10 Mind-Blowing Facts You Didn't Know About Batman: The Animated Series
7. Kevin Conroy Was The First Actor To Have Batman Disguise His Voice
Warner Bros.
By now it should come as no surprise to learn that BTAS was highly influential - on comics, film, animation and TV. One of its biggest impacts, however, is down to Kevin Conroy's performance as Batman. It was Conroy who was the first to have Bruce Wayne disguise his voice as the Dark Knight, and it's a trend that's stuck ever since.
(Disqualifying Batman & Robin, of course.)
Although Conroy later switched up his technique to showcase the all-encompassing nature of the Bat, to begin with, there was a clear delineation between his voice for Bruce and his night-time alter-ego. That was all Conroy's idea, although fans do have Andrea Romano to thank for recruiting all of the DCAU's acting talent in the first place, and for specifying that Bruce Wayne's voice had to be "sexy" more than anything else.
Now, pretty much every actor who plays Batman decides to switch up their voice when switching between Bruce and the Bat. Another example of BTAS' enduring legacy.
WhatCulture's very own resident movie guy, Ewan has been working in the content creation biz for over 10 years now, having started as a freelance contributor to WhatCulture Gaming all the way back in 2015. After graduating with a First-Class Honours in History from Northumbria University in 2017 (where he won a prize for a totally killer dissertation on the Watergate years), Ewan took on the role of Comics Editor at WhatCulture and quickly developed WhatCulture Comics into one of the biggest superhero-focused channels on YouTube. He followed this with a brief hiatus at Screen Rant in 2021, where he worked across the Gaming and Film sections as a writer and editor, before returning to WhatCulture as a Senior Content Producer / Presenter in 2023. He started his own podcast, We Love Dad Movies, in 2022, and has contributed several written pieces to the Eisner-nominated comics website Shelfdust as well.
In his current role, Ewan incorporates his love of cinema, comic books, and history into written pieces and video essays for WhatCulture's Film & TV channel, as well as WhatCulture Gaming and WhatCulture Horror, with a particular focus on nineties-era Dad Movies, old school Westerns, and Golden Age Hollywood Noir. John Carpenter is his fave, and he thinks Batman Beyond should never have been cancelled. If that's your vibe, you'll probably like his stuff.
