Celebrating Batman: The Animated Series 20 years later

Batman: The Animated Series was not her introduction to Batman.  She was born about nine months before the premiere of Batman: The Brave and the Bold.  At that point she wasn't so much watching television as playing with me while I had something on in the background or on as I rocked her to sleep at night.  Just before she was two years old, she walked up to the TV and exclaimed "the Batman".  So yeah, she quickly noticed that daddy was a Batman junkie.  She eventually got into Superfriends, which gave me a new appreciation of that iconic 70s toon (it may be silly, but it's not dumb and it's not boring).  After that, it was the 1960s Batman show, which happened to be running on the Hub network.  She watched her first episode of Batman: The Animated Series sometime last year.  What's arguably noteworthy is that I find myself showing her the very episodes that I thought least of when they originally aired.  I was twelve when they aired and my daughter was four last year.  I find myself grateful for the 'kiddie' episodes.  The very episodes that I felt were too juvenile and not 'mature' enough when I was a kid are now the perfect introductory adventures.

My daughter doesn't care that "I've Got Batman In My Basement" is silly, she just enjoys watching The Penguin getting his butt kicked by two kids just a little older than her.  She doesn't mind that "The Last Laugh" is basically plotless, she enjoys the silly jokes, Captain Clown, and Joker telling Batman he's going to fry like a grilled cheese sandwich.  "The Cat and the Claw" may have subpar animation in the second half and a pretty atrocious  final act (let's blow up the compound and hope that the flames kill the deadly virus), she sees it as a fun Batman/Catwoman adventure with a female villain to boot.  Speaking of females, I was never thrilled as a kid by how many of the New Batman Adventures featured Batgirl, preferring the solo Batman episodes.  But now I'm glad to have a crapload of Batgirl episodes to choose from.  Episodes like "Batgirl Returns" and "Girl's Night Out" may be lacking in substance, but tell that to the four year old thrilled to watch Batgirl and Supergirl teaming up to kick the respective asses of Livewire, Harley Quinn, and Poison Ivy. Some of these episodes are better than the others, but none are boring and all offer the show's inherent thrills without having to deal with some pretty adult subject matter.  

I can wait until she's a little older before explaining why the invisible man is kidnapping his own daughter, why The Joker is threatening  to murder Charlie's family, or why in the world The Riddler is trying to kill his old boss.  You try explaining patent law, work-for-hire contracts, non-competitive clauses, and royalties to a five year old.  It's not a matter of some episodes being too violent or dark so much as certain episodes being far too complicated for a very young child to understand ("Why did Batman spear that guy's car with his Batwing and threaten to drop him?").  And since Allison has never been one to accept anything at face value (I always thought Star Wars: A New Hope was a simple story... lesson learned!), it's a matter of allowing her to enjoy the show without having to explain the characters' oft-complicated motivations.  For the moment I've realized how important those lighter, kid-friendly episodes really were, to say nothing of the heavy female presence.  In an era when heavy female presence in action cartoons is almost non-existent (She-Ra: Princess of Power would be almost subversive today), I'd argue the consistent rooster of three-dimensional female characters (Poison Ivy, Renee Montoya, Leslie Thompkins, Catwoman, Harley Quinn, Talia Al Ghul, Batgirl, etc.) is a big reason, if certainly not the only reason, why the show has maintained such a strong female fan base over the last two decades.