Batman: The Animated Series/Radar

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Did those two... The censors actually let this through?

Batman the Animated Series tended to use Censor Decoys, and quite a bit ended up getting through (makes you wonder about the stuff that got cut). On top of that, the show got quite a bit of clout in its hey-day and was able to push through a number of visuals and dialogs that would normally throw up a red flag.


  • Harley Quinn slowly emerges from a gigantic pastry, singing a Marilyn Monroe-esque Happy Anniversary song, and invites the Joker to "try some of [her pie".] To top that off, during the song, she kicks the cherry on top at the Joker's chest. Then Joker kicks her out and the hyenas start licking her, while she's on all fours.
    • In the same episode "Beware the Creeper" the Creeper is very, very interested in Harley. After he chases her through Gotham, she says, "You're agile, I'll give you that." His response. "What else are you going to give me?" Complete with suggestive eyebrow wiggling!
    • "That's right, mama. Hurt me. I've been bad."
    • Then at the end, when Batman sedates the Creeper, he collapses right on top of Harley, and his face lands right in her boobs. She is not amused.
  • In Holiday Knights, Harley are complaining about how her and Ivy have to share an old, run-down apartment. With one double bed.
  • In Mad Love, Harley comes out in a skimpy negligee and, while continuing to posture as sexy as possible, eventually jumps onto the table in front of the Joker and asks if he wants to "rev up his Harley". Though this apparently was the censored version! (The sexiness of her posture being the issue.)
    • The line comes straight from the comics, where it's even more obvious what she meant being that a few pages back they not-so-subtly implied that back in school she had sex with teachers to increase her grade. It's censored from the comics where both her posture was more open-legged (as though sitting on a Harley Davidson style bike) and her nightgown more see-through.
  • In one episode involving Harvey Bullock having a murderous stalker after him, Batman and Bullock check out what is explicitly stated to be a crackhouse at a time when explicit drug references were generally a no-no.
    • In the same episode it's heavily implied that Bullock and Summer have had an affair.
  • In the Superman: The Animated Series/Batman crossover episode "World's Finest", when asked by the Batman on where the Joker was, a henchman answered with, "I dunno, making ha-ha with Harley Quinn!"
    • The same crossover has an extended sequence in what is clearly meant to be a strip club, complete with scantily-dressed dancing girls in cages. Seriously.
  • In the episode "The Man Who Killed Batman", Harley poses as a lawyer for Sid the Squid in order to break him out. When Harvey Bullock says that she looks familiar, she replies, "I think I served you a subpoena once. It was a small subpoena."
  • In the episode "Legends of the Dark Knight", a group of kids are relating their stories about Batman, all of which are alternate takes on the Dark Knight. As they walk along a sidewalk, they encounter a long-haired, effeminate boy in a violet shirt standing outside a shoe-maker shop, who is wrapping a mannequin's feather boa around himself. He mentions that his favorite things about Batman are his muscles and tight rubber armor, which he declares to be "Fabulous!" He also claims that the Batmobile can drive up walls. The other kids roundly dismiss his statements as silly, and they keep walking. The scene was a major Take That to Batman Forever and Batman and Robin director Joel Schumacher, who was openly gay and infamous for putting nipples on the bat suit (which he has never heard the end of).
  • The episode "The Ultimate Thrill" features the villain Roxy Rocket, a former stuntwoman who commits crimes for the thrill of the chase. During the final scene, she and Batman are playing chicken on a rocket racing for a canyon wall. All the while, she is gushing over how Batman is the perfect man for giving her so much excitement. As the rocket crashes and they both seem to be plunging to their deaths, she screams out "Yeah! Yeah! Yeah!" in a manner very reminiscent of orgasm. According to Word of God, this is exactly what it was. She makes similar cries through the chase. It doesn't help that her straddling her rocket while facing Batman adds to the image. Seen here.
    • Earlier on Batgirl tells Batman, "now that she's had a taste of you, she's not going to settle for anything less".
    • Also from that episode, Batgirl consults a couple of "sources" who are very clearly prostitutes. Even better is the fact that one of said girls is modeled on Black Canary.
  • Robin's Reckoning features a prostitute as a minor character rescued from her angry pimp by a young Dick. Notably, they tried to hide it by having the pimp yell about how he taught her to "grift".
  • Speaking of prostitutes, check out the company Croc keeps in Love Is a Croc.
    • How about this exchange between Batgirl and Batman, in reference to Baby Doll and Croc teaming up?

Batgirl: What do you suppose they do on a date?

Batman: I don't even want to think about it.

  • On one of the episode commentaries, the creators mentioned that in the original script for "Harley and Ivy", Joker said to Harley and Ivy, "haven't you been busy little beavers"; this actually made it in, but the staff decided they'd gone too far and chose to alter at the last minute.
  • One of the sweetest and funniest things of the whole series was Ivy going over the albums from her recent marriage that she'd arranged (seemingly quite happily)... and half the album was full of shots of Harley in her work clothes.
  • In The Mask of the Phantasm, Joker greets an old crime accomplice by taking him on a monorail ride. After the Joker puts the mafioso in the cart, he warns: "Now hold on to your hat and watch the valuables, it's going to be a bumpy ride. Mheheee!" As he mentions the word "valuables", he slams the cart's safety bar right down there. Ouch.
    • Bruce and Audrea's later Cut Away after kissing followed by Alfred's Eyebrow Reaction and crowned with a Sexy Shirt Switch.
    • Later in the movie, the Joker is seen alone talking to the animatronic housewife at the "House of the Future" Exhibit at the abandoned Gotham World's Fair.

Joker: (to animatronic) "Whaddya say, hun? Feeling the old electricity tonight?"
(The Phantasm's smoke begins clouding the room.)
Joker: "Ain't it always the way? You get in the mood and company shows up..."

What makes it even more so is when Joker talks to the animatron, he's patting its butt below the camera and comes up with a pinch full of flesh-colored robot ass.
  • The Joker's Eulogy for Batman... just before dropping the man that killed him into a vat of acid.
    • The Joker notably calls Sid the Squid a gunsel, a Yiddish word for "effeminate homosexual" that evolved, through false cognates, into a term for a gunman.
  • One episode features Supergirl, who flies around in a miniskirt. The inherent problem with such an act can be viewed in this scene.
    • And in the same episode, Batgirl is riding Supergirl.
  • In "Pretty Poison," the design of Ivy's carnivorous plant resembles a giant vulva. Bruce Timm admitted that at first he had not intended for this, but liked the metaphor and decided to go along with it anyway. Obviously, this was never caught.
  • In the episode "Showdown", Jonah Hex talks with a woman who obviously looks like a madam, and complains about the villain hurting "one of her girls".
  • In "Critters", after Batgirl and Robin take down a genetically modified giant cow:

Robin: That's a lot of bull.

  • After Joker leaves a man he manipulated to die in an explosion, he comes away with this little gem:

"Guess I'll need a new hobby now that old Charlie is... ffft." *mimes mushroom cloud*