Original Air Date: October 12, 1992
Written by: Paul Dini
Directed by : Frank Paur
Synopsis: Jervis Tetch is a gifted scientist but his social insecurities and harmful crush on co-worker Alice, along with stringent deadlines at work, cause him to fall down the rabbit hole!
My Thoughts: The Mad Hatter has never been a villain I’ve been particularly drawn to; that being said, as he did with various other villains, Paul Dini, the brilliant scriptwriter, gets to the core of long forgotten or uninteresting villains in this series and remakes them with, if nothing else, style. He chose not to paint Hatter as a sympathetic villain as he did Mr. Freeze but there are still angles to this character that can make you understand some of his frustrations as a scientist. He works for Wayne Corp (naturally) and though Bruce loves his work, his obsession with Alice (the storybook character and his co-worker) derails his entire career. Using his mind control cards, Tetch is able to make everyone do what he wants and how does he choose to use them: to show Alice a wonderful night on the town.
One of my other favorite things Dini does is surrounds his villains with lots of toys; so, it’s not just these 10/6 cards, he also has in scripted normal citizens to dress up as other characters from Lewis Carroll’s classic tale, and wouldn’t you know it? Gotham has a Storybook Park, where they can truly act out this fairy tale in real life, with Batman trying to save Alice in the middle of it all. It’s a quirky story that actually paints a true-life portrait of how some men can become obsessed with a woman, in an unhealthy way for all parties. It helps draw real world parallels from these kooky villains to something you could actually find in our everyday world. It’s a well plotted out and animated episode and horror legend Roddy McDowell is just bizarre enough in his voice performance to have Hatter stand out.
Score: 7/10
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