Guys, I’m just so conflicted here. Like, painfully so.
On the one hand, we have two 60 year old men getting excited about watching nearly 30 year old Batman cartoons. The overpowering flavor of nerds, soaking into the lumpy bland tofu of these soy cubes, nauseating me. It’s getting really old. The entire Westview landscape is nothing but men waxing eloquent about Batarangs. Everyone male is consumed by geeky interests. There is no escape.
On the other hand, I, a nominal adult closer to middle age than adolescence, love cartoons. I own more DVD’s of cartoons than I own pairs of shoes. I watch more cartoons than any other genre of television. So this entire strip feels like some kind of personal attack.
It doesn’t help that Batman: The Animated Series is not only an amazing, critically acclaimed cartoon that no adult should be ashamed to watch, but is also a cartoon that I remember watching as a small Harriet. I actually watched it as it was airing. A beautiful cartoon. A cartoon that deeply, deeply, wonderfully traumatized me.
There I was, a poor little girl, not even seven, sitting on the couch on Saturday Morning, watching the silhouette of a man held down and begging for mercy as he’s drowned with toxic chemicals.
An innocent girl, manipulated by her invisible and increasingly more unhinged father who loves her possessively and dangerously.
A mentally fragile man sobbing uncontrollably after the violent ‘death’ of the creepy puppet that was actually a manifestation of his dissociative identity disorder.
What I’m saying is, this show gave me some of the formative psychological horror experiences of my young mind, and if anyone wants to sit and rewatch it with me, well, I thought you’d never ask.
(Also, Batman TAS was produced as TWO seasons. the first was 65 episodes long to reach syndication length. They then made an additional 20. It was released on DVD in four volumes. So, you know; suck it Tom.)
