Gotham: 19 Easter Eggs, In-Jokes And References You Totally Missed

16. A Nod To Batman's Roots

The Balloonman, the eponymous vigilante from the episode of the same name, was the absolute nadir of Gotham's first few episodes. In a show that was struggling to finds it feet and was settling on a more serious, less campy tone, introducing a guy who ties weather balloons to crooked cops and criminals so they floated to their deaths as beyond silly. Still, it did facilitate a couple of fun little Easter Eggs for eagle-eyed (and eared) viewers. The pig mask that the Balloonman is first seen wearing looks an awful lot like that worn by Professor Pyg, a disturbing torturer who appeared as a Batman villain fairly recently. Then there's the name of his first victim in the episode: a cop called Officer Cranston. Not a belated shout-out to the Breaking Bad star Bryan, but a reference to The Shadow. He too was a masked vigilante who operated at night and relied on urban legend to make him scary to criminals; but he appeared before Batman, and is largely considered to be the character's main inspiration. And his real name is Lamont Cranston.