Plot summary: Nightwing is reluctant to believe the animals from his old circus are being used for a string of robberies, creating tension between him and Batman.
Each Saturday and Sunday Matt Waters recaps an episode of the legendary Batman: The Animated Series, building an overall ranking along the way. Plus best performances, the ever-popular Villain Watch and more!
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Notes
Episode Title: ‘Animal Act’
Original Air Date: September 26th, 1998
Directed: Curt Geda (4)
Written: Hilary J. Bader (5)
Bruce Timm feels this is one of the very worst cartoon episodes in the entire DCAU.
Batman and Nightwing recycle their technique of dealing with bears from Batman & Mr. Freeze: Sub-Zero. If it ain’t broke…
The colours of Mad Hatter’s wig and real hair are briefly switched during his reveal. This is also the second time a villain has hidden in plain sight as a clown.
Recap
Nightwing drops in on Batman and Robin during their patrolling, and they spot an enormous man in a trench coat easily climbing a telecoms tower on a nearby rooftop and stealing some kind of circuit board.
Batman attempts to stop him, but gets his butt handed to him in record time. Nightwing and Robin try their hand, and after a brief rooftop chase, it’s revealed the thief is 1) not male, 2) a gorilla named Peaches, and 3) Dick used to perform with her in the circus! What an opener.
Visiting Haly’s Circus, Dick introduces Tim to some of his old colleagues, including Peaches, but they’re warned off by Miranda Kane, an animal trainer Dick knew as a child. She insists the animals are kept safely locked up at all times.
Dick mopes over an old family photo album, until Batman arrives to flatly accuse Miranda of using the animals to perform a string of robberies that correlate with Haly’s tour stops. Tim interrupts their argument with a report of another break-in nearby.
The former Dynamic Duo swing into action, stumbling upon a pair of bears rampaging through an auto-shop! Our heroes split up and engage in separate ursine brawls, with Bruce of course winning his first.
Harvey Bullock drops the bears off at Haly’s, and Miranda leads them back into their cage. Bullock cracks wise and threatens to return in the morning, but gets his comeuppance from a cheeky clown.
Dick goes to Miranda as a friend and tries to find out what really happened, but she triples down on her assertion that she had nothing to do with either incident.
Bruce again lets himself into Dick’s loft apartment and shows him security footage of the bear break-in, showing them entering the freakin’ security code by hand paw!
All is revealed a moment later, as the cheeky clown is revealed to be Mad Hatter, who has turned his mind control tech toward the circus animals. Miranda attempts to get rid of him, but her own enormous python attacks her…
When Batman and Nightwing arrive on the scene she’s trapped in the lion cage. They spring into action using bolo ties, a whip and a wooden chair and manage to get her out of the cage.
Heading into the big top, the trio confront the villain… who immediately seizes control of Miranda and the other circus performers, setting them on the vigilantes. After a big brawl against strongmen, sword throwers, fire breathers and more, Tetch’s top hat gets burned, breaking his hold.
Hatter tries to escape but is taken down by Peaches while Miranda and the boys watch. Bruce and Dick later attend the circus in their civilian clothes, getting a laugh out of Tim being put to work cleaning out animal cages.
Best Performance
It’s arguably been broadly the same thing every time with Roddy McDowall, delivering Caroll tongue-twisters with gusto, but he’s inarguably hypnotic. Fitting! So even with comparatively fewer lines and not much in the way of an engaging narrative compared to his previous appearances, he still steals the show.
Loren Lester has been so much better as Nightwing than Robin, mocking Bruce and flirting with ladies with reckless abandon. This was one of his better outings in both regards. Speaking of ladies, Jane Wiedlin sounded so much like Tara Strong to me I was surprised to learn who voiced Miranda Kane.
Ranking
Every single frosty barb between former mentor and protégé is so juicy. Bruce has criticised some aspect of Dick’s technique in almost every episode they’ve been in together, while Dick continues to deliver cutting remarks about Bruce being a sociopath. It’s great. Their tense standoff after arguing about Miranda’s potential guilt was electric, quite frankly.
But the main focus of the episode was the animal shenanigans, which only had limited mileage. The gorilla made sense, allowing them to use a hat and trench coat for a fake-out, and locking Miranda in the lions’ cage works too. But the bears were a little overmuch for me, and I personally find it uncomfortable watching superheroes fight regular animals. There’s a shocking amount of it in the tie-in comics, and there’s been quite a run of it in the show in recent episodes now too.
Thankfully, they switched over to the human performers for the final showdown, which featured a good amount of variety thanks to the range of different skillsets. Dick stopping throwing axes with a taught whip and lighting reflexes was badass, and the fire-breather acting as Tetch’s undoing was clever.
In the end though, this episode is less than the sum of its parts, as the handful of fun moments didn’t gel together into an overall compelling narrative. Not as awful as Bruce Timm thinks, but not good, either.
- The Laughing Fish
- Mask of the Phantasm
- Over the Edge
- Almost Got ‘im
- Heart of Ice
- Harlequinade
- The Trial
- Riddler’s Reform
- Double Talk
- Shadow of the Bat Part I
- I Am the Night
- Robin’s Reckoning Part I
- Baby-Doll
- Sins of the Father
- Batman & Mr. Freeze: Sub-Zero
- The Man Who Killed Batman
- Perchance to Dream
- Two-Face Part I
- Torch Song
- You Scratch My Back
- Bane
- Batgirl Returns
- A Bullet For Bullock
- Joker’s Favor
- Read My Lips
- Feat of Clay Part II
- The Ultimate Thrill
- Catwalk
- The Demon’s Quest Part II
- Harley and Ivy
- Robin’s Reckoning Part II
- House & Garden
- Beware the Gray Ghost
- Mean Seasons
- Growing Pains
- Holiday Knights
- Second Chance
- Mad as a Hatter
- Heart of Steel Part II
- Appointment In Crime Alley
- Two-Face Part II
- Pretty Poison
- Deep Freeze
- Harley’s Holiday
- Lock-Up
- Shadow of the Bat Part II
- Feat of Clay Part I
- Cold Comfort
- His Silicon Soul
- Off Balance
- Vendetta
- Birds of a Feather
- Joker’s Millions
- Heart of Steel Part I
- Never Fear
- On Leather Wings
- Love is a Croc
- See No Evil
- The Clock King
- It’s Never Too Late
- Make ‘Em Laugh
- Joker’s Wild
- Eternal Youth
- The Cape and Cowl Conspiracy
- The Cat and the Claw Part I
- Zatanna
- Day of the Samurai
- Avatar
- The Demon’s Quest Part I
- The Mechanic
- The Strange Secret of Bruce Wayne
- Terror in the Sky
- P.O.V.
- Christmas with the Joker
- Fear of Victory
- Be a Clown
- The Worry Men
- What is Reality?
- Fire From Olympus
- Animal Act (NEW ENTRY)
- Night of the Ninja
- Mudslide
- The Cat and the Claw Part II
- Nothing to Fear
- The Lion and the Unicorn
- Prophecy of Doom
- Cult of the Cat
- Tyger, Tyger
- Blind as a Bat
- If You’re So Smart, Why Aren’t You Rich?
- Dreams In Darkness
- The Last Laugh
- Cat Scratch Fever
- Moon of the Wolf
- Paging the Crime Doctor
- Time Out of Joint
- Sideshow
- The Under-Dwellers
- The Forgotten
- Showdown
- Critters
- The Terrible Trio
- I’ve Got Batman in My Basement
Villain Watch
Mad Hatter (Roddy McDowall) (fifth appearance)
I’m firmly in the middle when it comes to this re-design. His costume change brings him more in line with traditional depictions of the character, but I don’t really care for the impish makeover of his facial features and much preferred him as a straw-haired goof.
In terms of his deployment here, it’s a huge step up from Worry Men, but still can’t touch his iconic first outings. There’s definitely fertile ground in him finding animals easier to control at a distance than humans, but I’m pretty sure we’ve seen several of his past victims continue to act under his orders from across the city. I did like the touch that Dick didn’t recognise him when he was in his clown attire at the beginning.
So he’s just good enough to maintain his ranking, but some potential continuity errors prevent him from rising. Nice and easy.
- The Joker
- Harley Quinn
- Mr. Freeze
- Poison Ivy
- The Ventriloquist
- Catwoman
- Two-Face
- Bane
- The Riddler
- The Phantasm
- Baby-Doll
- Mad Hatter
- Clayface
- HARDAC (and Randa Duane)
- Ra’s al Ghul
- Calendar Girl
- Roxy Rocket
- Killer Croc
- Firefly
- Penguin
- Scarecrow
- Lock-Up
- Lloyd Ventrix
- Rupert Thorne
- Count Vertigo
- Clock King
- Nivens
- Roland Daggett (and Germs & Bell!)
- Enrique el Gancho
- Josiah Wormwood
- Talia al Ghul
- Sid the Squid
- Queen Thoth Khepera
- Maxie Zeus
- Jimmy ‘Jazzman’ Peake
- Tony Zucco
- Man-Bat
- Rhino, Mugsy and Ratso
- Hugo Strange
- Red Claw
- Arnold Stromwell
- Mad Bomber
- Tygrus
- Kyodai Ken
- Condiment King/Pack Rat/Mighty Mom
- Farmer Brown (and Emmylou!)
- Grant Walker
- Gil Mason
- Nostromos (and Lucas!)
- Cameron Kaiser
- Dr. Dorian (and Garth)
- Mad Dog
- Ubu
- Thomas Blake
- Professor Milo
- Romulus
- Arkady Duvall
- Sewer King
- Boss Biggis
- Montague Kane
- The Terrible Trio
Plugs
Eager for more long-form coverage of Batman? Why not check out my podcast with Mike Thomas, The Tape Crusaders, which reviewed every Batman movie and delved a tiny bit into the animated series.
My other recap column, Marvel Mondays, will have a review of the season finale of Loki this week.
There Will Be Movies continues its journey through the 90s on Wednesday with The Silence of the Lambs.
The Reel World 