This was during my sophomore year at Guilford College and I was back home for Christmas break. I anticipated several indulgent weeks of junk food, TV and movies, Christmas shopping and decorations, plus time with the family. For spending cash and peer socializing, I took some shifts at the Mexican restaurant I initially began working at periodically during high school. I carried a particularly notable reputation as a stellar and fastidious busboy then, if I do say so myself, so I knew I'd be warmly welcomed back. And I had the bolstered confidence of a second year college boy, meaning it was back to high school senior level and I might have been comfortable enough to ask a girl out.
In all honesty, though I'd found some great and weird friends at Guilford, I really missed hanging out with Meri. We might have grown beyond recording our wacky home-made STAR TREK radio shows on cassette tapes, but we still clicked on everything, just as best friends should. Even as I stepped into my 20's and Meri entered high school, our interests remained fairly synced (can't say I had any interest in the TV show "Blossom", however). I try not to take for granted when I'm on the same page with someone, when there's no judgments or ridicule and the same things crack you both up. I can't even begin to count how many times we watched GHOSTBUSTERS, BACK TO THE FUTURE and THE NAKED GUN on VHS and never tired of any of them.
In all honesty, though I'd found some great and weird friends at Guilford, I really missed hanging out with Meri. We might have grown beyond recording our wacky home-made STAR TREK radio shows on cassette tapes, but we still clicked on everything, just as best friends should. Even as I stepped into my 20's and Meri entered high school, our interests remained fairly synced (can't say I had any interest in the TV show "Blossom", however). I try not to take for granted when I'm on the same page with someone, when there's no judgments or ridicule and the same things crack you both up. I can't even begin to count how many times we watched GHOSTBUSTERS, BACK TO THE FUTURE and THE NAKED GUN on VHS and never tired of any of them.
So, I'd heard there was a new animated Batman series airing on Fox that Fall. Meri and I were fans of the two Tim Burton-directed movies, especially the recent sequel from just that past Summer, and planned to catch the premiere episode once I was back home on break. At college, the only program I was committed to watching was STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION, thanks to my roommates tiny television, so this would be a new series for me. On the music front, I was aware that Danny Elfman had provided an adaptation of his movie theme for this, while his conductor and orchestrator, Shirley Walker, composed the episodic scores. Appropriately enough, the introductory episode for us that December was titled "Christmas with the Joker".
Immediately the show had us hooked. We watched and recorded on VHS each episode that aired during that Christmas break, amazed at the quality from the stories to the animation. Meri and I emerged as bigger fans of the Bat than we had been previously. It could be due to the ongoing nature of a weekly series. The characters and that universe more easily become a fixture in your daily life than as a two-hour movie. Plus, there was such variety displayed by the show - moody, heartbreaking, witty and adventurous, you never really knew what experience to expect when you tuned in, but it was always engaging. Thinking back now, I'm glad I shared this series with Meri as it aired.
Two aspects that most impressed me were the music and the voice talents. In terms of the class-act cast, Kevin Conroy, Mark Hamill and
David Warner are the definite Batman, Joker and Ra's al Ghul for me now. The orchestral scores, composed either by Ms. Walker or another of the talented members of her team, were sonorous, dynamic and memorable, always anchored by strong themes for Batman and his Rogues Gallery and colored by styles evoking dramatic music from the Golden Age of film. An alert listener could discern elements of Danny Elfman's active brass writing alongside Bernard Herrmann's low woodwinds, harps and vibraphones and Franz Waxman's broad melodicism. As with STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION, I often revisited specific episodes on tape simply to hear the music, hoping one day some enterprising record label might release it all on disc.
The following Christmas saw the theatrical release of BATMAN: MASK OF THE PHANTASM, a motion picture based on the animated series, from the same cast and crew. Amazingly, it played for maybe one entire week nationwide. Incredibly, Meri and I actually caught it at our quaint local theater in Rocky Mount, of all places. It felt like 1986 and the animated TRANSFORMERS: THE MOVIE all over again. Each time I revisit this movie, I smile at the fact that we saw it together on the big screen. Those are memories I consider pretty special. And to boot, the film is excellent. Up until BATMAN BEGINS in 2005, MASK OF THE PHANTASM topped my list as the best of all the feature films based on the character. And thank goodness there was finally a soundtrack album available that showcased Ms. Walker's music. That disc spun around inside my CD player more often than most.
It wasn't until years later that I finally delved into the Batman comic books. There's such a voluminous amount of over seven decades of his adventures in the printed format that a rookie can't understand where to begin. I soon discovered that the 70's and 80's era was my jam, especially once I learned how stories and characters from these years influenced the animated series. I was impressed at the wealth of material originating in the comic book that found its way into the show, yet not in a fashion that excluded the uninitiated. You didn't need to be schooled in the comics to enjoy the animated series.
When the topic turns to favorite long-running pop culture icons, we all have our individual entry points, akin to jumping onto a lengthy, moving freight train by way of the next open boxcar. Part of us perfectly aligned with a specific presentation of that series or fictional figure. It could be a case of "right time, right place", when our age at that moment allowed the icon to leave its imprint on us, just as initials carved in wet cement. It could be due to the person we were then, whether more shy or more angry, that allowed us to bond with it. Or perhaps a unique feature of the incarnation, maybe an idea or concept, an actor's performance or another artistic flourish, appealed to tastes we already favored. I realize it's heady stuff to determine why we each like what we like, but I tend to ruminate on things of this nature. STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION fits the first category for me, the books of Clive Barker the second and Batman the third. Neither the live-action show from the 60's nor Tim Burton's films converted me into a fervent fan, instead that distinction falls to the special melange of evocative music, colorful casting and bold animation presented in BATMAN: THE ANIMATED SERIES.
Please enjoy a suite of music from the series in the clip below, composed by Shirley Walker, and thanks to La-La Land Records for making this available on CD:
It wasn't until years later that I finally delved into the Batman comic books. There's such a voluminous amount of over seven decades of his adventures in the printed format that a rookie can't understand where to begin. I soon discovered that the 70's and 80's era was my jam, especially once I learned how stories and characters from these years influenced the animated series. I was impressed at the wealth of material originating in the comic book that found its way into the show, yet not in a fashion that excluded the uninitiated. You didn't need to be schooled in the comics to enjoy the animated series.
Please enjoy a suite of music from the series in the clip below, composed by Shirley Walker, and thanks to La-La Land Records for making this available on CD:
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