As Batman: The Animated Series celebrates its 30th anniversary, some fans are revisiting the original test footage, or "sizzle reel," to use the industry term, used to sell the show to the FOX network. Entitled "The Dark Knight's First Night," the short features Batman tangling with a group of well-dressed jewel thieves, along with some cameos by the GCPD, including an early design for Commissioner Gordon. The quality for the test piece is remarkable, capturing the mood the show will soon embody, with fluid character animation that's closer to Disney feature animation than the average episode of the eventual Batman: The Animated Series.
"The Dark Knight's First Night" never aired on TV, but was an extra on the B:TAS season 1 DVD release and has since been archived on YouTube. It's a clear example of the vision producers Bruce Timm and Eric Radomski had from the show's earliest development. The test footage had to be produced quickly and cheaply, meaning the producers didn't have the option of sending the animation to a studio in Japan or Korea. Lightbox Studios in Toronto, known for producing quick jobs for television commercials, was selected for the job. Interestingly, the test footage was not Lightbox Studios' first assignment involving the Caped Crusader, even though Batman hadn't starred in his own animated series in over a decade. What got Lightbox Studios the job was a series of animated commercials for Zellers Department Store that featured Batman and his rogues gallery back in 1988 - commercials most Batman fans have never seen.
The Second Round of Batmania
Founded in 1931, Zellers was a Canadian discount department retail chain that maintained a healthy share of the market in the 1980s, but closed its doors in 2013. The commercials, which (not surprisingly) only aired in Canada, were crafted as anticipation built for Tim Burton's 1989 Batman film, a pop culture phenomenon of the era that likely will not be repeated. Since DC maintained the freedom to license the specific "comic book" incarnation of Batman, the character was merchandized on every product imaginable…in addition to the merchandise specifically created as a film tie-in. The result was Batman everywhere, even on Canadian TV spots for discount retail outlets.
The spots were directed by Lightbox founder Greg Duffell, featuring work from animators like John Celestri and Ty Templeton. (Templeton is a name likely familiar to BTAS fans, as he wrote and drew numerous issues of the Adventures tie-in comics.) John Celestri has written extensively about the animated commercials on his blog, even providing some pencil drawings of the Joker from the ads.
The 2021 documentary Stay 'Tooned! Presents - Batman: The Animated Series has interviews with numerous creators associated with the show's birth, including animator Greg Duffell, who discusses the link between the Zellers commercials and the original BTAS test footage. Produced for $90,000 on a tight deadline, Duffell talks about the difficulty of getting the job done with entirely hand-drawn animation (as digital wasn't a realistic option at the time, although the colors on the piece do appear to be early digital colors instead of hand-painted cels.)
The Law of Toyland
When discussing the commercials with a fan, Celestri offers this insight on the detailed "comic book" style of the ads:
The scenes were laid out to reflect the stylistic ambiance of The Batman comic books, so the manner in which to use the camera setups was already established. However, the forced perspective of actions such as pointing towards camera, etc added an element that gave "pop" to the commercials.
Celestri was also open about the budget and time constraints placed on the animators for the commercials, citing a modest budget of only $100,000. As BTAS co-creator Eric Radomski states in his Stay Tooned interview, the "sizzle reel" was instrumental in building industry buzz for the show:
Batman owes a, y'know, incredible-- debt of gratitude to (Greg Duffell) and his studio because he took it on and he knew what we wanted to do and he had the facility to do it. And everybody was wowed by it.
Animator Kevin Altieri (who went on to direct some iconic episodes, and is even contributing to the new Batman: The Adventures Continue series) emphasizes the test footage's impact within the industry:
From that moment I saw that I was like, "Oh my God...These guys are doing a serious, Fleischer Brothers-style Batman. I HAVE to be on board. I-- I HAVE to be on this show."
Writer Alan Burnett, who brought a more sophisticated take to the stories and helped to shape the show, has also cited the test footage as the piece that convinced him FOX was willing to do a respectful adaptation of Batman.
Some of the YouTube links archiving these commercials have gone dead over the years, but these are still active as of this writing. The first piece features the Joker, terrorizing a family that desires good deals on their everyday items. Next up, Catwoman appears, leering at the customers and still sporting her pre-Year One catsuit. Naturally, the Penguin must appear next, stalking a mom who thinks high prices are fishy. Finally, there's the Riddler, likely considered one of the heavy hitters thanks to Frank Gorshin's iconic performance on the 1966 Batman prime time series with Adam West. Funny to see him terrorizing a family in the toy aisle, as his later incarnation in Batman: The Animated Series would briefly become a successful toy designer.
Just as the 1966 Batman open evoked the feel of a Silver Age Dick Sprang comic, these ads are visual representations of 1980s Batman titles. The mouth animations are clearly exaggerated for comedic effect, but overlooking the campy elements, this strongly resembles a 1980s DC comic. The style of action cartoons of the 1980s was typically to mimic the look of comic books, an aesthetic pushed by Hasbro's G. I. Joe, which was designed specifically to copy the look of a Russ Heath war comic. (And Russ Heath's assistant character designer on that show, Bruce Timm, would later be rebelling against this style when designing Batman: The Animated Series). If a Batman series was launched circa 1988, it likely would've resembled these ads…but it's unlikely the show would've maintained this level of quality.
It's unfortunate these commercials have never been properly archived and presented as a special feature on an official digital release. The style is drastically opposed to what fans associate with Batman: The Animated Series, but these commercials were a piece in bringing the show to life.