Batman The Animated Series Legitimised The Mad Hatter

In this video essay I look at how the writers of Batman the Animated Series took a ridiculous character like The Mad Hatter and made him a relatable menace.

The image of the Mad Hatter at the end of the video was by @Dorinah_draws on twitter. Go check out their stuff!

Chapters:
0:00 Introduction
0:57 Comic Book History
3:48 BTAS' Mad Hatter
7:43 Summary

#btas #batmantheanimatedseries #madhatter

[SerumLake]

Batman fans should also check out the Batman movie novelisation audio book, narrated by Roddy McDowall, the voice of the Mad Hatter:

[Xehanort]

I found it funny that Dr Cates saying "heads could roll if you slip up again" apparently made Jervis decide "I'll make her act like the Queen of Hearts then."

[waltergaming]

Another thing that makes Mad Hatter so unique in this show is that he’s never after revenge. They could’ve easily made the first episode about his revenge on his condescending boss and Alice’s boyfriend. But instead those two characters are small inconveniences that he has to deal with in Jervis’s true plan. We this again in the perchance to dream episode, where instead of killing, torturing, or exposing Batman like any other villain in this show would, he gives him his perfect life. When asked why he says, “I was willing to give you the life you always wanted, just to keep you out of mine!” It just shows that no matter how depraved and evil he becomes, at his core, he’s still just a deluded child that wants to be happy.

[Xehanort]

The Hatter from the Arkham games is a darker version of this one. In Origins when he's trying to get his mind control tech working he tells his brainwashed henchmen "No one ever wanted to hear what Jervis had to say. He might as well have been invisible" suggesting that like the BTAS Hatter he had no friends, He kidnaps young blonde girls, forces them to play along with his fantasy including dressing them as Alice and a creepy tea party and kills them if they don't.

[WillScarlet]

The one Batman villain I feel I truly identify with - not because he's lonely and socially awkward, but also because (like so many of us) he draws from his favorite character to give himself confidence.

[zackarystockdale]

Something I noticed is that the suicide references specifically involve falling to death. This might actually be a subtle (and very morbid) reference to Alice falling into wonderland, which is very fitting for a character who's obsessed with wonderland.

[clashcitywannabe]

It's worth noting that the Hatter's tech was instrumental to Joker's torture of Tim Drake and destruction of the Batfamily in the flashbacks in Batman Beyond: Return Of The Joker. He and Project Cadmus were experimenting with it before that in the Justice League episode Wild Cards.

[PainMonkey]

What makes this even better is in the comics there is an Alice themed villain, speaking exclusively in Carrol quotes, who'd much rather play with the Bat Family than Jervis. Even his own geek fandom rejected him.

[WillScarlet]

'Perchance to Dream' also paraphrases a line from Shakespeare's 'Tempest' - "Stuff dreams are made of" - and Roddy McDowell, the voice of the Hatter, played an excellent Ariel when he was younger in a televised version of The Tempest.
That's what I loved about Roddy McDowell - whether he was doing Shakespeare, historic drama, Planet of the Apes or cartoons, he always seemed to be having the time of his life.

[Marsh]

I love how you kept his line in Trial there. Things to take away is that he blames Batman for his actions, and that he would have killed Alice before just letting her be. It’s a nice reminder that thinking of him as some poor unfortunate victim of circumstance is kind of false. I heard that the BTAS team based him on a postal worker who shot up his office.

[ericjohnson]

Fun fact: If you know the musical themes of the characters, the mystery of "Perchance to Dream" is revealed at the title card.

[NealaBeala]

Hatter always had this weird scary vibe to me, and looking back, i think it's because he's scarily real. As a girl, you see so many stories about men not accepting no for an answer and getting violent, which is pretty much exactly what Hatter does. He's kinda terrifyingly realistic. Like a living horror story for women.

[CMR]

I truly love this video; you did a great job analyzing Jervis Tetch, but I am surprised you did not mention one scene. Jervis talked with his rats alone and admitted that he intelligently knew his feelings for Alice were wrong because she had a boyfriend. It was better to withdraw like a gentleman and turn his heart to other pursuits. He angrily said never and considered using his technology to brainwash her, but then he realized that would reduce her to a soulless shell; he did not know what to do until he heard that Alice had broken up with her boyfriend. This scene says a lot about Jervis and his character. At the time, Jervis knew his obsession was wrong but was unwilling to give it up; at the same time, he was unwilling to force her to be with him, but once he saw an opportunity to be with her, he took it. When Alice accepted marrying her boyfriend, Jervis lost whatever standers he had and brainwashed Alice to be with him reducing her to a soulless shell.

[cheezemonkeyeater]

Another thing I just realized, thinking about Perchance to Dream. It works great to illustrate the difference in approach to life between Batman and Hatter.
Hatter is confused as to why Batman breaks out of the dream machine. It's not just that he's confused about how he got out, he doesn't get *why* Batman would want to. While a fake reality where everything is happy is an acceptable alternative to a real world to Jervis, Batman will not lie to himself just for his own happiness and Jervis cannot wrap his head around that.
I think that this sort of stuff is why BTAS is so much stronger than most cartoons of its time. Most of the episodes are fun and exciting, yes, but they *also* pull double duty as saying a lot about who Batman and his foes are as characters. They aren't just plot devices to be used to excite the audience, they are living, breathing people in a living, breathing world.

[cheezemonkeyeater]

Holy shit, this is somehow the first time I've ever realized the age discrepancy between Jervis and Alice. That makes his first episode so much creepier.

[empatheticrambo]

I really appreciate how your videos on this subject have done so much to explain how this show carefully trimmed down comic canon into the show. Also, you’re right to be creeped out by the villainous and possessive tendency of TAS Tetch...it’s an interesting form of violence that can be impactful to both children and adults

[JohnBradford]

I feel that the best thing that could happen to Mad Hatter's character as a whole is if he branched out and modelled his crimes off of and around children's literature in general. Mother Goose, Grimm's Fairy Tales, etc.

[Sojoboscribe]

What Mcdowell also did was give the hatter class. And, in his absence, that's what a lot of the newer incarnations don't have. Now, most of the time, he's either so disconnected from reality you wonder how he functions from day to day (like the Harley Quinn version) or really, well, sleazy. The McDowell one, no matter what else he was, was a gentlemen, most of the new ones are not.

[TheAzulmagia]

The fact that Mad Hatter had a memory stealing device in the comics just furthers my belief that Jim Carrey played The Mad Hatter in Batman Forever, not The Riddler.

[dappercuttlefish]

It's so weird that the comics responded to the 60s show Hatter by creating a continuity mess. They didn't do that with the Clock King, his TV version just got ignored, so why acknowledge 60s Hatter at all?