Fans of the Batman and Robin animated series of the 90s, you may not be familiar with the so-called “lost episode”, an untitled episode never broadcast on television but… in a video game!
Have you seen all the episodes of Batman and New Batman Adventures? Congratulations, you love the DC animated universe! But do you know “The Lost Episode”, written by Paul Dini and confronting the Dark Knight with some of his most famous adversaries like the Joker or Poison Ivy?
This episode is part of the video game The Adventures of Batman and Robin, a platform game with many fight scenes. Released on several media between 1994 and 1995, it had a Mega CD version which was actually a completely different game. You controlled the batmobile or the batwing in the streets or above Gotham City.
Sega Excerpt from the game’s cover: Poison Ivy, the Joker, the batwing and in the background, the Riddler’s jacket
Between these scenes of pure gameplay, the player was treated to small, unpublished animated scenes of Batman successively confronting Poison Ivy and her plants, The Riddler with a virtual reality device, Harley Quinn and the Joker, then Rupert Thorne and finally Clayface . Put end to end, these small sequences of the Dark Knight against each super-villain form a coherent episode, worthy of the animated series from which it is inspired.
You can find it here:
As we said, the plot is written by Paul Dinicreator of Harley Quinn, and directed by Bruce Timm, the animation supervisor for the Batman series and its sequel, The New Batman Adventures, from which this game is taken. Contrary to what its title might lead one to believe, it is impossible to play Robin, who has been kidnapped, just like Commissioner Gordon. Truth be told, we don’t control Batman either, since all phases of the CD version of the game are car chases.
Warner Bros.
There remains this formidable aesthetic from the aforementioned series and this small episode (17 minutes) certainly a pretext to insert chases for the video game it accompanies, but allowing to discover an unpublished story of one of the flagship series of the 90s.
Did you notice these hidden details in the series: