I could look at the episodes, or the characters they've dragged up, or the fact that the Batmobile has on several occasions turned into a giant bat-mech (that is somehow inexplicably not a toy yet) but one of the things that has most impressed me about the show has been the cast. If you look at the talent assembled, it's basically a list of the best voice-over talent working today, plus some random stars from elsewhere such as Alan Tudyk, Wil Wheaton, J.K. Simmons, et al. Today I'm going to look at some of my favorites who worked on the show (turns out most of the clips available on YouTube are not embeddable anymore so I changed it to a link where needed).
I narrowed down a few of my favorites, but I wanted to make a few honorable mentions first:
As a fan of Lovecraft and (DC's) Scarecrow, I am already well-versed in the works of Jeffrey Combs, star of Re-Animator, From Beyond and providing the voice for Scarecrow in The New Batman Adventures (as well as a long list of other things). However, getting excited to see he had a voice in The Brave And The Bold, I was kind of sad to see he had been relegated to the role of... Kite Man. And while it was a humorously somewhat-dark kind of take on the character, attempting to take down Plastic Man (voiced by the equally-prodigious Tom Kenny), it was kind of a weak episode in the early few of the second season before it found its footing again, and personally I would have preferred to Combs in almost any other role.
R. Lee Ermey shows up a few times as Wildcat, an elderly member of the JSA and trainer of younger heroes (Batman, Black Canary, Outsiders, etc, and even the tutorial on the tie-in video game), which on its own is pretty perfect. However, when you stick Ermey into a series with Silver Age sensibilities, you get some beautiful lines barked in his particular cadence, such as "I turn my back on you for two seconds, and suddenly you're eighty years old and covered in robots!" which sadly I cannot find a clip of.
And one of the more famous roles was Neil Patrick Harris showing up as the Music Meister, one of the few (I think maybe one of three?) characters created just for this show. While the idea of a musical episode of this series was a pretty great one, the episode itself just never quite lived up to it. It was cute and fun, not bad at all, but never really went anywhere or did anything special, either. It can't even say it contained the best musical number of the show, which has to go to the surprisingly double-entendruous song from Gail Simone's Birds of Prey episode.
Jeffrey Tambor as Crazy Quilt
Kind of like Combs as Kite Man, I thought one of my favorite actors was getting stuck with a z-list, throw-away villain. However, unlike the Kite Man's, the Quilt Man episode was surprisingly good. The Color Of Revenge, from season one, is the B&B universe's story of Robin becoming his own hero, with the pre-titles sequence being Batman and a younger Robin stopping Quilt and blinding him in the process and the bulk of the episode being Quilt returning for revenge on the Boy Wonder. Both stories, Robin's of stepping out of Batman's shadow and Quilt Man's becoming an actual threat, are well-done without speaking down to the intended audience. I think a lot of the latter story's strength was the pathos Tambor brought to the character, enough so that I actually used the word "pathos" in an article about The Brave and The Bold. This was one of the first times the series showed real potential of being more than just a little kids' show and have some actual depth.
Diedrich Bader as Batman
When I first started watching the show, I was kind of surprised it was Bader who got the titular role, that the neighbor from Office Space was Batman. And even now, it's kind of weird to think about. But somehow, he's not only a good Batman but I'd go so far to say he's one of the best, certainly a perfect fit for the more lighthearted tone of this show. Part of the show's draw is Batman the character's ability to be shoehorned into any situation, ranging from fighting mobsters in Gotham to fighting monsters in space, but Bader's Batman works contrary to that point beautifully; usually serious, sometimes wry, but always deadpan no matter what crazy situation he finds himself in.
Paul Reubens as Bat-Mite
The Bat-Mite episodes are easily the highlight of The Brave and The Bold, especially the initial one and his anthology episode which I believe is airing in America for the first time next week (featuring Batman and Lord Death Man from the Bat-Manga). Scripted by always-amazing Batman scribe Paul Dini, Mite's first appearance, Legends Of The Dark Mite, was a crazy, madcap adventure not only completely saturated in classic Batman references, even by B&B standards, but also a beautiful Chuck Jones-inspired sequence. Pee-Wee himself taking on the role, Reubens brings a crazy, child-like kineticism to Bat-Mite's fifth-dimension, fourth-wall-breaking pranksterisms, making him more endearing than the annoying fanboy the character could be. Which is important, perhaps, because he's representing us.
John DiMaggio as Aquaman (and others)
John DiMaggio has an illustrious voice-acting career as some of my favorite characters: Marcus Fenix from Gears of War, Jake the Dog from Adventure Time, everyone's favorite Bender, Bender, and hundreds of other characters you know and love. But for The Brave and The Bold he did something special: he made me care about Aquaman. The series turned Aquaman into a bombastic, over-the-top and straight-up delightful braggart, brought entirely to life by DiMaggio's voice. His bombastic, living-bearhug-of-a-man character is a great counterpoint to Batman's stoic nature. In addition to Aquaman, DiMaggio also voices Gorilla Grodd, Black Mask, the Faceless Hunter from the Starro arc and several other characters.
As a bonus, Jeremy Shada (Finn the Human from Adventure Time) also occasionally shows up as young Dick Grayson, though sadly the two have only (just barely) shared a scene together.
Chill Of The Night! cast
Chill Of The Night! was a unique episode in the Brave and the Bold run for a lot of reasons. Again scripted by Dini, this was a genuinely dark episode mostly adapted from Detective Comics #235 that felt like it was lifted from the grittier, noir-ier Batman: The Animated Series, focusing on Batman trying to find his parents' killer, while the Spectre and the Phantom Stranger are observing and betting whether or not Batman will spare him once found. This is also the first time we see Batman as Bruce Wayne, as B&B almost entirely ignores the alter-ego aspect of all their characters who have them, usually to its favor and giving this episode just that much more impact when we see him unmask.
The biggest surprise to me, however, was the cast assembled for the episode. Thomas and Martha Wayne, who we see in flashback to the infamous alleyway shooting as well as a brief travel in time back to the Flying Creatures masquerade party (featuring Thomas in his "First Bat-Man" get-up from Detective #235 as well as featured in some of Morrison's recent Batman work) are voiced by Adam West and Julie Newmar (Batman '66's Batman and Catwoman), respectively. The Phantom Stranger and Spectre guiding the events are voiced by Kevin Conroy and Mark Hamill, or Batman and the Joker from Batman: The Animated Series and more recently the Arkham Asylum video game and its upcoming sequel. Additionally, although not Batman-legacy actors, the episode featured Peter Onorati as Joe Chill and Richard Moll as Moxon, the aged gangster who had hired Chill.
Beyond this episode, some of the actors have made more appearances. Kevin Conroy appeared in another episode as the Batman of Zur-En-Arrh, another classic Silver Age tale repurposed for the series, while Adam West appeared as Proto the Bat-Bot, which was essentially giving us Adam West as Gigantor. Hamill appeared again as the Spectre one more time, dishing out his usual brand of ironic death in the form of turning Professor Milo into cheese and feeding him to the mind-controlled rats he planned to unleash upon Gotham.
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