DC Universe Originals: Harley Quinn Episode 1

What's it about?

Series overview: The series will focus on a newly single Harley Quinn, who sets off to make it on her own in Gotham City.

Episode Specific: 'Til Death do us Part

Following an unsuccessful yacht robbery, Harley Quinn is sent to Arkham Asylum while deluded that her boss and lover Joker would break her out. A year later, Poison Ivy manages to get Harley out during a prison break and tries to convince her that Joker does not love her. Despite Ivy's support, Harley's attempt to break up with Joker fails after he sweet-talked her into staying with him. The Riddler, who also escaped Arkham, provokes Joker in sending Harley to kill him. But she and Batman are both captured with Riddler forcing Joker to choose who to save while the other is submerged in acid. Joker ultimately chooses Batman with Harley realising she never meant anything to the former, learning the ploy was devised by Ivy and Riddler to drive that point home. Following a costume change, Harley officially breaks up with Joker while declaring her intention to make a name for herself in the criminal underworld.

What's good about it?

The animation is good. Colours are nice, physiques aren't too bad... Harley has some amazing gymnastic moves that look great and not cheaply animated at all. There are some smart/funny lines but not nearly as much as I expected.

Jim Gordon was a horrific example of mis-characterisation, but he was funny and entertaining so that can slide a bit. 

The ton of references that weren't in our faces:

• The 'Mad Love' nightie
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• The 'Mad Love' waltz
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• Harley getting a grenade pin as an engagement ring
  
  
• That scene in Batman Forever where the villain has two characters trapped in an individual  glass dome and forces one character to chose who to save while in the Riddler's lair.

• The 'taste of piss' bit reminded me of the 'you eat pieces of shit for breakfast?' gag from Happy Gilmore. Except that was funnier.
  

Harley Quinn animated interview

So... I read this article recently.. 

Metro.co.uk Harley Quinn's Kaley Cuoco and Lake Bell clashed over swearing limit on foul-mouthed DC series Abbie Bray 03/12/2019

....and it confirmed some things.

Kaley Cuoco and Lake Bell clashed over their characters in the Harley Quinn animated series for who could swear the most per episode – but who do you think had the last F-word? 

The foul-mouthed cartoon sees Kaley star as the titular anti-heroine, who decides to break up with the Joker and become a supervillain in her own right, teaming up with gal pal Poison Ivy (Lake) to join the Legion of Doom. Although what fans don’t know is that the show has a limit to how many swear words they can use per episode. And as a result, the stars had a bit of healthy competition by revealing they would try to claim more F-words for their characters. 

‘We don’t shoot together,’ Lake told ET. ‘We don’t record together and there’s often a fight.’ 

‘About who gets more [F-words],’ Kaley added. ‘Did Lake take the last f*** again?’

The over the top swearing made the adult themed show just that much more juvenile... like hearing Maggot Robbie spit out 'pussy' because she was under the impression that that's how you show that your character is so much more fearless than the Joker. Just... trying too hard and ultimately failing. Unless she was trying to cover us in spit, in which case she may have succeeded.

And speaking of the woman who has doomed all of my searches for the ACTUAL Birds of Prey or anything Harley related to end in her gross mug showing up, here's what the executive producer had to say about it.

10 Things DC Wants you to forget about Harley Quinn!

Oh no, another Youtube based post! When will I ever learn? Well, The Key of Awesome is on hiatus, so is Epic Rap Battles of History and A Dose of Buckley, and I'm all caught up on pretty much everything else I care about on Youtube so here we are.

Here's the video.

Here's me.

Here's my post where I ramble on for hours on end about why I agree or disagree about the dot points.

Watch out for the random ambiguous point! There's one in every post! ...Apparently.

#10 Harley Quinn was only meant to be a cameo

Uh.... yeah. I don't think anyone's ever tried to hide that.

One of the first parts under her Wikipedia page reads:
Harley Quinn first appeared in the DC Animated Universe's Batman: The Animated Series episode "Joker's Favour", in what was originally supposed to be the animated equivalent of a walk-on role; a number of police officers were to be taken hostage by someone jumping out of a cake, and it was decided that to have the Joker do so himself would be too bizarre, although he ended up doing it anyway. Thus they created a female sidekick for the Joker; she would become his love interest.

From the IMDB page about the episode in question;

Originally, the script called for the Joker to appear in drag. The writers decided this was out of character for him and created a one-shot female character to fill this role instead. The character became extremely popular and was soon upgraded from one of Joker's goons to a major player in the Rogues Gallery: Harley Quinn.

VERDICT: UNSURE

I agree with the statement that Harley's character was initially supposed to be a cameo but I disagree that this is something DC is trying to hide. 

#9 Harley Quinn is a relatively new character

What? Confused here. Why is this some scandalous secret that DC is trying to hide from us? I would say the vast majority of Harley fans already know she was shown in 1992 - the rest are the couple of fans of Harley from the Suicide Squad movie who seem to believe that monstrosity was the first incarnation and everything else is some archaic cartoon for old timers.

Besides, how exactly is DC trying to hide this when you can easily see it on every Wiki about her and it often comes up as a 'fun fact!' about the character. It's pretty iconic how she became the first cartoon character to jump across to the mainstream comics in DC barely a year later.

Video/OP need to elaborate here. If DC was trying to insinuate that Harley was a part of some classic Batman stories like the Killing Joke, A Death in the Family, The Man Behind the Red Hood etc or films like The Dark Knight or Batman (1989) for example when she wasn't even in continuity then - well yes this would be some dodgy business.

Verdict: UNSURE 

As above, need more information. Are they hiding her big production year or trying to say she was always there from the beginning? An example of this would maybe be in White Knight when she was there during Robin's torture.

Harley Quinn in DC Universe animated series - Kaley Cuoco

We now have the trailer for the Harley Quinn Animated Series... and it looks a lot better than what I was imagining.

Ugh.

What are they doing though? Purely hiring from The Big Bang Theory roster? That said, I liked Melissa Rauch's turn and I think Kaley Cuoco does a decent job too. It's perky, without being annoyingly squeaky. I definitely think we've had enough Tara Strong jobs.. besides, she's normally got a million other roles going on.

I am SUPER GLAD they did not actually get Maggot Robbutt for this. That would have been cringe city, especially now her shit version of Harley is confirmed to be stinking up at least two more DC films. DC is struggling enough with the film industry, Maggot!

Anyway, it'll be interesting to see what they're gonna do with the cartoon..
Harley taps the camera and addresses us through a fourth wall so not sure if she's gonna be doing that the whole time or if that's just for the trailer. Well, she addresses New York anyway. What else is there in the world? Nothing, apparently. Nothing. Depressing... but at least I'll have a bit more free time because we don't have the comic cons that matter.. *sheds single tear*

Harley is wearing her classic headpiece along with her Arkham Asylum oranges but she does have her white paint job, sadly. Bunking with Poison Ivy - who is thankfully more sarcastic and bull-shit calling here - tells Harley that the general populace will hate it because they hate everything. Ivy is also reading Mad Love, in their joint cell.

Behind her is a poster of an ab baring man with Joker's mugshot plastered over his head. 

They take pot shots at the gritty DCEU and Deadpool's animated series... Batman swings by to admonish them for having fun and Harley comments that she likes the new logo..



The only thing that didn't grab me was the swearing and advertising gratuitous violence.

Don't get me wrong, I love watching and doing both of those things, but when it's something you're advertising to get people interested... it's just a turn off. Like Maggot spitting out 'pussy' in the suicide Squad movie... she sounded so juvenile and like she was trying too hard. Is this series going to be the same thing?