10 Mind-Blowing Facts You Didn't Know About Batman: The Animated Series
6. The Series' Font Was Used On Murray Franklin's Show In Joker (2019)
Warner Bros.
Even though Joker (2019) takes most of its inspiration from the works of Martin Scorsese, it did find time to pay homage to Batman: The Animated Series in one very specific way.
Robert DeNiro's Murray Franklin is a central figure in Joker, and a partial catalyst for Arthur Fleck's descent into madness. Arthur idolises Murray, whose show, Live with Murray Franklin, dominates the airwaves every weekend - just like BTAS did every Saturday morning except, y'know, infinitely less cheerily.
Anyway, those who payed close attention to Murray's scenes will have noticed that the show borrowed the exact same font used in Batman: The Animated Series, called Plaza. It's instantly recognisable as BTAS' lettering, so it's highly unlikely this was anything but a deliberate nod to the show.
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.
