Brave and the Bold, where even the background artists are comic book geeks

[icon_uk]

and God bless them for that! Another couple of episodes of this most magnificent of shows has aired and has a couple of comic-book geek moments making this worthy of a legality post (Anyone notice how most of my legality posts feature "Brave and the Bold", because I just did!)

First up, "Emperor Joker"

The pre-credit sequence has been long promised! A case from the files of the Bat-Computer



I won't spoil the explanation as to why he's wearing the costumes, but it's not the same as the one in the original comic (Which I don't think has been posted here, may have to do something about that)





And yes, they do shake hands a few second later before the titles roll.

Then we get to the episode. There's even a sort of pre-story sequence, with Batman fighting that most terrible of bad guys... The.. ummm... Ten-Eyed Man!



A visiting Bat-Mite is worried for Batman, after all, he's read Ten-Eye'd Man's entry in "DC Who's Who" and knows that he's ex-Special Forces.






And yes, that is what those pages looked lik in that issue... Seriously, the fourth wall isn't so much broken here as crushed underfoot and tap-danced over... I LOVE IT! :)

Bat-Mite shows Batman his shrine to the greatest hero-villain dynamic in history... The more eagle eyed among you will spot one of the most surprising references even THIS show has ever made....





The Joker's Utility Belt (Batman #73) (I now want this scene to made as a collectible )



The Laughing Fish (detective 475)



And.. "A Death in the Family"... Yup, they went there, Bat-Mite even explains the fan's involvement in the fate of Jason Todd (He doesn't say which way HE voted, but I think we can guess from the way he says it)



I never thought I'd see THAT in "The Brave and the Bold". Note that Batman doesn't react to this, he doesn't confirm it, but he doesn't deny it either.

But he has a spare display left, so Bat-Mite "arranges" for Joker and Batman to face off against each other. I love his gang this time, it's been noted that BTAS Joker had henchmen patterned after the Three Stooges.. on mega-steroids. IIRC Cesaer Romero's Joker had a gang patterned after famous silent film stars... Brave and the Bold combines the concepts (as it so often does)



Mr Hardy Mr Arbuckle



Mr Chaplin



Mr Keaton and Mr Lloyd (LOVE that Harold Lloyd gets some respect, a vastly under-rated comedian of the 1920's, more prolific than Chaplin and perhaps Keaton's only true rival in terms of exquisitely timed physical comedy)

And who's the girl? Well, she's not Mabel Normand, but she IS familiar to the Batverse... Yup, meet Brave and the Bold's Harley Quinn! I don't know if she's going to keep that look if she appears again, but I LOVE IT! A black and white Harley constrasts beautifully with the Joker's colourfulness, and the squeaky voice matches the look beautifully.

Shortly thereafter an attempted good deed by Bat-Mite goes awry and the Joker has cosmic powers... which he uses to upgrade his costime and indule his favourite passtime... devising deaths for Batman, but the difference is that here he can do it again, and again and again... (It's more than a little macabre to be honest, but in a Joker-ish way) 

Oh, and he also conjures up a genuinely terrifying Joker-mite to keep Bat-Mite occupied. after dressing Mite as his court jester (another nice nod)



I won't dwell on the rest of the episode, enjoy it for yourselves when you get the chance, I WILL note that according to the end credits the Joker was supposed to have a song in this episode called "Where's the Fun in That?" Which from the point in the episode when he says the line would presumably have been about how much he enjoys devising and constructing complex, overblown deathtraps.

For legality a couple of covers that featured in the episode



And then there's the Doom Patrol episode, which I will say nothing about as it should be appreciated for what it is, a remarkable and  powerful story about the choices that make one a hero, that is respectful to the source material in the way that Brave and the Bold always somehow manages.

I will showsyou a background from the episode though, just to show how complete the geekitudity of these people is...



Can you spot all the Doom Patrol references here? I won't mention the obvious ones, but it does include;

Shasta the Living Mountain from Morrisons deranged one shot parody of the Doom Patrol and Liefeld style storytelling;  "Doom Force"
Romulus and Remus (Siamese twins, conceptual aerialists who perform their death defying acts whilst seated on the ground) and Baboushka the living Russian Doll are acts in the circus of the Geomancers in Morrisons Doom Patrol 37.

Oh, and this cover IS included in the episode...

Comments

[retro_nouveau]

Wow, that's going way, way back and pushing the limits of the esoteric. Most of it's a golden age learning experience for me. Where's Zebra Batman? :D

BTAS Stooges will always be my first choice for Joker henchmen. I always thought the Marx Brothers would be the next choice, at least before Harold Lloyd anyway. I hope Stan is around there somewhere.

Yay, Harley! But Harley without her red and black is just wrong. Bat-Mite in the red and black is x 10.

One day the BATB complete box set will be released, and I will be there on that day.

[icon_uk]

Zebra Batman hasn't shown up, but Zebra Man has, ironically perhaps, in the first Bat-Mite episode

)

[thokstar]

During the costume montage induced by Batmite in that episode, we get Zebra Batman for a few seconds, with the line "Too confusing".

[brandiweed.livejournal.com]

One thing with the Marxes if that if one of the boys is anything like Groucho he falls into the dangerous trap of possibly out-joking the Joker (which usually gets you let go from the job very painfully).

Also, I don't think Stan Laurel's in there, for reasons mentioned below.

[icon_uk]

I think the Joker might respect the Marx Brothers too much for that.



Even the Joker has his heroes!

[retro_nouveau]

I think Groucho would be fine as another goon in costume, following the rules: (1) Laugh at the right time, (2) stop laughing at the right time, (3) do exactly what the J-Man says, and (4) keep the trap shut. Anyone hanging out with him must be getting the cash up front, and it helps to have nothing to lose.

Now I'm really disappointed. I guess Chaplin and three very obscure other people from the silent era are ok, but I'd love to see a mega-gang with all the greats: 3 Marxes, 3 (Can I have 4? I love Shemp too!) Stooges, Abbott & Costello, and Laurel & Hardy. Even if they're just there to look tough and dogpile on the rabbit. :D

[darklorelei]

Buster Keaton? Obsure? Lol.

[psychopathicus_rex]

Err, as darklorelei has already pointed out, they aren't really all that obscure. Buster Keaton, Fatty Arbuckle and Harold Lloyd were three of the GIANTS of silent comedy - they were big, big stars in their day, and they're still pretty well known today.

[icon_uk]

Don't mean to dogpile here retro old bean, but Arbuckle, Keaton and Lloyd are anything BUT obscure.

Keaton alone has a career of such extraordinary talent and creativity that even Orson Welles considered "The General" to be "the greatest comedy ever made, the greatest Civil War film ever made, and perhaps the greatest film ever made". His timing and direction are made even more awesome by the crudity of the equipment he had to work with, most of his physical comedy was genuinely dangerous, like the famous "collapsing housefront" scene which weighed more than two tons and would have crushed him if he'd been a few inches off.

Lloyd was, in his day, more prolific than Chaplin, perhaps more daring in terms of physical stunts (Which he also performed whilst missing a thumb and forefinger from his right hand), and a little less given to mawkish sentimentality (Which always puts me off Chaplin) though he refused to let his movies be televised whilst he was alive, which led to a lot of people not knowing about him until relatively recently.

And Arbuckle was also, literally and figuratively HUGE in the silents of the 1910's.

[retro_nouveau]

Well, here's another fine mess.

I'll defer to the group, especially since Harold Lloyd appears in more Google results than Groucho Marx. I still say that mistaking the oversized guy in the bowler hat for Ollie was completely understandable.

three stooges About 3,310,000 results
laurel hardy About 2,750,000 results
abbott costello About 1,400,000 results
harold lloyd About 1,100,000 results
groucho marx About 1,000,000 results
buster keaton About 922,000 results
marx brothers About 755,000 results
fatty arbuckle About 117,000 results

(Oops! Sorry about that.)