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Backstage - Interviews - James Tucker
The World’s Finest recently caught up with James
Tucker, Producer and Lead Character Designer for
Batman: The Brave and The Bold, to look back at
the first year of the fan-favorite series and to peak
ahead at what’s coming up. In this exclusive interview,
Tucker discusses the highs and lows of Batman: The
Brave and The Bold’s first season, his favorite
moments, and just what inspired him to produce the
latest animated interpretation of the Caped Crusader.
 Considering
the entire first season, has the show stayed true to how
you originally envisioned it? Has it fallen back or
succeeded your expectations?
Working on
this show has been a true labor of love for me. As I’ve
said many times, I wanted to do the version of Batman I
thought I was watching when I was a kid transfixed by
the Adam West show and Filmation cartoons. I also wanted
to tap into all of Batman’s vast comic book and
television incarnations. So with that as my goal going
in, I feel that I made the show I set out to. Of course
not all episodes are golden and not every Batman fan is
going to like this version. I’m gratified by the
generally warm reception the show’s received.
To me, personally, watching this show is like
remembering the Batman from my youth. Not the Adam West
version in particular, but just how cool Batman was with
his gadgets and super-hero buddies. What were your
inspirations for this tone, and how do you perceive the
show itself? If you could use one word to describe the
first season of Batman: The Brave and The Bold,
what would it be?
My main inspirations for the
show, besides the ’66 show and cartoons, were the 100
Page Spectacular issues of Batman comics that were being
published as I was getting into reading comics as a kid.
In those comics you would get a new story featuring the
current version of Batman which at the time would have
been written by Denny O’ Neil or Len Wein and drawn by
Irv Novick and inked by Dick Giordano. Those would be
gritty and edgy (though no where near the way the books
are now) and the rest of the book would be re-prints of
Batman stories from the 30’s, 40’s, 50’s and 60’s. So
all these versions of Batman became all one version to
me. I liked them all and I wanted this show to
incorporate all those diverse aspects into the
character. As a comic book fan, I kind of consider this
show the Earth-2 flip side to the Batman: The Animated
Series. What word I would use to describe the show?
“Outrageous!”, but of course.
Were you
ever worried that the first season might become too
bright or light for casual viewers to follow, especially
in the light of "The Dark Knight" and the animated DTV
efforts? What did you do to make sure each episode was
attractive to both the casual viewer and the regular
one?
When I sat with Michael Jelenic,
the co-producer and story editor, the thing I stressed
was that the stories should have Heart, Humor and
Heroism. Michael is terrific with finding the emotional
core of a story as well as being very good at comedy. I
was the one with all the geeky Batman knowledge to throw
into the mix. Luckily, Michael doesn’t know anything
about comics, so he was game for any fan boyish bit of
business I wanted to put into the stories. I wasn’t
worried about making the show too bright because my
mandate was not to echo what was being done in the
movies and the dtvs. The movies had the dark and gritty
niche covered and the dtvs were designed to cater to the
current tastes of comic book fans. My show was supposed
to be a throw back to a kinder gentler time and have a
broader appeal to kids and their families. I just took
the opportunity to throw in extra bits that older fans
of the characters might remember. I’m always happy to
hear someone say they watched the show with their kid(s)
because I’d like to think this show serves a purpose
comic books used to fulfill by exposing kids to
superhero fantasy, particularly DC’s silver age history,
without making it super dark or too real-world. As far
as making the shows attractive to the casual viewer,
well I tend to think I just took a version of Batman a
lot of people fondly remember but hadn’t seen done well
in a while, and put a new coat of paint on it. The only
thing I wanted was to make sure of was that the show
looked like a million bucks on screen. I was able to do
that with the help of my amazing crew, particularly in
this case, my background painters and color stylists,
helmed by Bill Dunn and Craig Cuqro, respectively, who
are really responsible for giving this show it’s own
distinctive look as far as the superb backgrounds and
excellent color palette.
 What do you
think are the highlights for the first season? Any
favorite moments?
I enjoyed getting the
first episode back from Korea and breathing a sigh of
relief that it looked as good as it did. We broke a lot
of rules design-wise with this show as far as having the
thicker line around the characters and going as bright
as we do with the colors. That was drilled into my head
as being a no-no with all the earlier shows I had worked
on. Probably the highlight of the first season for me
was seeing the Dick Sprang inspired version of Red
Hood/Joker that I used for the show receive such smooth
animation. The two parter, “Deep Cover for Batman/ Game
Over for Owlman” was the high point of the first
(televised)season to me story-wise. My favorite moment
was probably the bat fight in ‘Game Over for Owlman’. It
really nailed the energy of those old batfights on the
Adam West show but took it to a new level. Ben Jones did
a great job with that episode as did Michael Chang with
‘Deep Cover’. Of the first 26 episodes, it’s hard for me
to pick but I’d have to say ‘Mayhem of the Music
Meister’ was probably the most fulfilling because it’s
the one thing that really hadn’t been done to this
extent in all of the DCAU shows I’ve had the privilege
of working on. The standing ovation we received for that
episode at Comic-con was particularly gratifying.
Looking back on the 26 episodes, how would
you rate the first season? A success? Any mistakes
you've learned that you hope to avoid for season two?
Overall, I’m as pleased with the first 26 as I have
any show I’ve worked on. For me personally, it’s
comparable to the first 26 of Justice League Unlimited
as far as hits to miss ratio. I think we could have done
a better job with introducing the Outsiders (though I
love what we did with Wildcat, so it’s not a total loss)
but we’re fixing them in second season. But as a whole,
I can say there isn’t one episode I just totally hate. I
hedge my bets in that regard by having the teasers not
be related to the main story. So if there’s an episode
with a so-so main plot, at least the teaser is
enjoyable.
Any hints for the upcoming
second season? We've already seen a couple of the second
season episodes, but when can we expect to see "Chill of
the Night?" Any further details on that episode and
teasers for any other notables in season two? Will we
see any more two-part adventures?
The
news about “Chill of the Night” was came out right after
it was recorded , so it would never have been ready for
air this soon in the season, but because that was the
first info people heard about second season, they
assumed it was going to air as a season premiere. I’m
just now seeing preview footage from overseas (which
looks amazing by the way), so it won’t be finished until
March 2010 I would say.
As far as hints, yes, there will be a two-parter this
season. We’ll also see more Batman family members and
villains. Fans can look forward to Firestorm’s premiere,
The Doom Patrol, a full Captain Marvel episode, more
Kamandi, and the first ever appearance in animation of
The Metal Men!
The World's Finest would like
to thank James Tucker for participating in this Q & A.
[ Back to Backstage ]
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