THE UNOFFICIAL BATMAN: THE ANIMATED INTERVIEWS, VOL. 3

Miller offers the third volume of interviews on animated Batman TV series, this time tackling The New Batman Adventures.

As longtime Warner Bros. casting and voice director Andrea Romano points out in her foreword to this latest oral history of the animated Batman franchise, some shows just seemed to come together by magic, with the perfect collection of talent at the perfect time. Virtually all the writers, directors, storyboarders, artists, and actors interviewed in these pages seem to agree that this was the case for Batman: The Animated Series (the subject of the previous two volumes, which ran from 1992 to ’95 on Fox) and its successor, The New Batman Adventures (which aired on The WB from 1997 to ’99). As in previous volumes, there are dozens of photos and full-color production stills, as well as an annotated episode list, complete with standout quotes, as when Star Wars’ Mark Hamill, voicing the Joker, says, “May the floss be with you” during a scene in a dentist’s office. The New Batman Adventures only lasted for a single season, but a great many people were involved in making it the masterpiece many acknowledge it to be, from its brilliant voice actors—including the great Kevin Conroy as Batman—to its showrunners, almost all of whom reflect on their experiences here. The subject matter even extends to ancillary Batman appearances in shows such as World’s Finest and Superman, and, as in previous volumes, every discussion goes into granular and engaging detail about the nuts and bolts of the animation industry. Miller is a skilled interviewer, adept at getting great quotes from his subjects, many of whom display an appealing humility; for example, Diane Pershing, the voice of villain Poison Ivy, mentions that although she interpreted the character her own way, “somebody else could interpret it in a different way, [and] it’d be just as valid.” Hamill, referring to the hit 1989 live-action Batman film, blurts out, “What kind of fool follows Jack Nicholson in anything?!” There’s also a touching section of tributes to Conroy, who died in 2022.

An engrossing chronicle of a well-regarded Batman show.