Highly Animated

Spent the afternoon watching cartoons with my daughter; the new
Batman, Teen Titans and Justice League Unlimited.

I have to admit I enjoyed the new Batman; although I sorely missed the voice of Kevin Conroy, Rino Romano (what a name!) isn't bad as the young Bruce Wayne. I must say that the actor doing the Joker's voice, Kevin Michael Richardson, was quite impressive and nearly as good as Mark Hammil. He made the Joker come across a bit more sinister than funny, but it worked for me. It was also nice to see that Steve Harris (of The Practice) has a new gig giving voice to Detective Ethan Bennett and Ming Na (of Mulan and E.R.) voicing Detective Ellen Yin. I hope for a long run for the series.

Teen Titans was a bit too offbeat for my tastes. The story was solid enough, but the anime bits and over-the-top behavior of the Tamorans was even too weird for my 10-year old daughter. Still, there was the moment when Robin, trying to stop the wedding, is pounding on the glass of the balcony overlooking the ceremony, that was such a great homage to The Graduate. My daughter wanted to know what I thought was so amusing about that scene, I explained how it visually referenced a famous scene from a classic movie. This became important as we moved on to Justice League Unlimited...

This week's episode of JLU was a hoot. The Greatest Story Never Told captured the essence of Booster Gold wonderfully (although, I thought it did a poor job on capturing the essence of Elongated Man).
Skeets, Booster's robotic sidekick was the true star of the show for me. When Skeets is spit up from the black hole and announces, "My gosh, it's full of stars." I thought I was going to do a spit-take on my Diet Coke; and, this time, my daughter quickly understood why I found that so darn funny.

All in all, it was a great time spent with my kid. I am so happy that she enjoys watching cartoons with her old man; too soon, she'll be at that age where cartoons and her old man are too embarrassing to waste time
on. Hopefully, not too soon.