It is now time to review Batman the Animated Series Episode 34 The
Laughing Fish. In this episode, the Joker infects the fish in Gotham
City with his toxin to cause them to share his trademark smile, in an
attempt to copyright the fish and make a bundle. When the Joker doesn’t
get his way, people suffer. Can Batman save the day? Batman the Animated
Series Episode 34 the Laughing Fish aired on January 10th 1993 on FOX.
Batman the Animated Series Episode 34 the Laughing Fish
After some mind blowing episodes and psychological mind screws, we
decide to take a step back with a rather fun Joker episode, his fifth
overall in the series. So it was a nice breather and not too bad of an
episode.
Fish are coming up in Gotham City but they are having a ghastly
addition, that being the twisted grin of the Joker. That is enough to
give anyone more than a few nightmares. The Joker’s scheme however, as
one might think is to poison a lot of people in Gotham, but rather to
make a profit. He’s an enterprising psychotic killer clown.
Of course since Joker cannot get his way because fish cannot be
copyrighted because it is a natural resource, people suffer. And these
are people who have no ability to change the law. That’s really the
joke. G. Gordon Francis, an unassuming pencil pusher, is poisoned with
joker toxin, as is another accountant, as Batman tries to capture the
Joker before he offers a lot of people. Harvey Bullock, everyone’s
favorite loudmouth detective, is not too happy with the way that Batman
is handling things and gets into Commissioner Gordon with it, before
trying to take care of the Joker himself.
Naturally this gets him captured and the Joker is about to feed him to a shark, but points for effort.
Also Harley Quinn is back and the dynamic between her and the Joker
is well on the road to be established. Harley hates fish and the Joker
obviously knows this, so he essentially tortures her. That’s the joke
you see. There will be much more between these two later in the show but
obviously the dynamic is there. The most famous fictional case of
battered girlfriend syndrome might have to go to the Joker and Harley
Quinn. He treats her like crap, she tries to justify it. This gets
deeper and more disturbing in future episodes.
Batman saves Bullock and fights the Joker. The Joker gets swept
right out right with the shark. To first glance, it appears Joker met
his match at the hands(or rather jaws) of a shark, but we(and Batman),
know better and he’ll be back some day, to plague us.
A fun episode, perhaps not the deepest episode, so we’ll give this one a 7/10
