bit later, but obviously he has to do something. Not just because of the robberies and accidents happening, but also just because of the mental health factor. Insanity? Not particularly good for you. All of a sudden, however, we hear a crash come from upstairs when he attempts to call Alfred down into the cave. He runs upstairs, and here we see Alfred, smashing artifacts and furniture with a broom as we hear him belt out cackles unlike anything we have heard from him. The gas is inside the house. Batman immediately dons a gas mask and heads out to stop it, presumably taking care of Alfred first. Alfred, and Wayne Manor in general, being the thing in danger isn’t an element the show does a lot, and I think the moderation allows it to stand out a lot more. It can immediately turn a silly episode like this into something much more serious. Char was gasping and worrying the entire time, not wanting Alfred to be hurt. I think she’s growing to really like him. This is helped by the fact that Alfred was recast for this episode, and his new actor, Afrem Zimbalist Jr (unfortunately no longer with us) would remain for the entire rest of the DCAU. Both of us like this change a lot. I think this new voice helps with Alfred’s miniature character evolution, as it just suits this personality more. The first voice (Clive Revill) wasn’t bad by any means. Paired with the version of Alfred that’s a bit more stereotypical “5-star restaurant waiter”, it felt pretty natural. But Afrem…he brings the character to life like no one else can. There’s no way I can picture Clive laughing maniacally the way that Alfred did here. Also…and maybe it’s just me…but even though for the first three episodes Alfred was voiced by a man who was actually English, it sounded more like a fake accent than Afrem’s! And maybe this is because I’m an ignorant American who doesn’t hear English accents every day, nor am I aware of all the regional variations. I don’t know. But virtually everyone who talks about this new portrayal absolutely loves it, so I’m likely not alone with this aspect either.

Back in the river, we see that the garbage boat is fake. Below the water, what looks like the top of a boat is being carried by a submarine. Looking through the periscope of the sub, the Joker catches sight of Batman’s eyes, staring back at him through the lens. Then, BAM. Batman smacks it, causing the entire thing to rattle, and sending the Joker to the floor. Boy are we getting some great drawings in this episode. Batman’s face through the lens looks amazing! We also had some fun, yet purposely ugly shots of people laughing on the streets earlier, and then the Joker getting knocked away from the periscope is gold. After this, we see that Batman is towing around the “boat” with his own Batboat (its first appearance), which pisses the Joker off. So we get a fight scene between the goons and Batman, which is one of the better action scenes we’ve gotten up to this point. Is it still a little bit stilted? Yes, most definitely. But is it Spider-Man the Animated Series level? Not a chance. I did get some excitement here, and the big hunk of metal known in this episode (and throughout the Internet) as Captain Clown is a robot, so we got a little bit of extra fun here. The Fox censors were not as sensitive if the beating was not being done to an actual human being (even if it’s hard to tell whether or not it's human just by looking), and we got to see Batman throw an actual hard punch. The fight against the other two gives me the impression of martial arts and self defense, which also makes sense given Batman’s background (which will be covered later). The scene ends, however, with Batman being locked in a container and thrown into the water, with the container leaking in through the many holes that the Joker stabs into it with a knife. Seeing the Joker whip out a knife like that and puncture it with Batman inside is really jarring given that this is episode four, and we hadn’t really seen that kind of near-violence prior. Yeah, Batman dodged the stabs, but if one of those had hit, he’d be done. Another glimpse into the dangerous psychopath aspect of a character you don’t always expect to fear. To be clear, this was jarring in a good way.

Situations like this are hard to write for, because you have to be able to come up with a solution that isn’t anticlimactic or complete bullshit. Here Batman calls his Batboat with his utility belt and has it slice the container up with its laser gun blast. It was thinking outside the box a little bit (no pun intended), and having the laser miss during the first shot was a good touch. Granted, I also don’t recall this laser getting much use later down the line (you would think a powerful tool like this would be heavily utilized, hinting at it being added just because of this predicament, but then again, welcome to the world of Batman’s gadgets), so overall I don’t think it was perfect. Pretty cool, though, and I’m not gonna complain. I wasn’t expecting it, and I did find it exciting. Also, 12 words: Batman’s anger once he manages to swim back up to the surface.

To speed things up a little bit, Batman gets to the service, finds where the Joker has gone, defeats the thugs by exposing them to their own laughing gas, and even manages to decimate Captain Clown in a trash compactor. After this, the rest of the episode is pretty much just a chase sequence, and it almost reminds me of a video game. Batman is basically going through an obstacle course. We get a couple more really great shots here, one of the Joker creepily riding a conveyor belt through the shadows, and one of Batman sliding down the garbage shoot. I’m surprised this was animated by Akom, as I specifically remember their animation being generally C-tier when I watched the entirety of Animaniacs (with TMS obviously being the best). Perhaps it was all in the storyboards. The more detailed they are, obviously Akom has more to go by with less room to mess things up. Batman ends up confronting the Joker on a walkway above a vat of molten metal, where Joker throws some razor sharp playing-cards at him. He misses once, and then for the second card, Batman manages to catch it. This is a scene that makes you audibly go, “Awww shit”, and you can tell Joker is thinking the same thing. Char brought up something interesting here. The Joker constructs these incredible plans to disrupt Batman’s day. I swear, he plans everything. But only up until a certain point, because he banks too much on certain aspects. He swore that throwing Batman into the river would have finished him. It’s like the SpongeBob episode where Plankton says something like, “I never thought I’d get this far”. Once Batman makes contact with that card razor, Joker panics and immediately tries to run away, ultimately defeating himself as he trips himself up with a rope. He plays with Batman one step too far. He doesn’t realize when to stop. He pokes the bear, and although he may ultimately be a glorified, crazy mobster, he’s not a fighter. Despite this realization of Char’s, which I totally vibe with, just two episodes ago we had the Joker tripping, falling, and being caught by Batman. So overall I do consider this ending a little cheap. A low point to an otherwise entertaining episode.

Well, I guess it’s not quite the ending. Because after this, we are back with Bruce Wayne and Alfred. Alfred seems to be feeling healthy again, but he is distraught since he broke a priceless artifact earlier when he was exposed to the insanity gas. Bruce tells him not to worry, and that it can simply come out of his paycheck, but also assures him that he’s joking, and it’s all an April Fools’ joke. Bruce even chuckles about it. I love this segment, and even though Bruce can be a stick in the mud as I said, every once in a while he can let himself have a little bit of fun.

For some additional things that didn’t quite fit in with the previous paragraphs, I found myself wondering what Joker was exactly planning on accomplishing after the robberies. I almost think that he was honestly expecting to be caught by Batman, or he was at least not planning past the stage of killing him. But I guess with such an unpredictable maniac, you’d have to be able to read his thoughts to really understand a lot of it. Also, Batman’s computer specifically said that the gas causes permanent insanity. Yet at the end, everyone seems to be fine. Does it require more exposure? Does it mean that it’s permanent for just as long as it’s being inhaled? Was it simply wrong? I was a little confused by this. Mark Hamill’s performance was amazing as always, and as I explained the way that Mark tends to almost visually morph into the character while he voices him, Char mentioned something about him and the Joker becoming one like with the Venom symbiote and Eddie. Accurate observation. And lastly, she mentioned something about how this Joker is someone where you never know when you’ll be on their bad side. I got flashes of a certain early scene from Return Of the Joker here, and I cannot wait for her to see that film.

Char’s grade: A

Major firsts: The Batboat, a form of Joker’s laughing gas

Next time: Pretty Poison

By the way, I’m still messing around and trying to figure out the best format for these blog entries. I don’t think I’ve quite found something that works for me yet, so for a bit, the posts may be a little inconsistent in how they’re laid out. Experimentation! I want to try and make them a little bit less like summaries, and more discussion/reaction-based. Thanks for bearing with me! Also, any constructive feedback is appreciated!

#dcau #dc animated universe #batman tas #the last laugh #batman the animated series #batman #joker #the joker #you killed captain clown

[cosmosogler]

hi guys. i am starting a half hour late today. got home late...

got up on time and showered fairly quickly but still left for class late. i was, i dunno, 4 minutes late to class. i was the 4th one to arrive. two other people came in after me. out of a class of ~12.

class went alright. i had to stop the professor a bunch of times to ask him about his handwriting. and the quantum professor was all over the place again. he said “this is the most important part of the lecture” and went 10 minutes over the end of class and then totally botched his proof.

so we didn’t get a break at all between classes and lab prep. we normally get 15 minutes but now we had less than 5. most of us were late. i worked with my office mate, rui, who i haven’t spoken to much this semester. we interacted once early on when she asked to touch my curly hair. 

i thought we were working fairly quickly but we were like the last ones to finish. that’s ok though it was still only like 1:30. and the pizza was fine. i didn’t get EXTREMELY ill this week.

i talked to our department’s academic assistant, pam. she looks like if the final pam was a normal person and not a horrifying eldritch monstrosity. same hair style and face shape.

after we figured out a rough plan i emailed danielle and gave her pam’s contact info and the papers she had asked for. then i emailed my graduate advisor. i’m meeting with him on monday before e&m is supposed to meet. maybe i won’t have to go to that class either.

i also finished a section of grading. after that i was exhausted and i just hung out with harrison for a little bit. his office is two feet away from mine so he just pops in if the door’s open. we found everyone else playing pong ping and smash in the lounge. i took a guess at who was playing which character and got all of them right. i explained my choices to harrison and he asked which one he would play. i said “peach.” he looked like he wanted to argue and then realized i was right and called me a pleb. it’s a thing we do. i asked him which character i’d be playing and he didn’t know. that means i win.

i played a few rounds with the broken controller but it’s so frustrating, especially on big blue where you die if you don’t immediately react when you hit the ground.

after that harrison went home and keegan and i walked over to the bar together. we cut through the union and i got yelled at for taking my bike into the elevator. keegan talked me into it somehow. we were told to leave which was pretty funny since that’s exactly what we were doing.

i told him a few stories. about like my zipline accident and that time i fell off a mountain and my arm split open when i landed in a crevice. he told me about a wakeboarding accident. i think after the “zipline” episode he said no more sad stories so we talked about how much we like the outdoors, and how he only started liking it after he turned 20. i managed to dig up a happy story about walking through the woods with eve and some friends. it wasn’t an exciting story but i like talking about eve at least.

i wonder if she’d be down for a good romp through the woods with three legs. it would require getting her all the way up to the cabin though. she doesn’t much like to eat if we stay there overnight or more than a day so i worry.

we got to the bar and i got some food and i had a great conversation with suzanne about scuba diving and the time she climbed a vertical cliff. she’s not an outdoorsy person, which is why it was really funny that her outdoorsy friend had been hoping she’d give up so they didn’t have to keep climbing and suzanne pushed herself to keep going, not knowing that her friend wanted to quit.

i talked about politics for a little bit with... aw man, i don’t remember two of their names. i’ve never been introduced, i just kind of pick it up listening to them talk to each other. it wasn’t stressful. for once. they seemed less interested in arguing ideology and more about talking about how the media shifts our picture of the world and how cut off american news is compared to other countries. and we talked about heaven and hell and what it would be like to live for eternity. no one wanted that. i brought up reincarnation as an alternative but that didn’t really seem to fix the problem either since you’d just get reset and not be able to carry over anything you’d learned last time.

then we went back into the bar area to watch the others play pool. jennica was very drunk. i talked to suzanne about the history of science and how the act of discovering has changed and how most things are discovered on accident. vlad was with us too. he was one of the guys i’d been talking to at the table outside. i like him a lot actually, he’s very chill and very, very smart. he’s a big cuban guy.

we also talked about karaoke and theater. i thiiink vlad’s had experience with theater productions but he didn’t go into detail. suzanne talked about how it’s gotten easier to do goofy stuff like that as she’s gotten older and started caring less.

then i looked at my phone and realized it was 9:20 so suzanne and i biked home. when i got home at 9:40 i spent a little while brushing snoopy and hiding cookies for her. she doesn’t seem to realize that there are cookies in places she doesn’t usually sleep because she didn’t find either of the ones by the window sill or on the back of the couch’s arm, just behind where she likes to perch.

then it was 10 but i wanted to bum around for a little bit before i started writing. now it is 10:47, which is after my “stop writing” time, but... it’s friday. i keep going to bed late though and i’d really like to get enough sleep one of these days. maybe someday...

one more section of grading. then i have three homework assignments i should really turn in on monday, a quantum assignment due wednesday that i need to finish if i want to be caught up, MORE grading that i need to do to catch up to the current week (but isn’t due to my supervisor), and all the stuff about dropping the class. i also need to find time to take my bike in to get looked at, clean my apartment a little bit, get groceries, go to alex’s birthday party, AND retake my quantum test sometime in the next week or two. 

so like. i don’t really have time to feel accomplished. because i’m still going to be busy straight through next week. and i don’t know if i have the energy to keep doing this. poor snoopy is getting lonely too.

a positive thing i guess. back to that. it was nice to remember a happy memory. even though it made me miss eve a lot. and i managed to have like two and a half hours’ worth of conversation without mentioning anything really morbid. i mentioned i have health issues but it was in relation to how my professor in e&m has been treating me over the semester. it got a few raised eyebrows.

i just felt... awake, i guess. invested? that helped me feel a little less tired. hopefully it will help me keep going tomorrow. like, being at the bar was exhausting, because it was loud and there were tons of people and it was kinda cramped by the pool tables, but talking to my friends about stuff we like instead of the homework was a nice change of pace.