Batman TAS episode 17 talkback: Feat of Clay 1 & 2

[TomServofan]

My second fave episode after Almost got Im! this one has amazing animation by TMS of Akira fame who did great TV animation you know even for disney and WB.

This one is a well written and brilliant 2 part episode that introduces one of my fave Batman villains Clayface! Ron Perlman was superb as i knew him from the 80s Beauty and the Beast TV show and Sleepwalkers as a kid and when i heard him spoke as Matt/Clayface it sounded familiar and i saw the credits and was like "Whoa that was Vincent from the Beauty and the Beast show and the cop from Sleepwalkers" when i taped the episode at age 11.

Who else thought the morphing animation was amazing kind of like Tetsuo's transformation from Akira by the same studio and the creature was like the t-1000?

[TomServofan]

Anyone loves this episode?

[atomicbattery]

Probably the most beautiful animation produced for episodic television ever.
Some BTAS trivia- Bruce Timm has said that they wanted TMS to do the entire series, but the studio chose to do ‘Animaniacs’ (apparently because they wanted to work with Steven Spielberg) over Batman.
TMS did end up doing a handful of episodes because Animaniacs was shipping slow, and only Spectrum came close to their beautiful work.
BTAS ended up having to use several overseas animation houses in order to get the series ready to air for the fall of 1992, which accounts for the widely varying quality of animation in the early episodes.
I’ll often watch an episode with a wonderful story and wince at the weak animation or off-model characters (‘Beware the Gray Ghost’ comes to mind) and imagine how incredible it could have looked if only TMS had chosen Batman over the Animaniacs!

[TomServofan]

Probably the most beautiful animation produced for episodic television ever.
Some BTAS trivia- Bruce Timm has said that they wanted TMS to do the entire series, but the studio chose to do ‘Animaniacs’ (apparently because they wanted to work with Steven Spielberg) over Batman.
TMS did end up doing a handful of episodes because Animaniacs was shipping slow, and only Spectrum came close to their beautiful work.
BTAS ended up having to use several overseas animation houses in order to get the series ready to air for the fall of 1992, which accounts for the widely varying quality of animation in the early episodes.
I’ll often watch an episode with a wonderful story and wince at the weak animation or off-model characters (‘Beware the Gray Ghost’ comes to mind) and imagine how incredible it could have looked if only TMS had chosen Batman over the Animaniacs!

Did you think Ron was perfecting casting?

[atomicbattery]

Did you think Ron was perfecting casting?

Perlman is spectacular!
His anger and desperation!
One could make the argument that the three Clayface stories are the greatest villain set in the series, owing in large part to Perlman’s powerful performances.

Little more trivia- Clayface was supposed to be dead- really dead- at the end of ‘Mudslide’. There was a strict prohibition against the depiction of death on the show. The producers were delighted that they were able to sneak Clayface’s death past Broadcast Standards and Practices.
And thankfully they were able to figure out how to bring him back, because we then got ‘Growing Pains’, a great, tragic episode that was so beautiful it could only have been animated by one studio-
yep, TMS.

[TomServofan]

Perlman is spectacular!
His anger and desperation!
One could make the argument that the three Clayface stories are the greatest villain set in the series, owing in large part to Perlman’s powerful performances.

Little more trivia- Clayface was supposed to be dead- really dead- at the end of ‘Mudslide’. There was a strict prohibition against the depiction of death on the show. The producers were delighted that they were able to sneak Clayface’s death past Broadcast Standards and Practices.
And thankfully they were able to figure out how to bring him back, because we then got ‘Growing Pains’, a great, tragic episode that was so beautiful it could only have been animated by one studio-
yep, TMS.

Growing pains is another one of my fave episodes

[JAG2045]

Clayface is one of my favourite villains and Ron Perlman does a great job (later voicing Orion & Jax-Ur in the DCAU)

One thing I have to admit is that part 1 is nowhere near as good as part 1, animation is pretty standard and Clayface/Hagan barely appears in it! Part 2 however is amazing, featuring some of the greatest animation in the entire series by TMS that makes it leagues ahead of part 1! (In fact the reason Clayface only appears in a few eps was that he was apparently the most expensive character to animate)

Mudslide and Growing Pains are both really great eps to!

[TomServofan]

Clayface is one of my favourite villains and Ron Perlman does a great job (later voicing Orion & Jax-Ur in the DCAU)

One thing I have to admit is that part 1 is nowhere near as good as part 1, animation is pretty standard and Clayface/Hagan barely appears in it! Part 2 however is amazing, featuring some of the greatest animation in the entire series by TMS that makes it leagues ahead of part 1! (In fact the reason Clayface only appears in a few eps was that he was apparently the most expensive character to animate)

Mudslide and Growing Pains are both really great eps to!

Love the clayface episodes! and did you thought TMS did great on the animation in 1 and 2 and did you know the guys who did Akira worked on this?

[JAG2045]

Love the clayface episodes! and did you thought TMS did great on the animation in 1 and 2 and did you know the guys who did Akira worked on this?

On part 2 yes definitely (part 1 was done by AKOM and you can really tell the difference!). I didnt know that though!

Also the episode was written in part by comic book writer Marv Wolfman

[TomServofan]

On part 2 yes definitely (part 1 was done by AKOM and you can really tell the difference!). I didnt know that though!

Also the episode was written in part by comic book writer Marv Wolfman

Did you too thought disfigured Matt looked like Ronald Reagan? i always did since i first saw this episode 26 years ago and thought of Reagan.

[Midnighter]

Sorry but a mod needs to step in here and consolidate these threads. This is quickly turning into spam.