Christopher Nolan really did the Batman mythos justice with his vision of Batman films, aka the "Nolanverse". So when Cartoon Network launched a new animated series of Batman, I was less than thrilled at the approach and brushed it off as "kiddy".
The show subsequently aired for 3 seasons before it was cancelled, and I recently checked out a few episodes on YouTube. To my surprise, I was thoroughly entertained.
Any preconceived idea of how Batman "should be" was thrown out the window. Simply put, B:BatB is fun to watch. Sometimes, that's all you can really ask for. It's not the gritty, brooding and realistic Batman; but it's not trying to be. In fact, the show is more of an homage to the entire Batman universe. It's not as silly as Adam West or George Clooney; it deals with dark subject matter at times, but the subtlety really works here.
Easter eggs abound with caricaturistic references to Batman comics all the way back to 1940, as well as iconic reminders of previous films and TV series. In fact, the design of Batman and the Batmobile is similar to Adam West, and the Joker is more like he was in the 1960's cartoon. Sometimes, the show is so witty that I don't see how young children can possibly understand the references; but all good cartoons are like that.
Batman teams up with obscure characters from the DC universe, "showing some love" to lesser known DC characters. I picked up the entire DVD collection, so I'm looking forward to watching every episode.
The moral of the story is not to relegate every lighthearted or fantastical version of Batman to the category of camp. In fact, I think the show pokes fun at that matter itself. Batman is here to stay, and he can exist (and entertain) in all forms.
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