Batman The Animated Series: Heart of Ice Discussion

36 Overdraft (00:03) What up everybody and welcome back to another episode of the Nerd Jam Report. I'm your host, Pablo and joining me as always is Mr. Schultz. We have a special show where we're gonna be talking about special episodes of the Batman the Animated Series that we find, I guess, Brian, the most interesting, the most impactful in terms of his storytelling. And the first one that we would like to talk is the episode called Heart of Ice. think this is the first episode that we introduced to Victor Freeze, Brian. Right. I was watching it the other day because you had mentioned it, because I had a list and then I just erased it. But I said, let me go watch it again. And you mentioned Heart of Ice. And that's one of the episodes that I remember most. He says, to feel a warm hand, yes, I would kill for it. And it's Damn, you asked yourself that question. Would you kill for something like that if you could? Especially if it was taken away from you, Brian. So this episode appears in season one. It was written by Paul Dini, Michael Ansara, Voices, Victor Fries. This episode one of winning in Emmy. wow. Outstanding writing, which is one of the reasons I picked it. And the reason it wins an Emmy for writing is because of you and I like good stuff. But to me... Victor Friis visually is a character that can go very wrong, very easily. And you to little further than Arnold Schwarzenegger. So five years after this episode comes out, we get, let's party as we get ready to play ice hockey in neon colors. So that's how silly Mr. Friis can get. But in this episode, Friis is classic to He's a villain that you can empathize with. He's a villain that can be terrifying. And he's so well written. He has some of the best, like when you hear what he says, you're like, am I, am I watching an animated 30 minute animation show of a comic book or am I legitimately listening to modern Shakespeare? Think of it, Batman, to never again walk upon a summer's day with a hot wind in your face and a warm hand to hold. yes, I'd kill for that. That's a comic book villain saying that. But and the way he says it, yes, I'd kill. And Sarah's voice is incredible in this episode. It's incredible. Brian, when Batman is incapacitated for a few seconds and in the crossfire, one of his henchmen gets caught and he freezes his legs. And that part, being terrifying, having no empathy for his guy that he got, know, his legs got frozen because he got careless. And so to leave him, he said, Victor Freese, leave And you see the dude reaching out for him while the door closes and Victor Freese is looking at him like, whatever, you know, Brian. And also, I think it's one of the first episodes where you get to see Batman's intelligence in terms of figuring out things, which was He lays it out that it's not so difficult to put together if you ask the right questions. What did he steal, right? What are the things that he stole? All these places, all these things that he stole may come from this. If you put them all together, it was... He anticipates the weapon before it's formed. That's where he knows where he's gonna be. And even that detective, it's so great, because it happens to the very end while they're fighting. Because he says, that's shoot you where. a result of the coolant and freeze his response. Very good. A detective to the left. What an amazing exchange while they're fighting. The Batman is still calculating and figure thing, figuring things out. And what you could hear is that freeze almost has that respect for him. And then he says at one point in the beginning, what puts them on opposite sides. Freeze basically says he doesn't want to fight him. says, it's a personal vendetta, it doesn't concern you. And then Batman says, it's my concern now. So then he says, since you ally yourself with my enemies, you leave me no choice, right? This whole thing is making it layered. This is almost a reluctant villain and he has a very specific agenda that does not involve destroying the city necessarily. He's after one But in that pursuit, Brian, there is perhaps a potential of a tremendous amount of collateral damage. And that's what I think Batman is also trying to avoid in a sense. And what Victor Fries is saying is worth that. That price is worth it to him to get that revenge for what happened to Nora. And that's what, to me, that's what makes a great villain, right? I hate to invoke this show that's gone totally wrong, but like I watched this episode and I'm like, this is what the acolyte should have been. This is the guy that the scientist that breaks bad and goes on a revenge mission. But every step of the way you feel for him, especially when you see the video. yeah. ferrets, holy mercilessly, coldly pun intended, takes out, you know, eliminates his wife. Close the plug. Yeah. Yeah. So that Brian was. One of my favorite episodes is the one that I remember most because of the lines and also the ending of that scene. Batman and the Animated scene had lot of good endings. Yes. There was one, and not to divert too far away, but there was this one episode, right? I'm trying to find which one. I don't know if you remember where he tells Bruce Wayne looks to the guy. think that at first there was some tension between them or whatever. And he says to him at the end, you tell me about my father? You remember that? I don't remember that one. Watch it. I forget which episode is that, but he said, would you tell me about my father? And this is expression on his face. And I was like, wow, that was dope. But then freeze it to your point about endings because this show obviously had to had to thwart the villains, but preserve them. for their return in the future show. So you have Freeze talking to the frozen kind of snow globe of Minnie Norah or whatever it is and he says, failed you. I wish there were another way for me to say it but I cannot. I can only beg your forgiveness and pray you hear me somehow someplace, someplace where a warm hand waits for mine. That's the last line. It leaves you with the cliffhanger, you know he's gonna be back but like, you don't hate, I'm sorry, you don't hate Victor You don't hate him. You don't hate him. Exactly. And Batman is there just checking up on him. It's Brian. This is the type of writing that you say to yourself, what more can they deliver when we get the Cape Crusader? This is a sort of foundation that is laid that you're saying, damn, now they don't have no restraints. That's why we're covering this. even I got to say, we've focused on freeze because this is a freeze episode for a reason, but you know, it's also how they tie the little touches and Bruce Tim directed this episode himself. the chicken soup, it seems like such a humorous little afterthought from our, from our good friend Alfred. And yet Batman obviously utilizes it to neutralize freeze. And then his line afterwards, it's the only way you can fight a cold. How did you stop? I mean, it's perfect. It's the perfect similarity, right? A little bit of cheating humor, but sort of this sometimes when you're a hero, it's the most unlikely things that saved the day and shows Batman thinking, right? Thinking outside the box while he's getting beaten up by a superior opponent. I have this one common everyday item that might actually turn the tide. Yeah. I was an excellent, excellent episode. do you want to do one more Brian? let's do you like, you love pretty poison, the interest, which is our introduction to Pamela Isley and they're this, the animated series version of poison, poison Ivy. I went back to that one as well and, had a, had a good, I forgot how much Harvey Dent was in that episode until I started watching it. was like, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. There was a line there, Brian, that I remember. This episode shows Poison Ivy to be a little Crazy. You know, a little bit. How would I say overdoing it a bit too much in terms of how much she cares about something that really nobody else cares about as much which makes her unique. Brian. So obviously if you start off this episode, people are getting turned into, I guess, trees based on some sort of chemical formula, poison ivy has concocted or whatever. And she's trying to eliminate the individuals or the people who are, I guess, fundraising for the elimination of forests, whatever. And Bruce Wayne is one on the list and he receives as well as the other victims receives an invitation to some sort of fountain of youth spa. And instead of Bruce Wayne going Alfred and his bothersome friend, he takes her They go and they enjoy and they don't know that they've been sort of being prepped for what's to come. So if you watch that episode and then when Batman has shown what's been done to Alfred, his eyes widen, Brian, do you find yourself skipping some of the Joker episodes? A little, only because I know it so well and he's in enough of them to where it's almost like, I don't wanna say overexposed, I remember his voice and I've seen the characterization to where I don't, it's still fresher in my mind. So I kind of enjoy, like I said, reacquainting myself with Poison Ivy and Victor Freeze and remembering how they sounded, I think is actually kind of cooler because I didn't really have that in my mind when I went Yeah. Have you, has your daughter watched Batman the animated series? yeah. We, we, we aren't, I mean, obviously the season's incredibly long. So she's probably watched maybe like the first 10 or 12 episodes. Okay. She's, we're watching them in the order that Amazon presents them, which I'm not a hundred percent sure as the order in which they were aired. gotta be honest, but, but it's the order that Amazon has them in. Cause you can actually get season one, the full season one of the animated series It's just through prime on prime video. So she's been watching some of those. My son started watching it with me. I was watching it one night and he just sitting there just like he usually when he's watching his bluey whatever he's jumping around watching. But when he was watching Batman, he was just like watching to see what's being said. that is not Batman is a is one of those drum. For me as a kid, it was one of those dramatic Yeah. And I can't wait for August 1st, man, to watch all of them, Brian. I still can't believe it, yo. I don't know how we're going to do these shows. It's late at night, apparently. But let us know in the comments section below what you guys think of those episodes Batman the Animated Series on this special episode of the NerdJet Report where we sort of talk about and get to know again what they created back then and what we're leading up to, which is very soon. Watch Batman the Animated Series, man. Don't go into this, although you probably don't have to watch Batman the Animated Series to watch the caped crusader. just keep around cool i'm having fun skipping around you don't have yeah it's so many episodes or watch us and while we talk about the episode and watch the episode yeah yeah so you can see what we're talking about yeah exactly but yeah let us know in the comments section below what you guys think and we'll see you next time on the nerdjail report the show goes on