Of the many outside-comics adaptations of Batman, there is still one that stands above all others. We’re talking, of course, about Batman: The Animated Series, which ran from 1992 to 1999 and set the standard for superhero cartoons going forward. The main creative minds behind B:TAS were Bruce Timm, Paul Dini, and Alan Burnett. In 1990, they created a piece of test animation for the Batman series to present to TV executives. The DVD releases of B:TAS featured a version of this video as a special feature. But the sound was believed to be lost. However, one fan named Frank Cifaldi bought a copy of the test animation on VHS back in 1999, and recently uploaded it online, sound and all. You can watch it in full down below:
The date given for this test footage is October 1990. This was a solid two years before the show hit weekday afternoon airwaves in 1992 on Fox Kids. Even though this is an early concept, it was a solid indicator of how the look of B:TAS would turn out. We’d say the biggest departure is that Batman somehow evades criminals’ bullets with superhuman speed. This is not something he really did in the show. But it sure looks cool here! You can see how this early test footage was the basis for what would become the iconic opening title sequence.
Folks online have speculated that Warner Bros. never really lost this sound version of the footage. They think that since it used Danny Elfman’s score from Tim Burton’s 1989 Batman, Warner Bros. just didn’t want to pay any more royalties. So they left it off the DVD. We may never know. But this test footage is a reminder that while many other Batman adaptations have come and gone since B:TAS, the ’90s series remains the best example of a project that just nails everything great about Gotham City’s iconic Dark Knight.