10 Greatest Episodes of Batman: The Animated Series

5. Read My Lips

"You mustn't be afraid to dream a little bigger darling." So said a character in Christopher Nolan's 2010 film Inception. Pity the director couldn't take his own advice. Now that Nolan is finished with Batman and his frustratingly "realistic" take on the character, we must wait until the next incarnation before there's any hope of imagination or humor making its way back into the series. Nolan put himself in such a bind by the route of realism or bust. He forgot that Batman is a character best portrayed in well-rounded terms. Go too light, you get the 60's series starring Adam West, too dark, and you get the Nolan's scary mouth scar version. Burton was able to strike the right balance before Schumacher let things get out of hand. Sadly way Nolan structured his Batman universe only a select number of villains from Batman's gallery of rogues could appear. Basically, villains with more fanciful powers, attributes, or dispositions were left out. Mr. Freeze? Nope. Poison Ivy? I don't think so. Scarface? Never in a million years. It's especially shameful that villains like Scarface are now deemed too unreal by the Nolanites since he was such a great villain in the animated series. In fact, Scarface is one of the better villains to come out of the modern era of DC comics. Sure, the whole idea of an evil, James Cagney-style puppet on a crime spree sounds ridiculous, but it actually works. The villain is technically The Ventriloquist, a meek guy named Arnold Wesker with Dissociative Identity Disorder. Arnold started out as a normal kid born into a mafia family. After witnessing the murder of his mother by a rival family, his psyche took a serious blow. Arnold's childhood hobby of ventriloquism soon became an outlet for his neuroses and fractured personality, manifested in the character of a Cagney-style crime boss puppet named Scarface. I guess you just have to watch the episode to get it. It's not that much of a departure for BTAS. It's a fairly standard plot; Batman vs thugs and crime boss. It just so happens that this time the crime boss in question is a homicidal puppet. It's about as close as you can get to outright black comedy in a children's program.