The transition from comics to Batman: The Animated Series took its toll on Catwoman, but a proposed spin-off series would have changed that.
While beloved and considered the standard in terms of the Dark Knight’s world, there were places in Batman: The Animated Series that could have been improved upon. For example, Executive Producer Bruce Timm has stated in interviews that they could have done better with the Penguin and Robin (Shapiro), and the Riddler—described as a source of “constant frustration” and “our series’ most difficult villain” by Executive Producer Paul Dini—was limited in his appearances, most likely due to the complications inherent in his gimmick (“[t]here are at least half a dozen full or partially completed Riddler stories in our dead script file that proved ultimately too complex or too silly to produce,” according to Dini; qtd. in Dini and Kidd). Also, presumably, Broadcast Standards & Practices no doubt kept some of the villains, particularly the Joker, from getting too violent and murderous (“the censors are very sensitive about death, period”; b.t.), forcing the creative team to water him down a bit compared to his comics incarnation. However, compared to her fellow criminals, the character who had the toughest adaptation into BTAS had to have been Selina Kyle, also known as Catwoman. However, despite corporate interference and weak episodes, the creative team almost made up for it in the form of a sister series independent of Batman.
What the Cat Dragged In
An obvious inclusion in the series, considering her legacy in the Batman mythos (she first appeared in Batman #1 [Spring 1940], the same issue that debuted the Joker), Catwoman’s conversion to animation was marred by the studio’s insistence that she resemble Tim Burton’s version from 1992’s Batman Returns (Miller, “Cartoon”). In a 2005 post on Toon Zone’s (now Anime Superhero’s) message boards, Bruce Timm said, ”I hated having to make Selina a blonde at WB’s ‘request,’ to make her more like Michelle Pheiffer. […] I don’t know why that should be such a big deal, but I could just never wrap my head around Selina being a blonde; it just didn’t work for me.” And, as for her costume, Timm had this to say during an interview in 2004’s Modern Masters, Volume Three: Bruce Timm:
MODERN MASTERS: I’ve seen several different designs for Catwoman.
BRUCE TIMM: The one that got on the screen was pretty much like the one we first went with. We did get a call that the studio wanted the Penguin and Catwoman to look as much like the movie versions as possible. I didn’t really want to do that, but you get the word from on high and you’ve got to do it. […I]n retrospect, I wish we had made Catwoman more like she was in the movie, because I think that black costume is really, really cool. At the time I was kind of put [off] by the all the stitches. I thought it was a morbid way to go with the character, and I didn’t really see the character that way. But the all-black costume—we ultimately did that later on, because we really liked it—but at the time we were just starting Batman, we were still trying to feel our way around in terms of stylizing the characters for animation purposes, and I was terrified of doing a character in all black.
MM: Did the fact that you were painting on black boards for the backgrounds contribute to your concerns over an all-black costume?
TIMM: Maybe, to a degree. We had never done a character who was all black with no shading on him, that was literally a black holding line filled in with solid black—we thought it would look too flat. The other possibility is to make the character predominantly black, but with a highlight on him, like with Batman’s cape and gloves and stuff. On a character like Catwoman, who’s curvy, just trying to shade a character like that and put the highlight in the right place—if it’s not in the right place, it’s going to look really, really weird. I actually tried to do a number of versions of it, and even I was having a hard time pulling it off. I couldn’t really expect our guys in Korea to figure it out on their own. So, basically, I kind of lied to the lot. I didn’t really lie, but I gave them my reasons why I didn’t think we could do it. I put her in that all-gray costume and sent [it] over to them for approval, and they said, “Ah, it’s close enough.”
MM: It was still the full-body suit.
TIMM: It was a full-body suit, but I put gloves on her. Initially, she didn’t have gloves; she was in the David Mazzuchelli Catwoman outfit—gray from head to foot. That was my compromise—we put the black boots and gloves on her and a little bit of black on her mask. (qtd. in Nolen-Weathington)
(In addition to the black mask, boots, and gloves, Timm also added a “Julie Newmar-ish” gold belt, as “Fox Kids was worried she looked too ‘naked’” [qtd .in Nolen-Weathington]).
After her model sheets were approved, then there was the matter of writing her into the series, which in and of itself proved difficult. Initial pitches featured a take on Catwoman that was, frankly, ridiculous and in no way resembling the crime noir world the creative team envisioned. For example, the rejected script “Catmoves, Part 1” featured her utilizing “an army of mercenaries, a cyborg mountain lion, and a huge hovercraft assault vehicle in the shape of a cat’s head” while she apparently believed herself to have lived in ancient Egypt, where she was “literally the cat-goddess Bubastis” (click here to read Bruce Timm’s 2021 account of the script; Timm). Fortunately, her character would come into focus later in development, as recounted by Dini in Batman: Animated:
Rich, glamorous, and stunningly beautiful is how Gotham high society sees Selina Kyle. A darling of the jet set, Selina is apparently independently wealthy and famed for giving generous donations to animal protection organizations.
But few people know Selina Kyle leads a double life as a predatory figure who stalks the fortunes of Gotham’s idle and corrupt rich. The same socialite who shares a glass of champagne with Selina one night might find her private safe ransacked by Catwoman the next.
Voiced by Adrienne Barbeau, the Catwoman of the animated series is neither hero nor villain but combines aspects of both—depending on which works to her best advantage at the time. There is undeniable heat between Batman and Catwoman, and the Dark Knight often finds himself emotionally torn between his feelings for her and his desire to see justice done. (qtd. in Dini and Kidd)
The character with the distinction of being the first villain to appear in the preliminary televised episode (“The Cat and the Claw, Part 1” aired Saturday morning, September 5, 1992; the day before “On Leather Wings’” primetime premiere; “Backstage”), Catwoman unfortunately stalled out after her initial appearance. Arrested at the end of “Claw” and sentenced to five years’ probation in “Cat Scratch Fever,” her tenure was reduced to playing Bruce Wayne’s love interest (the dream sequence in “Perchance to Dream”) and "damsel in distress" roles (“Cat Scratch Fever,” “Tyger, Tyger,” and “Almost Got ‘Im”). Suffocating from being on a short leash, she returned to her criminal ways in “Catwalk” and “Batgirl Returns,” setting up for her appearances in The New Batman Adventures (“You Scratch My Back,” “Cult of the Cat”), where she returned to her brunette roots and, ironically, a more Batman Returns-inspired costume. Her final appearance was in “Chase Me,” a 2003 short packaged with Mystery of the Batwoman.
In a 2005 post on the Toon Zone (now Anime Superhero) message boards, Timm reflected on Catwoman’s tenure in the DCAU: “I was never crazy about how we handled Catwoman either. I liked the sexy, straight-up jewel thief; didn’t care much for the animal rights activist stuff (seemed cliché somehow; b.t.).” And Dini, who handled the character with greater dignity in his Detective Comics (2006-2009) and Gotham City Sirens (2009-2010) stories, had this to say in a 1994 interview:
[In “Catwalk”], Selina Kyle’s been arrested for being Catwoman, and she’s put on probation if she promises not to wear the suit and do illegal things. She doesn’t want to pretend to be good anymore. She wants to run out into the night and cause trouble: wild and free. Ultimately, that is more important to her than the fear of going back to jail. It’s kind of sad. […] Catwoman’s secret for me has always been Rudyard Kipling’s “I am the cat who walks by myself and all places are alike to me.” (qtd. in Garcia)
There were, of course, other Catwoman stories that were rejected, such as the aforementioned Black Canary team-up, as well as a “pitch black” Batman Beyond story that would have been a second direct-to-video had Warner Home Video not been scared off more movies after Return of the Joker (Harvey). But the biggest “almost was” would have been an actual spin-off series featuring the femme fatale leaving Gotham City and Batman to seek her fortune overseas.
A Fancy Feast
Following the success of BTAS, there were discussions about outgrowth shows featuring Catwoman and Robin as early as 1993 (Jankiewicz). Of the Robin show, there was little done, as the concept “didn’t terribly appeal to me,” according to Bruce Timm (qtd. in Nolen-Weathington), later adding in a 2022 post on the Anime Superhero message boards:
I don’t remember doing much of anything myself on the Robin thing. Glen Murakami did some cool Robin sketches, but I don’t recall if he (or anyone else) ever really came up with a concept for what the show would actually be. I seem to think his sketches looked younger than the BTAS Robin, more like what our Tim Drake Robin for TNBA ended up looking like. (b.t.)
While Robin was a non-starter—though I’ll bet Fox Kids would have been ecstatic over a kid-centric Batman-related series—it was Catwoman that caught their attention. In a 1993 interview, Paul Dini gave an overview of the proposed series:
Catwoman is a very strong character. At one point, we talked about doing Batman-related spin-offs; a Catwoman series or a Robin series. I don’t think those are going to happen at the moment. Catwoman is so strong, she could work without Batman. Bruce [Timm] and I came up with a really good development for her. We take her out of Gotham City and treat her like an adventurer.
[In the proposed series, Catwoman is a freelance thief / adventurer.] That makes her a deadly seductress. In a Catwoman series, we could really open her up and make her everything we didn’t have a chance to make her on the show. Catwoman is really interesting, and we would have been able to do much more with her. There was talk of both Robin and Catwoman shows, but the one we really wanted to do was Catwoman. (qtd. in Jankiewicz)
And, in the aforementioned 2022 post on the Anime Superhero message boards, Timm gave his take on Catwoman:
My idea for Catwoman was sorta like “Modesty Blaise Versus James Bond” slathered with Hitchcock sauce. Selina would be up to her usual cat burglar hijinks but in a stylish and swanky 1950s-ish European setting. She’d have a recurring love / hate thing going with a dashing Interpol agent (think Cary Grant in Notorious but not as dark)—they’d swing from being adversaries to reluctant allies and back again. (b.t.)
Accompanying the new series would be a slick redesign of her costume—a mélange of her BTAS and TNBA duds, or her Batman Returns costume minus the stitches. Based on the model sketches created by Timm, it would appear that he cracked the code of a black costumed character drawn on black paper (this was 1993, so they probably would have Dark Deco-ed this series as well). By keeping the costume predominantly black with a perpetual “rim-light,” the series would have utilized a trick they would later use for the Flash on Justice League, as Timm spoke of on the commentary tracks of the Justice League: Justice on Trial DVD:
The one note we did get from DC Comics is that they had, in recent years, they had tried to go a little bit darker with his character and with his design; to try and make him look a little bit more fresh and more modern. We adapted that by giving him kind of a velour-kind of look to his costume, so that he’s always rim-lit. […] The main body of his costume is a dark, shadowed character, and he’s got a little bit of the brighter red on the outside of his costume to kind of keep him a little bit more dynamic-looking, so that he’s not just a real big, y’know, tomato. (qtd. in “Look”)
(It’s a shame they didn’t put this concept fully to work in her TNBA appearances, as her all-black costumed body often disappeared into the shadows in “You Scratch My Back” and “Cult of the Cat,” leaving a floating face and eyes.)
It is worth noting that, starting with 1989’s Catwoman miniseries (later collected as Catwoman: Her Sister’s Keeper) and perpetuated in 1993’s Catwoman ongoing series, Selina Kyle has been proven to be a strong protagonist in her own right, headlining multiple comic books both ongoing and limited (one from 2004 was coincidentally titled Catwoman: When in Rome) for over thirty years. Cutting her ties with Gotham City and turned loose in a Dark Deco, “timeless” Europe, she could have absolutely headlined her own animated series. Sadly, it was not meant to be.
Herding Cats
While an exciting premise, the series never happened. When reflecting on the potential spin-off in a 2004 interview, Bruce Timm spoke of its demise, as well as the implication that it could have happened at the expense of the second batch of The Adventures of Batman & Robin episodes:
When Batman Returns came out, there was a lot of talk about spinning Catwoman off into her own movie. We were coming to the close of our first run of Batman episodes, and we said, “Well, what are we going to do next?” […] We talked about it a little bit—what would the premise be, and what would make it visually different from Batman—but I’m not sure if it was ever really pitched anywhere. I never pitched it to any executives, and I think it just died of inertia. (qtd. in Nolen-Weathington)
Meanwhile, whether offered to network or no, Paul Dini discussed in a 1998 Wizard Magazine interview how the series, while exciting for fans, would have been an uphill battle to get made:
Among ourselves, [Producers] Alan Burnett, Bruce Timm, and I develop a lot of things. We’ve looked at pretty much every DC Comics property, and there are a lot of characters we’d like to work with. We worked up a development for a Catwoman solo show that we liked an awful lot, but what it comes down to is what the WB wants to buy. The higher-ups stress to us at every opportunity that it is the Kids’ WB!—that’s who they’re targeting, so they would like to see shows that have more of a kid appeal. (qtd. in Russo)
As previously stated, Catwoman’s tenure in Batman: The Animated Series was not without its flaws, and this proposed Catwoman: The Animated Series would have proved an interesting course correction to steer her out of those “damsel in distress” stories that she had thrust upon her. Unfortunately, it was unlikely that Fox Kids or Kids’ WB! would have considered an adult-themed animated show with a woman in the lead (and for those of you thinking of Fox Kids’ Where on Earth is Carmen Sandiego? [1994-1999], remember that this was an education-related show with two kids as the protagonists). And while aspects of this concept were adapted for 2022's Catwoman: Hunted direct-to-video film, it is more than likely that this series will be one path that we will not see this cat walk.
Works Cited
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Dini, Paul and Chip Kidd. Batman: Animated. New York: HarperEntertainment, 1998. Print.
Garcia, Robert T. “Things to Come Second Season.” Cinefantastique. Feb. 1994. 103-105. Print.
Harvey, Jim. “The Bruce Timm Interview.” Internet Archive. Internet Archive. 4 Dec. 2001. Web. 25 Dec. 2022. <https://web.archive.org/web/20020205134054/http://wf.toonzone.net/jl/btimminterview.htm>.
Jankiewicz, Pat. “Mad Loves.” Comics Scene Presents Batman and Other Dark Heroes. 1993. 70-73. Print.
“Look of the League, The (DVD Commentary).” Justice League: Justice on Trial. Warner Home Video. 2003. DVD.
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Nolen-Weathington, Eric. Modern Masters, Volume Three: Bruce Timm. Raleigh: TwoMorrows Publishing, 2004. Print.
Russo, Tom. “Paul Dini: The Wizard Q&A.” Wizard Magazine. Dec. 1998. 54-59. Print.
Shapiro, Marc. “Clipped Wings.” Wizard Magazine. Dec. 1994. 88. Print.
Images courtesy of Warner Bros. Discovery, Warner Bros. Home Entertainment, and DC Comics.
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