Rating: 
Summary: Entertainment at its best!
Review:
This Batman collection set has 28 season-one, heroic adventures presented in Full Screen format on 4 disks. There are exactly 7 episodes on each disc. The set also contains 2 documentaries and 3 featurettes in addition to the original episodes. It is by far one of the coolest, if not the greatest, Batman animated series ever created, story and animation wise. It's an instant classic brought to life! Yet, I see people complaining of how bad the quality is when compared to other cartoons. The fact of the matter is that the quality is, without question, superb animation at its highest and purest form of that time. What the artists tried to accomplish here, and successfully completed, is use an old style of animation--called Art Deco--by cell creating, one drawing at a time, on dark paper and then painting the different colors and images onto it; thus, giving this cartoon a vintage look--something like the 40's Superman animation--which is why Batman looks so dark and rather old. In fact, this is what the producers, Paul Dini, Bruce Timm and Eric Rodomski had in mind when taking on this project: They wanted Batman, The Animated Series to have a dark yet mysterious appearance. It is one of the reasons, aside from the great story writing, this faulting franchise became revitalized and an incredible success--thereby revolutionizing the superhero genre and opening the way to modern action, superhero cartoons created to this day, from modern Superman to the Justice League Unlimited.
If you're into cartoons at all or know someone who is, go ahead and purchase this set, as it would make a great addition to anyone's collection/library. It is definitely worth the money. Plus, it's an award-winning series. Great product, plain and simple!
Rating: 
Summary: Gotham's Defender Returns
Review: "Cartoons" took a giant leap forward in 1992 with the preimere of Batman: The Animated Series. Developed by Bruce Timm and Paul Dini, the landmark series took Bob Kane's Dark Knight Detective and made him leap off the television screen--modeling itself after the first Batman film from Tim Burton and writer Frank Miller's benchmark graphic novel Dark Knight Returns.
During it's run, Batman and his alter ego Bruce Wayne (voiced by Kevin Conroy) takes on many classic villians from his rougues gallery. The Joker (voiced by Star Wars Vet Mark Hamill, in a vocal tour de force), Mr. Freeze (voiced by Michael Ansara) Two-Face (voiced by Richard Moll), Clayface (Ron Pearlman), The Riddler, (voiced by John Glover) and others. By far the best episodes feature the Joker--Batman's best adversary. Of course allies like Police Commissioner Gordon (voiced by Bob Hastings), Butler and confidant Alfred Pennyworth (voiced by Efrem Zembalist Jr.), Barbra Gordon (voiced by Melissa Gilbert) are here as well. The characters are fully developed and not limited to being one demensional cut outs. The anamation is given a sharp angled art deco style giving it a classic 40's look--making it quite a feast for the human eye. It has not lost any of its detail and has held up well Really good stuff.
The Volume One 4 disc DVD set collects 28 episodes from season one. Why they couldn't give us the entire season in one shot is just frustrating. Money hungry perhaps?? But I digress...there are two insightful commentaries. Producers Timm and Eric Rodamski for On Leather Wings and then they are joined by Paul Dini for Heart of Ice. The tracks give us a sense of concept to screen--both a good listen for fans and newbies alike. The retrospective featurette "Batman: The Legacy Continues" is a nice look at how the show took shape. By far though, the best extra is the pilot promo called "The Dark Knight's First Night", which helped sell the series to the suits. The Tour of the Batcave is a bit static and clunky--nice idea but a bit poorly conceived. Promos for other animated products top off the set.
Batman - The Animated Series helped to dispell the notion that cartoons are just for kids. Both adults and kids can enjoy this show. Generational lines do not matter. Aside from a few minor issues, the DVD set is a worthwhile purchase, for anyone's DVD library.
Rating:
Summary: Keep 'Em Coming!!
Review: After years of steadfastly ignoring the wishes of its fan base, Warner Brothers has finally decided to release its landmark Batman: The Animated Series in a 28-espisode box set of four DVDs, instead of dolling the episodes out at a sluggish four or five at a time! We can only hope that the remainder of the Animated saga, which was actually comprised of three separate "series" that ran from 1992-1995 will be released on DVD in short order.The creators set to their task after the first Batman movie and somehow managed to capture the essence of the comic book world of Batman, without the gore of the mainstream comic book titles. In one of the last hand-painted animation shows ever to have been rendered, Batman: The Animated Series is as flawless a rendition of Bob Kane's mythic creation as ever captured on comic paper or film, both live-action and animation. Time will tell, but I believe the Batman Animated saga is worthy of being crowned the greatest animated series to have ever been produced. Regardless of its place in history, it changed the animated genre forever as well as the comic book and film depictions that spawned it. It is pure magic. The "Dark Deco" design of Gotham City and all of the characters in the Batman mythos were deftly crafted by many of the modern comic industry's greatest talents including: Alan Burnett, Paul Dini and Bruce W. Timm. Every subtle nuance was anticipated and superbly rendered in serious stories that merged the childhood wonder and excitement of comic books with the adult appreciation for drama, humor and tragedy. Each half-hour episode felt like a movie, and the voice actors who portrayed the characters were so well matched that theirs are now the ONLY voices I hear when I read the comic. Since I'm 47 and have been reading The Batman since I was a kid, that's saying something. Credit goes to the voice talents of Kevin Conroy, who pulls off the best Batman and Bruce Wayne voices I have ever heard, along with Mark Hamill (Luke Skywalker in the Star Wars Trilogy) for literally BECOMING the Joker in his portrayal. Other steller voice talents belong to Efrem Zimbalist Jr., for a flawless Alfred Pennyworth, the stalwart Wayne family butler; Adrienne Barbeau as the Catwoman Selina Kyle; and Arlene Sorkin as Harley Quinn (a character created in the Animated Series, which in a switch, was then introduced into the mainstream comic book titles.) The talented Shirley Jackson composed the memorable music, which again blended perfectly with the whole to create a true animated masterpiece. Because this series features stories of the Dark Knight, it remains utterly amazing that the bulk of the episodes take place in Gotham at night, but manage to have amazing color and true vitality. This striking visual style was given to each character, too, making them seem more sturdy and larger than life but totally believable. While the background of the characters is outside of the mainstream comic book continuity, the Animated Series remained true to the core of the characters' personalities and motivations more than ANY other rendition. It is so compelling that you can not only see Gotham, but feel, smell and even taste this "fictitious" city! To watch these shows is to fall permanently under the spell of The Batman, the great loner detective, who was driven to crimefighting after the senseless murder of his parents that occurred in front of him during a robbery when he was a boy. This Batman is noble, tragic, funny, brilliant, obsessed, selfless, real and completely heroic, elements that were sadly missing in the many movie portrayls of the character and often missing in the comic book maintstream depictions. If you have never seen this show, whether adult or child, you should. And for those of us who watched with utter amazement and joy during its run, there can be no more anticipated DVD release this year.
Rating:
Summary: What's IN IT??
Review: All I can say is that the CD collection's box does NOT list which episodes are in the collection. Does it start from the first episode and go throughout season one? I just won't buy it if it's another mixture of episodes. Can someone please answer this?
Rating:
Summary: Modern Classic
Review: Each episode is a mini film with drama, comedy, pathos -- inspired by the Fleisher Brothers cartoons produced by Paramount in 1940 featuring Superman, early Batman is unparalleled by anything else in modern animation.
Rating:
Summary: Exactly
Review: Good DVD. You should buy it. But you can't, because it's not released yet. It's odd that I own the thing, bought it around july of 2004, yet it's not released. dumb amazon.
Rating:
Summary: Long Live the Animated Batman
Review: I got this collection immediately after I heard that it was going to be on dvd. I watched this show in my early teens and it holds up to cartoons of this day and age as far as quality goes... and Batman the Animated Series used an older way of cell creating comics one drawing at a time. I have seen some reviews on here complaining about the quality, but i find the quality to be of the highest!! To be able to relive the show that I loved when I was a kid is awesome. The only bad thing that I have to say about the collection is that it jumps around, rather than going chronologically. But, you can't win everything, so if you are a fan of the show I think that you will still love this collection. If you are new, then you get to see for the first time a cartoon that set the standard for excellence.
Rating:
Summary: Simply the best comic-book adaptation on television
Review: I was born in the early 80's. Although I've always enjoyed cartoons, I look back today on G.I Joe, Transformers, and He-Man (though I enjoyed them at the time) as nothing but empty and hollow dumbed-down stories with over a dozen characters each who served no purpose but to sell cheap toys. Batman: TAS was also a Saturday morning cartoon I enjoyed at the time, but after buying this DVD set I'm willing to say that this is a modern classic series that I will never grow tired of.
I completely agree with all of the praise that other posters have already written. These episodes have real stories with inventive twists and well-developed characters; they exist in a highly inventive unforgetable art-deco world that's half Dick Tracy and half James Bond. The voice actors are all superb; many were not veteran voice actors but they gave expert performances and clearly didn't treat the project as just some cartoon (my highest regards go to Kevin Conroy as the Dark Knight, Efram Zimbalist Jr. as the deadpan Alfred, the former Mr. Skywalker Mark Hamill as the Clown Prince of Crime, and Michael Ansara as the haunting Mr. Freeze). In short, this is a rare show that kids will enjoy while also being serious and mature enough for adults to admire as well.
While short on extras, the set features a making-of documentary, the rarely seen mini-pilot, and two creator commentaries. In the extras, co-creator Bruce Timm says that, shortly after the series' final run, people would tell him that they thought of his show first when they thought of Batman, not the comics or the camptastic Adam West series or any of the movies. After seeing the show's first season, you will likely see why.
Batman: TAS is among my favorite shows of all time, up there with the Simpsons and MST3K. The second season can't arrive soon enough for me.
Rating:
Summary: About bloody time.
Review: I was happy when "Batman: The Legend Begins" was released on DVD, despite there being only five episodes on the disc. I figured it was just Warner testing the waters of how much the series would sell before they went all-out with a full-fledged box set. Then they released a few more single-disc volumes and I was a little less than ecstatic. As much as I love this show, I didn't bother picking up subsequent releases. It was simply a ridiculous way to try and collect Batman on DVD. Finally, the DVD Gods smiled upon us and Warner Bros. finally gives B-TAS the treatment it's deserved since the DVD formant was introduced. I knew they'd do this sooner or later, but I can't help but feel suprised and excited that this is finally happening. If "The Simpsons" was the animated answer to "Seinfeld," then "Batman - The Animated Series" was the answer to "The Sopranos" (even though the Simpsons and Batman came first, respectively). B-TAS is probably the most dramatic animated series ever produced. Kids (me included) fell in love with it when it first came out, but it's not a show aimed at children. Sure, it's got great animation and exciting fight sequences for the kids, but adults can appreciate the dark undertones and indelible voice talent. Yeah, I think it's safe to say that there's something here for everyone. It's also more grown-up than the cartoony "Batman & Robin" film. In the years before the WB got a hold of Batman and kicked off their silly, but admittedly entertaining, "Batman/Superman Adventures," it was a glorious time to be a Caped Crusader fan. Joel Schumacher had not yet completely ruined the live-action series and the Animated Series was one of the greatest shows on television. HIGHLY recommended. I also suggest "Batman - Mask Of The Phantasm" for some more great Batman drama/excitement.
Rating:
Summary: The definitive Batman on film
Review: I was mildly obsessed with this show when it originally aired in the early 90s. When I saw that they were releasing it on DVD, I was a little hesitant to pick it up. Eventually, the low price for the number of episodes won me over and I bought it.
This show is every bit as good as I remembered. Although intended for a children's audience, this is an intelligent show where the primary focus is on character development. It frequently touches on the core of Batman's identity and his motivation to fight crime. The show did such a good job portraying the motivations of both Batman and the villians he faces that many of the embellishments the show made, such as The Joker's sidekick Harley Quinn and Mr. Freeze's backstory, were eventually included in the official Batman comic canon.
This show does a better job of portraying the Dark Knight, particularly as defined by Frank Miller, than any of the Batman films. Many fans of the comic despise the films, but accept the animated series as a more accurate characterization of Batman.
This series sparked the resurgence of super hero animation that we are still seeing today with Teen Titans and Justice League.
Whether you enjoyed the show when it originally aired or if you're just a fan of Batman, this DVD is a good buy.
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