Almost Got 'Im

"Almost Got 'Im"
Batman: The Animated Series episode
Episode no.	Season 2 Episode 46
Directed by	Eric Radomski
Written by	Paul Dini
Original air date	November 11, 1992
Episode chronology
← Previous "Terror In The Sky" Next → "Birds Of A Feather"
List of Batman: The Animated Series episodes

Almost Got 'Im is the forty-sixth episode of the Warner Bros. animated television series Batman: The Animated Series, which first aired on November 11, 1992, and was written by Paul Dini and directed by Eric Radomski. This episode features seven villains of Batman's rogues gallery, with five of them telling the stories of their "best" attempts at killing the Dark Knight, and the ending leading to a singular plot twist.

Plot summary

While hiding out from the police, the Joker, the Penguin, Two-Face, and Killer Croc gather at the criminals-only Stacked Deck Club, where they play cards and share theories about their mutual foe, Batman. Two-Face doubts that Batman is one person. The Penguin theorizes that Batman suffered some crime related trauma in the past. Croc believes that Batman is a robot. Poison Ivy then arrives and joins the game. Soon after, all five of the crooks begin to argue over who has come closest to killing Batman, and each tells their story.

Poison Ivy's story

Poison Ivy placed poisonous gas inside Gotham's pumpkin supply on Halloween, causing the vegetables to go off when lit. When Gotham's residents started to feel the effects of the gas, Batman went to the city pumpkin patch to investigate just as Ivy hoped he would. She attacked Batman with the gas and weakened him to the point where he was nearly unmasked. Nevertheless, Batman remotely controlled the Batmobile to run down Ivy and later retrieved a gas mask from the vehicle, before subsequently capturing Ivy.

Two-Face's story

Two-Face staged a robbery at a mint, stealing "$2,000,000 in two dollar bills." When Batman in attempted to stop the heist, Two-Face's henchmen overpowered him. Two-Face flipped his coin to see whether he would kill Batman or let him live, with a negative "bad heads" result. Two-Face took Batman's utility belt, strapped him to a giant penny, and placed it on a catapult - "The coin lands face down, you'll be squashed flat. It lands face up, it'll just break every bone in your body..." In midair, Batman cut himself free of his bonds, using Two-Face's own coin. In return for apprehending Two-Face and his gang, the mint let Batman keep the giant penny.

Killer Croc's story

Killer Croc simply says that he threw a rock at Batman during a battle in a quarry. The other villains stare at him for a moment and continue telling their stories, while Croc mutters, "It was a big rock."

The Penguin's story

The Penguin turned a zoo aviary into a home for dangerous birds in his own plot to kill Batman. After luring Batman to the aviary the Penguin sprayed him with a vaporous nectar eaten by hummingbirds, and released several poison-beaked birds to attack the Dark Knight. After being bitten several times, Batman threw a batarang at a sprinkler; the resulting water spray slowed down the hummingbirds. Before Batman could inject himself with an antidote, he was injured by a cassowary. In desperation, Batman stabbed the flightless bird with one of the hummingbirds, incapacitating it. Batman chased after the Penguin, but the villain escaped via his flying umbrella.

The Joker's story

After capturing Batman, the Joker commandeered the set of a late-night talk show and held the studio audience hostage, intending to execute the Dark Knight on live television. Batman was strapped to a "laugh-powered electric chair" which rose in voltage the more the audience laughed. With the audience being forced to laugh at gunpoint, The Joker decided to ellicit more "honest" laughter by pumping the studio with laughing gas. However, Catwoman broke into the studio; in the ensuing fight, the Joker became too distracted to notice Batman escaping from the chair. After Harley knocked out Catwoman, the Joker instructed to take her to a cat food factory while he laid low at the Stacked-Deck Club. He explains to the other villains that he will soon meet Harley at the factory, turn the Catwoman into cat food, and personally deliver a can of it to Batman.

At this point, Killer Croc attacks the Joker and throws him across the room, revealing himself to be Batman in disguise; it is also revealed that the other bar patrons are Gotham police officers, led by Detective Bullock and Commissioner Gordon - the whole thing was a sting operation. As the villains are arrested, Batman goes to the cat food factory to rescue Catwoman from Harley Quinn. Harley starts the conveyer belt, where Catwoman has been bound and gagged, but Batman stops it in time.

The episode ends on a humorous note, as Catwoman makes a pass at Batman, only to turn and find he has pulled one of his trademark disappearing acts. She then smiles, shakes her head and mutters to herself, "Huh. Almost got 'im."

Cast

Actor	Role
Kevin Conroy	Batman
Adrienne Barbeau	Catwoman
Mark Hamill	The Joker
Aron Kincaid	Killer Croc
Richard Moll	Two-Face
Diane Pershing	Poison Ivy
Arleen Sorkin	Harley Quinn
Paul Williams	The Penguin

Reception

Sandra Dozier calls the episode "charming" and praises it for showing "the origin story for the Bat Cave's giant penny." In August 2011, The Nostalgia Critic named it the show's No. 1 episode.

DVD release

The episode features a commentary on the DVD release.

Notes

• Every time the viewer gets to see Two-Face's hand, he always has 2 deuces (twos), and two face cards, a play on his name. In one shot he also has a four (two times two) and is seen pouring "half and half" cream in his coffee. He also has two guns (.22s) pointed at Batman.
• The Joker's hand at the end is four aces and a Joker. Every time we see his hand he always has at least one ace (due to cheating). He also cheats by looking at Harvey's (Two-Face's) hand.
• The Penguin's and the Joker's stories all happened recently, with the Penguin having freshly escaped from his crime a few weeks before and the Joker's being just the night before. Poison Ivy's story is set the previous Halloween, and Two-Face's story is set between his introduction and the first appearance of the Batcave's giant penny.
• Two-Face's story is based on an original Two-Face deathtrap from the comics where both Batman and Robin were tied to the penny that was catapulted onto spikes. However this time they used the radios to create a "negative magnetic field" to repel the spikes and cause them to land "good side up", snapping the ropes and defeating Two-Face.
  • Two-Face tells Ivy that they let Batman keep the giant penny, thus providing a new origin for the piece of memorabilia he keeps in the Batcave.
• Ivy makes a reference to the group that she and Two-Face used to date (while Harvey Dent was still the District Attorney), an event that occurred in the episode "Pretty Poison". Two-Face remarks to Ivy that half of him wants to strangle her and the other half wants him to run her over with a truck. Apparently killing Ivy is the only thing both halves agree on.
• The Joker makes a joke regarding Ivy's use of exploding pumpkins. Mark Hamill, the Joker's voice actor, would later voice the Hobgoblin in Spider-Man: The Animated Series, a villain who uses exploding pumpkins as a weapon.
• The Penguin's affectations are more pronounced than usual – he drinks tea at the table, and refers to the location of his trap as an "aviary of doom!" When this provokes laughter, he remarks that "you miscreants have no sense of poetry!" Joker reminds him that using big words would only confuse Croc (actually Batman in disguise), so he corrects himself to "big birdhouse".
• Teen Titans Go, a spin-off comic of the Teen Titans show featuring Robin, had an issue similar to this one. #40 "Nearly Nabbed Me" is where villains of the Titans recall when they were nearly caught by the heroes.
• The Batman Beyond season two episode "Once Burned" alludes to this episode, with Bruce noting that the high-stakes poker game run by Gotham's villains has been going on since before his time.

External links

• TV.Com fan episode rankings
• Batman: The Animated Series'' at the Internet Movie Database
• The New Batman Adventures at the Internet Movie Database
• The New Batman/Superman Adventures at the Internet Movie Database
• Batman: The Animated Series/The New Batman Adventures at The World's Finest
• The Animated Batman
• Batman: The Animated Series Official Website
• The New Batman Adventures Official Website
• The New Batman Superman Adventures Official Website
• Batman: The Animated Series at TV.com
• Batman: Gotham Knights at TV.com
• Batman Animated at BYTB: Batman Yesterday, Today and Beyond