New Adventures of Batman, The
 Rufus  rates it:    Community rates it:
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The Dark Knight is a superhero that everyone has heard of. Batman is one depressed SOB, with reason of course. Now if you are a fan of Batman then I am sure you remember the corny ass Adam West and Burt Ward show from the sixties. While being a part of history, the show was never my cup of tea. Frankly I found it grating and too cheesy.
There are really two types of Batman fans. There are those that like their Dark Knight campy and feel good, while other like their Dark Knight...well.....dark. I mention this because this will be the make or break of if you will enjoy the New Adventures of Batman.

This Batman is not your Frank Miller Dark Knight. In fact, this Batman and Robin are not dark at all. This is an extension of the sixties live action show, even including the voices of West and Ward, with one extra addition to make it even more lighthearted. I'll get to that in a moment.

Batman in this cartoon series doesn't have all those wonderful toys and gadgets. Here he has a sort of universal remote that does all kinds of nifty things. Need a wall built? Batman will shine his do-dad at it. Need ice melted? Do-dad. Very wrong Bat-fans. Robin on the other hand comes equipped with those wonderfully hilarious "Holy (fill in the blank) Batman" quips that were so well loved from the sixties show. (Note to self: Sarcasm does not come across well in text). Going downhill fast folks.

Filmation is a company, that while brilliant creators of cartoons, always seemed to want to put in the lovable comic relief character. Remember He-man had that annoying Orko? That was our friends at Filmation. Now who could they have for Batman? Oh, sure! How bout' Batmite? Batmite is a little alien thing that gets our dynamic duo into all sorts of mischief and screws up Batman and Robin at every turn. Of course our heroes can't really say anything because he is so gosh darn cute and only trying to help.

Sorry, but this one was too campy for me. Like the New Adventures of Superman, this collection comes equipped with a short featurette about the creation of the show. What is so hilarious about this featurette is even the people being interviewed don't sound like they really liked the show and try to defend that it is what it is. One thing to remember is the Batman comics were becoming darker and darker at the time, so this was a polar opposite of what kids were reading. My thoughts are this show got whooped on when released and frankly has been a stain on the Batman since. I can see why.

The disk comes equipped with all 16 episodes, the featurette that I mentioned and commentary. It's packaged nicely, but again, if you enjoy Batman comics, the movies from the 80s and 90s and the later animated shows then this will not really work for you. If you absolutely loved the live action "Pow" show and thought the only thing missing was if it was animated or an absolute Batman collector then this is might interest you. For me, I like my Batman sans Percocet and wallowing in self pity.

Added:  Thursday, June 28, 2007

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