One of the joys of many a fanboy childhood was getting home in time watch Saturday afternoon cartoons back in the 1990s, and few would argue that there was a better show out there than ‘Batman: The Animated Series,’ which ran from 1992-1995. The show was followed by the sequel series ‘The New Batman Adventures,’ then ‘Batman Beyond’ in 1999, and the world the show created concluded its run with the ‘Justice League’ and ‘Justice League Unlimited’ series which ran in 2001 and 2004. These are the benchmark shows for Warner Bros/DC Animation, the ones we all compare every DC Animated movie to (and pray that the DCEU somehow manages to become better than), and the only gripe many have is why exactly they ever stopped making shows in this universe. When asked whether he would ever come back to reprise the voice of Batman/ Bruce Wayne if they rebooted ‘Batman: The Animated Series,’ voice actor Kevin Conroy replied with a very enthusiastic:
“Oh gosh, yeah, I’d love to.”
He went on to talk about the reasons why the original show stopped being produced:
“They didn’t stop making the shows because the audience wasn’t there or the actors weren’t there, they stopped, really, because the creators ran out of ideas for stories. And they didn’t want to compromise on the quality of what they had and start creating kind of silly stories…So they go, ‘Look, we gotta go in a whole new different direction.’ So then they went to Batman and Robin, they brought in Robin, that was the next series. Then they went into Batman Beyond, you know, recruiting a young guy. And then it was the Justice League. They were always looking at different ways to re-imagine the characters, just so they can get new storylines. A lot of it had to do with trying to come up with stories that weren’t becoming ridiculous…But all the actors would love to have done more of them. You could get all those actors back today, in a booth, to do more animated series shows because everyone loved it that much.”
I think it is admirable that the creative forces behind the show were very cognizant of putting out quality content, and did not just keep series running for the money or the fame. While I wish there were hundreds more episodes of each series, this makes each episode that did get produced all the more special and makes me really appreciate the art and dedication that went into every aspect of these shows. If they ever manage to put out another animated ‘Batman’ show with even a modicum of the same type of quality that the original ‘Batman: The Animated Series’ had, we, as fans, could only be so lucky.
Source: Comic Book
