Holy Musical Batman
A musical written and performed in 2012 by Team Starkid. It is an Affectionate Parody of Batman, The DCU, and comic book superheroes in general.
After witnessing the brutal murder of his parents, young born billionaire Bruce Wayne reacts the way any rational person would and dresses up like a giant bat to wage a one-man war on crime. But as it turns out, there is one big downside to being a lone Anti Hero: it's pretty lonely.
Can a young orphaned acrobat named Dick Grayson fill the hole in Batman's heart shaped like his parents getting shot and murdered in an alleyway? And what of Superman, an annoying and all-powerful superhero from Metropolis who is secretly jealous of Batman's popularity?
Can be watched for free here.
- Actor Allusion: Joe Walker once again plays a violent, dark, orphan character who then gets the friend they always wanted and proceeds to have major HoYay with them.
- Adult Child: Batman. Oh, sweet Lord, Batman.
- He and Robin bond over their shared love for juice boxes
- Alfred at one point tells him "You can't stay in your pillow fort forever."
- And let us not forget: "Batman loves the circus."
- Ambiguously Gay: Robin to a certain extent. Lampshaded in 'Superfriends'
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Robin: I wanna be a modern dancer! |
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- Antagonist in Mourning: Batman occasionally muses over how much he misses the Joker.
- Author Filibuster: Most of Batman's pep talk to Superman towards the end is pretty obviously the Langs gushing about how awesome superheroes are and how anyone who thinks that they're unrealistic or corny is a pretentious douschebag. And, much like the Author Filibuster from A Very Potter Sequel about Harry Potter, if you're a fan, it's awesome and heartwarming.
- Big Bad: Sweet Tooth.
- Black Comedy Rape: Robin uses his pipe-weapon-thing to anally penetrate The Penguin.
- Bonding Over Missing Parents: Batman and Robin. Later, Superman and Batman for a shorter amount of time.
- Brick Joke: Superman's rant in the first act about how stupid Batman and his villains are. Every single one of his complaints becomes true.
- Broken Ace: Batman and Superman.
- Butt Monkey: Two-Face. Superman has shades of it.
- Captain Ersatz: Really, the only difference between Sweet Tooth and the Joker is Sweet Tooth's candy theme.
- Likewise, Candy to Harley Quinn, right down to the abusive relationship between her and Sweet Tooth/Joker.
- Chekhov's Gun: Batman's knowledge of Superman's weakness to Kryptonite ends up being how he defeats Superman during their fight. Superman's Shout Out to his movie ends up stopping Sweet Tooth's plans entirely.
- Cluster F Bomb: 'To Be a Man'. Overall, the musical itself drops enough of these to wipe out a small country, especially when compared to other StarKid musicals.
- Coconut Superpowers: In the great StarKid tradition. Batman's jet is represented by a small model that goes over his shoulders, and Superman's flight is achieved either through Jim Povolo carrying him or Brian Holden sticking his arms out and making wooshing noises like a five-year-old.
- Composite Character: Sweet Tooth has elements of the Batman the Animated Series Joker (the purple suit and Candy), The Dark Knight Joker (some of the manic pronunciation, the final scheme and stabbing Chilly Willy) and the Riddler from Batman Forever (the hair, the puns and the rampant mugging).
- Crosscast Role: Commissioner Gordon, Calender Man, Evil King Arthur and The Green Arrow are played by Lauren Lopez. The Riddler is played by Meredith Stepien, and The Flash is played by Jaime Lyn Beatty.
- Curse Cut Short: In "Rogues Are We", there's a line that goes: "I'll weed out any wussy/ I'm a pretty little kitty/ But I ain't no -", only to be interrupted by the rest of the Rogues gallery shouting, "Rogues are we!".
- Department of Redundancy Department: The friendship ship.
- Dropped a Bridge On Him: The Joker is killed offscreen during the show's opening number. Appropriately enough, he falls off a bridge.
- Eagle Land: 'The American Way'. Type 1 AND type 2 - just compare Superman's 'Truth and liberty and justice' idealism to Batman's more cynical 'If money can't fix it then I haven't found it yet', 'Be a born billionaire and have your butler build a jet', and 'Inheritance trust funds, million dollar bills' as the cornerstones of American society.
- Fan Service: Basically Fan Service: The Musical. So many of the Starkid Boys are running around in spandex and underwear.
- Frothy Mugs of Water: Played with. Commissioner Gordon's favorite method of celebration is doing water shots, with actual water.
- Ham to Ham Combat: The entire point of To Be a Man.
- Harmless Villain: Two-Face.
- Hurricane of Puns: Lampshaded, every villain makes puns based on their theme that would make the 60s show proud. Sweet Tooth takes this trope Up to Eleven.
- Robin loves to do this too, and Batman joins in after they team up.
- You could do a drinking game with it. Take a shot when a superhero doesn't make a pun; it'll save your liver than doing it the other way around.
- Idle Rich: Batman says that he's never worked a day in his life.
- I Just Want to Have Friends: Bruce. His eventual friendship with Robin falls into Type A, but Superman and the other Super Friends take more effort to win over and would be more Type B.
- Superman, too, is a Type B in his longing for friendship.
- Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain: Two-Face.
- I Want Song: Dark, Sad, Lonely, Knight: "I want to be somebody's buddy!"
- Large Ham: Most of the cast at some point or another, but sweet Jesus, Sweet Tooth.
- Most of the characters that Lauren Lopez portrays are, even when compared to the general cast, exceptionally hammy.
- Legion of Doom: Batman's entire Rogues Gallery, including the obscure D-listers and a few villains made up for the show, team up under Sweet Tooth's banner to kill Batman once and for all.
- Little Guy Big Buddy: Batman and Robin. There isn't that much of a height difference, but is especially noticeable considering how often Robin is picked up and moved around with relative ease.
- Lonely At the Top: Bruce, despite being absurdly rich and a popular superhero, has no friends.
- Mad Love: Candy toward Sweet Tooth. Appropriate, considering who they're based on.
- Meaningful Echo: "You mess with one of us, you mess with all of us".
- Miniature Senior Citizens: Commissioner Gordon is played by the fairly petite Lauren Lopez.
- My Name Is Not Durwood: There's a Running Gag where people keep mistaking Superman for Captain Marvel. Hilariously enough, the actual Captain Marvel shows up near the end.
- Mythology Gag: Sweet Tooth's plot to place Robin's fate in the hands of Gotham by setting up a Facebook poll is reminiscent of how Jason Todd's death was decided by a call-in poll... only that Robin wasn't so lucky.
- I'm the goddamn Batman!
- Superman being ordered to take down Batman by the U.S. government is taken from The Dark Knight Returns
- Old Shame: Averted. Rather than doing the obvious and having the Joker, Poison Ivy, Scarecrow or some other well-known Batman villain as the Big Bad, the makers of Holy Musical Batman dug up Sweet Tooth, a C-list Batman villain who has had exactly two appearances in official Batman media. First as the villain in an episode of The New Adventures of Batman, where he commits crimes with a candy motif and weaponised sweets: a corny villain, even by the standards of the cartoon he was in. His second appearance was a cameo in Batman: The Brave and the Bold. Understandably, Sweet Tooth never caught on, and with the new, darker age of Batman stories, has been almost completely forgotten and ignored by all. Except this musical, that is.
- One Scene Wonder: Egghead and Calendar Man.
- One Woman Wail: During the reprise of "Rogues Are We".
- Parental Substitute: Alfred to Bruce.
- Paper Thin Disguise: Alfred has two of these, which he affects by simply putting on a hat (and a beard, in the case of O'Malley the Irish butler). He also has an unseen one, considering that he was also Lucius Fox.
- Promoted to Love Interest: Inverted. Catwoman, Vicky Vale, Chase Meridian and Rachel Dawes all show up but none of them have a romance, or even a scene, with Batman. Instead he's busy off having major Ho Yay.
- Pungeon Master: Everyone, but Sweet Tooth especially. Bonus points for props.
- Running Gag: Go ahead, take a drink every time Batman slugs a Meredith Stepien character in the face. You'll be drunk by the end of the show.
- The demos on the soundtrack have a running gag about people playing the saxophone.
- Sadistic Choice: At the show's climax, Sweet Tooth simultaneously delivers one to Batman and the people of Gotham. He sets up a Facebook poll, asking people to vote as to whether he should kill Robin. If they vote no, then he frees Robin, but poisons the Gotham water supply. If they vote yes, Robin dies and Gotham gets to live. If Batman intervenes in any way, he does both. Notably, both Batman and the people of Gotham decide to save Robin. It's not until Superman intervenes that a third option becomes available.
- The Scrappy: Robin is this in-universe, since everyone thinks he ruins Batman's "dark avenger" schtick. Eventually this changes.
- Screams Like a Little Girl: After Superman calls him a "butthead", Batman responds with a scream of rage. A drawn-out, incredibly high-pitched scream of rage that wraps around from being annoying to the most hilarious sound on Earth.
- Serious Business: For Superman, Twitter followers.
- Shout Out: Sweet Jesus, where do you even start? Certainly not on this page, the general Starkid shout out page is over here.
- Sociopathic Hero: Sweet Lord, Batman. He enjoys frightening Gotham's citizens for the fun of it, views everyone as "criminals who just haven't committed any crimes yet", and opts to save Robin and let the entire city die at the end until Robin gives him a What the Hell Hero.
- The Song Before the Storm: "The American Way". Counts also for a Massive Multiplayer Ensemble Number.
- Smoking Is Cool: Superman and Batman fight over a cigarette during "To Be a Man".
- Villain Song: "Rogues Are We".
- Visual Pun: The bat-up dancers in Dark Sad Lonely Knight.
- Water Source Tampering: Sweet Tooth plans to irradiate Gotham's water supply, imploding everyone's heads. As per Rule of Funny, this is announced to everyone in Gotham, yet no one thinks to not just drink the water. It's repeated use in Batman stories is also lampshaded.
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Construction Worker: "That nutjob Sweet Tooth is gonna poison the water supply!" |
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