Justice League Kids: The DCAU Show That Could Have Replaced Justice League

[efumf]

Bruce what were you guys smoking lol,,Sounds weird but cool at the same time. Whats your thoughts on the new The Batman cartoon,, I sat through a few Ep's but they are so bad I stopped watching so sad couse I love Bats so.

Ask him again in 10 years

This is the most fascinating thread I've ever read. I THANK GOD for Cartoon Network

And the Batman and friends in the distant future idea sounds even worse than Terry on Mars... Turning Batman into a complete Pokemon rip off would be unforgivable! When you say the Mars adventures would be "kid-friendly" what do you mean exactly? I can't imagine how that concept could be any kiddier than the 3 preteens fighting monsters pitch.

It's incredible how much these guys have working against them while they're trying to put out quality entertainment. Having to fight the suits every step of the way

 

[WonderRaver]

It's awesome hearing abotu unused concepts. You guys ever hear of this one? http://members.aol.com/sarahdyer/starriders/wwstar.htm

I really wish that "WW&TSR" had come to pass, if only for some media attention for my favorite heroine and lots of merchandising! The show itself would've been horrible.

Here is another cartoon that was close to being made: http://www.titanstower.com/source/theater/nttanimated.html.

All of those Bat-spinoffs sound really cheesy and odd. I don't know if I could've handled them.

 

[Bird Boy]

anyhow, kenner LOVED the whole pitch, wanted to get started on the toy-line "yesterday!"...

I'm beginning to see where they (Kenner/Hasbro) got the idea for the completely random "Batlink" toy line, complete with light-up figures, a Robin and "Virtual Joker " with "virus-tech lasers and byte mouth." It's not exactly the same as what was pitched, but it certainly shares it's similarities...

-BB

 

[Style]

basically, yeah...

when BB was originally coming to a close, kids wb asked us if we had any ideas on how to do a more "kid-friendly" batman show...alan burnett and hilary bader worked up a (i kid you not) "batman on mars" pitch, which was basically just a continuation of BB...terry moves to a colony on a terraformed mars and has kid-friendly adventures there...i was really relieved when kwb showed no interest in it, as i just HATED the concept....

so glen and i were mulling it over and took it as a challenge: was there a way to give kwb EXACTLY the kind of show they wanted, but still make it something that was freaky enough to be fun in its own right? we thought, "okay, rather than doing something that's just a 'baby-step' away from our previous shows, still tied to our direct continuity, etc, what if we do something that's REALLY whacked, that takes place SO far in the future, it's barely related to what we've done before"....("plausible deniability" played a factor here too)...

"pokemon" was still super-hot at kwb, so we tried to combine elements of it and other "collect 'em all" anime shows ("cardcaptors", "digimon", etc) with traditional batman elements....we brought adam warren in to help develop it with us (he ended up doing most of the art for the pitch, too)...it took place hundreds of years from now, and revolved around the adventures of an all-new batman, robin and batgirl, all in their early teens....there was some kind of nano-disaster that re-wrote reality, re-creating the old bat-villain archetypes as nano-based monsters....the kids had a butler a.i. named "alpha-red" (that one was just so tacky, we HAD to do it) who also powered all their vehicles...kenner had been urging us for years to put a talking vehicle a la "knight rider" in one of our shows (they originally wanted us to put a "jor-el" voice chip in clark kent's sportscar in STAS, so he could converse with clark, brando-style), so the talking "alpha-red/batmobile" was a no-brainer....do i have to go on?

anyhow, kenner LOVED the whole pitch, wanted to get started on the toy-line "yesterday!", but kwb thought it was still too "traditional", it wasn't "out of the box" enough..."batman's still too re-active...does he have to fight crime?" i pointed out that he would be fighting MONSTERS, not criminals.... "what if, instead of three kids who fight monsters, what if the three kids COMPETE about who gets to BE batman?" after a long moment of stunned silence i pointed out that if batman's not protecting the weak from the bad guys, be they monsters or criminals or aliens or what-have-you, then fundamentally, it just isn't "batman" AT ALL.....they allowed that there was probably some truth to that, asked us to give the whole thing some more thought, and invited us to come back and re-pitch it then.....the next day, i called mike lazzo at cn, pitched jl, he said "hell yeah!" and that was the end of BATMANIME...

Whoa... The plot thickens!
As weird as it sounds, Terry/Batman on Mars sounds interesting for a one shot possibility. Ofcourse, if you ever do get the opportunity for another Batman Beyond DTV (as VERY unlikely as it is,) Please don't waste it on the Mars concept...Unless that's Where Dick Grayson is hanging out these days.

The one think I glean of value from Batman Anime is Nanobot Batvillain monsters, so maybe that means a new Version of Joker with the abilities of Amazo!

I don't want you to spend more time answering questions here if it's detracting from your work on JLU or your family life or something, but since Batman anime was set hundreds of years in the future, was there going to be any attempt at all to relate it to the history, and say that Batman was Batman VII or something? (under the idea that Bruce was Batman I and Terry was Batman II.) Or were you just not going to worry about it?

 

[b.t.]

I'm beginning to see where they (Kenner/Hasbro) got the idea for the completely random "Batlink" toy line, complete with light-up figures, a Robin and "Virtual Joker " with "virus-tech lasers and byte mouth." It's not exactly the same as what was pitched, but it certainly shares it's similarities...

actually, i seem to remember the "virtual joker" being in the "BATMAN : ASYLUM" script that boyd kirkland and randy rogel wrote.....but i could be wrong...

 

[Fone Bone]

Kids WB sucks. At first I thought it sounded like a Justice League Kids show from Kids Stuff and I was excited about the idea of maybe seeing Baby Etrigan every week but those concepts are just horrible.

It goes without saying that the current The Batman cartoon is exactly the kind of crappy kiddified cartoon that WB obviously wanted from b.t. in the first place only the producers didn't have the balls to actually make a good cartoon out of it like Batman Beyond.

 

[Toddman]

...It goes without saying that the current The Batman cartoon is exactly the kind of crappy kiddified cartoon that WB obviously wanted from b.t. in the first place only the producers didn't have the balls to actually make a good cartoon out of it like Batman Beyond...

I dunno, I was actually thinking just the opposite.

It seems to me that KidsWB has really changed their tune since Timm and Co. made their BatAnime and JrJLA pitch. Despite the more kid-friendly feel of The Batman, the adventures of a 26 year old Batman w/no teen partners, fighting adult bad guys in a very urban and gritty Gotham City is all a very far cry from a teenaged Batman and the Wonder Twins fighting monsters hundreds of years in the future on Mars or whatever.

....the next day, i called mike lazzo at cn, pitched jl, he said "hell yeah!" and that was the end of BATMANIME...

I've read about Lazzo accepting the idea for JL during a single telephone conversation, but who could have guessed what was going on just BEFORE that phone call ?

....the kids had a butler a.i. named "alpha-red" (that one was just so tacky, we HAD to do it)...

Despite everything else, that may be the single biggest loss to Saturday morning in animated television history.

Toddman

 

[Fone Bone]

I dunno, I was actually thinking just the opposite.

It seems to me that KidsWB has really changed their tune since Timm and Co. made their BatAnime and JrJLA pitch. Despite the more kid-friendly feel of The Batman, the adventures of a 26 year old Batman w/no teen partners, fighting adult bad guys in a very urban and gritty Gotham City is all a very far cry from a teenaged Batman and the Wonder Twins fighting monsters hundereds of years in the future on Mars or whatever.

In concept? Maybe. In execution? Em, no.

Despite everything else, that may be the single biggest loss to Saturday morning in animated television history.

Toddman

Even I can agree with this.

 

[b.t.]

And the Batman and friends in the distant future idea sounds even worse than Terry on Mars... Turning Batman into a complete Pokemon rip off would be unforgivable! When you say the Mars adventures would be "kid-friendly" what do you mean exactly? I can't imagine how that concept could be any kiddier than the 3 preteens fighting monsters pitch.

it wasn't the "kiddie" aspect of BM ON MARS that bugged me....it was that it seemed to me to be just a random change of locale for no very good reason (leave alone the fact that i had serious qualms about mars being completely terraformed just 50 years from now)....it was both too much of a change in the BB paradigm, and also not ENOUGH of one, if that makes any sense...

i couldn't see any appeal in it...if the mars colony architecture were still in the "frontier" stage (think ALIENS' pre-fab shack town), it just sounded drab and depressing....what kind of crime would terry fight there? rousting drunken settlers on saturday night? and if the colony were much more civilised and advanced, what makes it all that different from BBEYOND's neo-gotham? seemed kinda pontless to me...

it felt to me like a general degradation of the BB concept with "desperation" scrawled over it...i would have preferred going the BATMANANIME route, if only because it would have been a whole new fresh start, with barely a tangential connection to the other series...yes, more than likely, it wouldn't have been a very good show...and it CERTAINLY wasn't aimed at our old audience, we knew they'd pretty much reject it out of hand...but remember, we were honestly trying to do a genuinely "kid-friendly" batman show, aimed squarely at the 6-11 year old demo, we were trying (for once) to create a show that didn't skew older....(unlike BBEYOND itself, which was SUPPOSED to be more "kid-friendly", but we knew from the get-go that it wasn't...)

 

[Silly McGooses]

This is all very interesting...but I think it all would've gotten stale quickly. The one abandoned project that I wish DID happen was Batman: Asylum.

 

[Dorko]

I think that the Batmanime concept sounds cool. With the team from "B:TAS" on it, it could of have been pretty good.

 

[efumf]

it wasn't the "kiddie" aspect of BM ON MARS that bugged me....it was that it seemed to me to be just a random change of locale for no very good reason (leave alone the fact that i had serious qualms about mars being completely terraformed just 50 years from now)....it was both too much of a change in the BB paradigm, and also not ENOUGH of one, if that makes any sense...
it felt to me like a general degradation of the BB concept with "desperation" scrawled over it...

Actually, that does make a lot of sense - Jeopardising the integrity of BBeyond (the bloody best animated show of all time) would be just as unforgivable as turning Batman into an 11 year old monster-slayer. Now that you've explained it some more, the Mars concept kinda sounds like the doomed-from-the-start Gargoyles spin-off - Terry would have never been accepted as Bruce's successor by the fandom after that. A more logical step would have been a Batman Beyond JLU, with some teen heroes like Aquagirl to bring in the kids. And maybe they could fight monsters

To be honest, I really can't understand why WB keeps insisting on making Batman skew as young as possible. IMO, it completely wrecks the integrity of the character - why would any mature individual whos only exposure to the character is "The Batman" want to see Batman Begins or read a serious Batman comic book?

If they wanted a young wisecracking "Peter Parker as Batman" show, that's what Nightwing is for. Or do Year One, and do it properly.

But I guess that's the beauty of Batman; he can appeal to so many different people over so many decades. And there are more interpretations of the Dark Knight than there are members of the JLU.

But I still would have led the lynch mob if that Pokebatman show had gone ahead

Thank you for JL. Thank you for JL. Thank you for JL. Thank you for JL. Thank you for JL. Thank you for JL. Thank you for JL.

 

[Doomsday]

That's one messed up story. The best part is the end where CN saves the day and lets the DCAU live with another great show, JL. Kids WB aren't the smartest people, should had just let you do your thing.

 

[efumf]

Pokebats does actually sound like a decent concept for a kids show, I admit (hey, kids nowadays are into some freaky weird stuff) - But there's really no reason to use (and crap on) the Batman franchise.

If anyone was to watch the show out of love for Batman, then they'd without a doubt hate it, so if you're not trying to bring in the Bat-fans with the license, why use it? Just create an all original show that doesn't crap on beloved characters.

And what happens when the young fans of Pokebats grow up and want the comic book/movie Batman to be like he was in the nostalgic cartoon of their childhoods? *shudders* Or even worse, want nothing to do with the character because they remember the cartoon of their youths and forever see Batman as a "kiddie" character? The franchise would die forever Bruce Timm would replace Adam West and Joey Shoe in the Bat-fans hall of shame

*realises this whole post was pointless because this show will never get made, but posts it anyway*

 

[b.t.]

two things to keep in mind:

1) this was a completely different regime at kids wb than the one that's currently in place that we're talking about here....i've had no direct contact at all with this new regime, so i have no opinion one way or the other about them...

2) to be fair, kids wb is in the business of making entertainment for CHILDREN, not teenagers, young adults or grown-ups....i can't fault them at all for trying to do their job...don't anyone take this the wrong way, but all you guys and gals who post here on the internet are NOT their intended audience....the fact that shows like JLU, TITANS and yes, THE BATMAN interest and appeal to you is purely "gravy"...from BTAS onward, i've always tried to make shows that appeal to a broad age-range of viewers, but have always tried to keep in mind that the 6-11 demo is all-important, bottom-line...and i gotta tell you, it's freaking HARD to find that balance between "kid-friendly" and "appeals to all ages"....again, i can't blame kids wb for interpreting that mission their own way...

 

[efumf]

b.t. - your shows are probably the last remaining form of entertainment that truly appeal to all ages (and by your shows, I obviously don't mean Teen Titans or The Batman) - You can sit down with your grandad, your dad and your son and everyone can enjoy the show just as much.

So when you talk about these shows and their intended "demographic", it's pretty clear you're just trying to please the advertisers. Your shows are for the whole family, pure and simple. It takes some amazing writing and direction to do it, but you're probably the last guy in television to pull it off so well.

It's truly an amazing feat and every producer in Hollywood should be envious. Demographics be damned.

 

[Dorko]

I would rather have had b.t.'s batmanime idea than "The Batman". there would have been at least a chance of character repect and development there.Mr. Timm, you mentioned art from that pitch. Any chance any of that could ever be "leaked" to the internet?

 

[FALLEN ELDOR]

I wonder how receptive they would have been to a show about Bat-Mite? It could be a total comedy satirizing the 60's show with a kid who has magic abilities and idolizes the fictional character Batman. Plus the Bat-Mite character easily lends him self to an anime redesign, that super deformed stuff on TT would totally work with Bat-Mite! That's why I actually liked the Larry the Titan episode!

 

[efumf]

^Now there's an idea. Pay tribute to Batman without crapping on him.

But satirizing a satire?

 

[FALLEN ELDOR]

But satirizing a satire?

Exactly! I was totally picturing the batman musical as seen in Batman Beyond!
"a superstitious cowardly lot, they plot and plan but always get caught"