Old transcript of Bruce Timm and co commenting on BTAS episodes

[The Joker]

Magneto is in his fifties at the very least, isn't he? I believe Rogue is roughly around the same age as Scarlet Witch, his daughter.

Yeah, that is definitely weird, and wrong.

Being that Magneto was a child during the holocaust, chronologically speaking, Magneto would be either in his late 80's, or knocking on 90 right now! As he would have had to have been born during the early-mid 1930's for his traditional depiction of being a child holocaust survivor, rather than a infant, to line up correctly.

The reasoning why Magneto doesn't look his age, is basically due to a story where was reverted to a baby by a character called, Mutant Alpha. This was eventually reversed by Eric the Red, where Magneto was restored back as an adult, but with Mags now being younger than he was originally, in addition to being able to retain all his memories as well.

It's comics, but yeah, mentally/emotionally, Magneto would be pushing 90 now. Physically, he's probably somewhere in his 40's.

Marvel has had to use a sliding timescale to get out of some characters being essentially too old in modern day (Tony Stark getting hit by sharpnel in Vietnam, Reed Richards and Ben Grimm being in WW2, ect), but as far as I am aware, Magneto's background as a holocaust survivor has been retained, and is pretty crucial to his character. Course, this wasn't originally the case back during the Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, or even Neal Adams days, but has been ever since the celebrated Chris Claremont run. That's for sure.

So in terms of Rogue/Magneto age difference. We're talking about great grandfather, and/or great, great grandfather difference in age. Plus, Rogue was decidedly written as still being a teenager when she was accepted into the X-Men back in, I think, 1983. So .... yeah. Magneto has known her since she was a child.

Which makes this occasional relationship shipping creepily bizarre, and as you mentioned, Scarlet Witch is roughly about the same age as Rogue, as is Mags' other daughter, Polaris.

[The Laughing Fish]

Magneto is in his fifties at the very least, isn't he? I believe Rogue is roughly around the same age as Scarlet Witch, his daughter.

Yeah, that is definitely weird, and wrong.

Being that Magneto was a child during the holocaust, chronologically speaking, Magneto would be either in his late 80's, or knocking on 90 right now! As he would have had to have been born during the early-mid 1930's for his traditional depiction of being a child holocaust survivor, rather than a infant, to line up correctly.

The reasoning why Magneto doesn't look his age, is basically due to a story where was reverted to a baby by a character called, Mutant Alpha. This was eventually reversed by Eric the Red, where Magneto was restored back as an adult, but with Mags now being younger than he was originally, in addition to being able to retain all his memories as well.

It's comics, but yeah, mentally/emotionally, Magneto would be pushing 90 now. Physically, he's probably somewhere in his 40's.

Marvel has had to use a sliding timescale to get out of some characters being essentially too old in modern day (Tony Stark getting hit by sharpnel in Vietnam, Reed Richards and Ben Grimm being in WW2, ect), but as far as I am aware, Magneto's background as a holocaust survivor has been retained, and is pretty crucial to his character. Course, this wasn't originally the case back during the Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, or even Neal Adams days, but has been ever since the celebrated Chris Claremont run. That's for sure.

So in terms of Rogue/Magneto age difference. We're talking about great grandfather, and/or great, great grandfather difference in age. Plus, Rogue was decidedly written as still being a teenager when she was accepted into the X-Men back in, I think, 1983. So .... yeah. Magneto has known her since she was a child.

Which makes this occasional relationship shipping creepily bizarre, and as you mentioned, Scarlet Witch is roughly about the same age as Rogue, as is Mags' other daughter, Polaris.

So Magneto's relationship with Rogue is even worse than I gave it credit for. Ugh. Makes Bruce hooking up with Diana and Barbara look normal in comparison.

Speaking of Marvel, I wonder whether or not Magneto's backstory will remain untouched like Captain America. With Cap, you can buy the idea that he was cryogenically frozen while fighting in WWII. But if they try to retain Magneto's history but slow down his aging process, you might risk of losing that ideological conflict between himself and Xavier. I got the impression these two characters coming from the same generation highlighted the different directions they took morally, yet still show a degree of empathy for each other. If Marvel were to try and deviate that and make one of them younger than the other, the rich relationship between the two would be lost. If they can change Iron Man's backstory from being set in the Cold War era to War in Afghanistan, then changing Magneto's period of time shouldn't be a problem. As long as the core of the character's motivations remain the same.

[The Joker]

So Magneto's relationship with Rogue is even worse than I gave it credit for. Ugh. Makes Bruce hooking up with Diana and Barbara look normal in comparison.

Speaking of Marvel, I wonder whether or not Magneto's backstory will remain untouched like Captain America. With Cap, you can buy the idea that he was cryogenically frozen while fighting in WWII. But if they try to retain Magneto's history but slow down his aging process, you might risk of losing that ideological conflict between himself and Xavier. I got the impression these two characters coming from the same generation highlighted the different directions they took morally, yet still show a degree of empathy for each other. If Marvel were to try and deviate that and make one of them younger than the other, the rich relationship between the two would be lost. If they can change Iron Man's backstory from being set in the Cold War era to War in Afghanistan, then changing Magneto's period of time shouldn't be a problem. As long as the core of the character's motivations remain the same.

Magneto and Professor X being roughly the same age increasingly gets complicated, but as far as I am concerned, Magneto's origins being tied to him being a holocaust survivor (the only one of his family to do so if I am not mistaken ... Magneto Testament is outstanding BTW) is undeniably at his core. Having him merely be the son of a holocaust survivor, or tying him to the civil rights movement (which I wouldn't doubt Disney is going to do and would be pleasantly surprised if they wouldn't) ultimately cheapens his character and his personal experience of being subjected to, and enduring, the very worst of humanity. Which gives his character's later actions, as a mutant supremacist/extremist, that kind of tragic irony that makes him compelling, and to which would be lost to some degree.

As far as Mags' age goes, well in the comics you have the whole baby deal, and other explanations that might work in a reboot. One being is that Magneto is supposedly a geneticist to some extent (possibly good enough to retard his natural ageing process. Thus in his mind, giving even more credence that mutants are just that much better than neanderthal humans). Another explanation, is that he sorta feeds off Earth's magnetic field, which in turn slows down his ageing, because, comics. Hell, Disney could probably incorporate both explanations if they wanted to, and throw in a Disney MCU quip on top of it. "I can keep my body rejuvenated. Unfortunately, I can't do anything about this white hair." Har har.

With Magneto and Professor X being contemporaries age wise, it's become increasingly awkward as the years go on, and as a consequence, I'm not as invested in that as I am with the holocaust origins for Magneto. Personally, I always viewed Captain America and Iron Man as the patriarchs of the Marvel Universe. Both as Avengers leaders, and age wise (at least as far as their outward physical appearances). In Disney's Marvel Universe, there is a obvious difference in age. Appearance wise. Possibly why Alex Ross was, around 2009-ish or so, strongly advocating Jon Hamm for Captain America. Which might have been interesting. Certainly has the chin and classic profile when one thinks of Cap.

I think "X-Men First Class" handled the friendship between Xavier and Erik pretty well. A reboot is going to have to change some things around, but I think the friendship can be sustained. It might be a case where Magneto is finding himself on the fence about executing a grand scheme, befriends Charles, begins drifting away from his plan, until something bad happens, and all hell breaks loose. It's a friendship that defies the expectation of forcing the other to bow to your worldview. Rather, differing heightened emotions can be reduced, and a relaxing game of chess is in order.

[The Laughing Fish]

I've been thinking about Spider-Man: TAS lately and remember watching it back in the nineties and enjoying it, but I don't think it has aged very well compared to BTAS. So I did some reading behind the scenes to understand why the quality of Spider-Man was cheaper and cheesier in comparison, and to my surprise, it wasn't a creative choice. Among other issues, the show got screwed over by double standards when it came to censorship.

There was an increased sensitivity to violence by the time we did our series, and the network's Broadcast Standards and Practices people would look at various issues they felt were inappropriate for children. One thing that was somewhat annoying, was that because Batman had started earlier and was more cartoony, they let them do much more action that was considered "violent" than what they would allow us to do. We had more restrictions, because they felt that since our series was more realistic, it would have more of a negative effect on kids if the content was too violent.

https://www.starburstmagazine.com/features/bob-richardson-spider-man-animated-series

By the time Spidey came on, there was a LOT of censorship at Fox. They were having whole countries like Canada ban some of their shows (Power Rangers, for instance) and they were very nervous about violence. When I watch the older episodes of Batman that first aired on Fox, they do all kinds of things that we couldn't do. By the time Spidey came on, Fox wouldn't let us do anything like that. No fists to the face, no realistic guns, no fire, no crashing through glass, no children in peril, no mention of the words death, die, or kill. I used to read notes from the censors when I made personal appearances for the show. Some of them were quite funny. Like, "When Spider-Man lands on the rooftop, be sure that he doesn't harm any pigeons." Stuff like that.

http://drg4.dancemania-ex.com/semper.html

According to this opinion piece below, Bruce Timm knew how to persuade the censors to get what he wanted, more often than not.

The honest truth about censors is you have to know how to play them.

The same time Spider-Man was not landing hard enough to disturb pigeons and The Punisher was not allowed to say 'Kill', and everyone used laser guns on 'stun', Bruce Timm had to work with the very same censors for BATMAN. Timm is an interesting man, and not at all without flaws, but the man knew how to play a room.   

Censors wanted pew pew laser guns in BATMAN. Kids had seen BATMAN RETURNS, Timm argued, and that movie had real guns.  Lasers would 'confuse children'. Bruce Timm got to keep real guns.

There were complaints about Joker shooting a Thompson submachine gun at the screen. Again, Timm argued a Thompson was impossible to purchase as a private citizen at the time, thus the scene was not replicable.  He got the keep the scene. 

Whenever I hear John Semper complain about dealing with the censors, I just have to remind myself that he dealt with the very same censors Timm did. Timm got the show he wanted, so why didn't Semper? Semper's only win against a censor where Bruce Timm failed was in regards to vampirism.

Bruce Timm wanted to do an episode with Nocturna as a vampire, which the censors flat-out refused; Timm would not budge on onscreen blood consumption via a vampiric bite. John Semper Jr. did a very watered down version of Morbius the living Vampire; but one lacking the ability to bite humans, and instead sucked 'plasma' through a set of suckers on his palm. If you have to water down the character that much, could you really call it a win?

https://comicsverse.com/take-off-those-nostalgia-glasses-for-90s-marvel-animation/

I'd understand the Spider-Man censorship if BTAS, Power Rangers and X-Men were all toned down too, but the fact that those other shows remained intense throughout their runs is rather unfair. The excuse of BTAS's animation style being less realistic than Spider-Man shouldn't really be a cause for exemption.

But I suppose censorship is less about having a consistent set of standards across the board, and more about the challenge in circumventing restrictions. BTAS was lucky it had people like Timm being capable of doing that, it seems.

[thecolorsblend]

In retrospect, it has become more widely known that Fox was a pretty restrictive network. There's an interview with the BTAS team in Wizard #72 where either Dini or Timm compares Fox's censoring to Kids WB's censoring. Unfortunately, I can't find the actual quotes anywhere. But the interview is definitely in that issue. And the gist of it goes that Fox might have two pages of notes on what to censor whereas Kids WB might have only had half a paragraph on what to censor.

The Fox show seems more widely loved than the Kids WB show, however. So, hmm.

[The Laughing Fish]

In retrospect, it has become more widely known that Fox was a pretty restrictive network. There's an interview with the BTAS team in Wizard #72 where either Dini or Timm compares Fox's censoring to Kids WB's censoring. Unfortunately, I can't find the actual quotes anywhere. But the interview is definitely in that issue. And the gist of it goes that Fox might have two pages of notes on what to censor whereas Kids WB might have only had half a paragraph on what to censor.

I found the quote, thanks to this tweet: https://twitter.com/MattieWashburn/status/1159976956865073152

The Fox show seems more widely loved than the Kids WB show, however. So, hmm.

TNBA is solid, but I always go back to watching BTAS. It's DCAU Batman at its peak, from the writing to the voice acting (particularly in Conroy's case) and animation too. If Fox's tough restrictions challenged the showrunners to become more creative then I'm very grateful for them.

[thecolorsblend]

THANK YOU!

[Dagenspear]

Yeah, that is definitely weird, and wrong.

Why?

[The Laughing Fish]

I found another interview, this time it's with Michael Reaves.

https://dcanimated.com/WF/batman/btas/backstage/interviews/reaves.php

Here are the highlights that caught my attention.

On Mystery of the Batwoman:

Concerning your work on the DC Animated Universe, let's work our way backwards a little bit. Your last listed work for the DCAU was the DTV film Batman: Mystery of the Batwoman. How did that project come about? Did you pitch the concept initially? And were you pleased with the outcome?

How it came about was simple - WBA decided to do one last DTV about Batman. They gave it to Alan Burnett, who was my producer on TAS, and he hired me to write it. He had to fight for me a little, since WBA's (perfectly sensible) attitude was, Why hire an outside writer when we have writers on staff? But Alan went to bat (so to speak) for me, and you know the rest.

Reaction from Batman: Mystery of the Batwoman was a bit mixed. Some fans really loved it, particularly the introduction of Batwoman, while others were hoping for a little bit more substance for the last Batman: TAS DTV. How do you respond to that? Do you think the fans are being ungrateful or . . . well . . . just fans?

Everyone's entitled to an opinion. It was a conscious decision to lighten this one up a bit; we felt that, over the years, we'd put Bats through a fair bit of angst and suffering, and since this would be our farewell to the TAS universe, why not let him get the girl for once?

It seems to me Reaves shared Burnett's perspective over Batman needing to embrace his sex life sometimes, as far as the happy ending with Bruce and Kathy Duquense was concerned. I have no problem with that. But I could've done without the idea that Bruce and Barbara Gordon once hooked up.

On having more creative freedom in Mask of the Phantasm:

DC has really dug deep into the DTV format, as well as the feature length live-action movie genre. What type of freedoms, or even censorship, do you come across when writing for this genre? Basically, how does writing for a feature length movie differ from writing a standard length episode?

Obviously, a movie is much more complex in terms of story, and much more lenient in the matter of censorship. I remember in B:MOTP, we, the storyboard guys, went a little nuts in the opening fight with broken glass, something we were never allowed to show in the series.

Very true. Batman bleeding and Phantasm discovering the dead body of Sal Valestra would never have been allowed on TV. I don't even think Joker getting his tooth knocked out would've escaped censorship either.

On the episode The Terrible Trio:

And, right now, my apologies in advance for bringing this up, but you also wrote the episode "The Terrible Trio." How did that episode come about and were you disappointed when the reactions came back as so negative toward it? How do you compare this episode, one of the least popular of the series, to one of your highly acclaimed work (like "Avatar" for example)?

I guess the law of averages says you have to come up with a stinker every once in awhile. I've written over 400 TV scripts, the vast majority for animation, and of those I'd say that I'm very proud of maybe 50, cringe in shame on seeing maybe 20, and the rest are just ... there. A script is a blueprint, a schematic - not the finished product. There are so many variables over which you have no control. You sweat blood writing something really great and then, depending on which production house is up next in rotation, see it shipped to either TMS and be animated brilliantly, or to Akom and be animated ... not so brilliantly. It's the luck of the draw. Regarding 'The Terrible Trio', I don't remember that much about it - it was just one of many on my schedule. You try to make every one of them as good as you can, but ultimately airdates must be met.

It might not be the greatest BTAS episode ever, but the most distinctive memory I've had of TTT is when the trio is captured and sent to jail. Aside from one of the Trio members getting intimidated while his big cellmate stares him down, nothing happens in this scene. Yet it's the ugliness of jail and the creepy, suspenseful music makes the scene unsettling, and it reminds me of all the horrors that go on behind prison walls. It's probably one of the most unsettling episode endings in the entire show, because the music and mood evokes the harsh realities of prison life, just merely implying. That alone deserves praise, in my opinion.

On adapting comic book stories for BTAS and his proudest work on BTAS:

During your time, you've also adapted some comic-book stories into episodes ("A Bullet for Bullock"). What's the process of adapting a comic book story onto the small screen? Is it relatively simple, or harder than it looks? Why?

Generally it's harder, because unless you're adapting multiple issues you tend to run out of material before the first act is finished. Since there are usually three acts to the show, this presents a problem.

Finally, to wrap up this segment of the Q & A, looking back on your time at BTAS, what work are you most proud of? What will you always take from working on this series?

I think I'm happiest with the quality of the work I did - especially an episode called "I Am the Night" - and grateful for the opportunity to stretch.

There's definitely a lot to be proud of in I Am The Night. Great episode.

[The Laughing Fish]

I found this interview with former casting and voice director Andrea Romano, I'll post some excerpts here.

On helping Michael Ansara in shaping his Mr. Freeze voice in Heart of Ice:

What was it like as a casting director and voice director when you could take a B, C, or D-list character from the comics and transform them into a big-time player, a prime example being Michael Ansara as Mr. Freeze?

Those decisions, as to which characters would be animated and brought to the front, were done before I became a part of the process. I treated all of the characters as if they were all major characters, as if they were just as regular a cast member as Batman or Robin or Joker. They all got treated equally as far as who I was going to cast and getting the best performance from the actor for the role.

Michael Ansara is an excellent example. I loved his work. Again, it's kind of a dream for me. There's a publication called The Players Directory that's like a big yearbook. It was a major directory of talent, and it would have a little photograph of the talent and their contact information. Say I was casting a villain, I'd page through it and see photographs of people that would remind me what their voice sounded like. I would go through the book and go through my lists of people who've been submitted and people I wanted to see, and there's Michael Ansara. I thought, "Ooh, he would be a really cool Mr. Freeze." He's got a quality to his voice, a placement to it that's really interesting. He came in and was cast, and I thought he did a terrific job. As we finished it, as we were getting towards the end of the recording session. We'd record a 22-minute episode in about 2 1/2 hours, but the Screen Actors Guild allows me four hours. At the 2 hour 15 minutes mark, Bruce Timm comes over and taps me on the shoulder to say, "The voice of Mr. Freeze isn't working." I said, "Okay, let's keep Michael after, we'll work with him on this. I know he's the right guy for the role."

Everybody else was released, Michael stayed after, and Bruce and Michael and I sat down together and talked about what we wanted Mr. Freeze to sound like. Ultimately what came through, what Bruce expressed, was that without deliberately creating the monotone, he wanted the frozen heart aspect of this character to come through vocally. So we played with Michael on several different options for the voice. Sometimes it came out kind of monotone and wasn't right, but we just gave him a bit of time as an actor to process that information and to think it through. And then, he found this wonderful place which is what you hear now as Mr. Freeze. It is cold, it does have a detached sense to it, but how I think that works so beautifully is when you then do let him get emotional, when he talks about what happened to his wife. When he acts in Heart of Ice, it's so touching, it's so moving because this was once a man with very deep feelings and he had to get rid of those feelings in order to continue to exist – and then it became about vengeance. It was a very intricate process that 100% in my viewpoint paid off and just absolutely was the right thing to do. Michael was the right actor. Taking the extra time to find the voice for him was the right thing to do, and it was Bruce being articulate enough to describe what he was looking for. Without his [Bruce Timm's] input I was actually happy with what we were getting, but I didn't realise Bruce wanted to go one step farther and make this just a bit of a colder performance. Not that the actor didn't engage, because he was incredibly engaged, it's just we needed this to sound like a man who was once passionate but he had had that stolen from him. There needed to be a bit of resentment come through in the voice, there literally had to be a coldness in the voice, and I think he achieved that beautifully.

I never knew it took a lot of effort in creating the Mr. Freeze voice, but Timm had a certain criteria. It paid off quite well.

On working with Adam West in the episode Beware the Grey Ghost:

On the topic of Adam West, one of the greatest episodes of BTAS is Beware the Gray Ghost in which Adam played the Gray Ghost. I take it that his casting was a process you were involved in?

Heck, yeah! Number one, that was an excellent cartoon – I absolutely adore that episode – and I knew Adam West was absolutely the guy. I had known him from Hanna-Barbera; I had worked with him there. I reached out to him and sent a message specifically to him through his agent saying, "Here's this remarkable Batman script. Here's this wonderful character called the Gray Ghost. Please present it to Adam and let him know that I absolutely think this is such a wonderful opportunity for him to be able to sink his chops in to some real acting and let the world know what a good actor he is. But I want him to know that we are not making fun of his career by asking him to play a has-been actor, because none of us think of him as a has-been actor." He sent back a message saying, "I love this role, I love that you thought of me. I'll be there." It was a wonderful mix of everyone agreeing he was the right guy, him himself thinking it was a good role, and the fans went nuts for it. Absolutely nuts for it. It's a great cartoon episode on many levels; it's a wonderful story, it's wonderfully cast. It was also the first time Bruce Timm ever acted as himself and drew himself into the cartoon. And the truth of it is that Bruce Timm became a pretty good actor. It was a very special cartoon, I love it, it's one of my very favourite episodes.

As great as it was hearing West's voice in the role, I must say that Bruce Timm as the toymaker villain and cartoon resemblance was a hilarious highlight. It's a great episode, from the choice of actors to the beautiful way the dark alleyways, skies and city landscape is lit up by the fire.







On which actor she regretted not getting the chance to work with:

One of the most popular episodes of BTAS is 'Almost Got 'Im'. With that in mind, then, throughout your involvement on so many Batman projects over the years, was there ever a particular 'one that got away' when it came to a piece of casting?

I always wanted to work with Christopher Lee. I was very sad that I never got to work with him. I kept a wish list of people that I wanted to work with, and I got through most of them – which was glorious – but Christopher Lee was the fish that got away. It wasn't that he didn't want to come and play, it was that we never could make the schedule line up. However, who I wanted him for initially was Ra's al Ghul. He would've been awesome, but we did get the brilliant David Warner instead, who I thought was an excellent Ra's al Ghul. I loved working with David, and I was very sad when he decided to move back to England as it's very hard to record with that many hours' time difference on a regular basis. David did many series with me, he did Freakazoid! and a bunch of other shows. He's just a wonderful actor. So even though I didn't get Christopher Lee, I did get the awfully good David Warner.

https://www.starburstmagazine.com/features/andrea-romano-batman-complete-animated-series