Was There Ever Meant To Be Continuity In Batman: The Animated Series? Producer Bruce Timm Gives Us The Answer

One of the most iconic animated television series of the 90’s is without a doubt Batman: The Animated Series. If you were lucky enough to grow up watching this series or if you caught the collections via DVD’s or a streaming service you probably have a few favorite episodes. Some of my personal favorites are Almost Got ‘Im, Joker’s Favor, Heart of Ice, Trial and If You’re So Smart, Why Aren’t You Rich?

Something interesting about most episodes of Batman: The Animated Series, is that they each seem to be able to be viewed individually without having any previous knowledge of any other episode. This was something that was confirmed during a round table interview with Bruce Timm, producer of the animated series that LRMOnline had the opportunity to attend.

Timm stated that, “actually every episode was a standalone, the only ones that were connected were episodes that had a recurring villain. And even then, a lot of those were standalone, a lot of those didn’t like, directly connect. The only ones I can think of that really did were like the Mr. Freeze ones it was those definitely had a progression. Any Joker show you can watch them without any relation to any other Joker show.”

Granted there are some two part episodes like Robin’s Reckoning, Feat of Clay and Two-Face that go together, but for the most part if you look back, each episode can be enjoyed on it’s own with a contained story. Timm then talked about when it was that they had decided to look back and put it all together.

“It wasn’t until like we did Justice League that we went okay, we can kind of knit all of this stuff together, even bringing in Zeta as the practice robot that used to beat the crap out of. That was really more as a way of like expanding the scope of Justice League, and looking backward and saying what can we take from all these old shows and kind of tie them into one big saga”, said Timm.

The writers for Batman: The Animated series did a fantastic job at creating each episode so that anyone could enjoy them. This is probably one of the reasons why this series has had such success, since you can just pick it up at any point without having so many questions about prior episodes and also not have to watch a number of episodes to get a complete story. Continuity is great, but nothing beats a good story.

What are some of your favorite episodes? Let us know in the comment section below!

Batman: The Animated Series can be streamed now on DC Universe’s streaming service.

RELATED: KEVIN CONROY ON WHY BATMAN: THE ANIMATED SERIES ENDED

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