At this point, saying Mark Hamill is the definitive Joker is as redundant as saying Kevin Conroy is the definitive Batman. While every Batman fan has their favorite renditions of both characters, Hamill and Conroy enjoyed such enduring appeal as the Clown Prince of Crime and The Dark Knight, respectively, that after playing the roles in Batman: The Animated Series they returned to the characters in everything from video games to animated films and even live TV performances.

But the Fox Kids original series is where an entire generation of '90s kids witnessed Conroy and Hamill's performances for the first time. Before its debut in 1992, there had never been anything quite like the now beloved animated series. Co-creators Bruce Timm and Eric Radomsky, along with a team of indispensable collaborators that included writers Paul Dini and Alan Burnett, crafted a show that appealed to kids without talking down to them. They infused their Batman animated series with an adult sensibility that ensured the show was unlike anything else on Fox Kids, or TV as a whole, at the time. From the "dark deco" art style to the sophisticated storytelling, and of course the voice performances, the series was a real breakthrough during its 1993-1995 run.

But creating such a unique series required a lot of work. Aside from finding the right mix of design elements to create the show's edgy aesthetic, Tim and co. didn't just stumble upon the perfect voice actors—at least when it came to the Joker. While Conroy held his audition for Batmanthe Joker's voice actor took a little longer to establish. This resulted in a process that initially saw the character played by another famous big screen actor: The Rocky Horror Picture Show star Tim Curry, who gave the Clown Prince of Crime a more imposing, sinister tone. Eventually, of course, Curry was replaced by Hamill, who almost said no to the Joker rolebut whose vocal performance has become nothing short of legendary.

With his casting in Batman: The Animated Series, Mark Hamill managed to turn a guest star role into a long-term career as the Joker. As casting and voice director Andrea Romano recalls in an interview with ComicBookMovie.comthe actor came to the production offices as a guest, but impressed everyone with his version of the Joker so much that he was cast:

"Mark's agent reached out and said, 'Mark is a huge comic fan (sic), a huge Batman fan and would love to be a part of the show. So I brought him on as a guest (... ) The auditions came up for the replacement Joker, we gave (Hamill) a shot and he was amazing!

The only issue was that the show already had its own Joker in the form of Tim Curry. The "It" star had filmed several episodes by the time Hamill visited the offices, but was fired from the show in favor of Hamill. But why? Well, the answer to that question can get a little hazy depending on who you ask. In his interview with CBM, Romano recalled how a certain producer "didn't care for" Curry's Joker and pushed for the role to be recast. But it seems there was a little more to it than that.

If you ask Tim Curry why he was replaced as the Joker in "Batman: The Animated Series", he will tell you that it was at least partly due to illness. - said the British actor ScreenGeek“I played the Joker for a while but I had bronchitis and they fired me - and they hired Mark Hamill. That's life. While Curry's sanguine attitude about the whole thing is admirable, it seems the decision to trade him came down to more than just his scratched throat.

2017 edition of “Back question" to celebrate the 25th anniversary of "Batman," the cast and crew reminisced about the show's origins, including Curry's initial casting as the Joker. producers, with Andrea Romano recalling how she "loved what she was doing Tim Curry" and was "thrilled" to cast Bruce Timm, on the other hand, was a little less pleased with the casting:

"I think what Tim was doing was very, very interesting. It didn't look terribly organic to us. A lot of his line readings were just... felt almost flat. They were really weird and weird but without a really deep meaning behind them, not to knock it because I'm still a big fan.

Of particular concern to Tim was Curry's laugh at the Joker, which the show creator claimed "never sounded like he was genuinely amused by anything. It just sounded like this weird, weird laugh." In Tim's recollection, it was writer-producer Alan Burnett who forced this release, though Romano remained perfectly content with her original casting. "I was already kind of on the fence about Tim as the Joker anyway," Tim said. “But it was Alan who made a problem about it. He came to me one day and said, "You know, I think we should trade Tim." he also could not agree with Burnett, and so the rewriting process began.

But this was more than Curry sounding "inorganic." While Batman: The Animated Series has never shied away from embracing more mature contentit seems Curry's Joker was a bit also scary for a Fox Kids cartoon.

In her interview with Back Issue, Andrea Romano recalled that she fought for Tim Curry as the Joker, even calling him back to the studio several times to try out different versions of the voice in front of Bruce Timm and Alan Barnett. In the end, however, Curry - despite being no stranger to playing evil clowns - just couldn't deliver what the producers were asking for and Romano had the "heartbreaking" job of letting the actor go. But this decision came down to more than what Tim and Barnett saw as the inorganic aspect of Curry's performance. As Kevin Conroy said in an an interview before he died:

“(Curry) is a fantastic actor, he's a wonderful actor with a great career, and they replaced him after a few episodes because Tim's Joker was dark and scary. Mark came in and did a Joker that was dark and funny. it was just a different take on the Joker."

Bruce Timm has yet to confirm this claim that Curry's Joker was too scary, but in a documentary from "Stay 'Tooned!" podcast Phil Machiseries co-creator Eric Radomski seemed to corroborate Conroy's recollection:

“The dark side was completely second nature to Tim. And almost to the point where you know like, "I don't want to be alone with this guy 'cause he's really creepy." (...) It definitely had the menace we wanted, I can't say we were completely happy with it, but it was less to do with whether we thought Tim was delivering or we didn't really fully understand what we wanted. yet."

Aside from playing one of the scariest horror figures in Pennywise, Tim Curry has spoken about his preference for psychological horror over blood and goreand throughout his career demonstrated that "dark side" Radomski mentioned, beginning with his starring role as Dr. Frank-N-Furter in 1975's The Rocky Horror Picture Show. That said, Curry's remake seems to have come down to a number of factors, including the fact that Bruce Timm and his crew were still in the early stages of fleshing out their seminal vision.

Phil MachiThe documentary features clips from Tim Curry's original Joker performances, and while they reveal a voice similar to what Hamill eventually did with the role, there's a certain sneer and growl to his tone that makes the character even more sinister. Bronchitis? It's unlikely given Andrea Romano's discovery that Curry actually came in multiple times to try out different voices. What's more, the actor seems to have had a history of being a little too creepy in his roles. Seeing Tim Curry in a sewer on the set of "It" was really scarywith young actor Georgie Denbrough, Tony Dakota having to stop his co-star during filming to tell him how much he was creeped out. Unfortunately, this ability to scare with ease also seems to be at least part of the reason that Curry's Joker tenure ended too soon.

Before being replaced, Curry voiced the Joker for multiple installments of Batman: The Animated Series, with some reports claiming he played the nemesis in four episodes, though that number is disputed elsewhere. We know the actor lent his voice to Christmas with the Joker and The Last Laugh, at the very least, but was replaced by Hamill in both episodes before they aired — which in retrospect was clearly for the best.

Curry eventually voiced two more characters in Batman: The Animated Series: a henchman in the first-season episode "Fear of Victory" and a "robotic clown" in another first-season episode, "Be the Clown." It's certainly interesting to think about the legacy of "Batman: The Animated Series" when Curry stayed on as the Joker. While the show was known for exploring more adult themes, would Curry's creepy Joker be a little too mature? Regardless, most fans will surely agree that we got the best possible version of the show.