THE NEW ADVENTURES OF BATMAN: THE COMPLETE COLLECTION
Studio: Warner Bros. Discovery Home Entertainment
Release Date: Blu-ray – June 25, 2024; also available on DVD, Digital and Max
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Description: Holy Flashbacks, Batman! Featuring the voices of Adam West as Batman and Burt Ward as Robin (reprising their roles from the hit live-action TV series), these animated adventures of the Caped Crusader and Boy Wonder originally produced by animation powerhouse Filmation in 1977, are revered by generations of cartoon fans. With heroine Batgirl and zany sidekick Batmite, these brave Bat-heroes match wits with clever criminals like the Joker, the Penguin, Catwoman, Mr. Freeze and the cosmic uber-villain Zarbor!
Special Feature: The Dark Knight Revisited (18:47) – 1977 marked Batman’s return to television in Filmation’s The New Adventures of Batman. With interviews ranging from the President of DC Comics to the President of Warner Bros. Animation, the legacy of Filmation will be examined from animation style to how this core DC character was depicted in this series.
By James Harvey
Nearly 50 years after its debut, The New Adventures of Batman is now available to own on Blu-ray from Warner Bros. Discovery Home Entertainment. Debuting nearly a decade after 1968’s The Adventures of Batman, The New Adventures of Batman landed in 1977, once again courtesy of Filmation studio and acting as a loose sequel series to the previous Bat-cartoon. Outside of some notable changes, New offers up the same simplistic, homogenized story-telling as the original cartoon, and now it’s all available to check out in high-definition!
As with The Adventures of Batman, this series is lighter, brighter, and essentially toothless take on the Caped Crusader and The Boy Wonder, offering up danger-free adventures and plenty of life lessons. Featuring the voices of Adam West as Batman and Burt Ward as Robin, reprising their roles from the live-action Batman TV series, here the dynamic duo face off against some of Batman’s fiendish foes, with a little help from Batgirl along the way! The Dynamic Duo must also contend with Bat-Mite, a well-meaning imp from another dimension who considers itself Batman’s biggest fan, who’s a constant bother to the heroes (which Batman hilariously makes clear over and over)!
The New Adventures of Batman doesn’t stray too far from the Dark Knight’s previous animated adventures despite a handful of changes, including longer run-times, a shorter run of sixteen episodes, and West and Ward stepping in to reprise their roles as the Caped Crusaders. The camp is still there, but there’s a little more silliness (for lack of a better term) in the mix with the inexplicable addition of Bat-Mite to the show’s cast. Thankfully, the show adds a little variety to the crime-fighting crew by bringing in Batgirl for multiple adventures.
In fact, The New Adventures of Batman also occasionally feels like a sequel series to the live-action Batman television series at times. There seems to be frequent homages to the iconic show, such as the polls to the Bat-Cave, the familiar looks to the Bat-vehicles, and even Robin’s assorted “holyisms.” The only thing that’s really missing is Alfred Pennyworth, who’s mysteriously absent here.
Despite the Batman comics at the time steering away from the silly, lighter take on Caped Crusader that was popular during the 1960s and into the early 1970s, this cartoon stayed the course. While there’s no real continuity, this series is really just further installments of The Adventures of Batman, but with a handful of tweaks to spice things up a little bit. It’s unfortunate that one of these tweaks is the inclusion of Bat-Mite, whose portrayal here is barely tolerable. He’s no Scrappy-Doo, but he sure gives that putrid pup a run for his money.
The mischievous little imp ends up causing more problems than he solves, but thankfully the series does occasionally shove him aside to give viewers a break from it’s antics. For what it is, like The Adventures of Batman, The New Adventures of Batman is fine, really, but the show can quickly feel tedious when bingeing batches of episodes. It’s harmless, safe-for-all ages adventures that’s fairly quaint and ho-hum. There’s no real peril or danger here, but instead dastardly plots and fiendish schemes to unravel, so the show can be a little trying to get through unless it’s a nostalgia-driven viewing session.
While a marked improvement over its predecessor, The New Adventure of Batman‘s limited animation is still pretty basic and lifeless. While the show’s characters designs and background work looks nice and clean, the cartoon is still swamped with all the usual issues that plague nearly every Filmation production. Production errors are plentiful (such as the usual inverted logos, etc.), character movements are minimal, there’s a wealth of stock and repeated animation, and so on.
Each episode of The New Adventures of Batman sticks to a pretty basic formula, with the opening minutes setting up the crime of the week before Batman and his co-crime fighters thwart the respective perpetrators. There’s no real character development or anything resembling an arc, nor are there any ongoing subplots. Save for a two-parter toward the end of the show’s run, each episode is fairly self-contained and accessible.
Even so, there are a few episodes that stick out in the crowd. The notable entries include “The Chameleon,” where a shape-shifter aims to take down the Dynamic Duo, “The Deep Freeze” with its wealth of cold-themed puns courtesy of Mr. Freeze, “Dead Ringers” where Batman and Robin are impersonated by Clayface, and “Bat-Sized,” which sees Batman goofily shrunk down and mind-controlled to steal important documents. These episodes don’t really break away from the show’s formula that much, or at all, but they manage to feel a bit more livelier and fun compared to the others (though Dick Grayson’s undercover costume in “A Sweet Joke on Gotham City” is hilariously awful).
An interesting look into the past, The New Adventures of Batman definitely isn’t for everyone, but there is some charm to it. Those new to the series should keep expectations low and recognize this show is from another time and perhaps approach it on more of a novelty level. For those looking to give this show a spin, fan or not, the Warner Bros. Discovery Home Entertainment Blu-ray release is the best viewing experience available.
The The New Adventures of Batman: The Complete Collection Blu-ray features all sixteen episodes, six hours in total, on a single disc. The episodes here include: “The Pest”, “The Moonman”, “Trouble Identity”, “A Sweet Joke On Gotham City”, “The Bermuda Rectangle”, “Bite-Sized”, “Reading, Writing & Wronging”, “The Chameleon”, “He Who Laughs Last”, “The Deep Freeze”, “Dead Ringers”, “Curses! Oiled Again!”, “Birds Of A Feather Fool Around Together”, “Have An Evil Day, Part 1”, “Have An Evil Day, Part 2”, and “This Looks Like A Job For Bat-Mite!”
Unsurprisingly, jamming over six hours of content on one disc does hinder the overall video quality for this Blu-ray a shade. Compression issues are apparent but not frequent enough to be too much of an annoyance. There’s some digital noise scrubbing too, so the picture looks grain-free but also a little soft, though colors are still bright and blacks nice and dark. It could be better. The audio transfer also basically hits the mark thanks to a restored DTS-HD 2.0 Master Audio which offers a crisp and clean mix.
As for bonus content, all that’s included is “The Dark Knight Revisited (18:47 mins),” a standard-definition bonus feature ported over from The New Adventures of Batman‘s 2007 DVD release. Originally listed as “Dark versus Light: Filmation and the Batman,” this featurette includes comments from writer Dennis O’Neil, writer Paul Dini, and actor Mark Hammill, along with Filmation producer (and voice of Bat-Mite and other characters in The New Adventures of Batman ) Lou Scheimer and Filmation artist/historian Michael Swanigan, who all discuss superhero-themed entertainment from this era. The featurette also looks at the challenges of basing a Saturday morning cartoon on Batman and how the live-action series laid the foundation for Filmation’s second swing at Batman.
There’s no other bonus content to be found outside of the above ported-over featurette. No trailers, no slipcase, nothing else of the sort. While it’s clear this set wasn’t given the same attention as some of Warner Bros. Discovery Home Entertainment’s other recent animation releases, at least this one came with an actual special feature unlike 2023’s The Adventures of Batman Blu-ray collection.
Collecting Batman’s second animated series, The New Adventures of Batman: The Complete Collection is a Blu-ray release fans of the classic cartoon should definitely scoop up. While both could be better, the audio and video transfers are decent and give the show its best-ever presentation. Even those looking to try out this show for the first time, as long as they know the type of show they’re getting into, should seek out this collection to get the best possible experience for some of the Batman’s earliest animated adventures! Recommended, but Enter at your own Risk!
The New Adventures of Batman: The Complete Series is available to own on physical and digital media. Please note The World’s Finest purchased its own Blu-ray copy of this release for the purposes of this review. A copy was not provided by Warner Bros. Discovery Home Entertainment.
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