Have You Played... The Adventures Of Batman & Robin: Cartoon Maker?

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Have You Played… The Adventures Of Batman & Robin: Cartoon Maker?“Educational”

“Educational”

I’m not that into Batman, generally, but I’d broadly agree thatBatman: The Animated Seriesis one of the best animated shows ever made. Visually it was unmistakable, combining bold, simple character designs and restrained use of tone and palette to make a unique noir aesthetic. It was super cool. Which makesThe Adventures Of Batman & Robin: Cartoon Maker, B:TAS' 1995 “educational” spin-off CD-ROM, even more brilliant for how totally busted it was.

TAOB&R:CM, to use an abbreviation that looks like broken HTML, was a farce. As its name suggested, you would use it to create cartoons in the style of B:TAS, slapping down moody backdrops, and then moving characters with looping movement animations across them, before plopping down props, sound effects and text. The game would record the order of all of this, and then play it back on command, like a puppet show with the puppeteer’s hands removed from view. Grand, in theory.