Baby Doll is the most tragic original TAS rogue ever created. Alison La Placa does not get enough credit for her performance as Mary Dahl. Whenever she switches to her true self, you can hear how truly broken and miserable she is, and when she uttered her catch phrase "I didn't mean to" one last time, I was brought to tears.
It's so good. I wish the sequel episode was actually good. They could have really REALLY done something cool if killer croc was the simple mined guy who's misunderstood and she's the smart mature person trapped in the body of a kid. Like some kind of poetic irony
There’s another tragic element to Baby-Doll’s origin: Her condition was actually treatable Long story short, it’s revealed in the comics connected to the show. Baby-Doll could’ve gotten a hormone treatment but her parents wanted to keep her appearance of a toddler for the sake of the show and the money made from it. They hid the possibility of the treatment until she was old enough to where it wouldn’t work, then skipped town
@@SerumLake The name escapes me but it was in a part about Harley learning more about the Arkham patients, Baby-Doll’s parents was the part mentioned about her
I always loved Baby doll. She's the perfect metaphor for how if you're not able bodied people infantalise you. I'm disabled and obviously I don't have the same condition, but despite being a grown ass adult I've had people talk to me like I'm 5. It's humilating and frustrating.
I hadn’t watched this series, but I can relate to this on so many levels. I’m an autistic girl in her 20’s but I look like I’m a teen. Now, don’t get me wrong, I actually do like to look young and I’m not interested in adult activities like drinking alcoholic beverages, but it would be nice if people would just take my words seriously and not to infantilise me
They would be better off in prison honestly. Arkham is pretty much exclusively the opposite of helpful from basically everything I know about the place
@brolytriplethreat the only villain in the rogue gallery that fits better in prison is Bane cuz he is sane as they come tho one might argue he belongs in Arkham for drug rehabilitation
Now, if only Arkam actually _HELPED_ inmates, and could keep their damn doors locked, Gotham might be a more peaceful city... Granted, pretty much the entire county needs therapy for coulrophobia (thanks a lot, Joker), but more peaceful in general.
Baby doll is a perfect villain as she represents all those child actors we hear about whose lives went downhill after the spotlight went away like Gary Coleman,Danny bonaduce and others.she can also be compared to being a comic book version of Norma Desmond from Sunset Boulevard.a person wanting so badly for life to be as it was when it seemed everyone loved them
I feel like if the creators didn't want Mary Dahl as a villain, due to her not being intimidating enough, I think she could have worked excellent as an ally. I could easily buy her getting her life back on track with the right help and a good social safety net, especially since she's definitely one of the Batman villains who genuinely want to live a normal life. I could imagine her working as a contact of Batman who has extensive knowledge on human biology and/or rare genetic disorders, justified by her studying her own condition
If Harley got to turn around from the Injustice timeline to present time why not give Baby Doll a chance? Hell even Croc, who's sometimes her lover (might be platonic) had more chances than her
I'm glad someone else noticed that Mary was practically grinning at that stick of dynamite, and clearly planning to die in the blast. Even in Love is a Croc, we get hints of how trapped in her misery Mary actually is, first beating a man who recognized her as Baby Doll, but then going to her room to watch reruns of herself playing her character. When she's not at murder-suicide levels of unstable, she's still clearly stuck in the past, unable to progress away from it any more than she can age physically. Something else that deserves mentioning is the comics did add an extra level to her torment; there was a time when her condition could be corrected! If she took some hormone therapy, she could have at least progressed *somewhat* to looking her age; never play pro basketball, but her career might not have stalled so completely. Thanks to her parents wanting to milk her Baby Doll fame, though, they held off on those until it was much too late, then show was cancelled and Miss Dahl was screwed out of a normal life on top of never working in showbiz again.
@@SerumLake I'm having similar difficulty. I remember reading it *somewhere,* and I sincerely hope it's not some retconned bit of trivia or something that never actually made it into print.
The part where the parents steal all her money is based on reality, unfortunately. Jackie Coogan was a child actor, who, upon turning 18, learned that his parents had squandered all of his money. The Coogan Law was passed in response to this to try an prevent this from happening again. Coogan later went on to play Uncle Fester in The Addams Family and made sure the kids on that show weren't swindled like he was. Gary Coleman and Emmanuel Lewis had a similar medical condition that kept them looking like children, although (as far as I know) there isn't actually a cure. And, although he wasn't a child, Burt Ward claims that when he was playing Robin on the 60s Batman the producers ordered him to take some some pills to...um...shrink his package, and he actually did it briefly. This sounds far fetched to me (especially that he would actually go along with it), but not out of the realm of possibility for Hollywood. It just seems like it would've been much easier to change his costume.
I love it when someone takes an idea which seems silly and cartoonish and makes it work in a dramatic way. Whou would've guessed that you can tell a story about Batman fighting a little girl and end it on a such a heavy, depressing, character focused scene.
Whou means who in certain word slang/saying so anybody seeing this typing you spelled who wrong don’t do that or delete it because it’s not wrong it’s just a different way of saying the word.
Yes! There were so many episodes that I would watch, and then try to describe them to my friends at school and they sounded like the stupidest thing ever.
I could imagine her being recruited by the Suicide Squad since her ability to flawlessly impersonate a child could be useful. Or maybe becoming a vigilante who uses herself as bait to hunt down child molesters.
Funnily enough, in a recent issue of Batman Adventures Continue she was kidnapped by the Suicide Squad in order to force Harley Quinn to hunt down the Joker. If Harley didn’t comply they said they’d put a bomb in Baby Doll’s head and send her on missions.
Honestly I wished we got more Babydoll, if not as a villain than as some ally or even a friend of Batman’s. She might not have the same circumstances, but both of them are trapped in a place that was out of their control - Bruce loosing his parents, and Mary’s medical condition. I could also imagine Babydoll could work as a distraction or even some kind of agent for other people, she is an actress and looks like a child who could get away with snooping through other people’s belongings or asking inconvenient questions. It would be cool to potentially see her somewhat reclaim her own autonomy by using it to her advantage (whether as a hero or a villain).
I can imagine a universe where Bruce gets the rogues the help they need and hiring them on to wayne enterprises. Baby Doll would be great in this role, as either an actress or some other role
As a learning disabled person, I remember being infantalized and Baby Doll reminded me. I wanted to get revenge, I hated being LD and I bet Baby Doll was just as frustrated
I've always thought Baby Doll was meant to be the inverse of Bette Davis in 'Baby Jane' - where Jane Hudson was a haggard middle-aged woman who was deluded into seeing herself as her child-star self, Baby Doll was a little girl with the mind of a hardened, embittered older woman.
I'd like to imagine that the reason we don't really see her anymore is because she isn't a villain anymore, that she stopped and accepted that she couldn't be what she was on the inside. But yeah, maybe not
Until that jerk at the hotel lobby harassing her at her job. her life seemed pretty much mundane which is probably something she honestly preferred. Her plush pile in her apartment was so cute... But it made me so sad. A strange melancholy feeling
@@dissonanceparadiddle Seriously, she was doing fine and someone had to physically accost her. And they perceive her as a child so that's double red flags.
This is a fine example of why Batman the Animated series will stand for likely decades to come as the greatest Super hero show based upon a comic book character and outlive all other verisons, because it was willing to push its dark themes to close as possible to what it acceptable for a child, yet it never once really treats its viewers as idiots as some shows do, instead it simply treats the viewer as a small adult! I honestly expect a hunderd years from now, there will be many generations discovering the masterpiece of BTAS and looking at the current slate and asking "Why is current stuff, so dull and lifeless?"
It helps that BTAS portrayal of Bruce Wayne/Batman himself isn't like in the comics. The animated Batman is fully aware that he has just as many problems mentally as his enemies and doesn't take the obvious anti-hero route of hating Superman or any of the other superheroes. This is a Batman who actually has flaws and recognizes them, which makes Kevin Conroy's portrayal the greatest portrayal we'll ever get of Batman. Much the same could be said of the other superheroes of the DCAU, especially the Flash. There's a reason everyone INCLUDING BATMAN turned the Justice Lords' Earth into a police state after Flash's murder... "We tried being the upstanding superheroes who always do the right thing, but everyone breaks eventually, right Lex?"
You have to imagine it would be hard for her to get a date on top of all that. Filtering out all the people who treat her like a child and the creepos who would date her SPECIFICALLY because she looks like a child, there are a lot of guys who might like her for who she is, but be turned off of pursuing a romantic relationship with her. Not because dating someone who looks like a child disturbs them, but because they know they would be viewed as a pervert by anyone who saw them together.
Not to her extent, but I'm very similar to Baby Doll in the sense that I'm also an adult that's very small and looks like a child. It is extremely frustrating sometimes. No one takes you seriously. No one wants to date you out of fear of looking like a pedo (actual thing my ex told me). Then, when you do get hit on, you find out they are an actual pedophile who thought you were 12. Some places won't let you in because, "No way that kid's an adult. Her ID must be fake." You get stopped by random people in the parking lot of Walmart trying to "make sure that's really your car. You just don't look old enough to drive. Are you sure you didn't steal that car from your parents? Am I gonna have to call the police on you, little girl?" I was 22....
Funnily enough (or sadly enough) the opposite is also true, i have always look older than i am; being a little too tall, a little too hairy. I have had problems with people who didn't believe tht i should be where i was: most prominent being my highschool, to the point that i failed an exam because security wouldn't let me in since i was "an obvious adult trying to get in to rob, or something worse" and i also didn't had any romantic partners until university and even then some people tought i was a professor, you can see where that lead.
My head canon is that she eventually finds a new career in voice acting, getting roles in big budget animated features, video games, cartoons, anime, and voice overs. She is beloved by fans and receives standing ovations at geek conventions all over the country.
Honestly I dont think Love is a Croc gets enough attention. While her debut episode is a stand out, I think love is a croc highlights even worse how bad her situation is, that she cant even have the simplest human want there is, the love of another person, a proper relationship, not unless she wishes to open herself up to the type of monsters worse than Croc.
And besides, I don't actually think there's a truly average The New Batman Adventures ep at all (and this even includes the Superman: The Animated Series crossover stuff)... yes, am actually fond of "Critters" for some reason, just like the show runners, all while "Animal Act" is a nice return to Dick Grayson's past.
In BTAS, Mary Dahl is animated like a Tiny Toons Adventure character, especially Elmirya. It helps her stick out even further, as other BTAS children are not drawn or animated like that.
And in that storyboard he showed she looked like a South Park character (although that show didn't even exist, yet, so it must be a coincidence). She's also a bit like Baby Herman from Who Framed Roger Rabbit, an adult trapped in a Baby's body.
his ending with baby-doll is echoed later in JLU when batman refuses to kill ace and instead just stays with the poor girl until she dies. He understands she was never a bad person just broken and deeply in need of someone to care.
Baby Doll might be one note but her debut ended on a high note (perfect) so nothing else really needed to be written with her. I always said Batman and Spider-Man have the best rogues' gallery but I think Batman has an advantage because not only are the villains entertaining, but a majority of them have some tragic aspect to them. There's so much that can be written about each villain. Also I never considered the metaphor of Baby Doll 'shooting herself' during the ending. Great video and perfect Batman villain.
Also Killer Moth mentioned. Let's fucking gooooo! (I'm writing a huge Batman fanfiction project and he's going to be a central character) Maybe we can see a Killer Moth video in the future but either way, great channel. Keep up the great work.
Yeah, Spider-Man has a good rogues gallery too, but I agree with your assessment. Spider-Man’s villains have cool abilities and striking designs, but they’re not particularly compelling, for the most part.
@Serum Lake Not compelling? I strongly disagree. If you look deep enough, you can find several stories that depict each Spider-Man rogue in a more compelling light. Frankly, I think the Spider-Man rogues rival the bat rogues in terms of nuance. At the very least, they are not constantly overshadowed by a single rogue, unlike all the arkham inmates who aren't quinn or The Joker.
@@zemox2534 Fair point. After all, Batman has one arch-nemesis, The Joker. Spider-Man has three; Green Goblin, Doctor Octopus and Venom. Also, to add to this discussion, I think the X-Men Rouges Gallery is pretty great too. Magneto, Mystique, Sabretooth, The Sentinels and everything around them. There are a lot of great ones there. Both visually striking and many times psycholigically complex (Once again; Magneto, need I say more?)
3:00 Batman pretty much confirms this in a later episode of Justice League Unlimited. The league is reverted to their child form and mentality, yet young Batman is still himself. At the end Wonder Woman muses about how much fun she had to be a kid again. Batman responds: "I stopped being a kid when my parents died."
The killer croc follow up episode had so much potential but only if they had the childish older croc. Could have been an interesting parallel. Her looking like a child but having the mentality of an adult and croc who looks monstrous but back then had the mind of someone who was kinda childish
i think this episode especially sums up why this version of batman has left me with a lingering love for the character, and more than anything else its that kindness. he is flawed, and deeply damaged, fighting an impossible fight against too many foes, but he is kind. he will fight, he will outsmart, he will sacrifice, but it is because he wants to help, wants to do better. too much of the popculture idea of him is caught up in idolizing and fantasizing over how cool and badass and unstoppable he is and honestly as a fan i just dont care. sure batman should be smart and amazingly capable, but more than that he should be kind, be human, even to people that cant bring themselves to accept it.
As a neurodivergent, babydoll really resonates with me, the feeling of being spoken to like a baby as a fully grown adult is humiliating and degrading. When she “killed” herself in the mirror I cried. The visual of both how she’s perceived by the world vs herself, then giving up on her own perception really hits hard.
Baby doll works like all other good batman villains for one big reason: She's a mirror of him, specifically the part of him that's obsessed with a singular part of his past, to the point where it consumed him.
The worst part is that she never returns... or rather, she does, once, but it didnt change one bit. I think that this character would be better than either of the classic batman villains, like, i get it, joker and the others are the og, but she is a perfect mirror match to Batman! Why cant we see more of her?!
I think that a lot of writers don't really know what to do with her. Paul Dini has used her as a background character a few times in recent years - she has been in a few issues of Batman Adventures Continue, but only as a side character, rather than the star of the comic. But that's about it.
My head canon is that Wayne Studios puts her in the lead for their new animated feature. It breaks box office records, yielding her critical acclaim and leads to long and happy career in voice acting.
I really think there should have been a episode in between Baby Doll and Love is a Croc like say that she is still going after Spunky and maybe that she discovered that she has fans that later become her henchmen because it never explained how she could have afforded henchmen in the first place since she has no money and what made agreed to blow themselves with her. You think she should teamed up with the Penguin and Clayface since he was a actor before he transformed. Do Red Claw or Lloyd Ventrix because have you seen the 2020 invisible man movie?
I have seen the Invisible Man and am aware of the connection to BTAS - what a cool coincidence by the way - but I don’t think there’s much else to say about that episode. Same goes for Red Claw - she’s so painfully generic with no credible motivations beyond being “Eastern European”
That’s why i like bat man so much. He sees the people struggling with severe forms of self harm and takes them to get help. It’s nice to know Batman has been with me my whole journey
I really like to think that while in Arkham asylum she meets someone who makes a life-sized doll version of her ideal self and they like put her brain in the body of the doll and she finally gets her dream body so thats why we dont see her much anymore... I wouldn't actually recommend doing this but it is a animated tv show with superheroes and villains.
That would be very interesting to see - sort of like a Freaky Friday body swap, or something a bit more permanent? I like to think that she was eventually able to accept herself and become comfortable in her own skin 🤞
I imagined she got a robotic body that looks like Echo from Overwatch (not because of the Overwatch part, but rather the looks of the character, feminine yes, but not mind-numbingly lewd, just a female robot, that's it, the neutrality fits on how Baby Doll wants to be a normal adult)
SAD FACT: The saddest thing is that her illness also exists in reality. It must be awful to never be seen as more than a child when you are maybe 16 or older. finding love must be almost impossible.
What blows mu mind is that Baby Doll is an original villain made for this show, because it feels like she fits right in with the rest of Batman's villains, maybe even better than some others
There are a lot of references to old sitcoms in this episode. Since a lot of people in the comments don't know who Shirley Temple was, these people probably might have missed these, too. Cousin Spunky is essentially Cousin Oliver from The Brady Bunch. Cousin Oliver was played by Robbie Rist, who voiced the older brother's actor in this episode. (He also played Michaelangeo in the original live-action Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie series.) After the Brady Bunch had been on the air for many years and were losing popularity, the producers added a new little kid, since the original Brady kids were "too old" now. This character was not popular. If you've heard people complain about Scrappy Doo, this was essentially the live action version of that. The condition that Dahl has is real. Gary Coleman (Arnold on Diff'rent Strokes) and Emmanuel Lewis (Webster) had this. There was another guy, too, but I don't remember his name. I think he did a lot of voice work. The father's actor is voiced by Alan Young, who played Wilbur the owner of the titular talking horse in Mr. Ed. (He was also the first regular voice for Scrooge McDuck, who rarely appeared in animation prior to Young's involvement.) A few of the other voice actors playing the sitcom actors were actually in sitcoms and/or former child actors as well. Mary Dahl's two henchman are dressed as Gilligan and The Skipper from Gilligan's Island. And the not so fun stuff... Child actors really are treated as disposable in Hollywood. They are always working and don't usually go to regular school, and instead have on-set tutors. Everyone is telling them how great they are and they are on top of the world...until around the time they turn 12. Then they're not "cute" anymore and are disposed of. Like Mary, they can't find acting work and have no other practical experience. It's unfortunately quite rare for a child actor to grow up normally instead of dying at a very young age. And worse stuff happens to child actors that could never have been discussed in BTAS. People have mentioned a comic or a novel where Dahl's parents stole all the money she earned and left her broke. That's really happened, too. It happened to Jackie Coogan, and I assume he's probably not the only one. There was a law named after him that is supposed to prevent this, but I don't know how well it works.
What I like, in the Italian (my language) dubbing... she mantains the "kid voice" for most of the episode, even when in the original she used her "adult voice", until the final showdown. You imagine, she keeps this "Tweety Bird" voice (well, same Voice Actor, NSS) the whole time, even when she is explaining to her sitcom family why she wants to reunite with them again... like she is lying about it. A nice touch from our dubbing parts, considering how we screwed up MANY good sentences. Remember "You killed my father" "Do you have any idea how little that narrows it down?"? Italian: "Wanna know who am I?" "YES!" "You know what happend to my father" "I don't know what you're talking about, I don't know who your father is neither I care to know" (even IF we are trying to go for a more "family friendly" vibe [mind you, we NEVER dubbed the censored version of the movie] this was the BEST YOU COULD DO, TRANSLATORS!?)
I first discovered Baby Doll around my early to mid teens, I remember feeling sympathetic for her, but then eventually forgetting her. Coming back to this, as an 18 year old Autistic Girl, I personally feel as though she's the perfect depiction of what most autistic people, be it older teens or young adults, go through. You know you're an adult now, but the neurotypical people around you can only see and treat you as if you were a child.
I agree. Although, I've never really seen this series, I can understand the frustration of Mary Regardless. I'm also on the autism spectrum, and looking back, I hate that people would put me into one group if you understand what I mean
This is actually my number one favorite episode, because it makes me cry just thinking about it. I never noticed that each of batman's villains are a reflection of his struggles. That's so cool!
Babydoll is back in the kite man tv show. And her new design looks great. Perfect middle ground between looking like a child and acting like a villain grown up.
One of my favorite Batman villains is Firefly simply because of how fucked up his motivation is. His origin story is simply that he was born with a severe pyromania which made him insane and obssessed with burning people and things. No tragedy or unfortunate events in his life. A very underrated Batman villain that I'd wish was taken more seriously, as he could be a huge threat in certain circumstances.
By the way, Firefly's actual Identity is Garfield Lynns, and If I'm not mistaken, he worked as a partner for a film producer before beginning his life of crime.
For years I couldn’t put my finger on what exactly why I had such a strong feeling towards this episode. Specifically the scene with the reflections. Now that I grew up I’ve come to realize that I felt for Mary when it came to her dysphoria.
I kinda whish that she and Calendar Girl from The New Adventures got together. They're polar opposites: One an actor who can never get older and because of that can never go past playing a child, and the other an actor who was tossed aside because she turned 30 despite being drop dead gorgeous. Add in Clayface, an actor who who lost his job due to a disfiguring accident and ended up a monster trying to get it back, and you have the potential for a great episode.
I can understand babydoll a little bit, as I too have been ignored. Even if I seem disorganized, the reality is actually more organized in a complicated way.
This is one of the few episodes of BTAS I actually watched while it was still airing. That last "I didn't mean to" in her real voice was heartbreaking, and was the first time I ever got exposed to villains also being people, not just the opposite of the hero.
I find Baby Doll to be in a similar boat to Mr Freeze: They are both tragic and compelling characters, but it's difficult to picture them as frequently recurring antagonists like Joker, Two-Face, Penguin, Croc, and so on. They aren't really motivated by money or power, or a grand point to make.They lash out at the world, but typically only when the world stings them first. I wouldn't mind a story about her making a full mental recovery, and settling into a life largely outside of the world of capes & cowls. Maybe her as an anchoring gal pal to Harley Quinn.
The ending of her debut episode is one of the most heartbreaking in the series. I always like an ending that has a superhero comforting someone hurring, even if it's their foe
Yeah, that was quite a common ending for this show. Many of the tragic villains ended up on their knees, screaming and weeping, with only Batman there to comfort them.
I grew up with Batman the Animated Series, just like my dad. And while there are other episodes that also really encapsulate how Batman is intended to work (Harley's Holiday is a good one) I always go back to this one as my first choice to demonstrate what Batman was and is supposed to be.
Completely agree. So many adaptations of Batman forget that he’s supposed to be compassionate. He wants to make sure that no one else has to go through what he did, even though it’s an impossible task. BTAS nailed that element of the character.
I have been completely uninterested in the Batman, hell anything from DC or Marvel or any superhero franchise for my entire life and that will probably never change. But my god just from the small snippets I’ve seen about Babydoll on TH-cam shorts I don’t think I’ve ever felt so bad for a villain in any media I’ve seen. I always tear up whenever I see then scene of her amongst the funhouse mirrors pop up in my feed 😭😭for that reason I will give this a watch
When I heard my aunt talk about how she talked to THE Paul Dini I was genuinely flabbergasted. Paul Dini created Harley Quin, Batman Beyond and of course Baby Doll. When reading about the characters he made I saw Baby Doll on the list which made me remember this essay I watched a year ago and it also helped remind me of my infatuation of Batman. I used to go to school in Batman Pajamas back in preschool, I had a Batman birthday 2 years in a row and even dressed up as Batman for Halloween 3 times. While I’m not sure what writing this accomplishes all I know is that I love Batman and you should appreciate its writing as I have.
I would say the only superhero with a Rogue's Gallery arguably equal to Batman's is Spider-Man, and X-Men comes in a solid 2nd/3rd (depending on how one handles ties). It's a big reason why, though I prefer Marvel characters to DC characters as a whole, Batman and his cast are at the top of my favorite superhero mythologies/worlds.
The thing with "get help" is that some people just don't, even if they are willing and actively seeking help. They just don't get it, and life goes on as is. Some just live broken lives and nobody cares. How can a person like that be a part of your smiling, happy society?
As a person who has a disability, but not one like Baby Dolls, but for a large part of my life, I have been treated abnormally or like a freak of nature, so I can kind of relate to her
While not one of my personal favourite episodes (I still think it's really good, just not my cup of tea), I can see why it has it's fans. And watching videos like this and reading the comments, I can see that Mary Babydoll Dahl has a lot of potential for other stories. I mean, "Creepy Child" has its own page on Tvtropes, so there are a lot of stories that can be told with Mary using her childlike apperance to commit some crime. Motivation could be spite, or revenge on perhaps her parents or producers? Quick cash for some operation that could make her normal (like Clayface is often motivated by) or just her own mind deteriorating even more? She already shows signs of this in her debut episode, that she tends to slip into her old, made up persona of Baby Doll. And a regression of the mind doesn't have to lead to helplessness or sweetness. If there are any Cowboy Bebop fans here, remember the Pierrot Le Fou episode? As Jet notes, the regressed Pierrot is like a child, "And there's nothing more pure and cruel than a child." Think a bit like how Harvey struggles with his Two-Face persona, we could have mary go from wanting to be an adult to wanting to have a pretend life. Or, like one commenter pointed out with the idea of Mary transfering her mind into "A New Body". That has story potential. Perhaps having Babydoll teaming up with Mad Hatter, using the latters tech to transfer Marys body into that of a victim. Or maybe not a team up, but having Mary steal some tech from Hatter that she uses to control and take over bodies of adult women. But since she can't handle the tech, it fries out the brains of her victims and so she has to seek out new ones. All just to experience being in the type of body she really longs for. Now, these types of stories have to be done carefully, as to not villify people with Body Dismorphia. It's the classical fine line of making a villains acts understandable, even sympathetic, but still having their methods be the thing that makes them villains. I'm just spit-balling here. Finally, as a bit of trivia. While Dahl's surname is a homonym for Doll in english (and is also why Barbie, the world's most famous doll, has that for her surname as well) it is of scandinavian origin and is a fancier spelling of Dal, meaning valley (which makes the swedish surname Dahlberg a sort of oxymoron, since it literary means Valley-Mountain).
never thought that batman could be tear jerking, let alone a cartoon. I love and hate what a good concept it is of a person being unable to age and thus have a family
I think another aspect that might be keeping Baby Doll from any more appearances is that, in addition to being kind of powerless by herself, her story is just beyond tragic. I mean, even in the case of other tragic Batman characters, there’s a glimmer of hope to them: I recall even Killer Croc getting an uplifting story in the comics. There’s a sliver of a chance that Mr Freeze will be able to save his wife, Harley Quinn’s been successfully institutionalized albeit with relapses, but with Baby Doll, there really ISNT any hope for her- she’s going to be looking like a child until she dies.
Poor Baby Doll, she used to have it all during her sitcom: Love that Baby, but then everything changed for the worst. Her condition of not growing is also pretty sad, why I think maybe I could give her a hug and remind her that there's still love in the world plus I love her catchphrase, "I didn't mean to." Plus her relationship with Killer Croc is sort of sweet, it's just too bad things ended badly for Baby Doll.😥💕
I like the idea that the funhouse mirror at the end of the episode doesn't actually make Baby Doll look that different but that's how she see herself, that's who she is inside.
Growing up, this one really affected me. I didn’t understand the subtext, but the performance really got to me. Can’t believe she wasn’t in more things.
I interpreted Baby Doll shooting her reflection as her lashing out in anger at what she couldn't have, like it was so painful to see the version of herself that she could never be that she destroyed the mirror to not have to look at it.
Baby Doll made me want to see more episodes of the villains in Arkham, of some of the characters receiving treatment and seeing which ones had a chance at recovery.
i love Batman so much, the villains are so dark and melancholic. You don't see many shows diving into the serious issues people can go through that lead them down dark paths and villainy.
I feel like an intriguing thing that could have been done with baby doll is maybe she could have been part of the bat family in a way. Batman being the only one to treat her like an actual adult rather than a child could have lead to some interesting dynamics. Perhaps she could have been sort of a guy in the chair with oracle or even someone who was willing to be more in the position to be a spy. Think about it, she would be great if gathering intel due to her physical appearance being that of a child. And even if she couldn’t use her appearance, she can still use her small stature to collect intel while hiding in small places like air vents. What I’m trying to say is, if Batman took her in to join the bat fam and allowed her to be who she truly was without needing to worry about her appearance.
Babydoll is one of my favorite Batman villains and her disuse is such a shame, especially today where topics like body dysmorphia and the revealed abuses child actors and actresses often face are fertile ground for new stories shedding light on those issues.
The saddest part of Batman is like he said Bruce Wayne doesn’t really exist anymore he’s dead while Batman takes his place to hide his identity, and Even in the comics they show this when he’s asked his identity in the lasso of truth
even though it's delivered as a joke in the lego batman movie, the line "does Batman live in Bruce Wayne's basement?"/"no, Bruce Wayne lives in Batman's attic" reveals a lot about how the poor man sees his own identity
This and the ending to Feat Of Clay part 2 were my favorite episodes. Even as a 13 yr old i could see the tragedy of Mary Dahl and Matt Hagan were heart wrenching. Both dedicated to a career that wound up destroying them. In Matt's case he morphed into a monster and in the case of Mary deprived her of a real family with love and support. Which of the two was worse i wonder???
Yeah, it actually a good way to put the detective side to batman, putting hin on a side where he is not able to use his force but the ingenius of the mind to make the villain turn over, and all of that while being treated with the normal episode of batman, i never think of it thst way
The scene with the mirrors, she saw what she would look like if she never suffered of that illness, was really poignant. She saw herself as an healthy young woman, but that was an illusion by her mind. Completed with the "i didn't meant to" quote from her sitcom. The hell that she was never used ever again? That's a better character, interesting, yet aknowledged that something was wrong with herself.
Baby Doll is my favorite Batman villain and I would really like to see DC do more with her character. Baby Doll hasn't really appeared in anything else other than BTAS and has only appeared in the comics a couple of times.
I just feel really bad for her She legit needed help but nobody took her seriously because of her appearance it's like they don't see what she is but what she looks like
As someone who has a form of dwarfism, Baby Doll really spoke to me. It’s awful growing up feeling like you’ll never be taken seriously. You don’t know if you’ll ever find love or a job, you don’t know who your true friends are. It’s a lonely existence.
Another tragedy in Baby Doll's character is the way her actions contradict her goals. In "Love is a Croc" She keep expressing how she hates being treat like child and yet she still talks in a baby doll voice and acting very immature and unstable, specially when she doesn't get the "happy life" she wanted...a happy life that she only got when she play the Baby Doll's character in the TV. She can't never move from her past and find happiness because her past as Baby Doll is the happiness she knows.
I always was fascinated with this character and loved her since I saw her episodes as a child. However I feel her female bodyguard miriam does not nearly get enough love, she was really cool :)
It hits harder when you think about it. Batman lost his childhood and had to grow up. While baby doll did grow up but is still trapped being seen as a child.
This isn't related to Baby Doll's psychology, but her design and basic concept reminds me a LOT of Darla Dimple from Cats Don't Dance. Seeing as Cats Don't Dance came out after BTAS, I wonder if Baby Doll inspired the character?
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Baby Doll is the most tragic original TAS rogue ever created. Alison La Placa does not get enough credit for her performance as Mary Dahl. Whenever she switches to her true self, you can hear how truly broken and miserable she is, and when she uttered her catch phrase "I didn't mean to" one last time, I was brought to tears.
One of the best endings of an episode (up there with Feat of Clay part 2, Two-Face part 1 and Harley’s Holiday, for me)
@@SerumLake I wish Alison returned :(
It's so good. I wish the sequel episode was actually good. They could have really REALLY done something cool if killer croc was the simple mined guy who's misunderstood and she's the smart mature person trapped in the body of a kid. Like some kind of poetic irony
@@dissonanceparadiddle yaaaaas
@@dissonanceparadiddlethe sad thing is, of croc's characterization hadn't changed between series that's probably what could have happened
There’s another tragic element to Baby-Doll’s origin: Her condition was actually treatable
Long story short, it’s revealed in the comics connected to the show. Baby-Doll could’ve gotten a hormone treatment but her parents wanted to keep her appearance of a toddler for the sake of the show and the money made from it. They hid the possibility of the treatment until she was old enough to where it wouldn’t work, then skipped town
Oh, which comics were these? I must’ve missed that one!
@@SerumLake The name escapes me but it was in a part about Harley learning more about the Arkham patients, Baby-Doll’s parents was the part mentioned about her
@@ireallyneedtherapy1126 thanks! I’ll do some digging then!
So...she was basically gonna get HRT but her parents denied it for her?
This rings tragically familiar nowadays
Reminds me of that one SkullGirls character: Annie of the Stars.
I always loved Baby doll. She's the perfect metaphor for how if you're not able bodied people infantalise you. I'm disabled and obviously I don't have the same condition, but despite being a grown ass adult I've had people talk to me like I'm 5. It's humilating and frustrating.
I'm really sorry to hear that, I can only imagine how that must make you feel.
Same 😞 Especially by my own mother. I'm the youngest, so she's always infantilized me, but it got even worse when I developed lupus.
I hadn’t watched this series, but I can relate to this on so many levels. I’m an autistic girl in her 20’s but I look like I’m a teen. Now, don’t get me wrong, I actually do like to look young and I’m not interested in adult activities like drinking alcoholic beverages, but it would be nice if people would just take my words seriously and not to infantilise me
@@VioletFeatherWind Thanks for sharing your experience, it really helps to illustrate why so many people care about Baby Doll.
@@SerumLake Oh, no problem!
The fact that so many of Batman's Villains end up not in prison but an asylum shows that most of them are just broken individuals who just need help.
They would be better off in prison honestly. Arkham is pretty much exclusively the opposite of helpful from basically everything I know about the place
@brolytriplethreat the only villain in the rogue gallery that fits better in prison is Bane cuz he is sane as they come tho one might argue he belongs in Arkham for drug rehabilitation
@finnmchugh99 no I mean that last I checked Arkham is run by !@#holes itself like that Hugo guy
@@finnmchugh99Bane needs to be in a drug rehab facility before a prison. He's an addict
Now, if only Arkam actually _HELPED_ inmates, and could keep their damn doors locked, Gotham might be a more peaceful city... Granted, pretty much the entire county needs therapy for coulrophobia (thanks a lot, Joker), but more peaceful in general.
Baby doll is a perfect villain as she represents all those child actors we hear about whose lives went downhill after the spotlight went away like Gary Coleman,Danny bonaduce and others.she can also be compared to being a comic book version of Norma Desmond from Sunset Boulevard.a person wanting so badly for life to be as it was when it seemed everyone loved them
I’m not the only one who thought of Norma!
Love is addicting even when fake. It makes you feel valued.
Nickelodeon and Bobby Discroll
Corey Feldman
@@SomeoneThatIsHappy Gary Coleman
I feel like if the creators didn't want Mary Dahl as a villain, due to her not being intimidating enough, I think she could have worked excellent as an ally. I could easily buy her getting her life back on track with the right help and a good social safety net, especially since she's definitely one of the Batman villains who genuinely want to live a normal life. I could imagine her working as a contact of Batman who has extensive knowledge on human biology and/or rare genetic disorders, justified by her studying her own condition
she could also be an informant and offer Intel on celebrities from running her own talent agency (with calendar girl)
If Harley got to turn around from the Injustice timeline to present time why not give Baby Doll a chance? Hell even Croc, who's sometimes her lover (might be platonic) had more chances than her
You could say this for a lot of batman villains.
@@falconeshieldyeah, though in Croc's case is to show you that he's not a good person, deformity or not.
@@EkoBahamut youre just saying that because he threw a rock
I'm glad someone else noticed that Mary was practically grinning at that stick of dynamite, and clearly planning to die in the blast. Even in Love is a Croc, we get hints of how trapped in her misery Mary actually is, first beating a man who recognized her as Baby Doll, but then going to her room to watch reruns of herself playing her character. When she's not at murder-suicide levels of unstable, she's still clearly stuck in the past, unable to progress away from it any more than she can age physically.
Something else that deserves mentioning is the comics did add an extra level to her torment; there was a time when her condition could be corrected! If she took some hormone therapy, she could have at least progressed *somewhat* to looking her age; never play pro basketball, but her career might not have stalled so completely. Thanks to her parents wanting to milk her Baby Doll fame, though, they held off on those until it was much too late, then show was cancelled and Miss Dahl was screwed out of a normal life on top of never working in showbiz again.
Do you know which comic it was that said this? I’ve been looking all over for it and haven’t been able to find it. I really want to read it
@@SerumLake I'm having similar difficulty. I remember reading it *somewhere,* and I sincerely hope it's not some retconned bit of trivia or something that never actually made it into print.
Yeah they even took all her money so she has to work a menial job. I bet it's even hard for her to find work because of her size.
The part where the parents steal all her money is based on reality, unfortunately. Jackie Coogan was a child actor, who, upon turning 18, learned that his parents had squandered all of his money. The Coogan Law was passed in response to this to try an prevent this from happening again. Coogan later went on to play Uncle Fester in The Addams Family and made sure the kids on that show weren't swindled like he was.
Gary Coleman and Emmanuel Lewis had a similar medical condition that kept them looking like children, although (as far as I know) there isn't actually a cure.
And, although he wasn't a child, Burt Ward claims that when he was playing Robin on the 60s Batman the producers ordered him to take some some pills to...um...shrink his package, and he actually did it briefly. This sounds far fetched to me (especially that he would actually go along with it), but not out of the realm of possibility for Hollywood. It just seems like it would've been much easier to change his costume.
@@KasumiKenshirouActually Emmanuel Lewis is just short with no explanation. He’s perfectly healthy and has no medical condition unlike Gary.
I love it when someone takes an idea which seems silly and cartoonish and makes it work in a dramatic way. Whou would've guessed that you can tell a story about Batman fighting a little girl and end it on a such a heavy, depressing, character focused scene.
& yet it's so Heartbreakingly sad
Whou means who in certain word slang/saying so anybody seeing this typing you spelled who wrong don’t do that or delete it because it’s not wrong it’s just a different way of saying the word.
@@DownTrodded Yeah, it's a typo, don't get excited
@@tajniak4335 No it’s like yoir or your their both correct they have different soundings but have the same meaning and implications.
Yes! There were so many episodes that I would watch, and then try to describe them to my friends at school and they sounded like the stupidest thing ever.
I could imagine her being recruited by the Suicide Squad since her ability to flawlessly impersonate a child could be useful. Or maybe becoming a vigilante who uses herself as bait to hunt down child molesters.
Funnily enough, in a recent issue of Batman Adventures Continue she was kidnapped by the Suicide Squad in order to force Harley Quinn to hunt down the Joker. If Harley didn’t comply they said they’d put a bomb in Baby Doll’s head and send her on missions.
Strangely enough most of batman's rogues could've become vigilantes
If she teamed up with some other members of Batman's rogues, who also turn good, they'd make a very good team that sort-of mirrors the bat family.
@@sev1120 could she had appeared in the the Batman 2004 cartoon or the Batman movie? What about games like the Batman Arkhamverse?
@@salahdeanclemens2226oh god an Arkhamverse version would be terrifying
Honestly I wished we got more Babydoll, if not as a villain than as some ally or even a friend of Batman’s. She might not have the same circumstances, but both of them are trapped in a place that was out of their control - Bruce loosing his parents, and Mary’s medical condition.
I could also imagine Babydoll could work as a distraction or even some kind of agent for other people, she is an actress and looks like a child who could get away with snooping through other people’s belongings or asking inconvenient questions. It would be cool to potentially see her somewhat reclaim her own autonomy by using it to her advantage (whether as a hero or a villain).
I always thought she would have great chemistry with Bruce. The trick would be getting them in the same room and then getting a conversation going.
I can imagine a universe where Bruce gets the rogues the help they need and hiring them on to wayne enterprises.
Baby Doll would be great in this role, as either an actress or some other role
@@sev1120 I mean, she got reformed. She just slipped back into her bad habits by idolizing Croc
As a learning disabled person, I remember being infantalized and Baby Doll reminded me. I wanted to get revenge, I hated being LD and I bet Baby Doll was just as frustrated
Thanks for sharing your experiences. It has really helped me understand why so many people relate to Baby Doll.
@Serum Lake it's an experience that not everyone has growing up in the 1980s and 1990s
As an autistic person, I get what you mean.
I have autism. Same.
What does LD mean? I fully agree with you but im curious.
I've always thought Baby Doll was meant to be the inverse of Bette Davis in 'Baby Jane' - where Jane Hudson was a haggard middle-aged woman who was deluded into seeing herself as her child-star self, Baby Doll was a little girl with the mind of a hardened, embittered older woman.
I would be willing to be money that Baby Jane was at least a partial influence. They were also heavily inspired by Shirley Temple.
I'd like to imagine that the reason we don't really see her anymore is because she isn't a villain anymore, that she stopped and accepted that she couldn't be what she was on the inside.
But yeah, maybe not
I like to think that too.
Plausible.
Until that jerk at the hotel lobby harassing her at her job. her life seemed pretty much mundane which is probably something she honestly preferred. Her plush pile in her apartment was so cute... But it made me so sad. A strange melancholy feeling
I actually fear that she, umm, offed herself at some point. Brutal, the assumption, but not altogether unrealistic.
@@dissonanceparadiddle Seriously, she was doing fine and someone had to physically accost her. And they perceive her as a child so that's double red flags.
This is a fine example of why Batman the Animated series will stand for likely decades to come as the greatest Super hero show based upon a comic book character and outlive all other verisons, because it was willing to push its dark themes to close as possible to what it acceptable for a child, yet it never once really treats its viewers as idiots as some shows do, instead it simply treats the viewer as a small adult!
I honestly expect a hunderd years from now, there will be many generations discovering the masterpiece of BTAS and looking at the current slate and asking "Why is current stuff, so dull and lifeless?"
Well said. I’m doing my part by encouraging my nieces and nephew to watch this show.
It helps that BTAS portrayal of Bruce Wayne/Batman himself isn't like in the comics. The animated Batman is fully aware that he has just as many problems mentally as his enemies and doesn't take the obvious anti-hero route of hating Superman or any of the other superheroes. This is a Batman who actually has flaws and recognizes them, which makes Kevin Conroy's portrayal the greatest portrayal we'll ever get of Batman. Much the same could be said of the other superheroes of the DCAU, especially the Flash. There's a reason everyone INCLUDING BATMAN turned the Justice Lords' Earth into a police state after Flash's murder...
"We tried being the upstanding superheroes who always do the right thing, but everyone breaks eventually, right Lex?"
2004 batman was lit too.
Honestly her acting in that Shakespeare performance was pretty good, like, despite her obvious handicap she has great technical skill
You have to imagine it would be hard for her to get a date on top of all that. Filtering out all the people who treat her like a child and the creepos who would date her SPECIFICALLY because she looks like a child, there are a lot of guys who might like her for who she is, but be turned off of pursuing a romantic relationship with her. Not because dating someone who looks like a child disturbs them, but because they know they would be viewed as a pervert by anyone who saw them together.
Don't care still smash
i would say that in the 90s when the episode was made, not in the 2020s with streamer culture
@@nuhrii3449 Dude. She'd be even more Disturbing in Today's culture. Like way worst.
@@arnowisp6244 you know nothing about streamer culture,they really dont care about being seen as a degenerate
Not to her extent, but I'm very similar to Baby Doll in the sense that I'm also an adult that's very small and looks like a child. It is extremely frustrating sometimes. No one takes you seriously. No one wants to date you out of fear of looking like a pedo (actual thing my ex told me). Then, when you do get hit on, you find out they are an actual pedophile who thought you were 12. Some places won't let you in because, "No way that kid's an adult. Her ID must be fake." You get stopped by random people in the parking lot of Walmart trying to "make sure that's really your car. You just don't look old enough to drive. Are you sure you didn't steal that car from your parents? Am I gonna have to call the police on you, little girl?" I was 22....
Thank you for sharing your experience with me, I can only imagine how infuriating that must be. I hope that, with time, things get better for you.
I'm so sorry that happened to you. People just suck sometimes
Yeah, as a petite person, I've struggled a lot with body image issues 🥲
Funnily enough (or sadly enough) the opposite is also true, i have always look older than i am; being a little too tall, a little too hairy. I have had problems with people who didn't believe tht i should be where i was: most prominent being my highschool, to the point that i failed an exam because security wouldn't let me in since i was "an obvious adult trying to get in to rob, or something worse" and i also didn't had any romantic partners until university and even then some people tought i was a professor, you can see where that lead.
This! I’m the same way
0:48 Baby's Catchphrase
1:07 Mary Doll in "Macbeth"
4:52 Mary admits her dream is dead
8:01 "I Didn't Mean To"
Would like to see her in Macbeth.
My head canon is that she eventually finds a new career in voice acting, getting roles in big budget animated features, video games, cartoons, anime, and voice overs. She is beloved by fans and receives standing ovations at geek conventions all over the country.
❤❤❤❤❤❤❤!!!!
She could easily make a living off of her short stature like Warwick Davis.
I accept this as canon
Honestly I dont think Love is a Croc gets enough attention. While her debut episode is a stand out, I think love is a croc highlights even worse how bad her situation is, that she cant even have the simplest human want there is, the love of another person, a proper relationship, not unless she wishes to open herself up to the type of monsters worse than Croc.
that's a very fair point.
And besides, I don't actually think there's a truly average The New Batman Adventures ep at all (and this even includes the Superman: The Animated Series crossover stuff)... yes, am actually fond of "Critters" for some reason, just like the show runners, all while "Animal Act" is a nice return to Dick Grayson's past.
In BTAS, Mary Dahl is animated like a Tiny Toons Adventure character, especially Elmirya. It helps her stick out even further, as other BTAS children are not drawn or animated like that.
And in that storyboard he showed she looked like a South Park character (although that show didn't even exist, yet, so it must be a coincidence). She's also a bit like Baby Herman from Who Framed Roger Rabbit, an adult trapped in a Baby's body.
his ending with baby-doll is echoed later in JLU when batman refuses to kill ace and instead just stays with the poor girl until she dies. He understands she was never a bad person just broken and deeply in need of someone to care.
I would love to see her in the main comic canon; as there's so much that could be done with her.
She seems to be used as Harley Quinn’s friend every now and then, which I guess is nice, seeing as they’re both Paul Dini creations
Baby Doll might be one note but her debut ended on a high note (perfect) so nothing else really needed to be written with her.
I always said Batman and Spider-Man have the best rogues' gallery but I think Batman has an advantage because not only are the villains entertaining, but a majority of them have some tragic aspect to them. There's so much that can be written about each villain.
Also I never considered the metaphor of Baby Doll 'shooting herself' during the ending.
Great video and perfect Batman villain.
Also Killer Moth mentioned.
Let's fucking gooooo!
(I'm writing a huge Batman fanfiction project and he's going to be a central character) Maybe we can see a Killer Moth video in the future but either way, great channel. Keep up the great work.
Yeah, Spider-Man has a good rogues gallery too, but I agree with your assessment. Spider-Man’s villains have cool abilities and striking designs, but they’re not particularly compelling, for the most part.
@Serum Lake Not compelling? I strongly disagree. If you look deep enough, you can find several stories that depict each Spider-Man rogue in a more compelling light. Frankly, I think the Spider-Man rogues rival the bat rogues in terms of nuance. At the very least, they are not constantly overshadowed by a single rogue, unlike all the arkham inmates who aren't quinn or The Joker.
@@zemox2534 Fair point. After all, Batman has one arch-nemesis, The Joker.
Spider-Man has three; Green Goblin, Doctor Octopus and Venom.
Also, to add to this discussion, I think the X-Men Rouges Gallery is pretty great too.
Magneto, Mystique, Sabretooth, The Sentinels and everything around them. There are a lot of great ones there. Both visually striking and many times psycholigically complex (Once again; Magneto, need I say more?)
And then the disaster "redesign" absolutely ruined her.
3:00 Batman pretty much confirms this in a later episode of Justice League Unlimited. The league is reverted to their child form and mentality, yet young Batman is still himself. At the end Wonder Woman muses about how much fun she had to be a kid again. Batman responds: "I stopped being a kid when my parents died."
Good call! I had forgotten all about that scene.
the line was "i havent been a kid since i was 8 years old", thats much more definitive and tragic statement on its own
The killer croc follow up episode had so much potential but only if they had the childish older croc. Could have been an interesting parallel. Her looking like a child but having the mentality of an adult and croc who looks monstrous but back then had the mind of someone who was kinda childish
i think this episode especially sums up why this version of batman has left me with a lingering love for the character, and more than anything else its that kindness. he is flawed, and deeply damaged, fighting an impossible fight against too many foes, but he is kind. he will fight, he will outsmart, he will sacrifice, but it is because he wants to help, wants to do better. too much of the popculture idea of him is caught up in idolizing and fantasizing over how cool and badass and unstoppable he is and honestly as a fan i just dont care. sure batman should be smart and amazingly capable, but more than that he should be kind, be human, even to people that cant bring themselves to accept it.
As a neurodivergent, babydoll really resonates with me, the feeling of being spoken to like a baby as a fully grown adult is humiliating and degrading. When she “killed” herself in the mirror I cried. The visual of both how she’s perceived by the world vs herself, then giving up on her own perception really hits hard.
Baby doll works like all other good batman villains for one big reason:
She's a mirror of him, specifically the part of him that's obsessed with a singular part of his past, to the point where it consumed him.
The worst part is that she never returns... or rather, she does, once, but it didnt change one bit.
I think that this character would be better than either of the classic batman villains, like, i get it, joker and the others are the og, but she is a perfect mirror match to Batman! Why cant we see more of her?!
I think that a lot of writers don't really know what to do with her. Paul Dini has used her as a background character a few times in recent years - she has been in a few issues of Batman Adventures Continue, but only as a side character, rather than the star of the comic. But that's about it.
@@SerumLake i'd call that bullshit
I agree! Western media needs more enteral lolis!
@@lordvexacus6011 wtf is that? You mean eternal loli? Also, not really that, more so a character that is this... sad
Better stay underused than misused.
Really need less "eternal lolis" though.
Mary Dahl is a broken adult in a child's body.
Bruce Wayne is a broken child in the adult's body.
That's rough and tragic.
I feel like Mary Dahl would have made a great work as a voice actress, narrator, or a business woman.
OK, won't lie, voice acting would have been one brilliant career choice especially in a meta-narrative standpoint.
My head canon is that Wayne Studios puts her in the lead for their new animated feature. It breaks box office records, yielding her critical acclaim and leads to long and happy career in voice acting.
True. She needs to find a job that doesn't need her to be at the front desk.
I really think there should have been a episode in between Baby Doll and Love is a Croc like say that she is still going after Spunky and maybe that she discovered that she has fans that later become her henchmen because it never explained how she could have afforded henchmen in the first place since she has no money and what made agreed to blow themselves with her.
You think she should teamed up with the Penguin and Clayface since he was a actor before he transformed.
Do Red Claw or Lloyd Ventrix because have you seen the 2020 invisible man movie?
I have seen the Invisible Man and am aware of the connection to BTAS - what a cool coincidence by the way - but I don’t think there’s much else to say about that episode. Same goes for Red Claw - she’s so painfully generic with no credible motivations beyond being “Eastern European”
@@SerumLake well she could be a good replacement and stand in for Ra’s al ghoul
No offense but she sucks. Al ghul is better
That’s why i like bat man so much. He sees the people struggling with severe forms of self harm and takes them to get help. It’s nice to know Batman has been with me my whole journey
I really like to think that while in Arkham asylum she meets someone who makes a life-sized doll version of her ideal self and they like put her brain in the body of the doll and she finally gets her dream body so thats why we dont see her much anymore... I wouldn't actually recommend doing this but it is a animated tv show with superheroes and villains.
That would be very interesting to see - sort of like a Freaky Friday body swap, or something a bit more permanent? I like to think that she was eventually able to accept herself and become comfortable in her own skin 🤞
@@SerumLake yea that's probably what actually happens. But it is an interesting concept
I imagined she got a robotic body that looks like Echo from Overwatch (not because of the Overwatch part, but rather the looks of the character, feminine yes, but not mind-numbingly lewd, just a female robot, that's it, the neutrality fits on how Baby Doll wants to be a normal adult)
@@Regigigas_YT I love this too. It's would be realistic enough to be seen as a normal girl
SAD FACT: The saddest thing is that her illness also exists in reality. It must be awful to never be seen as more than a child when you are maybe 16 or older. finding love must be almost impossible.
Yeah like Andy Milonakis, even being a celebrity that used to have a television show he still regularly gets denied entry to bars and he's like 40.
What blows mu mind is that Baby Doll is an original villain made for this show, because it feels like she fits right in with the rest of Batman's villains, maybe even better than some others
There are a lot of references to old sitcoms in this episode. Since a lot of people in the comments don't know who Shirley Temple was, these people probably might have missed these, too.
Cousin Spunky is essentially Cousin Oliver from The Brady Bunch. Cousin Oliver was played by Robbie Rist, who voiced the older brother's actor in this episode. (He also played Michaelangeo in the original live-action Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie series.) After the Brady Bunch had been on the air for many years and were losing popularity, the producers added a new little kid, since the original Brady kids were "too old" now. This character was not popular. If you've heard people complain about Scrappy Doo, this was essentially the live action version of that.
The condition that Dahl has is real. Gary Coleman (Arnold on Diff'rent Strokes) and Emmanuel Lewis (Webster) had this. There was another guy, too, but I don't remember his name. I think he did a lot of voice work.
The father's actor is voiced by Alan Young, who played Wilbur the owner of the titular talking horse in Mr. Ed. (He was also the first regular voice for Scrooge McDuck, who rarely appeared in animation prior to Young's involvement.)
A few of the other voice actors playing the sitcom actors were actually in sitcoms and/or former child actors as well.
Mary Dahl's two henchman are dressed as Gilligan and The Skipper from Gilligan's Island.
And the not so fun stuff...
Child actors really are treated as disposable in Hollywood. They are always working and don't usually go to regular school, and instead have on-set tutors. Everyone is telling them how great they are and they are on top of the world...until around the time they turn 12. Then they're not "cute" anymore and are disposed of. Like Mary, they can't find acting work and have no other practical experience. It's unfortunately quite rare for a child actor to grow up normally instead of dying at a very young age. And worse stuff happens to child actors that could never have been discussed in BTAS.
People have mentioned a comic or a novel where Dahl's parents stole all the money she earned and left her broke. That's really happened, too. It happened to Jackie Coogan, and I assume he's probably not the only one. There was a law named after him that is supposed to prevent this, but I don't know how well it works.
What I like, in the Italian (my language) dubbing... she mantains the "kid voice" for most of the episode, even when in the original she used her "adult voice", until the final showdown.
You imagine, she keeps this "Tweety Bird" voice (well, same Voice Actor, NSS) the whole time, even when she is explaining to her sitcom family why she wants to reunite with them again... like she is lying about it. A nice touch from our dubbing parts, considering how we screwed up MANY good sentences.
Remember "You killed my father" "Do you have any idea how little that narrows it down?"? Italian: "Wanna know who am I?" "YES!" "You know what happend to my father" "I don't know what you're talking about, I don't know who your father is neither I care to know" (even IF we are trying to go for a more "family friendly" vibe [mind you, we NEVER dubbed the censored version of the movie] this was the BEST YOU COULD DO, TRANSLATORS!?)
I first discovered Baby Doll around my early to mid teens, I remember feeling sympathetic for her, but then eventually forgetting her.
Coming back to this, as an 18 year old Autistic Girl, I personally feel as though she's the perfect depiction of what most autistic people, be it older teens or young adults, go through. You know you're an adult now, but the neurotypical people around you can only see and treat you as if you were a child.
I agree. Although, I've never really seen this series, I can understand the frustration of Mary Regardless. I'm also on the autism spectrum, and looking back, I hate that people would put me into one group if you understand what I mean
This is actually my number one favorite episode, because it makes me cry just thinking about it.
I never noticed that each of batman's villains are a reflection of his struggles. That's so cool!
Babydoll is back in the kite man tv show. And her new design looks great. Perfect middle ground between looking like a child and acting like a villain grown up.
One of my favorite Batman villains is Firefly simply because of how fucked up his motivation is. His origin story is simply that he was born with a severe pyromania which made him insane and obssessed with burning people and things. No tragedy or unfortunate events in his life. A very underrated Batman villain that I'd wish was taken more seriously, as he could be a huge threat in certain circumstances.
By the way, Firefly's actual Identity is Garfield Lynns, and If I'm not mistaken, he worked as a partner for a film producer before beginning his life of crime.
You would love Batman Arkham Origins then.
@@Samuel152 Yeah I heard about it, looks pretty sick
Gotta love the Firefly boss battle in Arkham Origins. Then again, that underrated installment sure did them better than Rocksteady's Arkham Knight.
I love how baby dolls emphasize one thing that people overlook from Batman, and that it's his compassion
For years I couldn’t put my finger on what exactly why I had such a strong feeling towards this episode. Specifically the scene with the reflections. Now that I grew up I’ve come to realize that I felt for Mary when it came to her dysphoria.
I kinda whish that she and Calendar Girl from The New Adventures got together. They're polar opposites: One an actor who can never get older and because of that can never go past playing a child, and the other an actor who was tossed aside because she turned 30 despite being drop dead gorgeous. Add in Clayface, an actor who who lost his job due to a disfiguring accident and ended up a monster trying to get it back, and you have the potential for a great episode.
What a perfect little family they would make!!!
Great combination. I think the point is clear. The fans what her story to continue.
I can understand babydoll a little bit, as I too have been ignored. Even if I seem disorganized, the reality is actually more organized in a complicated way.
Sorry to hear that!
This is one of the few episodes of BTAS I actually watched while it was still airing. That last "I didn't mean to" in her real voice was heartbreaking, and was the first time I ever got exposed to villains also being people, not just the opposite of the hero.
Be nice to see her in a movie instead of the same 3-4 Batman villains we’ve been getting for decades now.
Fuck, I never even noticed the whole "the villains are all representations of parts of Bruce" thing, that's an AMAZING point!!!
I find Baby Doll to be in a similar boat to Mr Freeze: They are both tragic and compelling characters, but it's difficult to picture them as frequently recurring antagonists like Joker, Two-Face, Penguin, Croc, and so on. They aren't really motivated by money or power, or a grand point to make.They lash out at the world, but typically only when the world stings them first. I wouldn't mind a story about her making a full mental recovery, and settling into a life largely outside of the world of capes & cowls. Maybe her as an anchoring gal pal to Harley Quinn.
*"... Comforting hand of her shoulder"*
Shows Batman placing a hand on her *head*
This episode always pulls at my heartstrings. That final scene is such a gut punch.
The ending of her debut episode is one of the most heartbreaking in the series. I always like an ending that has a superhero comforting someone hurring, even if it's their foe
Yeah, that was quite a common ending for this show. Many of the tragic villains ended up on their knees, screaming and weeping, with only Batman there to comfort them.
Man, these videos remind me just how good this show was. I think it's time for a rewatch.
It's always a great time for a rewatch!
@@SerumLake Too true! This show was such a masterpiece. Really, the entire DCAU from Batman to JLU is always worthy of a rewatch.
I grew up with Batman the Animated Series, just like my dad. And while there are other episodes that also really encapsulate how Batman is intended to work (Harley's Holiday is a good one) I always go back to this one as my first choice to demonstrate what Batman was and is supposed to be.
Completely agree. So many adaptations of Batman forget that he’s supposed to be compassionate. He wants to make sure that no one else has to go through what he did, even though it’s an impossible task. BTAS nailed that element of the character.
@@SerumLake batman should have just adopted baby doll
I have been completely uninterested in the Batman, hell anything from DC or Marvel or any superhero franchise for my entire life and that will probably never change. But my god just from the small snippets I’ve seen about Babydoll on TH-cam shorts I don’t think I’ve ever felt so bad for a villain in any media I’ve seen. I always tear up whenever I see then scene of her amongst the funhouse mirrors pop up in my feed 😭😭for that reason I will give this a watch
When I heard my aunt talk about how she talked to THE Paul Dini I was genuinely flabbergasted. Paul Dini created Harley Quin, Batman Beyond and of course Baby Doll. When reading about the characters he made I saw Baby Doll on the list which made me remember this essay I watched a year ago and it also helped remind me of my infatuation of Batman. I used to go to school in Batman Pajamas back in preschool, I had a Batman birthday 2 years in a row and even dressed up as Batman for Halloween 3 times. While I’m not sure what writing this accomplishes all I know is that I love Batman and you should appreciate its writing as I have.
Fffffuck, that ending might be the best one in the entire series. Not just the writing, but Alison LaPlaca's delivery there is just heart-shattering.
I would say the only superhero with a Rogue's Gallery arguably equal to Batman's is Spider-Man, and X-Men comes in a solid 2nd/3rd (depending on how one handles ties). It's a big reason why, though I prefer Marvel characters to DC characters as a whole, Batman and his cast are at the top of my favorite superhero mythologies/worlds.
Agreed. Only Spider-Man comes close to Batman’s rogues Gallery.
The Spirit arguably comes close too. Judge Dredd would too but the "rogues" tend to not survive.
RIP the man who voiced animated Batman
Gone way too soon.
@@SerumLake Kevin conroy
The thing with "get help" is that some people just don't, even if they are willing and actively seeking help. They just don't get it, and life goes on as is. Some just live broken lives and nobody cares.
How can a person like that be a part of your smiling, happy society?
Been there myself. Finding proper therapy becomes a struggle when your past experiences with therapists only made things worse
Wow, this actually made me cry. What a great written character.
As a person who has a disability, but not one like Baby Dolls, but for a large part of my life, I have been treated abnormally or like a freak of nature, so I can kind of relate to her
Baby doll is also the most grounded in reality. There are actual people who seem to look very young despite being adults.
While not one of my personal favourite episodes (I still think it's really good, just not my cup of tea), I can see why it has it's fans. And watching videos like this and reading the comments, I can see that Mary Babydoll Dahl has a lot of potential for other stories.
I mean, "Creepy Child" has its own page on Tvtropes, so there are a lot of stories that can be told with Mary using her childlike apperance to commit some crime. Motivation could be spite, or revenge on perhaps her parents or producers? Quick cash for some operation that could make her normal (like Clayface is often motivated by) or just her own mind deteriorating even more? She already shows signs of this in her debut episode, that she tends to slip into her old, made up persona of Baby Doll. And a regression of the mind doesn't have to lead to helplessness or sweetness. If there are any Cowboy Bebop fans here, remember the Pierrot Le Fou episode? As Jet notes, the regressed Pierrot is like a child, "And there's nothing more pure and cruel than a child." Think a bit like how Harvey struggles with his Two-Face persona, we could have mary go from wanting to be an adult to wanting to have a pretend life.
Or, like one commenter pointed out with the idea of Mary transfering her mind into "A New Body". That has story potential.
Perhaps having Babydoll teaming up with Mad Hatter, using the latters tech to transfer Marys body into that of a victim.
Or maybe not a team up, but having Mary steal some tech from Hatter that she uses to control and take over bodies of adult women. But since she can't handle the tech, it fries out the brains of her victims and so she has to seek out new ones. All just to experience being in the type of body she really longs for.
Now, these types of stories have to be done carefully, as to not villify people with Body Dismorphia. It's the classical fine line of making a villains acts understandable, even sympathetic, but still having their methods be the thing that makes them villains.
I'm just spit-balling here.
Finally, as a bit of trivia. While Dahl's surname is a homonym for Doll in english (and is also why Barbie, the world's most famous doll, has that for her surname as well) it is of scandinavian origin and is a fancier spelling of Dal, meaning valley (which makes the swedish surname Dahlberg a sort of oxymoron, since it literary means Valley-Mountain).
I always appreciate a good bit of trivia, thanks for sharing.
never thought that batman could be tear jerking, let alone a cartoon. I love and hate what a good concept it is of a person being unable to age and thus have a family
You know what? Good for her if she does become a thing with Gaggy in the comics. She’s been through enough, she earned it.
I think another aspect that might be keeping Baby Doll from any more appearances is that, in addition to being kind of powerless by herself, her story is just beyond tragic. I mean, even in the case of other tragic Batman characters, there’s a glimmer of hope to them: I recall even Killer Croc getting an uplifting story in the comics. There’s a sliver of a chance that Mr Freeze will be able to save his wife, Harley Quinn’s been successfully institutionalized albeit with relapses, but with Baby Doll, there really ISNT any hope for her- she’s going to be looking like a child until she dies.
Poor Baby Doll, she used to have it all during her sitcom: Love that Baby, but then everything changed for the worst. Her condition of not growing is also pretty sad, why I think maybe I could give her a hug and remind her that there's still love in the world plus I love her catchphrase, "I didn't mean to." Plus her relationship with Killer Croc is sort of sweet, it's just too bad things ended badly for Baby Doll.😥💕
I like the idea that the funhouse mirror at the end of the episode doesn't actually make Baby Doll look that different but that's how she see herself, that's who she is inside.
I feel bad for Mary Dahl, imagine loosing everything that you saw important to you. I hope that she will be happy one day
Growing up, this one really affected me. I didn’t understand the subtext, but the performance really got to me. Can’t believe she wasn’t in more things.
I interpreted Baby Doll shooting her reflection as her lashing out in anger at what she couldn't have, like it was so painful to see the version of herself that she could never be that she destroyed the mirror to not have to look at it.
the ending of baby doll always make me tear up
Baby Doll made me want to see more episodes of the villains in Arkham, of some of the characters receiving treatment and seeing which ones had a chance at recovery.
i love Batman so much, the villains are so dark and melancholic. You don't see many shows diving into the serious issues people can go through that lead them down dark paths and villainy.
I thought you were covering Cats Don't Dance for a second there.
I think Baby could find a new lease on life as a voice actor
I feel like an intriguing thing that could have been done with baby doll is maybe she could have been part of the bat family in a way. Batman being the only one to treat her like an actual adult rather than a child could have lead to some interesting dynamics.
Perhaps she could have been sort of a guy in the chair with oracle or even someone who was willing to be more in the position to be a spy. Think about it, she would be great if gathering intel due to her physical appearance being that of a child. And even if she couldn’t use her appearance, she can still use her small stature to collect intel while hiding in small places like air vents.
What I’m trying to say is, if Batman took her in to join the bat fam and allowed her to be who she truly was without needing to worry about her appearance.
Babydoll is one of my favorite Batman villains and her disuse is such a shame, especially today where topics like body dysmorphia and the revealed abuses child actors and actresses often face are fertile ground for new stories shedding light on those issues.
The saddest part of Batman is like he said
Bruce Wayne doesn’t really exist anymore he’s dead while Batman takes his place to hide his identity, and
Even in the comics they show this when he’s asked his identity in the lasso of truth
even though it's delivered as a joke in the lego batman movie, the line "does Batman live in Bruce Wayne's basement?"/"no, Bruce Wayne lives in Batman's attic" reveals a lot about how the poor man sees his own identity
Baby Doll is such an interesting villian. Definitely one of my favorites.
This and the ending to Feat Of Clay part 2 were my favorite episodes. Even as a 13 yr old i could see the tragedy of Mary Dahl and Matt Hagan were heart wrenching. Both dedicated to a career that wound up destroying them. In Matt's case he morphed into a monster and in the case of Mary deprived her of a real family with love and support. Which of the two was worse i wonder???
Just watched that ep last night. Rips your heart out. Well done
Baby Doll is yet another example of what made Batman: The Animated Series so wonderful, in that it humanizes the Batman's Rogues Gallery.
Yeah, it actually a good way to put the detective side to batman, putting hin on a side where he is not able to use his force but the ingenius of the mind to make the villain turn over, and all of that while being treated with the normal episode of batman, i never think of it thst way
The scene with the mirrors, she saw what she would look like if she never suffered of that illness, was really poignant.
She saw herself as an healthy young woman, but that was an illusion by her mind.
Completed with the "i didn't meant to" quote from her sitcom.
The hell that she was never used ever again? That's a better character, interesting, yet aknowledged that something was wrong with herself.
Baby Doll is my favorite Batman villain and I would really like to see DC do more with her character. Baby Doll hasn't really appeared in anything else other than BTAS and has only appeared in the comics a couple of times.
This a really interesting to hear, as someone who didn’t really resonate with Baby Doll in the show
She’s not really a villain I gave much though to, outside of the ending of the episode, but I know she is well regarded by BTAS fans.
I just feel really bad for her
She legit needed help but nobody took her seriously because of her appearance it's like they don't see what she is but what she looks like
As someone who has a form of dwarfism, Baby Doll really spoke to me. It’s awful growing up feeling like you’ll never be taken seriously. You don’t know if you’ll ever find love or a job, you don’t know who your true friends are. It’s a lonely existence.
Another tragedy in Baby Doll's character is the way her actions contradict her goals. In "Love is a Croc" She keep expressing how she hates being treat like child and yet she still talks in a baby doll voice and acting very immature and unstable, specially when she doesn't get the "happy life" she wanted...a happy life that she only got when she play the Baby Doll's character in the TV.
She can't never move from her past and find happiness because her past as Baby Doll is the happiness she knows.
I always was fascinated with this character and loved her since I saw her episodes as a child. However I feel her female bodyguard miriam does not nearly get enough love, she was really cool :)
Fanon batman:
Canon batman: (comforts mary "baby doll" dahl after a depressive episode)
It hits harder when you think about it.
Batman lost his childhood and had to grow up. While baby doll did grow up but is still trapped being seen as a child.
This shows how much Batman cares about his villains. Because so many of them are truly broken people in a broken city.
This isn't related to Baby Doll's psychology, but her design and basic concept reminds me a LOT of Darla Dimple from Cats Don't Dance. Seeing as Cats Don't Dance came out after BTAS, I wonder if Baby Doll inspired the character?
Both characters were inspired by Shirley Temple.
The “I didn’t mean to” at the end BROKE MY FUCKING HEART
Same here.
The sad wounded little boy, still stays true, even when be becames old and retired, as we see in Batman Beyond. He is incapable to move on.