The Weekly Planet - Batman Heart Of Ice - Caravan Of Garbage

Episode Date: November 19, 2020

Batman The Animated Series is often considered one of the best iterations of the DC Universe with the introduction of characters such as Harley Quinn and reinvention of others like M Freeze. SPEAKING OF this week we cover the episode Heart Of Ice and his follow up appearances in things such as Sub Zero and Batman Beyond. Thanks for watching!SUBSCRIBE HERE ►► http://goo.gl/pQ39jNVideo Edition ► https://youtu.be/FEDvL6pncxcJames' Twitter ► http://twitter.com/mrsundaymoviesMaso's Twitter ► http://twitter.com/wikipediabrownPatreon ► https://patreon.com/mrsundaymoviesT-Shirts/Merch ► https://www.teepublic.com/stores/mr-sunday-moviesThe Weekly Planet iTunes ► https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-weekly-planet/id718158767?mt=2&ign-mpt=uo%3D4The Weekly Planet Direct Download ► https://play.acast.com/s/theweeklyplanetAmazon Affiliate Link ► https://amzn.to/2nc12P4 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

FX's The Veil explores the surprising and fraught relationship between two women who play a deadly game of truth and lies on the road from Istanbul to Paris and London. One woman has a secret, the other a mission to reveal it before thousands of lives are lost. FX's The Veil, starring Elizabeth Moss, is now streaming on Disney+. This podcast is part of the Planet Broadcasting Network. Visit planetbroadcasting.com for more podcasts from our great mates. We're talking about Batman the Animated Series. I love Batman the Animated Series. We threw up a poll on Patreon to be like, what do you want us to talk about?

Which 90s cartoons? And this came back well ahead of everything else. What was second? X-Men. That's a good one also. I agree. What was below that? Doug.

Oh, Doug. Oh, yeah. The story of a sad little boy or whatever it's about. I'm not joking either. I did put Doug in there. Okay, cool. Yeah, so obviously you can choose topics if you want to, or you can just watch this.

That's fine as is. And if you want to leave a like, that's great, because this week we are talking about what is considered the greatest Batman the Animated Series episode, Heart of Ice. So do you want to give a bit of background on Mr. Freeze before this episode reinvented him? I mean, in short, he started out from nothing and now we're here. You know what I mean?

But I mean, he was, you know, back in the heyday of Batman. Yes. Some would argue all of Batman is the heyday of Batman. But when Batman sort of kicked off, they needed a new villain every month for a new issue of Batman. Yes. Some would argue all of Batman's the heyday of Batman. But when Batman sort of kicked off, they needed a new villain every month for a new issue of Batman or Detective Comics. So Mr. Freeze started out as Mr. Zero and he was just a guy, basically.

But he had, eh? He had a freeze gun. Yeah. So he's basically like an inventor slash petty criminal because I guess those things go together. They all were. And he just invented a freeze gun, and then one day it backfired on him.

It froze his metabolism, so he had to wear like a cryogenic suit. Yes. I mean, they didn't have cryogenic suits back then. It was a... It's got a fridge box. It was called a Frigidaire suit. It was just a diving suit filled with blocks of ice.

And he was just a guy who just did generic Batman villain stuff. He just robbed banks because he wanted the money. Or, you know, did some diamond heists or what have you. He also showed up in the 1960s series in live action. Exactly. And that version has more in common with the live action movie version with Arnold than the animated version.

There are hints of the animated version in it, but if you look at those two, it's mostly the same. I mean, there's certainly some ascots and some smoking jacks involved. But yeah, so in the 60s, when the Batman TV series kicked off, they needed some kid-friendly villains. You don't want any murderous Joker, assorted serial killers. You don't want a mad monk who's secretly a murderous vampire, for example. What you need is just some guys to look funny and cackle and rob banks.

And so they got Mr. Zero, who'd then been renamed Mr. Freeze. And again, he was just kind of a happy-go-lucky guy with an ice gun, just stealing diamonds. And then when Batman the Animated Series kicked off... Yeah, they took the opportunity to... Well, they reinvented a lot of characters and also invented characters like Harley Quinn. But this is a complete retelling of this origin.

And I think really catapulted this supervillain into one of the best supervillains in kind of one foul stroke. One frozen stroke. Not an expression, but I like it. So let's make it an expression. That's right. James, let's finish this video in one frozen stroke. Oh, it feels good to say. That's right.

So they kind of changed the origin to also match the look of this show because what I find fascinating about Batman the Animated Series, among many things, is that the animation was done on black paper. Yes. So they didn't have to fill in all the black to give it that kind of deep, dark look. It was already a deep, dark look. Yeah, that's right. Exactly.

It was kind of highlighted things on top of that. And little things like the frost on mr freeze helmet and the retro design of the suit that's a micromanual design it's exactly it it's it's before he did hellboy and a bunch of other stuff but yeah i i think it's such an excellent origin that being that he's not doing it because he's a guy who's just after diamonds or whatever he's doing it because he wasn't a horrible accident but he's trying to to save his wife who's cryogenically frozen. Yeah. And he's a man who you'll notice in this episode when he's in Mr. Freeze mode and he's got the goggles on

and it's just these red points of light. Yeah. He looks like this soulless, emotionless monster. Yes. But then when the goggles come off, you see that he's got real human eyes. He's got real human eyes and everything. Motion returns, you know? Well, the way they were going to play it originally

Anthony Hopkins also was the first choice. He couldn't do it because he's a famous actor. Sure, yeah. But there's not famous actors in the show. Of course there is. But Michael and Sarah ended up doing it and went on to do it numerous times. But he wanted to emote more

but Bruce Timm was very much like playing flat. This guy's essentially dead already and that's how he sees himself. And I think this really does strike the balance between those two things. You get the emotion, like you talked about, when he's out of the suit, especially at the end. But you never get the sense that he's not a real man or never was a real man. That's true. There's still that humanity under the great Art Deco look of this character.

Yes, that's right. This is also the first episode of the series to be directed by Bruce Timm and the first one written by Paul Dini as well. Oh, the classic combo. Yeah, that's right.

Not the first episode of the show, I should point out, but the first time those two came together for this. What I also like about this episode, aside from literally everything, people often consider this to be the best episode

of the series. I tend to agree. There's other ones that I like a lot clock king for example sure yes is also not as famous but a really fun retelling of a dumb supervillain supervillain but this also was the first episode that mark hamill is in oh yeah right this is before he was cast as the joker because tim curry did it prior this character that he's doing

is like a homage to Phil Hartman you know that kind of slick yeah yeah right uh-huh you know you kind of the Troy McClure kind of situation there I think one of the things that's and just to talk broadly about this show one of the things I really like and this was apparently the idea of Kevin Conroy he has a different voice when he's Bruce Wayne and Batman right and I think other people have obviously attempted to do that in various mediums but this one to me they feel like completely different characters without it being completely ridiculous and over the top the kind of casual demeanor that he puts on as Bruce Wayne and then the way that he slips into it as Batman even when he's just talking to Alfred now you do get the sense that in this version, and that becomes kind of a more popular idea in later comics, or even earlier, I guess, that the mask is Bruce Wayne.

Oh yeah, right. Well, that's a testament to Kevin Conroy, professional voice actor. It might just be, do you reckon? Decades of experience being a voice actor. So this was supposed to be a one-off thing. They weren't going to come back to the idea of Mr. Freeze. A lot of, there are numerous characters in the animated series that get very limited play. The Riddler's only in maybe a couple of episodes.

Yeah, the Grey Ghost. Yeah, right. Voiced by the great. The great Adam West. Adam West, yeah. Yeah, absolutely. But this one, they eventually brought him back for the episode Deep Freeze. Right.

Which is basically an evil Walt Disney who wants to cryogenically freeze himself. He looks a lot like Walt Disney. And acts a lot like Walt Disney. Has that ever been confirmed? I wonder if they designed him around Walt Disney who wants to cryogenically freeze himself. He looks a lot like Walt Disney. And acts a lot like Walt Disney. Has that ever been confirmed? I wonder if they designed him around Walt Disney. No, that is. That's how it's supposed to be. The idea of this theme park lunatic who wants to live forever

so he cryogenically freezes himself, which was a popular theory. Certainly a way to go. I mean, you could just open a bunch of theme parks and serve overpriced food. Yeah, it's up to you. That's fine too, isn't it? Yeah, yeah, yeah. We talked about this a little bit before the show show it does feel like diminishing returns every time this

character a little bit turns up and that's not to say that there aren't good follow-up episodes yeah i think they are and i think the last one in particular which we'll get to ends really strong but i think it's also a credit to how good this first episode is yeah they never reach the heights of it and i also feel like deep freeze especially this the second season episode is more a batman and robin fight a bad guy yeah and mr freeze just happens to be in it it's almost like they wanted to battle mr freeze again yeah but because mr freeze victor freeze has that tragic backstory you would seem almost cruel to bring him out of retirement and have Batman and Robin beat him up. So they were like, okay, let's say a guy wants Mr. Freeze's powers

so he breaks Mr. Freeze out of prison. I also like how in this series that they find a way around the censors to still do horrifying things. Like, for example, that guy is trapped in a cryogenically frozen suit and he just drops to the bottom of the ocean. Presumably for all eternity. Well, he does turn up in a comic and he's gone completely insane.

Oh, he escaped, okay. But yeah, it's his last animated appearance. But it's of course not Mr. Freeze's last appearance because the second animated movie to come out of this series is Batman and Mr. Freeze Sub-Zero. And I'd never really seen it before or not in full and certainly not recently. Bruce Timm was working on Superman,

the animated series at the time so he couldn't do it and he didn't like the idea that nora spoiler alert at the end of this is revived and revived yeah because that means like who is this guy now because what are his motivations behind anything because all this guy is even to himself is just someone trying to save this woman yeah and they've taken that element away from him unknown god forbid anyone gets a happy ending. Yeah, I know, right? But I want to say for the record, I'm okay with that.

I'm okay for a man who had a goal to save another person's life, achieve that goal. I think that's good. He does briefly. He achieves happiness briefly because things end up pretty grim for him. But I don't think this movie is great. It's not as good as Mask of the Phantasm. No.

It's not as good as Return of the Joker, which we've talked about in another video. But yeah, it's just kind of an okay episode to me. Yeah. It's not terrible and it's certainly worth a watch if you love this series and this character. It's certainly, the thing about the Batman animated series is the scale is kind of skewed. Yes. You know, it's either a good episode or a great episode. Yeah. I don't want to seem biased, but you know, it's either a good episode or a great episode. Yeah.

I don't want to seem biased, but, you know, it's very rare you go, why did I watch that? Yeah, because even the one about I've got Batman trapped in my basement or whatever, the people are like, this is the worst one. I like that one. Yeah, right. I still think that one is better than most cartoons from the 90s. Sure.

Yeah. So in the new Batman Adventures, which is, again, a continuation of this, we get the episode Cold Comfort, where he turns up and he just starts wrecking shop people have built amazing things that they love and he's just going in and being like hey you love that thing i've destroyed it what thing specifically whatever they love like a great piece of art that they've created a big sandwich they've enjoyed exactly and batman's like why is this guy doing this? His wife was saved. What's wrong with him? The reveal is really interesting that his wife was saved.

He never went back to her. And his condition worsened. And now he's just a head and a robot suit. And that's what's left of him. So that's the reason why he's like, well, I can't love anybody. So I'm going to ruin everything for everybody else. He's a bad dude. They bring it around at the end of a lot of episodes

where he actually is a nice guy. Yeah, right. But most of the time in these episodes, he does a terrible thing, and then he has like a moment where he's like, what am I even doing? I have a small amount of regret for this. Yeah.

And then, six months later, he's just fucking back at it again. I just don't think that you can only redeem yourself so many times before it's like, this is a pattern more than anything else. Sure not getting better here are you also the thing you must remember about uh this character is he's not a real man and he's often at the mercy of different creative teams because uh if you recall when dc comics was rebooted in the new 52 i think it was he got a new backstory in which nora freeze who we all assumed was the love of his life,

was in fact just a random cryogenically frozen woman that he fell in love with as a researcher and then basically stole. And she sort of became this... And he hates Batman because he thinks that Batman is robbing him of this woman that loves him. Exactly, and she's just essentially this idol that he worships kind of thing.

But then, I think a few years later, it's been re-retconned, so she is actually his wife again. And still frozen or something? I think so, yeah. That's a complicated wrinkle, isn't it? It really is, yeah. An unnecessarily complicated wrinkle.

Maybe, but that's the thing. Exactly. The problem with long-established characters is you can retcon them for the better. Anonymous Mr. Zero into the tragic Mr. Freeze, but then you can just straight up turn him into a monster again if you want to. Yeah, absolutely. Which is, you know, were it up to me, were I the controlling interest in DC Comics,

I'd probably say, hey, Nora Freeze is fine and you're also fine. What do you go to Hawaii where it's always nice and warm? Here's a picnic basket you can take with your wife to the beach. His last appearance animated in this series, of course, is the episode Meltdown from Batman Beyond. Oh, yeah. It's 50 years on. A cupboard is opened and his head's just in there.

And he's like, I've been in here for 50 years. And they say, okay, we're going to, you know, our boss, the weird nuclear man with the nuclear skeleton. Yes, yes. He wants a new body because he's sick of his body, right? Uh-huh, yeah, yeah. It's a nuclear man body. Yeah.

And so they put Mr. Freeze in a new body and he's cured. So it's again that thing of like... For a while. Yeah, he's like, I feel so much better. For a while. Yeah, I'm sorry about everything. For a while. And look, if I've wronged you in any way, I'll try and help you if I can.

For a while. And then, of course, the body starts to break down. A what? Yeah, his condition worsens. So he turns bad again but then of course again he has a change of heart. But then some stuff falls on him and he dies for a minute. Presumably. And then he falls back into the cupboard.

That's right. Exactly. But I like the idea that in Batman Beyond you cannot bring everybody back. Yes that's true. And there are only so many ways you can do that otherwise it's a lot of like we're doing the Joker again are we? Because we did the Joker, we're doing the Joker again, aren't we? Because we did the Joker and we're doing Scarecrow as well. Like there's hints of the universe that used to exist that no longer does.

And the idea that Mr. Freeze, somebody found the head and just kept it in the cupboard is completely on point, I feel, for this entire show. I think it's a great reintroduction of the character. I think if there wasn't so much stuff in between and if I hadn't shotgunned it all at once, I think I would have enjoyed the kind of through line of the narrative as opposed to just, again, back to back to back to get to where we are. That is often the problem, again, with these long established characters is if you just follow one for decades,

they just keep dying and coming back to life. That's right. Exactly. Do you want to hear about some deleted scenes from this episode? A Heart of Ice, yes. Absolutely. So the episode, of course, inspired a story-based campaign in Batman Arkham Origins, titled Cold Cold Heart.

Again, a lot of the same creative team, narratively, are on board for that game. There's also, of course, the very famous boss battle from that game, where you take on Mr. Freeze in a stealth section. It's a great mission, and he learns your attacks and can counter them after you've performed them once. I think that's right. There's also going to be a moment where after the accident happens to him, his hair is frozen and it kind of comes off in chunks and he goes to grab it. It was a more kind of horrific moment that went over the airtime and they had

to cut that out. And also the planned ending was to have Mr. Freeze weeping in his cell and the tears freezing and then turning to snowflakes. And Tim and Dini mentioned that, look, if they could go back and do anything again, they would change that to be the case in that episode. That being said, it was adopted in Batman and Robin. And that being said, why isn't the liquid already frozen inside his body? Because then he wouldn't be able to move at all. I know. Makes you think, doesn't it?

Yes. You know what else makes you think? What's that? What are the fucking odds this guy's name is Freeze, like before this happens to him? Yeah, yeah. I mean, there's only two ways he could have gone. He could have gone as Mr. Freeze or Mr. French Fries.

I was going to say, because technically it's Fries, isn't it? It is Fries, yeah. It'd be like if Scarecrow's real name was Jason Scarecrow. Right? Oh, look. It's Reginald Clayface. Or if the Joker's name was Arthur Fleck. Affleck, like Ben Affleck, the Batman.

That'd be ridiculous. You wouldn't do that, would you? You would do it. Oh. Because people wouldn't immediately get it, and that's why it's clever. That is very clever. Yeah, thank you very much. Very clever.

Anyways, of course, we also have a podcast called The Weekly Planet where we talk movies and comics and TV shows. That comes out every Monday. Swing on by if you want to. We love... Like Batman. Like Batman would and has. Yeah.

And then freeze on your listening platform of choice. I think it's fries. Oh. Spill some fries on your listening platform of choice and hit the play button. I don't want to put a Z on the end of that instead of an S. You would, wouldn't you? Or maybe just freeze.

Yeah. Like how you would spell it like a normal person. That's a really good point. Also, he's a doctor, I think, technically. He'd be Dr. Freeze. Yeah, he would, wouldn't he? Yeah. Dr. Fries.

There's a new character for you. It's his arch nemesis because he's always hot. He's made of hot oil. Oh, my goodness. And sliced up potatoes. All right, we'll see you next week. Grab that jimmy, guys. We'll see you soon.

Goodbye. This podcast is part of the Planet Broadcasting Network. Visit planetbroadcasting.com for more podcasts from our great mates. I mean, if you want. It's up to you. As women, our life stages come with unique risk factors. Like when our estrogen levels drop during menopause, causing the risk of heart disease to go up.

Know your risks. Visit heartandstroke.ca. FX's The Veil explores the surprising and fraught relationship between two women who play a deadly game of truth and lies on the road from Istanbul to Paris and London. One woman has a secret. The other, a mission to reveal it before thousands of lives are lost.

FX's The Veil, starring Elizabeth Moss, is now streaming on Disney+.