this is episode #51 of the most excellent cartoon "The Brave and the Bold". it has Bat-mite hosting three adventures, starting with an adaption of Mad Magazine's "Bat Boy and Rubin" story. I've read this one many times, and it's a little weird seeing it in color (it was in a book when I read it). however, it's a great adaption for a satire!
next up, we have a Bat-manga adventure, and it's done 8-man style. this was fun, but the "poorly dubbed on purpose" thing was tired in the 80s, and just wouldn't even have been true at all in the 60s. other than that minor quibble, I enjoyed this one as well, and would have loved watching this as a kid.
finally, we have a re-do of the nadir of Batman's animated career... the team up with the Scooby gang. they still battle the Joker and the Penguin, but this time we get a cameo from
"Weird Al" Yankovic as well! of course, they do make fun of Hanna-Barbera's more limited animation from the time. once is funny, five times, the joke wears thin.
the final battle makes up for it- there's more action in 2 minutes than in the entire season of Super Friends. Bat-mite lets us know that Batman couldn't throw a punch back in the 70s, but he fixes that. if Scooby had been more like this, I might like him more!
That was an actual Batman manga from the 1960s: http://boingboing.net/2008/10/29/batmanga-the-lost-ja.html
ReplyDeleteThe villain was even used in the new Batman Incorporated comic book.
I LOVED the third sequence. All the animation mistakes they made made it for me. (Too bad they had to have Bat-Mite point that out in case the younger viewers thought WB was slipping.)
I liked it as well, but thought they went a bit overboard. HB was never that bad, overall.
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