The Ringer-Verse - ‘Batman: Caped Crusader’ Reaction and Favorite Animated Batman | Mint Edition

Episode Date: August 2, 2024

Steve and Jomi return from the streets of Gotham to talk about the first season of ‘Batman: Caped Crusader’ on Amazon Prime. They discuss the series production trouble before eventually landing at Prime, the return of a more detective-style Batman, as well the performances of the voice cast (03:42). They then get into their favorite characters from the show’s first season, whether it’s fair to compare this series to the animated series from the early 90s, predictions for Season 2, and more things they enjoyed from the show (14:41). Also, they each share their favorite animated Batman that isn't Kevin Conroy (41:32). Hosts: Jomi Adeniran and Steve Ahlman Producer: Jessie Lopez Additional Production Support: Arjuna Ramgopal  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Greetings, it's Mal. Call your banners because it's time to head back to Westrose for House of the Dragon, season two. The ringers, Dragon riders will soar alongside you each week with a heron-hall-sized slate of conversations. The dragon has three heads, and on Sunday nights immediately after Hot D. Concludes, Chris Ryan, Joanna Robinson, and I will be with you for Talk the Thrones. Then on Mondays, two more shows away. Dan Lath and Charles Holmes, Steve Allman, and Jomea Denneron, aka the Midnight Boys, Pugh!

We'll head to the tourney grounds to share their reactions. And of course, Chris Ryan and Andy Greenwald will sip the Arbor's finest vintage on the watch. Then on Tuesdays, Joanna and I will head to the bowels of a pleasure den for our House of our deep dyes. Then, on Thursdays, Joe, Neil Miller, and Dave Gonzalez will gather the Ravens for trial by content. In this season, full episodes of Talk to Thrones, House of Ar, and the Midnight Boys will also be available on video on Spotify and the new Ringervverse YouTube channel. Podcast episodes available on Spotify or wherever you get your podcast. For adults with Crohn's disease or ulcerative colitis symptoms, every choice matters. Tramphia offers self-injection or intravenous infusion from the start.

Tramphia is administered as injections under the skin or infusions through a vein every four weeks, followed by injections under the skin every four or eight weeks. If your doctor decides that you can self-inject trumphia, proper training is required. Tramphia is a prescription medicine used to treat adults with moderately to severely active Crohn's disease and adults with moderately to severely active ulcerative colitis. Serious allergic reactions, increased risk of infections or lower ability to fight them, and liver problems may occur. Before treatment, get checked for infections and tuberculosis. Tell your doctor if you have an infection, flu-like symptoms, or need a vaccine. Explore what's possible. Ask your

doctor about Tramphia today. Call 1-800-526-7736 to learn more or visit Trimfairadio.com. This episode is brought to you by WeatherTech. Everyone knows winter is the MVP and making a mess. You don't need WeatherTech floor liners in the summer unless you hit the beach or go camping. Then you'd want a cargo liner or road trip goes sideways, ketchup goes rogue, ice cream drips. Yeah, you'd be pretty happy about those weather tech seat protectors. So just to be clear as the mud, you're inevitably going to step into the summer. You don't need weather tech unless you plan on doing summer. Visit weathertech.com today. I knew you'd come for me. I knew it when I profiled you for the police. I'm your type. How many criminals do you have to catch before you feel better, Batman? Hello and welcome into the Ringiverse, your Nexus feed for all things fandom. I'm Steve Alman.

I'm Jimmy Dinner, Ron. And welcome back to Mint Edition. We come week to week back to back this week. Oh, man. excited. We're back. We're loving the content, Cornucopia, once again. Jomey, how do you feel? I feel like, we're going to bring

justice together. It's not as gravelly this time around. It's not really gravelly. It's not really gravelly. It's more gravely, but that's good. That's the bad man. I don't, well, we'll talk about the voice. I, listen, can we say, can we agree that Bail's Batman voice ruined Batman voices for a minute? Okay, but

then you have Bail's voice and then you have, uh, What's his name? The Bain, Tom Hardy's Bain voice. Okay, well, we, okay, yes, that also ruined Bain's voice. All I'm saying is, like, you put those, we got both of them. You got to take the good and the bad, you know what I'm saying? Sure, yeah.

But then if you didn't have Tom Hardy's voice, you wouldn't have gotten James Adalman from Harley Quinn giving us the posthumaker. Listen, the posthumaker, Bain, you got to let it go. Well, you got to let it go, Bain. We're going to have a lot more time to nitpick voices as we talk. about Batman Cape Crusader this week. We're very excited about this. By the way, this is Mint Edition,

the once in a while podcast about the latest fan that you just can't live without. It's a little bit more than once in a while because they got us working overtime nowadays. You know, the content cordicopia takes no breaks. It overfloweth, it really do. But before we get into all of that, some programming reminders for ya.

Don't forget, this Sunday, Talk to Thrones is going to be live live on YouTube. The moment, well, maybe like a couple of moments after House of the Dragon ends, because we'll be watching it with all of you find people right after that, unless you're in Iceland, which apparently just leaked the entire like three quarters of the episode. So careful for spoilers out there, Reddit, folks.

And then on Monday, the Midnight Boys are going to be giving you their reactions to the House of the Dragon finale that Monday. And then next week, House of Art is going to give you an epic, massive, two-part deep dive on the House of the Dragon finale. That whole week, dedicated to Hot D. We love to see it. We really, really do. All right, but let's get into the festivities for this week.

We're going to be talking about the Amazon animated series of television, Batman Caped Crusader. We're going to break this down a little bit. We're coming to you guys on a Friday. The entire season has just dropped. So if we've hit your fees just at the same time, we're going to be giving you a chance to watch the season with a couple of spoiler-free thoughts. Maybe come back after you see it.

And then we'll talk about all the great things that you saw. So to begin, our spoiler-free impressions section, Jomea Denneron, what did you think about Batman the Caped Crusader? I thought it was awesome. It's a real throwback to Batman the Animin the series. Obviously, Bruce Tim has worked on it. It's very classic in the way it does its thing, like very 40s, very noir style. and I loved pretty much every second.

I didn't know exactly what I was expecting. I knew we were going to get a little bit of like a throwback to Batman the animated series, but I didn't know how rich and textured that this show would be and how it got. And I had an absolute blast watching all 10 episodes. I was like, oh my gosh, are we back? Are we going to do this? Let's go.

It's a wild journey that this show has been on because this was in, a bit of the hairbrain-s, brainchild of J.J. Abrams and Matt Reeves, when he directed Robert Pattinson's The Batman, he also had a bit of other ideas, which spun off to be the soon-to-be incoming Penguin series on HBO Max, as well as this animated show, Batman Cape Crusader,

which was, in his words, and JJ's, like, a basically, like, big ode to the ultimate throwback that would be the Batman, the animated series, as well as the 1940s radio serials that Batman came up with, like during the early days of the comics. Jesus, Batman? Yes, and truly this is a perfect stylistic throwback and choice to put Batman in.

It's still very low tech. There aren't that many crazy, crazy gadgets or anything like that. This is a very sort of grounded 1940s-style Gotham that is... frankly, like a blast to behold. For anybody that watches, you know, Batman content, you know, constantly like me or anybody else,

I would recommend this because you're not going to be getting a lot of origins fodder. You're not going to be getting a lot of things that are too reminiscent of, like, characters, either backstory or too bogged down in lore. There's not going to be. a lot of Justice League or further context to explore. This is a very matter-of-fact show

where a lot of characters are presented as they are. And you don't even really need to pick up the pieces because you can just get like, okay, this is our villain of the week. This is our adventure that we're on. There's a small overarching story that we're like kind of daisy-chaining you along with, but nothing really too crazy, easily digestible,

a blast to breeze through. And let's talk about the cast for a little bit. I think that this is actually like a very good, remarkable animated cast to give this style of show its life. What do you think? I think the cast is great. Hammond Slink later as Batman Bruce Wayne does an excellent job of being Batman and being Bruce Wayne. And also like doing like three different voices essentially to like Mask who really is. I think he's doing a great job.

I think, Dietrich Bader, who's played Batman before. Yes. He's playing Harvey Dent in this show, and he puts on a great performance. You know, I love me a good,

Alfred Penningworth. Jason Watkins is doing his thing. The entire cast, honestly, gets a chance to shine and being, like, where it's set and the emotions that the show

gives you, I think the actors do an excellent job of bringing that story to life. And it's just, it's incredible. I think that Hamish Linklater is really doing something special when it comes to his rendition of this voice. Like, we kind of prop up the idea of anybody who would play this character particularly,

because there's a lot of dramatic weight that you have to carry between both the persona of Bruce Wayne and Batman. And obviously, we have a lot of context from the animated series that came out in the 90s about, the types of things that Bruce juggles between being Bruce Wayne and being Batman, I don't think that this is necessarily the case in this show, but you can hear it in his performance.

You hear the way that he has clearly a better handle on being Batman in his early days, and you don't even get that much of a context as to how long he's been Batman. He's just around. And kind of a bit of an urban myth at this point. I've really liked

these sort of stylistic choices that while not radical are distinct and different. Like we have Oswald Cobboplat is just a woman. Oswalda. That's her name, right?

Yeah, yeah. Oswalda. That's what I said. What did I say? You said Oswald. No. He said Oswald. I definitely said Oswald. Okay, wow. This guy. This guy. This guy. Harley Quinn has her own look.

Mm-hmm. Dude, different. Not to spoil too much, but maybe we don't have a major villain highlighted too prominently in this series like you might expect. But everything looks very, very of its time

and kind of smaller scale. Like the big board that Batman has in his bat cave, which is more or less an office. It's more than a bad office. It's a we work at that point. The Bat We work is very, very, like, stripped down and very like open floor plan. He's got one of those criminal minds boards you can see

through. And that's the thing. Like there's no massive computer. There's no like wild high tech. When they talk about denominations of money in large amounts, they talk about thousands of dollars rather than million. Deflation got them. That's nuts, man. We used to be a country. Gas was just flowing. Anybody could just...

Man, you ever been to in and out? This is like really fat right now. But you've been to end an hour. You've been in and out and they got like the pictures of like the old. in an ounce and it'd be like a burger five cents oh my god cheeseburger 10 cents yeah i saw i saw footage like from the early 90s at macdonalds and they they showed the menu and the prices on the menu and i almost had a heart attack oh my god i was so sad the funny and one of the

best movies that i could ever watch for this if you rewatch die hard there's a massive shot when they go to nakatomi tower and they look at like a like sit go gas prices oh my god you're gonna be so sick. Dude, gas prices, man. Remember back when they were like, man, gas is $3 a gallon. It's over. Now, I see, man, if I see four or four or five,

I'm like, yo, if we ain't good tonight, man. What do you think the street value of Kryptonite is in 1940s, in this 1940s Gotham? Ooh. Probably like $30,000? I'll say, you probably get it for $40K. That'll set you back, get your whole paycheck for two years. Again, street value, not like market value.

I'm trying to, street value. I don't know. You don't know, you don't know street tiptonite, bro. you know, it's laced with... No Street kryptonite. It could be laced with something, you know what I'm saying? Yeah, that's very very true.

Fetano, you know what I mean? You can't say that. You can't say that. You can't say fentanyl? Fetanol, laced... Cryptonite. You got to be careful. It is a problem.

It is a problem. We'll be having to talk about it. But what we needed to be talking about is probably some of the... So stylistic choices aside, I think that this is actually something that has a very good handle on the... Meat and Potato's detective work that comes with the early days of Batman as a character. You can complain about it, you could love it, but often earlier or more recent iterations of Batman doesn't have a lot of detective work.

Matt Reeves' Batman famously brought a lot of that work back, of like chasing leads, looking at evidence, trying to figure out what the politics of Godwold. Not understanding Spanish. Not understanding Spanish. Aradalada. Arana, Alana. I can't emphasize enough how much the thrill of finding a stylized detective that comes in the form of Batman, how much that means to me, because I really, really appreciate when that's done well.

And a lot of the stories that come with it are particularly incredible. Were there any, like, sort of, like, touches or stories that kind of you kind of glommed on to before. we go into our main spoiler section that you think that people should really look out for. Well, you mentioned a little bit, but the lack of technology, I think, really drives home point of what kind of Batman this is, getting out the mud, you know. Now, I want to say like year one exactly, but definitely like, I mean, he doesn't even have a bunch of his villains yet. You know what I mean?

He's like just like, I don't say learning, because that's unfair. He's been Batman for a while, but this is very much like, okay, he's. He's just getting started. He probably, like, just now got to fit right, you know what I mean? Right. You know, you get to the point in the movie where the, like, the origin story where the character gets his, like, comic book accurate costume for the first time. It's probably like, that's where the show starts.

And I think it's an awesome place to start the show. And it just keeps going and gets better and better. It's great. I completely agree. And with that, I think that we can safely go into our spoiler section. So if you haven't seen the show yet, and if you wanted to get it, get a little taste of it and a moose-boosh for how we feel about it. Easy recommend for both of us.

Double thumbs up. Double thumbs up. Check it out. Come back to us. And then we're going to talk about all of our spoilery goodness right after this. This episode is brought to you by Spectrum Business. Fast, reliable internet means everything for your business. And even this podcast, that's why I trust Spectrum Business.

It keep companies of all sizes connected with internet, advanced Wi-Fi, phone, TV, mobile services, plus 24-7 U.S.-based support, millions of business owners already trust Spectrum business. So visit Spectrum.com slash business to learn more. Restrictions apply. Services not available in all areas. This episode is brought to by Viori. When it comes to close, that score high in both comfort and style, Viori is my MVP. Sunday Performance Choggers?

Oh, yeah. They have the perfect. I could watch a game and then go out to dinner vibe. And the MetaPant, that's my number one. I need to look like I tried option. Get 20% off your first purchase at viori.com slash Simmons and discover the versatility of Viori clothing. Exclusions apply, visit the website for full terms and conditions. All right, we're back.

Okay, so. Why didn't you say it like that? You're so excited. Jesus Christ. Didn't you want to hear about Carvana? Okay, anyway. What if there was a Carvana ad right there? What if there was?

Sorry, no free ads. I'm not going to say that. You like that? That's good. That's good. Because they definitely pay for their ad. Oh, yeah, they do. All right.

So now that we're in the spoiler section, Jomi, talk to me about it. So you might have let something slip before we started recording. So I'm going to lead into this question like this. What might be some of your favorite characters and character designs that you think were brought to life very well? Judge leading the witness? Judge leading the witness? Were there any? Sustained.

No, I mean, they change up. Like, we mentioned Oswalda in the first bit. Harley Quinn gets a little bit of character redesign, and she's voiced by Jamie Chung, right? That's very different. We've seen a black Barbara Gordon before, but in the Lego movie, Lego Batman movie, shout out.

Shout out Lego Batman. That's fire. But yeah, a lot of, there's a little bit of a, like, a different take on these things, and I think all of it works. Yeah. You know, people, you know, the woke mob, or people against the wokelwarkers.

The anti-wokwamov. They're like, ah, they made bar recording. Then it's not Oswald a big deal. Nobody cares. Nobody cares. Nobody cares. But things like this, I find fun and refreshing. I think I was like, oh, this is cool.

Like, they got a new thing that they're doing. I liked Harley Quinn's new outfit a lot. It's very much like, okay, she looks like a joker on the back of a playing guard. Also, super scary. Yes. Like, not like super terrifying. But you know, Harley in like most media is just like Galivantin, you know, excitable very much like

happening all at once. In this show, once she puts on the clown makeup, she's gets to business. And it's very true. I like the idea that there have been a couple of animated iterations post Batman the animated series that have shied away from like overt violence and overt types of like portraying firearms on screen

or like different types of ways to perceive to kill somebody or something like that the show doesn't shy away from that there's like Tommy guns you see the penguin like put somebody in a trunk and drown them oh my gosh in episode four when the firebug is running around town Oh my God like burning the whole

Not only that they The two corrupt cops corner him That he's gonna tell They blammer him And he falls down onto the car I'm like, oh, whoa, whoa, what kind of show my watching here? I thought this was for the family. Whoa.

They don't shy away from that stuff at all. Right, and it's by no means gratuitous, and it's by no means over the top. It's not the boys. But it's like, but like you genuinely get taken aback by the fact that you don't see this that often in animated shows. And it's by no means like Harley Quinn levels of like bones popping out of skin or blood everywhere or anything like that. But it feels like it's violence of consequence. It's violence of things that feel impactful to a story that they wouldn't shy away from. And I really admire that.

I find whenever Batman just like slam somebody to the ground on their back, this is me being old, my back just hurts. He did be punching people. He's punching the shit out of people. I think in terms of like the stuff that Batman does in the show that I really love, there's a running, I mean, it's always been a bit with Batman, but this show does it to perfection, where Batman will be there, somebody will look away or turn away,

then he's gone. It's honestly, it's a bit that never gets old. It never gets old. It never gets old. It's funny too, because they'd be like, why are you looking away?

You just had to, like, there's a scene in one of the final episodes where Barbara has to, like, write a number down. Yeah. Or, like, somebody's just like, oh, let me go close the door or close the window, and he's like, gone.

You're like, yo, what the... How did he? It's funny every single time. I love that bit in the show. I think that's something that we can really take home with for this iteration of the show is that it's both fair and unfair to compare it to the animated series. Because you get a lot of classic origins for so many of these characters and villains in the animated series.

and this show takes kind of all of those things as more or less gospel, but it's not directly alluded to and it gets you right into a story with them and doesn't quite delve into how those things are made. We have a lot of Harvey Dent origins with him wanting to become mayor

and like him getting his injury and then him becoming Two-Face in a certain way. But for a lot of these other players, they're kind of just there. And Jomi, what do you feel about the idea that we kind of only get real meaty sort of storylines or origins with only a few characters?

I mean, that's what makes the world great. That's what makes the world special, right? It's not an expansive, you know, story with all a bunch of characters and you're threading and weaving a whole bunch of relationships and things like that, which can be fun. I enjoy stuff like that a lot,

but this one is very contained. You really get, it's mostly, Batman, obviously, Barbara, Renee, maybe Jim, a little bit of Jim, and Harvey. And that's like, and Pennyworth. And that's it. You have these six characters that are navigating this world where things are starting to get real crazy, real hectic, doing the right thing versus doing the wrong thing, but for the right reasons.

There's so much depth and introspection in this show that is like, when you watch it in like one sitting, you're going to see, or even, you know, a couple of sittings, but if you watch it like episode after episode you're gonna find yourself going like oh I don't think I can stop I want to watch the next episode I want to keep going

and the show's a very good with giving you contextual feelings that characters have for one another that you can imply across the show the first episode does not feel like a

place setting, table setting origin type of episode it's very much just here's this character, here's Harvey Dent, here's Barbara Gordon, this is how they interact, the Batman's here, and he's trying to solve a crime, he's an urban legend, and we're kind of off to the races. I loved this scene in the first episode where

Barbara's kind of getting the screws put to her by Harvey Dent after a trial because he kind of just like swept the rug out from under her with a prosecution. And it ends with her kind of cussing him out, be like, you're a piece of shit, Harvey Dent. like you're like you're you're you're playing the wrong game and yada yada said with a very like wonderful like 40s pastiche that like mid-atlantic accent type of shit i have a really good time with that and it carries over into other episodes to where it's weirdly enough it feels like how the wire is paced we're like all of these characters are just okay and i'm not and i know that's going to be an ambitious hold on i know this is an ambitious land this plane bow i'm okay it's it's only in the sense that it works to where there's no real formal introduction

to a lot of characters. A lot of them are just bouncing off of each other in media res and you have to figure out what they feel, how they feel it, and based on different situations as we go along, you become more of an understanding with all of them. Am I making sense there? Sure. I mean, yeah.

You know, I wouldn't... I wouldn't say the wire. Did I say it was as good as the wire? No. I'd say that it's taking something that's like that. that you don't get to see a lot of things where you're like, I am Harvey Dent. I am going to be the mayor of, like. Well, I think part of that is also we know Batman at this, you know what I mean?

Yeah. It's 2024. Like, you're not going to watch, like, this is not going to be a lot of people's first Batman show. You know what I mean? And so,

and even if, I think the show does a good enough job to be like, okay, you know who these characters are, you'll learn about them in time. But you don't got to, we know who Batman is. You know,

just get it cracking. All right. So any standout episodes to you, anything that, like, really elevated this show from something that seemed like solid and fun to, oh, we might have a contender on our hands. Man, I liked a lot of the episodes. Moving Target was a good one. Like, because the thing the show does, like, pretty good. They don't give you the Joker, right? They don't.

And I'm so glad that they don't. I mean, they do, but they don't. They do, but they don't. They tease them little, little tease at the end of season when you. little dollop a joker, but we're left with Anamontapia as a villain.

They went into the thing... Honestly, I respect the hell out. Voice by Reed Scott, by the way? Yeah. Which is wild. Hey, we just need you to say boof and drip. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And punch and pow. And all that. And like, that episode's great. Not only because, like, the villain is somebody we don't see ever and they make it's compelling. Like the twist at the end

where it's like, oh, who's the target on? It wasn't Jim. It was Barbara. Gasp. Like, I just had a lot of fun with those kind of stories. And the entire show has moments like that where you're like, man, this is really cool. We don't really get these villains a ton.

And it was great. Episode 8 was probably my least favorite. Yeah, yeah. But, but they, like all the kids, like one's named Dickie, one's named Stephanie and one's name Jason. Yeah. I thought that was fun. I was like, ah, she did there. As soon as she said Stephanie Brown, I was like, I did the Leo meme.

I was like, oh, I know that. I know that. No, the show has a lot of, oh, ooh, o'o, o'o, o'o, o'u, o'. Episode, episode, uh, five. Right. That's the one, the one with, um, Renee and Harley go on their date. And it turns out that Harley is a sicko who is imprisoning her patients.

And Barbara has to, like, try and, Rescue Batman. Like that was a really good, man, there's a lot of good episodes in here. I can talk about a lot of these episodes. What about that finale, though? Like,

because it doesn't feel like, it, it kind of feels like in lockstep with the rest of the season. It, and not to say that it doesn't feel special, but like, it kind of just has the same,

like, I don't think I've had a show that felt as consistent from episode to episode to where all of the things that they attempt to try, they more or less hit on, and nothing seems to falter.

How did you feel about this finale? I thought the finale was good. I think the show does an interesting thing where the first like seven episodes, they're like through lines, but, you know, the main plot is usually resolved. The guy goes to jail, goes to Arkham.

It's pulpy. It's serialized. You can kind of take it as it comes and not really need to worry about the binge of it all. Yeah, until the last couple episodes where I think at the end of episode eight, Harvey, or, yeah,

however he gets the ass at the on his face. Yeah. And then we, We start the two-face, the two-face journey. And those are like, those happen, like, at the same time, basically. So episode nine ends and then episode 10, like, gets it going. I think that was, that was very interesting, well done. And I had a great time following Harvey's descent into madness, right?

If we try to play it cool, you know, by the way. By the way. That looks foul. Oh, when Harvey got the acid thrown on him? No, well, the face. Oh, yeah. Oh, my God, yeah. It looked really good.

Really? Well, like, well, well designed, well, conceived, but like, really gnarly. I was like, ugh, I don't like that at all. But it has, again, like, I think the stylized 40s look of it, like, all of these things, all of these villains, all of these, like, stylistic changes that we put on these characters fit with what they're going for. I never feel like something is out of place with what they're presenting to us. I want to talk a bit more about how, like the dichotomy of how involved Bruce is

in the Harvey Dent storyline in the final few stretches of the episodes because, like, from the beginning, the show lets you know that they're homies. And I've really, really enjoyed a show or a, like, a comic storyline, what have you, that actually explores the, friendships in Bruce's life outside of Batman

because the way that those come back to him on the other side of his coin, no pun intended, really like can get reflected well. And when he's talking to Harvey in the hospital, like I really started to feel for that. I really started to think of like, oh, this is when Bruce like is going to stop having a good handle on things.

in his personal life and I think the thing that like the animated series did so well is establishing the idea that Bruce became Batman first

like he like he wanted like the identity of his personality moved over from like a thing of balancing out from Bruce to Batman to I hate when I am Bruce I only like when I am Batman because that's when things only start to make sense

and I could see tiny bits of that in the way that this show's language is presenting Bruce now? Well, I don't even say the language. It's the voice acting do. Yes. When he's with, like, he'll be on the phone. He'll do like the Bruce Wayne. Hey, you know, it's all good.

This and this. Hangs up. Alfred. Yeah, man. It was cool. Like, just strict. Boom. That Bruce Wayne is the facade.

Batman is the real person. Like he does, he has a Batman voice. He has a Bruce Wayne voice with Alfred. And then he has like a Bruce Wayne with everybody else's voice. Right. Right. And he's not talking to Alfred crazy just yet. He does a little crazy.

A little crazy. At the end, he's like, hey man, Alfred's like, look, bro, you know, you got to, you shouldn't have done that. You're like, I don't want to hear him. And he flicks the thing. He only throws one tantrum as opposed to several. I mean, Alfred was kind of like the last episode, Alfred's like, look, bro, you know, you got to, yeah, you bowing a little bit. And he's like, hey, know what I'm doing. No.

You listen to me. Who's a charge? You know? And not. But the voice, again, three different voices, I think, illustrate just how, like, mentally, he's not all the way there. He's trying to meet with Harleen Quenzel. She's like, look, I'm going to sign your papers. But there's something wrong with you.

I know there's something wrong with you. He's like, ah, he's trying to play it off while. I'm good. As soon as he was done, he was like, take me home. I don't want to be here. And I really, I think the absolute best parts of this show are when we see. Hamish Linklater's performance bounce off of

both himself and these characters. I think the addition of Alfred being a bit more stalwart and us kind of just letting Batman kind of sit in this world that Gotham is becoming because I think the real origin story that we have in this show is Gotham's rather than Batman's or any

one character. Because from the first episode, until the end, we get the sense that things are only just starting to get worse or as bad as Batman can justify his presence there. Yeah. I liked the idea that we're not presented with his ethos that much, his lack of a better term, motivation for staying Batman. Well, I mean, we, you know, it's a Batman show.

We're going to get the, we need. We did get the pearls. Yeah. But again, oh, thank God. We, like, we did. I mean, we saw the pearls. We didn't see them fall, but we saw the pearls. I understand.

Yeah. There's one of the greatest videos that I've ever seen on the internet is from a creator, Jenny Nichols. She recently made the, like, four-hour Star Wars Hotel breakdown. She had also once did a review of Zach Snyder's Batman versus Superman while stitching together a pearl necklace with individual noddings rather than a single strand. Because her reason for doing this is because if I have to see this pearl necklace shatter on the ground one more goddamn time, I'm going to lose my mind. Yeah, but how will you know that Batman's mom died?

There's no other way. If the pearls don't fall, how will you know that Martha Wayne died? But the better joke is the fact that a Wayne can afford a pearl necklace when it breaks, it only loses one pearl rather than all of them. That's true. Maybe it's fake. Maybe it's all for gazing. You know what I'm saying?

Would Papa Wayne do that? Well, I'm not saying they're fake pearls. I'm saying the pearls fell through the thing. And Batman's just like, I need something. I got to, here's my mom's pearls. And he went and bought it off Etsy. And he's like, here's what my mom looked beautiful. Which I can't blame them.

You know, the trauma is if you already like dressing up as bad at night, I can't imagine what else you're going through, my brother. You know what I'm saying? So sometimes I just got to let him have one. He's definitely not gifting any of pearl necklaces. Oh my God, bro. Hey, yo, that was crazy, bro. What are you talking about?

That was nuts. How was that? That was crazy, bro. What? Oh. That was crazy, bro. I didn't even think about it. I'm not even thinking like that, man.

What are you talking about? It is 10 a.m. in the morning. Fucking chill. Have some, I have some shame. You know, you, you relax. Have some shit. Wow, Steve. All right.

That's crazy. That's the. That's the first thing I ever looked up on Urban Dictionary. Really? Yeah. You could remember what you first looked up on for Urban Dictionary? Yeah, because this is like, I want to say like, my first days of either Facebook or Twitter. Okay.

Can you put a year on this? It had to be like 2009, 2010. Okay. And people were saying that. I was like, I don't know what that means. And we had at this point, you had the phones. You can look at pulling phones. Oh, wow.

So it was like, well, it was like rudimentary, but you did it. You're like, oh. Oh, God. I think I don't think it was the phone I think it was the iPod touch Oh my goodness I think it was the iPod touch at the time

Yeah, it wouldn't even phones We're old Can I can I make a very big admission As to what my first one? How old were you when that happened? Oh, I was like 16th? I was still no, 2010? Brother, I was like 12th or 12th?

Oh, okay, okay, okay. So my equivalent of that when I was a kid is when Ying Yang twins came out and I had I didn't know what Skeet meant and I didn't have Urban Dictionary and then I had to ask around town

You know what that meant And then I was like, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey. And then I was like, oh. We had that for a lollipop. And then that Dave Chappelle thing came out and they're like, the only reason it's on the radio is because white people don't know what that means yet. We had that thing with a lollipop 50 cents on.

Canny shot? Oh, right, right, right. And they were singing it in the car and then someone was like, hey, hey, not child, it's not enough for you. Are there any 1940s colloquialisms that you had to look up for this show? No, I don't figure they were that.

bad, I think they were pretty much like, you mean, you had, it had the energy of, you know, yeah, we're in the 40s and look, this is this, and which, look at the cars. They don't beat you over the head with it. It's not like, like making fun of itself. Of course not. Of course not. In some type of way. It's very, very, very, very old school in a way that I think, again, lends itself to the show,

to the characters, you know, this isn't about all Batman's going to build something to take somebody out, he's going to do this and which in which he's got to, like, outsmart him and out think him. Exactly. Batman doing surveillance is him taking a radio the size of a shoebox and just dialing it ever so slightly. When he tagged Renee Montoya and it was just like a slice of a freaking quarter. Oh my God. It was so funny.

It's like, punk. Like, how do you not see that? How did it fall out right there too? I was like, yo, speaking of... Something of it's just like, I'd need a giant antenna with a red blinking light. Speaking of that, the Renee Montoya Bug episode, we saw some cool villains. you know, we mentioned Aramonopoeia. Clayface

Episode 2. Oh, yes. That was, I thought, like, seeing Clayface like that. So, and that's, by the way, like, seemingly grounded, but also has some, like, wild, like, science stuff and magic in it. Like, we have, we see the smoke clouds go into Alfred. Oh, yeah, oh, my God. I was like, so ghosts, go surreal.

I mean, I guess you have, like, the Boston guy and Tadana and all that stuff. Yeah, yeah. But Batman, he don't believe in that. You know what I mean? I don't know. I guess he does now because that was nuts. I was like, I was waiting for them to like, all right, he's got some advanced tech.

He's from the future or something. It's like, no, that's just a ghost. Just an actual real ghost. That would be pretty cool. Cool. I guess. So slight prediction corner for season two. Obviously, we'll be getting the Joker.

I would like to think that if any of the supernatural elements of Batman story come into play. I want them to kind of take that slow, like a Razel Ghul or anything like that. It's pronounced Raichal Ghul. Rayshaelgul or anything like that. I don't know how that's handled in a setting like this. But I think my biggest fear is where this, like, comes into play

if any of the Justice League members that we know of come into the fold. They're going to do a crossover of MyVenual Superman. I, oh, man. Like some dimension hopping type stuff? Nah, I mean, I agree. I don't think they'll go too crazy with that. Season two things I like to see, you know, like maybe some more like some bane, you know what I mean? Maybe not doing that kind of voice, but, you know, whatever.

When Harley comes back, I think that's actually really interesting. I think about it, because Hardy's going to come back. Sure. And Barber's going to be like, hey, man, remember when you try to kill Batman and me kind of a little bit? And then Ray is going to be like, yo, Harley, how are you been? It's been a minute. And then Barber's going to be like, yo. do I tell my home girl that her girlfriend tried to kill me

because I know she's going to be mad and I don't want to piss nobody off so it might be a little. And that's the perpetuation of a lie that can actually like really like inform a whole another season. Exactly, right? And so I'll be interested to see that. And yeah, just seeing more of Batman getting the wings under them. I think that could be cool as hell.

I don't think we'll get like the Robbins and stuff because they already name dropped some of them. Yeah, yeah. And the thing? I guess, well, no, because Dickie is younger, like he comes an orphan a little later. Sure, sure, sure. I think maybe that's, again,

I don't, I don't want it to fall into a lot of the Batman trappings just yet. I want it to take their time. Yeah, I don't think you will. I don't think you will. Because that's kind of what this show, why I liked this show so much, is that it didn't go to a thousand that quickly. You know, like, as far as, like, having a Robin or, like,

like all the crazy tech that he could have or anything like that. Like the fact that we only are like getting certain high profile characters and then small nods to others. Yeah. I like that. Like it knows what it's doing.

It's taking its time. It's going to be real funny when in season two comes out and a Marshall Manhunter show up. Martian Man, you don't be like, yo, not John Johns. Anybody but John Johns. Honestly, man, we need more Martian Manhunter representation in all forms of DC content.

I don't disagree. I don't disagree, but where are we going to get it? Creature Commandos, season two, baby. If he shows up in Creature Commandos, is that redemption for the show? I don't want to get into it. I don't think there's anybody been more down on Creature Commandos than you, Joe. I'm just mad because, bro, HBO was like, hey, man, we got all this DC. We can do anything.

We can do literally anything, but James Gunn's got the keys, man. But James Gunn is making Creature Commandos, so you got to go to Amazon Prime, buddy. You know, shoo off. That's the Zazlaw of it. initiative. That's the, that's the terrible decision. But this is a good show. This is a great show. So then what? Like, what are you watching? I don't know. You know what I mean? Like, it's clearly, it's not

nothing, none of this stuff. You don't want an anime on the Suicide Squad? I'm sure people are saying that's good. I don't, I haven't seen you yet. Maybe we'll come back with a report back. Hold the phone. Curie's still out. Hold on. Relax. Giving you more work. Don't please. Got to watch. First all, I hate Isakai. Never, I don't watch no Isakai. So the fact,

you might like Isakai now. I might, I might I probably won't. I probably won't. I'll tell you how I won't. But this Azloff stuff sucks, bro, because obviously this is a great show. This would have been killed. Those would have killed on Max.

And now it's just like, eh. Like, we, it's obviously these things aren't, you know, decisions about content, decisions about quality. It's just money. Yeah, it's all money. It's just a bag. It's like, well, let's cut this because of the check,

the money we could save. And it's really disappointing because of all of the decisions to shuffle certain, brands and titles or IP from one streaming service or content house to another. It feels like money's never been more fake and greed has never been more vampit

or like on its face than it has been now because it's like, okay, we'll just shelve two whole movies that we don't think might be up to snuff and we make that as a write-off. You feel some type of way about bad girl. I'm like Acme versus Coyote. Where is it?

Yeah, man. Where's that shit? It would have been crazy. I would love to see it. It would have made a billion dollars. That's not true. But it would have been fun. It would have been great.

And yeah, it stinks. It absolutely stinks that we live in this kind of, this world where you can make a thing like Batman, a crew Cape Cicitor. You can make Acme versus Coyote. And you can make Infinity Train or whatever it may be. And it's like, cool. Nobody will see it. And we don't want to pay for people to see it.

So we'll sell it to somebody else and they can watch it. And maybe if you like it, cool. If not, who cares? We saved a couple bucks. It's just super, super depressing to think about. Yeah, it really, really is. But we're very happy that Cape Crusader came out. It's kind of fantastic.

I really, really dig it. I enjoy it a lot. This episode is brought to you by Prime. Obsession is in session. And this summer, Prime Originals have everything you want. Steamy romances, irresistible love stories, and the book to screen favorites you've already read twice. Off campus, L, every year after, the love hypothesis,

Sterling Point, and more. Slow burns, second chances, chemistry you can feel through the screen. Your next obsession is waiting. Watch only on Prime. Steve, before we get out of here, we talked a lot about Hamish Linklater in his performance.

Yes. What is your favorite, like, animated Batman? That's not Kevin Conroy. Yes. Because let's be very clear. So we had... That's the goat. I don't want nobody to be like,

Oh, you didn't pick Kevin. It's everybody. It's obviously, Kevin. It's obviously him. It's only him. That's the goat. That's the only person we could say. So we're excluding him from the rest in peace to our goat.

We're excluding him from the running. Who is? Yeah, this is our fight for second place. Yes. Who is your favorite animated Batman? Okay. So we had mentioned a one Harvey Dent that was voiced by, oh my goodness. Dietrich Bader.

Deidreck Bader. I kind of love what Dietrich Bader was doing. and Brave and the Bold. Oh. I really do. Because that style of flavor is very much the Adam West cartoonish

and over the top level Batman and he's really, really, really good for that. I genuinely enjoyed that and granted, that's not the best, like most well-regarded flavor of Batman,

but that's one of my favorites. I have a lot of respect for that guy. That's fair. Mine's a little bit of a deeper cut if you were, If you're around my age, you may be in the loop. Reno Romano from the Batman series that aired on... Oh, okay.

At least for me, WB, from 2004 to like 2008 or something like that. Fire. That was my Batman for a long time. Like, I didn't get into Batman the anime series until I was like... Until like the pandemic or something like that. Very interesting. Yeah, man. No, this guy was...

This guy was him to me, you know. I appreciate that. I really do. Also, shout out to one of my favorite animated movies that DC came out with in 2010. Batman Under the Red Hood. Oh. Bruce Greenwood. Oh, dude.

Bruce Greenwood is my guy. Yeah. My God. Bruce Greenwood fucking real fun. My God. As a guy. All right. He's the Batman in Young Justice.

Yes. Yes, he is. Yeah. He's really, really, really good. He's really, really, really good. No, Justin Ankle's love. I mean, Justin Echle, of course. Like, it feels,

here's the thing about Jensen Eccles. Oh boy, come on now. Come on, come on. Tell him. I don't want to say that he's, I can't separate Jensen Eccles from anything else other than Supernatural. I can't. Even him as Soldier Boy, I can't do it. Because

I just see him in Supernatural pretending to be Captain America. That's all I see. Oh, wow. Okay. And it's, like, this is a me problem, clearly. Clearly. I'm not saying that he has limited range. I'm not saying that he's saying, though. I'm not saying that he doesn't have skill or any talent as an actor. I'm just saying that it is tough for me to separate that sauce.

Okay. You know? I think Will Arnett? Also a good Batman voice. Oh, I mean, come on. Will Arnett? He does in the Lego Batman and the Lego movies? So I don't know how much I want to, like again, yes, yes, yes, yes.

A million times yes. I love the Lego Batman movie. A million times. That sounds like you do, though. No, it does, it does, but you know what he's making fun of. Who's he making fun of? Christian Bail. Obviously.

Yeah. Which, again, like, that's the point. I get that. I don't hate it. No, no, I can't, I can't hate on it. You sound like you hate on it. But is it like my favorite? No.

I mean, it's not my favorite, obviously. For sure. I'm not of my favorite. Bruce Greenwood's probably like a really close second. Okay. But, you know, just wanted to, you know, shout out Troy, You know, did Trump Baker did it.

Jason Omarah has voiced Batman. There's a lot of folks. What we're really trying to say here is you should be watching a lot more animated DC movies. Oh, man, the DC movies, man, they be hitting, bro.

They'd be hitting. Roger Craig Smith. Yes. Voiced them. You know, like, they be in a bag, bro. What you mean? Except for Crisis on Infinite Earths. I don't know.

We don't know. Let's not. We don't tell them getting it. Did you see any of them? I watched, I watched both of them. them, the ones that are on max. Okay. I was like, ah.

It's a lot. I don't, I don't understand what's going on here. I ever do? What is happening? Here's the thing. Like, so there's a lot, lot, lot, lot, lot of stories in DC animated canon that, that they can pull from the comics to do. The Crisis on Infinite Earth's thing, like, that was, like, that's very dense.

But so why not spread it out a little bit or sparse it out? Like that should be a show. That's not like a... No, no, no, no. Make some cuts. If you're going to do a three-part movie, make some cuts. Yeah. Because I'm even trying to remember the second one.

I can't. Because I can't. Because I don't understand what was going on. Like there's the whole thing with Supergirl and the monitor. And then there's a thing with the pirate guy and the anti-monitor. Right. And to anybody that hasn't seen any of these things, this is going to make no sense to you. It didn't make sense to me.

Of course. Of course. I watched it. It didn't make sense. I was like, wait. Okay, it's like four storylines happening at a time. I don't care about any of them. I can't focus on anything.

Yeah. Exactly. Just tell a linear story, right? Find a main character like the Flash who does this stuff a lot. And like follow that through line. Make it up. I don't care. What I cannot do is you try to Game of Thrones,

crisis on infinite earths in a, what, when there's no point to do so. It's not even like a 90-minute joint? No. What are we doing here? Not to quote Charles, but like seriously, what are we doing here? I'm confused.

It's too much. I'm confused. It's too much. But the other stuff, though, the stuff is really good. Do you see Batman hush? Oh, yeah. Yeah.

That was a good one. No spoilers, but that was, I called, you know, you're like, oh, that's the bad guy. That's the bad guy. Good twist, though. Good twist. I liked the, um, the quarter hours joint,

the ones with the, like, the son of Batman. Of course, of course. You know. We need more bad family stuff. I know you a hater, but we should, we should, we should get, like, actually, let me say, let me not pitch my Batman show.

DC, I know you listening. James Gunn, Peter Safran, Zazlov, I know you're a big fan. You know my, my DMs hit my line. Uh-huh. Let's talk. Let's talk. Listen, hey, if you, if you like me are a big Damien Wayne hater,

watch. Damien Wayne hater? Yeah. Why? He's a fucking punk. I don't like him. Damian Wayne is the G-est out of all of those guys, bro. There's a great, no, you watch...

Actually. What I want you to do is watch Son of Batman. Yes, I did. And watch that scene where Batman and Damien fight, and he gets the fucking breaks beat off. Yeah, it's freaking Batman. I know. But then he's also the scene with,

oh, I forget who they're fighting in the final. Maybe, is it Son of Batman? Or it's the final fight, and he takes his sword and he's giving death strokes some work. And I was like, yo. Yeah, that's fine. That's fine. I just like to see...

Amian getting literally sunned. Nah, bro. Streets need more Cassandra Kane, orphan, right? Yeah, a Batman villain named Orphan, really tough. No, well, it's not a villain. She's the second bad girl, but like, before she was bad girl, she was orphaned. Yeah. Right, then you had spoiler, right?

Stephanie Brown. You know what I'm saying? You got, obviously, like, the black guys who also do Batman stuff. The black guys are too bad? What are you talking about? It's Batwing, right? And there's another one. I can't remember.

Luke. Yeah. That's the character. I can't remember the name of the the bat guy he plays, but there's Luke Fox and the other guy, Batwing and the dude. And then, you know, there's a very, very... It's a rich tapestry. It's a rich tapestry. It's almost like a Bennington ad. Yes. Of course. For characters. You know what I mean? So let's lock in. Let's see some more bad people.

No, so yeah, that's been our little animated Batman preview corner, along with some of our favorite animated Batman. You should lock in. You should. You really should. All right. That's going to do it for us. Check out Batman Cape Crusader. Check out all the fun stuff that we talked about today.

This has been a blast every single time that we do it. Thank you to Joe Me and Dinner on, my wonderful, illustrious co-host. Thank you to Jesse Lopez, our wonderful stand-in producer, making us actually a cohesive podcast. I don't know how you made it happen this week, but we love you. We appreciate you. Junior Mints for listening to us once again. We'll be back very, very soon. But before we go, make sure

to check out Talk the Thrones live right a little bit after House the Dragon finale ends. And on Monday, Midnight Boys, we're going to be giving you their reactions to the House of the Dragon finale as well. And House of R gives you their two-part season finale

deep dive. Thank you very much again. Jomey, do you have any parting words for the people. Yeah, man. Thank you all junior men's for listening. Look, the secret word is still mask on. Okay? Keep them things on you. You feel me? Shout out to our producer.

Subbing in for the chocolate chip himself, Kerm, this week. Jesse Lopez. Jesse, don't call me J.Lo Lopez. Fair enough. Fair enough. And I just want to shout real quick, guys. I want to give a shout out to all our Olympians, bringing home the gold. Let's get it. Simone Biles, legend. Sunni Lee, a goat, and Jordan, Charles!

Let's go! USA! USA! He's going to run! USA! USA! USA! USA!

USA! USA! USA! U.S.A! U.S.A! U.S.A! ...feels like every product claims real protein these days. But real doesn't start on a label.

It starts at the source. Like real California milk from California farm families. It's real dairy. delivering high-quality, complete protein, with all nine essential amino acids to help build muscle, give you energy, and keep you satisfied longer. So keep it real. Look for the seal.

Real California milk. You can't reason with the sun. Trust us. We've tried. This summer, it's time to put that angry ball of fire on mute. Columbia's Omnyshade technology is engineered to protect you from the sun's harsh rays that can burn and damage your skin. The sun is relentless, but so is our gear.

Level up your summer at Columbia.com to spend more time outside and less time slathering on allotion. You're welcome. Columbia, engineered for whatever. Go the finish line, babe!