The World’s Finest caught up with Batman: The Brave and The Bold Producer James Tucker to discuss the latest episode of the acclaimed animated series, “Four Star Spectacular!” The all-new episode debuts tonight, Friday, November 4th, 2011 at 7:00pm (ET) on Cartoon Network. The episode features an assortment of short stories focusing on different characters from the DC Universe. Continue below for the all-new exclusive Batman: The Brave and The Bold Q & A with Tucker.

The World’s Finest: “Four-Star Spectacular” has a completely unique format for the series. The episode goes for four short stories instead of the standard teaser/main format. Can you elaborate on why you chose this format and how it works for the episode? Was this difficult to do given how different this is from a regular episode? Was this an episode done to just break with the regular format?

James Tucker: When I decided that I wanted to have every episode start with teaser that was unrelated to the rest of the episode, the inspiration came mainly from the old superhero cartoon shows of the late 1960s and 1970s that usually consisted of several short segments featuring different characters in each. For Batman: The Brave and The Bold, I always wanted to do at least one episode that was made up of completely stand-alone segments featuring different heroes. So when we realized this would be our final season, we pushed ahead with the idea. The concept is a difficult one to spring on viewers, but we figured that by now, our fans had come to expect the unexpected.

WF: Director Ben Jones states that this episode went into production without a script, hence the written by credits replaced by storyboards by. How challenging was this for you? How different is it to work on an episode without a script? Did this affect voiceover sessions and the standard animation process for the episode (ie: no voice acting to sync up the mouth movements, etc.)?

JT: For this episode we let storyboard artists board each segment without a script and just tell the story they wanted to tell using the characters they wanted. Ultimately, we needed to go back and create a recording script in order to record the voices and get the final animation done, so Michael Jelenic and Ben Jones had to do some script work. In hindsight, I think I may have underestimated how hard it is to actually board without a script and so there was a lot of work on the back end of the process that we didnt account for. I think all four segments turned out to be a lot of fun. It would have been nice to do more episodes along the lines of “Four Star Spectacular” because I think it is a great way to showcase heroes and ideas that wouldnt normally fit into the format of even our usual episode.

WF: A reoccurring theme for the third seasons seems to be the shortened production schedule. Were you pressed for time with these final 13 episodes? Was this season more challenging to do than the first two?

JT: In animation there never seems to be enough time but I didnt notice any drop in quality because of a shorter schedule. The fact is, both Michael Jelenic and I were being pulled into development on other projects while we were completing our third season. Luckily our crew was a well-oiled machine thanks to Amy McKenna, our line producer, so we managed to make it all happen, even with the shorter season.

WF: Back to the episode, care to fill us in on what exactly inspired “Four-Star Spectacular,” including the choice of guest-stars? Flash, Creature Commandos, Adam Strange even Mazing Man! Why these characters in particular? And Im pretty sure this is the first animated appearance of Mazing Man…

JT: Its called “Four Star Spectacular” after a DC comic book of the same name from the 1970s that featured reprints of four stories with different heroes in each. The story board artists we recruited were Matt Youngberg who chose Adam Strange, Ben Jones chose The Flash, Adam Van Wyk chose Creature Commandoes and Stephen DeStephano chose, appropriately enough, his own character, Mazing Man to bring to animation. I was on the fence about Mazing Man because even among old school fanboys, it was an obscure choice, but in the end, its the segment a lot of folks responded to. I think the character has a lot of heart and humor that could be expanded on in a series. And Creature Commandoes definitely is worthy of a full episode or even a series. We already featured Flash and Adam Strange in their own episodes, but these two were unknowns to even a lot of comicbook fans.

WF: Batman takes a backseat in this episode, with a dramatically reduced role. Do you think that if the show continued, you wouldve toyed with the format of perhaps less Batman and focusing on other DC Heroes? Maybe just plain ol The Brave and The Bold?

JT: To me Batman is pretty synonymous with the The Brave and the Bold brand but probably thats because it was the first Batman comic I ever read, so Im biased even though I know the book existed before Batman was featured in it regularly. I think for general audiences you need either Batman or Superman as an entry point to get them to sample the lesser known characters. We, as comic fans, know the merits of these lesser known characters, but its the general audiences watching that make it possible for the studio to be willing to spend the money to make those kind of shows. I dont foresee a time where you wouldnt need at least one of the big gun characters as a co-host of sorts. Having said that, theres all kinds of ways to structure a story where Batmans in it, but doesnt dominate the story. I think we managed to do that fairly well on Batman: The Brave and the Bold, so I know its possible. Id love to do a Superman team-up show in the same vein ala the DC Presents comic book Superman was featured in, though that would be a tougher problem because Superman doesnt really need to team up with anyone if were basing it strictly on powers.

WF: Do you have a particular favorite short among the four?

JT: For me its a tie between Mazing Man and Creature Commandoes. For the oddball factor alone, the Mazing Man segment was so different, even for our show, that I enjoy it a lot. Doing that type of comedy is an artform and its very different and more difficult than what we do in a superhero themed show, even one that has a good deal of humor like Batman: The Brave and The Bold. Creature Commandoes was just a blast to watch and would have made a great full episode because we had to cut out half the board that Adam Van Wyk turned in. He boarded almost enough for a full episode!

WF: Finally, as always, why should fans tune in to check out this episode tonight?

JT: Its only a few more episodes before the end of the road. Do I have to still tell you how awesome this show is?

The all-new Batman: The Brave and The Bold episode “Four Star Spectacular!” debuts tonight, Friday, November 4th, 2011 at 7:00pm (ET) on Cartoon Network. Continue to the Batman: The Brave and The Bold subsite for further details on this episode.

Batman: The Brave and The Bold airs on Cartoon Network every Friday at 7:00pm (ET), with the next new episode “Mitefall!” airing Friday, November 18th, 2011 at 7:00pm. Expect more coverage on “Mitefall!,” effectively the series finale of Batman: The Brave and The Bold over the coming weeks here at The World’s Finest. Please note Batman: The Brave and The Bold will be pre-empted on Friday, November 11th, 2011 due to the special Green Lantern: The Animated Series programming event, more details of which are available here.

Additionally, an all-new episode of Young Justice also premieres tonight on Cartoon Network. The episode “Failsafe” debuts at 6:30pm (ET), featuring the young team stepping in for the Justice League, before an all-new episode of Batman: The Brave and The Bold.

Stay tuned for further Batman: The Brave and The Bold updates, including exclusive updates, here soon at The World’s Finest.

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