Batman, Robin, Scooby-Doo vs the Joker, Manga and Tezuka style animation. What more could you want?
What They Say:
Bat-Mite Presents: Batman’s Strangest Cases
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
After last weeks episode that brought us copious amounts of Superman goodness, The Brave & The Bold goes off into the realm of the strange this week while continuing to make sure we laugh along with the show. The opening sequence alone has a good mix as it introduces us to Bat Boy & Rubin, a pair of very comical characters that reverses their looks overall while making them both very childish in different ways. It goes back to the cartoons of old with its style, in a way the show normally doesn’t, with some very standard Hanna Barbera types of gags and sound effects. And it does it all pretty well, though I think it goes a touch too long overall. I did like that Bat Boy’s logo kept changing throughout the piece and the dames in it are certainly very appropriate.
The framing of the episode with Bat-Mite showing us the various strange and unusual interpretations of Batman across the universe is an ideal angle to play since it lets the show jump to and fro. The time spent in his particular world is a lot of fun as it’s done in live action with him superimposed on it and we get to see racks and racks of cool Batman gear. Even better is that the first story he introduces us to personally is the manga version of Batman. This goes back to a 70’s style animation design which has some really neat little quirks to it while making it Japanese. I love the costume design for Batman for this, especially the angular look but also the details added to his gloves. It has a very cool feeling about it as he deals with the villain of Death Man which is messing with his mind. There’s a strong Tezuka style to part the story as well when it deals with Bruce and Dick in their normal guises.
The manga style episode hits so many fun things in it that it’s positively addictive. Using the classic 60’s style Batmobile and the wonky science of it all, while applying a very soft color palette to it with minimal backgrounds is like going back in time. The dubbing is even slightly off in a couple of places and the humor, especially the forced laughter of Robin, is so spot on that it can almost make you cringe a lot. Where the show was going to have a hard time holding my attention was with the last story that has Batman ending up in a team-up with the Scooby-Doo gang that involves Weird Al Yankovic putting in a show in a super spooky theater. I’m simply not a Scooby-Doo fan, though I watched a ton of it as a kid since there wasn’t anything else on, but I do love me some Weird Al so it’s something that works on so many weird levels.
Bringing the Joker into it as the big bad guy behind things and including the Penguin only adds to the surreal nature of it. I never in a million years imagined that I’d hear the Joker talking about Scooby Snacks, but he does put the gang in quite the predicament because of it. They deal with this in classic style that we saw with the Super-Friends material that was quite similar to what Scooby-Doo was like back then. The gags are great, and having the safety lesson which involves the spot-on perfect sound of the aquatic weapon was priceless. The laugh track is a big reminder of just how bad these shows used to be in a way. But they do manage to pull the nostalgia off with a lot of winking at the audience in how it does it, including a scene that has Scooby-Doo taking on the Joker.
In Summary:
There are few shows that can pull off this kind of diversity and it would have been hard in any of the past Batman cartoon incarnations of the last twenty years as well. But with Brave & The Bold, and through the use of Bat-Mite, we get all the kitsch of so many incarnations of the character, from the 60’s live action to the Super-Friends, elements of the Japanese animation brought over and dubbed and so much more that it’s almost too much. Top it off with the use of the Scooby-Doo gang and then making sure that Weird Al Yankovic makes an appearance almost hurts the head. Polishing it all off with a polka with a laugh track just takes it even further. There’s a lot to like here and you really want to see more Bat-Mite things in the future since it’s just a great look at the diversity that is the world of Batman.
Grade: A-
