By Adult Swim’s Emmy Award-winning “Rick and Morty” series recently paid tribute to the iconic 1990s “Batman: The Animated Series” with a brief promo that’s a direct tribute to the show’s famed opening titles.
That clip has now become available while producers David Braun and Aron Fromm have spoken with Animation World Network discussing how the promo came about.
Turns out the pair were at a screening of classic Fleischer cartoons in Los Angeles a year ago and found ourselves themselves seated next to Paul Dini – one of the key people behind the 1990s “Batman” cartoon along with Bruce Timm and Eric Radowski.
Later, Adult Swim came to them about a promo which is when they decided to pay homage to “Batman: The Animated Series”. Production on the piece began a few months ago. Online artist Rick Celis along with veteran Kev Craven were also key to the bumper’s creation.
Asked about recreating the look of 1990s animation, Fromm has an explanation as to why the look of animation work has changed so much and it’s a pretty damning indictment on studio shortcutting:
“It’s not just nostalgia. Animation really was better in the 1990s. I imagine the bar to entry was much higher, skill-wise.
There’s a common misconception that modern animation looks as bad as it does because of lower budgets or computers replacing paper, but the truth is much more sinister: It’s just incompetence at every level.
It wouldn’t cost a dime more to make today’s cartoons feel less stiff and sterile – but current animation productions are so decentralized and bureaucratized that, creatively, they ultimately belong to no one.
That’s why the reboots end up looking like botched taxidermy of a once beloved family pet.”
The promo can be seen below. The eighth season of “Rick and Morty” was stalled in production by the writer’s strike and so won’t be arriving until 2025.
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