The Animated Series Replaced Its ‘Scary’ Original Joker Actor

At this point, saying Mark Hamill is the definitive Joker is as redundant as saying Kevin Conroy is the definitive Batman. While every Bat-fan has their favorite performance of both character, Hamill and Conroy have enjoyed such enduring appeal as the Clown Prince of Crime and the Dark Knight, respectively, that since playing the roles in “Batman: The Animated Series” they have returned to the characters in everything from video games to animated movies and even live-action TV appearances.

But the original Fox Kids series is where an entire generation of ’90s kids witnessed Conroy and Hamill’s performances for the first time. Prior to its 1992 debut, there had never really been anything quite like the now-beloved animated series. Co-creators Bruce Timm and Eric Radomski, along with a team of indispensable contributors that included writers Paul Dini and Alan Burnett, crafted a show that appealed to kids without talking down to them. They infused their animated Batman series with an adult sensibility that ensured the show was unlike anything else on Fox Kids, or TV as a whole for that matter, at the time. From the “dark deco” art style to the sophisticated storytelling, and of course the voice performances, the series was a true outlier during its 1993-95 run. 

But creating such a unique series took a lot of work. Aside from finding the right mix of design elements to create the show’s heady aesthetic, Timm and co. didn’t exactly just stumble onto the perfect voice actors — at least when it came to the Joker. While Conroy nailed his Batman audition, the Joker voice actor took a little more time to pin down. This resulted in a process that originally saw the character played by another famous big screen actor: “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” star Tim Curry, who gave the Clown Prince of Crime a more imposing, sinister tone. Ultimately, of course, Curry was replaced with Hamill, who almost said “no” to the role of the Joker, but whose vocal performance became nothing short of legendary.

With his casting in “Batman :The Animated Series,” Mark Hamill managed to turn a guest star role into a long-term career as the Joker. As casting and voice director Andrea Romano recalled in an interview with ComicBookMovie.com, the actor had come into the production offices as a guest, but impressed everyone with his version of the Joker so much that he was given the role:

“Mark’s agent had reached out and said, ‘Mark is an enormous comic book fans [sic], a huge fan of Batman, and would love to be part of the series. So, I brought him in as a guest […] The auditions for The Joker replacement came up, we gave [Hamill] a shot, and he was stunning! Absolutely remarkable.”

The only issue was that the show already had its Joker in the form of Tim Curry. The “It” star had recorded several episodes by the time Hamill made his visit to the offices but was dismissed from the show in favor of Hamill. But why? Well, the answer to that question can get a little hazy depending on who you ask. In her CBM interview, Romano recalled how a particular producer “didn’t care for” Curry’s Joker and pushed for the role to be recast. But it seems there was a little more to it than that.

If you ask Tim Curry why he was replaced as the Joker in “Batman: The Animated Series,” he’ll tell you it was at least partly down to sickness. The British actor told ScreenGeek, “I did play Joker for a while, but I had bronchitis and they fired me — and hired Mark Hamill. That’s life.” While Curry’s sanguine take on the whole thing is admirable, it seems the decision to replace him came down to more than his scratchy throat.

A 2017 edition of “Back Issue” to celebrate the 25th anniversary of “Batman” saw the cast and crew reminisce on the origins of the series, including Curry’s initial casting as The Joker. According to the magazine, Curry’s rendition of the infamous Batman rogue prompted a “mixed reaction” among producers, with Andrea Romano recalling how she “loved what Tim Curry was doing” and was “delighted” to cast him in the role. Bruce Timm, on the other hand, was a little less pleased with the casting:

“I think what Tim was doing was very, very interesting. It didn’t seem terribly organic to us. A lot of his line readings were just… they felt almost non-sequitur. They were just really weird and quirky but without really any deep meaning behind them. Again, not to knock him, because I’m a huge fan. Still am.”

Of particular concern for Timm was Curry’s Joker laugh, which the show creator claimed “never really sounded like he was genuinely amused by anything. It just sounded like this weird, odd laugh.” In Timm’s recollection, it was writer and producer Alan Burnett who forced the issue, even while Romano remained perfectly happy with her original casting. “I was already kind of on the fence about Tim as the Joker anyway,” said Timm. “But Alan was the one who made an issue out of it. He came to me one day and said, ‘You know, I think we have to replace Tim.'” Despite Timm maintaining that he didn’t want to replace Curry, he also couldn’t disagree with Burnett, and so the recasting process begun. 

But this was about more than Curry sounding “inorganic.” While “Batman: The Animated Series” never shied away from embracing more mature content, it seems Curry’s Joker was a little too intimidating for a Fox Kids cartoon.

In her Back Issue interview Andrea Romano recalled fighting for Tim Curry as the Joker, even calling him back to the studio multiple times to try different versions of the voice in front of Bruce Timm and Alan Burnett. In the end, however, Curry — despite being no stranger to playing villainous clowns — just couldn’t deliver what the producers were looking and Romano had the “heartbreaking” job of letting the actor go. But this decision came down to more than just what Timm and Burnett perceived as an inorganic aspect to Curry’s performance. As Kevin Conroy said in an interview prior to his passing:

“[Curry] is a fantastic actor, he’s a wonderful actor with a great career, and they replaced him after a couple of episodes because Tim’s Joker was dark and scary. Mark came in and he did a Joker that was dark and funny. So it was just a different take on the Joker.”

Bruce Timm has yet to confirm this claim that Curry’s Joker was too scary, but in a documentary from the “Stay ‘Tooned!” podcast’s Phil Machi, series co-creator Eric Radomski seemed to back up Conroy’s recollection:

“The dark side was completely second nature to Tim. And almost to the point of y’know like, ‘I don’t wanna be alone with this guy ‘cuz he’s really creepy.’ […] It definitely had the menace that we wanted. I can’t say that we were completely satisfied with it but that had less to do with whether we thought Tim was delivering or we didn’t really fully understand what we wanted yet.”

Aside from playing one of the most terrifying horror figures in Pennywise, Tim Curry has spoken about his preference for psychological fear over blood and gore, and throughout his career has demonstrated that “dark side” Radomski mentioned, beginning with his breakout role as Dr. Frank-N-Furter in 1975’s “The Rocky Horror Picture Show.” That said, recasting Curry seems to have come down to a multitude of factors, including the fact that Bruce Timm and his crew were still in the early stages of figuring out their seminal vision.

Phil Machi‘s documentary contains clips of the original Tim Curry Joker performances, and while they reveal a voice similar to what Hamill ultimately did with the role, there is a certain sneer and snarl to his tone that makes the character all the more sinister. Bronchitis? It’s unlikely considering Andrea Romano’s revelation that Curry actually came in multiple times to try different voices. What’s more, it seems the actor had a history of being a little too creepy in his roles. Seeing Tim Curry in a sewer on the set of “It” was genuinely scary, with young Georgie Denbrough actor Tony Dakota having to stop his co-star during shooting to tell him how much he was creeping him out. Lamentably, this ability to scare with ease also seems to be at least part of the reason Curry’s Joker tenure ended too soon.

Before he was replaced, Curry voiced the Joker for multiple instalments of “Batman: The Animated Series,” with some reports claiming he played the rogue for four episodes, though that number is disputed elsewhere. We do know that the actor lent his voice to “Christmas with The Joker” and “The Last Laugh,” at the very least, but was replaced by Hamill in both episodes before they aired — which in hindsight was clearly for the best.

Curry did end up voicing two other characters on “Batman: The Animated Series”: a henchman in the season 1 episode “Fear of Victory,” and a “robot clown” in another season 1 episode, “Be a Clown.” It’s certainly interesting to think about the legacy of “Batman: The Animated Series” had Curry stayed on as The Joker. Though the series was known for exploring more adult themes, would Curry’s creepy Joker have made a little too mature? Regardless, most fans will surely agree that we got the best version of the show possible.