Batman: The Animated Series - "Joker's Wild"

“Oh, please, Mr. Kaiser! You of all people should have realized there’d be a Joker in the deck!”

Cameron Kaiser (Harry Hamlin) is set to unveil his new casino venture, but the startling likeness to Gotham’s Clown Prince of Crime sickens his guests and spurs the ire of The Joker himself (Mark Hamill). Joker springs himself from Arkham to seek revenge for this slight, while Batman begins to wonder what Kaiser’s really after.

Joker episode? Check. Paul Dini script? Check. Lush animation married to a peculiar sense of humor? Yep, it’s another winner of an episode. I’ve said before that Dini is at his Bat-best when he’s working with The Joker, and “Joker’s Wild” is one more card in the Dini Flush. It’s the kind of episode that would only work with The Joker – although I could imagine a similar plot involving The Riddler and his effort to clear his name by outwitting an opportunistic casino magnate – and it benefits greatly from the etheric madness that seems to follow The Joker like a cloud of laughing gas.

Perhaps even more so than in his first Joker episode, “Joker’s Favor,” Paul Dini demonstrates his great affection for the sinister jester, such that the first act of the episode – a full third of the runtime – features nary a frame of Batman. Instead, the floor is turned over to Joker himself, enraged by the nightly newscast and then engaged in a madcap escape from Arkham Asylum. It’s more elaborate and intricately staged than his treetop getaway in “Christmas With the Joker,” a perfect setpiece that shows off Joker’s zany humor and dangerous chemical prowess. (Sidebar: We learn in this episode that the doors at Arkham are literally unlocked. There’s an alarm, but you’d think the exterior doors would have better security than a klaxon and a wire fence. I mean, at that point, aren’t you just asking for a breakout?) This escape sequence, coupled with Hamill’s level-best vocal work, gives one the acute sense that we’d be perfectly content to watch Joker: The Animated Series instead. Batman is practically the B-plot in “Joker’s Wild,” though it’s hilarious that his efforts to reason with The Joker are met with the latter tying the former to a colossal roulette wheel.

This episode feels very of a piece with one of the show’s last, “Joker’s Millions,” both of which share an eccentric wit and a plot which involves Joker in an unconventional proximity to money. In both cases – yes, they’re both Dini episodes, too – you’re left to stop and wonder every so often, “Wait, this is really bizarre, isn’t it?” But by the same token, both push Joker to his breaking point by taking him to his nadir and giving him the chance to claw his way back. In a bizarre way, you’re actually rooting for Joker against the scummy Kaiser, even if it’s just to see the oddball ways in which he plans to “clear” his “good” name. If The Joker is the protagonist in this episode, it’s because Kaiser has attempted to sanitize and organize Joker’s madness; where Joker relishes the chaos left in the wake of his irrational schemes, Kaiser has taken that template and monetized it, plastering everything over with a slick sheen of that rictus grin. That corporatization is of the utmost offense to The Joker, who never considers plundering the casino’s profits; the showman is being shown up, and that aggression will not stand.

To cap off the funhouse mirror quality of the episode, there’s a standout sequence in which Bruce Wayne finds himself at a blackjack table with The Joker as his dealer. There’s a tense exchange when it’s possible each knows who the other is, followed by a few great one-liners in which Bruce ribs Joker by baiting his vanity, teasing the clown under the illusion that he doesn’t know his dealer is The Joker. “I’d be ready for the laughing academy if I had to stare at that ugly clown all day,” he says lightly, privately reveling in the seething fury he inspires. And lest Kevin Conroy get upstaged by Mark Hamill, a terse “He’s here” to Alfred changes the tone of the sequence with the two-syllabled grace that only Conroy could bring.

Hell hath no fury like a Joker scorned, but “Joker’s Wild” is a giddy treat.

Original Air Date: November 19, 1992

Writer: Paul Dini

Director: Boyd Kirkland

Villains: The Joker (Mark Hamill)

Next episode: “Tyger, Tyger,” in which the David Bowie theme from Cat People is regrettably not used.

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