The Laughing Fish

Continuing the trend of awesome Volume 2 episodes, "The Laughing Fish" is perhaps the best Joker episode in the entire DC Animated Universe. It was the 34th episode produced and 46th aired on Jan. 10, 1993.

It's always great to see the Joker, especially in a wild, intricate plot like this one. There really is no logical reason for what he's doing and it probably took months of preparation to pull off, which is classic Joker. This story is adapted from several classic comic books, with perhaps the most important element coming from Batman #1 in 1940. In that story, the Joker announced exactly who he would kill and when, and despite the best efforts of the police and Batman, the Joker would always pull through. Of course, on this TV show, nobody dies, but they come about as close as they could get. Naturally, I have to add a point for this perfect Joker plot.

I'll add another point for Joker's terrible, low-budget, yet hilarious commercial. I loved how he insisted on shoving fish into Harley's mouth and having his henchmen dress up like little kids for no reason. This Joker not only wants to terrorize Gotham and spread chaos, but he is equally devoted to making people laugh.

Another great thing about this episode is it is actually kind of scary. There's a lot of tension built while waiting for the Joker to strike, and making someone laugh uncontrollably is always a creepy idea for me. Like I said, the victims in this episode didn't die, but they were stuck with unnatural, grotesque smiles on their faces for a while, which was still plenty unnerving. The score is now an 8.

Joker's attack on his second victim was also pretty cool. They did a good job of not showing who was talking, so we didn't know at first that Batman had switched places with the copyright bureaucrat, so watching Batman start laughing and having his face stretch into that smile was another great scary moment. We're up to a 9.

I'll add one final point for Detective Bullock doing some real detective work. He's sometimes relegated to being the comic relief — the fat guy always eating donuts and pizza. But here, we're reminded that he is actually a good detective, and he even found the Joker's hideout before Batman did. We also got to see the reason why Batman is needed. Bullock, a normal guy, can do a lot against super villains like the Joker, but at the end of the day, he couldn't escape the Joker's trap with the shark. It takes a superhero like Batman to truly take down a super villain. So not only was this the perfect Joker episode, but it also is a wonderful episode in terms of showing us the purpose of the Batman.

Final score: 10