Batman: The Animated Series - "Sideshow"

“I know you feel a little funny being here, but it’s great; it really is. No one stares at you laughing, making you feel bad. You can be yourself.”

On route to a lengthy prison sentence, Killer Croc (Aron Kincaid) busts out of his chains and stages a daring escape from the railcar transporting him up the river. Croc plunges headlong into said river and drifts downstream until he encounters a clan of former circus performers – the giant Goliath (Brad Garrett), Siamese twins May and June (JoBeth Williams), Billy the “seal boy” (Whit Hertford), and their hunchbacked leader Richard (Kenneth Mars). These deformed refugees take in the escaped convict, unaware that Batman is hot on his tail.

Over the course of this review series, I’ve been surprised by episodes that were better than I remembered, and I’ve encountered episodes I’d forgotten entirely. “Sideshow,” however, is a horse of a different color, because I completely misremembered this episode. For some reason, my faulty memory told me this was an episode in which Killer Croc was reformed by a group of kindly circus performers, only for his monstrous side to reemerge when Batman attempts to apprehend him. That would have been a great story, very much of a piece with the recent reformation of the character over in the comic books, but “Sideshow” isn’t that episode at all.

Instead of a tragedy about Croc’s inability to rehabilitate himself, we get a tragedy about Croc’s unwillingness to reform. Time and again, this episode demonstrates Croc’s resolute dedication to bliking the circus performers, scheming to take their money and warp them into his own personal gang of henchmen. We witness him lie, confidently but not convincingly, and we’re horrorstruck when he convinces them to imprison Batman in a cage, reversing and reinscribing the violence done to them as “freaks.” The episode goes for an incredibly dark ending when Killer Croc tells the heartbroken performers that they gave him the opportunity to be exactly what he is – a monster. It’s almost heartbreaking how Croc realizes what a golden opportunity he’s squandered, but without the requisite penitence to allow that moment to change him.

This is probably, now that I’m thinking of it, the best Killer Croc episode in the show. It’s a short putt, to be fair, but someone’s got to come out on top. In addition to the sober treatment of Killer Croc, who was something of a generic baddie in his debut episode, “Vendetta,” “Sideshow” begins with a standout first act that is largely silent, a rousing fight-turned-chase that sees Batman duel it out with Croc on top of a moving train before the pursuit moves through the forest. (Sidebar: if Croc is going to prison in Gotham, where is this train taking him? Levitz Prison is, incidentally, named for Paul Levitz, a significant writer and editor at DC Comics, but how far away is it?) Moreover, the whole sequence takes place in daylight, a difficult strategy for a Batman story, but director Boyd Kirkland accomplishes a riveting chase.

There’s something to be said for the strong voice cast on display; Kincaid gives his best performance as Croc, it’s true, but the circus performers are equally notable performers in their own right. Kenneth Mars quotes Shakespeare like a pro (a weakness of mine, I confess), and Brad Garrett shows up just ahead of his expertly cast turn on Superman: The Animated Series as the space biker Lobo. The animation on these characters is exceptional, too, acknowledging their abnormalities without reducing them to the same.

Continuity wonks will also note that Killer Croc attempts to kill Batman by – you guessed it – throwing a rock at him. It’s a quick and cute nod to “Almost Got ’Im” and a line Croc never actually said, a nice wink to how great this show has been and a rewarding treat for devotees like yours truly. “Sideshow” is ultimately a really well-made episode, perhaps not among the best, but solidly inhabiting that comfortable space of successful second-tier episodes that fill out the hefty middle range of BtAS’s bell curve of quality. As Croc episodes go, though, it’s scaly chomping gold.

Original Air Date: May 3, 1994

Writers: Michael Reaves and Brynne Stephens

Director: Boyd Kirkland

Villain: Killer Croc (Aron Kincaid)

Next episode: “A Bullet for Bullock,” in which someone’s got it in for Gotham’s most reluctant team-up.

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