1x46 The Laughing Fish

[8.8/10] The minute you see Paul Dini’s name in the “written by” field and Bruce Timm’s name in the director’s field, you know you’re in for a treat. And “The Laughing Fish” doesn't disappoint.

I’ll probably be tripping over myself praising Mark Hamill’s Joker until I’m done with my whole DCAU watch, but it bears repeating. The way Joker can be genuinely funny (eliciting more than a few belly laughs from me) but also terrifying is what makes the character so distinctive. But what “The Laughing Fish” adds to that sparkling personality is an ethos.

This episode anticipates Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight on that account. Part of that is simply in Joker’s pseudo-hostage scheme, where he threatens public officials to get what he wants. But part of it is the simple idea that the Joker is unpredictable because he doesn't really want anything, or at least not anything sane. The World’s Greatest Detective is usually a step ahead of his enemies because he uses reason and logic to discern their targets and methods and motives. But Joker’s only motive is, as the kids used to say, “the lulz”, which makes him near-impossible for Batman to get a bead on.

Take a second and marvel at the brilliantly-written absurdity of Joker’s scheme here. The very idea of trying to copyright fish (and to be pedantic, he should have tried to trademark them), so as to reap the royalties to fund your criminal enterprise, is such a squint-and-its-plausible but absolutely loony plot, which fits Joker to a tee. As Batman notes, him going after local copyright clerks is the sort of humor Joker enjoys, because how cosmically funny is it to watch the most significant villain in Batman’s rogues gallery, and maybe in all of comics, go after a set of nebbishy pencil-pushers?

That threat gives Batman another excuse to play cat and mouse (if you’ll pardon the expression under the circumstances) with the Crown Prince of Crime. Joker’s moves like the two-part Joker toxin, partly delivered by swordfish, or the cat going after his owner, show a cleverness beyond the screwiness from the dastard. And Batman’s responsive ploys, like having an antidote at the ready, or switching outfits with Joker’s next target, show an equal and opposite sense of creativity.

That back and forth makes for a great backdrop for the show’s visuals. Timm and his team clearly have great fun painting the Joker’s memorable visage on all manner of sealife. They also lean into the grotesqueness of his terrible smile, showing the rictus grin on his victims, and even leaving the man himself a little more expressive, more veiny and angular, as he taunts his enemies. “The Laughing Fish” also does Batman just as well, finding great uses for the silhouette to underscore the stealthy fear The Bat can strike into the hearts of his own opponents.

It all comes to a head in one hell of a final setpiece, that sees Batman and Bullock confront The Joker at a local aquarium (albeit not exactly in tandem). Naturally, it leads to Batman riding a shark and directing it to crack open a tank before it eats Bullock. Dini and Timm manage to make that sort of outsized setup feel like a natural extension of the tone and reality of the show. Part of that is just the exaggerated reality that Batman: TAS lives in, but plenty of it stems from the believably loony lengths that this version of the Joker will believably go to.

Again, it’s a hell of an outing from the “Master of Mountebanks.” Everything from his fake commercial for Joker fish to his interactions with the copyright clerk to his sarcastic asides to Bullock at the aquarium bring the yuks. And it’s a real coming out party for Harley Quinn, whose personality feels more in full bloom here, and whose reaction to the fish and lament for Mister J’s apparent demise makes her seem more fully formed.

Overall, this one features the show’s two leading lights doing what they do best, and delivering an episode that’s lighter on any theme or grand point, but which presents a hell of a Joker caper. In that, it does end up wrapping around to one of the core themes for both major characters here: that Joker poses the biggest threat and the biggest challenge for Batman because he doesn't want anything in the way that other villains want. He just wants to have a laugh, something that Batman can’t quite understand innately, which makes his arch enemy unpredictable, dangerous, and thoroughly entertaining.