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Hamill thought there was no way they'd cast him as the Joker.
Tim Curry was originally hired for the Joker, but was fired after coming down with bronchitis, the actor
said recently. So the hunt was on for someone new. Among those who auditioned? Glover and Hamill.
Nearly a decade had passed since Hamill completed what he thought would be his last film in the
Star Wars franchise. When it came to animation, he really wasn't on anybody's radar. But he had read articles in
Comic Buyer's Guide that
Batman: The Animated Series hoped to emulate the classic 1940s
Superman cartoons of Max Fleischer, a Hamill favorite.
"I called my agent and said, 'I really want to get on this, but I'd like to play a villain that's never been done before… Clayface, Hugo Strange, Two Face.' So my agent reached out and they wanted me for an episode," says Hamill, who was cast as Mr. Freeze's boss, Ferris Boyle, in "Heart of Ice," an episode that won a writing Emmy. "I modeled Ferris after Phil Hartman, a guy with a smooth public persona and a different one behind the scenes."
While he didn't have to audition for his first role, he did have to read for the Joker. He was given one note: "Don't think Jack Nicholson."
"I remember going in and they gave me the Nicholson note, which wasn't anything I wanted to do. I wanted to deliver an old school comic book interpretation of the Joker. He's a theatrical guy who really has fun; the joy has to come across in his battle with Batman," says Hamill.
Even though he went all out for the role, he thought his
Star Wars past would doom him, particularly since he'd just seen the rough reaction Michael Keaton received when he was cast in Burton's 1989 film.
"I figured there was no way they'd hire Luke Skywalker as the Joker. So, in a way it was very freeing. I had great confidence at the audition because I thought there was no way I could get it. I thought, 'I'm going to give them the best damn Joker they've ever heard and they're really going to regret not being able to cast me,' " recalls Hamill.
As it turns out, he was wrong. Casting and voice director Andrea Romano later told Hamill it was his laugh that sealed the deal.
"I had been playing Amadeus for almost a year on the road. On those shows, you can't change the words, but I would play around with the laugh. Because of the play, I had an arsenal of laughs for the Joker," he says.
Hamill was surprised to find that he was the biggest Batman fan in the cast
“The fans know that I’m a fan, but a lot of the cast didn’t know much about Batman. Diane Pershing has never read a comic!” Hamill says. “Kevin Conroy has never read a Batman comic in his life," he adds with a big laugh.
John Glover freely admits his lack of exposure. “Growing up, if I were going to read a comic, it would have been
Archie, or
Betty and Veronica. Not
Batman.”
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'Batman Returns' at 25: Stars Reveal Script Cuts, Freezing Sets and Aggressive Penguins
Danny Elfman scored both of Tim Burton's Batman films, as well as the Animated Series' opening titles. And Elfman credits a rumor that he hired ghostwriters with late series composer Shirley Walker landing Batman the Animated Series.
"On
Batman Returns, I wrote the score and Steve Bartek orchestrated all the music. Shirley was hired to be a conductor on the film. In those days, most people thought I didn't write my music," Elfman says. "It took almost 15 years to dispel that rumor, and
Batman was around year four. Almost everyone I met was under the assumption that I hired ghostwriters."
Elfman also composed 1992's
Batman Returns, but he speculates people thought Walker was a ghostwriter on the film.
"That stigma was something I had to live with all the time. Shirley was really talented and I'm glad she got the opportunity to do the series, but I think a lot of people assumed that she had a hand in writing the film score," says Elfman. "The studio came to me to write the theme, and then I was told Shirley was doing the score. I was like, 'Oh, good for her.' You know, people do get jobs by association. … I think her association with [
Batman Returns] as the conductor probably helped."
Walker's score is immediately recognizable, and so important that Conroy calls it "like another character in the show."
"It was so brilliant, and they spent a lot of money on those episodes. They had a full symphony score," says Conroy.
When the show was first starting, the voice cast recorded their tracks several months before knowing what the show would look or sound like.
"I remember Mark and I were at the WB sound studio to do ADR work and we got to watch the opening credits," says Conroy. "We hear the opening theme with the strings and the lush colors. It was incredibly dramatic. And I looked at Mark and said, 'Did you have a clue this is what we were doing?' He said, 'No, I'm blown away!' We both felt we were a part of something really special."
Conroy considers "Perchance to Dream" the series' finest episode.
The series hit a homerun with season one's "Perchance to Dream," in which Bruce Wayne awakens into a world engineered by the Madhatter. Bruce's parents Thomas and Martha never died, and he is engaged to Selina Kyle. It gave Conroy the chance to explore new emotional territory and showed off just how twisted the show's villains could be.
"I got to create Thomas Wayne's voice, which was a really fun challenge in addition to bringing the episode's incredible story to life," says Conroy. "The wonderful thing about playing a character like Bruce Wayne is that you get to explore his damaged psychology. I love the scripts that examine his internal makeup. 'Perchance to Dream,' the movie
Mask of the Phantasm, they really dig into this man and what led him to become Batman."
Glover, meanwhile, would end up playing the Riddler in three memorable episodes, and his favorite of the Edward Nygma trilogy is his origin story: "If You're So Smart, Why Aren't You Rich?"
In the episode, Nygma's boss steals his ideas and kicks him to the curb. Nygma sets out to destroy and ultimately end his boss' life. Although the boss survives the kidnapping with Batman's help, he lives in constant terror that the Riddler will come for him. The show ends with the ex-boss clutching a shotgun and locking six different deadbolts on his bedroom door.
"That ending is something you don't see in cartoons, ever. I loved the psychological destruction of this greedy guy who wronged Nygma and gave birth to the Riddler," says Glover.
For Hamill, he's got a handful of favorites.
"The Joker never gets tiresome because he’s insane, and that makes him unpredictable, which is never boring. I love that he has the emotional maturity of a 9-year-old and he can turn on a dime. I loved 'The Laughing Fish,' which was a story taken out of the comics, 'Joker’s Favor,' and 'The Man Who Killed Batman,' which has the best Joker monologue of all time," says Hamill.
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But perhaps the series' greatest achievement was its 1993 film
Mask of the Phantasm. Directed by Timm and Eric Radomski, it got a theatrical release and centers on Batman's pursuit of a mystery figure who is murdering Gotham's criminals.
"
Mask of the Phantasm is possibly the best Batman movie ever made; it certainly has the best story. We got Mark [Hamill], Kevin [Conroy] and Dana [Delany] together for a 20th anniversary screening a couple years ago," says Michael Uslan, who was instrumental in bringing Batman to the big screen with the 1989 film and has been a producer on the subsequent films.
"We brought it back on the big screen in Santa Monica. It was an amazing thing, the place was packed," says Uslan. "The film just came out on Blu-ray. When that was announced, I got over a million likes on Facebook. That movie will always stand up against time and it's a testament to the quality of the show that Bruce launched in 1992."
If this ain't TAS then what the he'll is TAS?