Have yourself a Merry Little Batman trailer
You better believe Joker sings the all-time banger “Jingle bells, Batman smells” in this trailer
Aux News Batman
Our only question about the upcoming animated movie Merry Little Batman was: How soon into the trailer will we hear “Jingle bells, Batman smells”? Though we were spared a moody, atmospheric, slowed-down version of the number one banger of all time, the trailer delivers on its promise. The Joker does, in fact, utter the immortal words: “Robin laid an egg.”
We wouldn’t say this version beats the one performed by Robert Goulet, but that doesn’t mean there’s no reason to get excited by Merry Little Batman. From the twisted mind of Regular Show veteran Mike Roth, Merry Little Batman offers a classic Christman conundrum. What if your dad has to work on Christmas and also your dad is Batman? That’s the Yuletide pickle Damien Wayne finds himself in as Dad answers the call of the Justice League, leaving his only son at home to defend Gotham.
Merry Little Batman does have an ingenious plot. By getting Batman out of the picture, Roth sets up what we’ll call Home Alone: Port Of Call Gotham City. Once Batman leaves town, the Joker, singing that classic little diddy about Batman and Robin, shows up to terrorize Gotham. But this is Damien’s city, and he has to defend it.
The cast is low-key stacked as well. Luke Wilson takes the cape and cowel as Batman with the genius casting of James Cromwell as Alfred and Mythic Quest’s David Hornsby as the Joker. (Frankly, we’d love to see Hornsby do a live-action Joker too.) Finally, newcomer Yonas Kibreab stars as Little Damian Wayne, a child who’d probably love the timeless reworking of “Jingle Bells” if it wasn’t about his dad.
Merry Little Batman streams on Prime Video (and not Warner Bros. own streaming service, Max, for some ungodly reason) on December 8.
13 Comments
Largely indifferent to this, but I just wanted to take this opportunity to say that I feel like Luke Wilson should have been way more famous than he was. I think he was and is a crazy good actor, and now he’s making direct to dvd movies. Royal Tenenbaums should have made him a huge star.
Facts… loved him in Enlightened
That looks fun, and I actually kind of like the wonky visual style.Also, it’s “ditty” and “cowl”, not “diddy” and “cowel”.not Warner Bros. own streaming service, Max, for some ungodly reasonYes, a real mystery, that. I guess they have more content than they can handle, and are sharing the wealth in the spirit of Yuletide giving.
Diddy Cowel is the name of my next halfling bard!
Hey, Diddy Cowel Racing was a classic on the N64!
The animation style threw me off at first. By the end I was thinking this looks like silly fun and may end up watching it. I may even try to find a place for it on Christmas Day where my recent tradition is to watch ridiculous holiday movies on Netflix.
Holy legendary cartoonists brought to animated life, Batman! I would have never even imagined someone would want to make animation in the style of the inimitable Arnold Roth in the year of our lord 2023 – and featuring Bats and Robs, no less! It’s a near perfect recreation of Roth’s incredibly distinctive artwork, and googling “Arnold Roth Mike Roth” comes up with nothing useful. The mystery remains! This is an unexpected delight, as is discovering that Mr. Roth is still alive at 92! He’ll almost definitely live to see this!
This looks cute as hell and I will be watching. (Batman has always been my favorite superhero after all)
This look cute. Will have to see if it deserves to be added to the Christmas movie rotation.
Looks entertaining, but Hornsby has big shoes to fill when it comes to iconic renditions of “Jingle Bells, Batman Smells:”
Could someone explain how IP works? I don’t understand why this would be on Prime and not Max. Can someone point me to one of those early 2010’s whiteboard videos that explain how IP get’s exchanged between networks and streaming services? All curiosity aside, I love the holiday shit and will def be watching this.
The fact that the board of Warner Discover let the powers that be sell a Batman property and potentially sell a Looney Tunes movie to another distribution company other than Warner Brothers feels like they should hang their heads in shame. But I guess legacy IP doesn’t matter when there’s a few bucks to be had. I really shouldn’t be that surprised by this, I did watch Space Jam 2 after all.
This is probably on Prime for a very simple reason: WBD will sell anything not nailed down, all for their shareholders returns and for Zaslav’s bonus. WB was broke before Discovery bought them, and Zaslav’s Gordon Gecko bullshit has done little to improve their situation.