The Dark Knight's First Night (1992 TV Short) User Reviews

From humble beginnings . . .

[Mr-Fusion · 8/10 · 15 February 2017]

This is the original sales pitch for "Batman: The Animated Series", and what it lacks in polish, it more than makes up for in spirit - which is exactly what it captures. Just the Dark Knight, preying on a pair of thugs on a rooftop. Crime is nasty and Batman responds in kind, settling scores with fists and a well-placed batarang. It's like watching storyboards come to life with all the theatricality of a Fleischer Superman cartoon (and this is probably where that influence is strongest).

This is absolutely worth the time of anyone who loves the show, if for no other reason than to see the prototypical seeds being sown. But more than that, it's surprisingly effective.

Put simply, were I a TV exec in 1991, I'd greenlight the hell outta this show.

8/10

An impressive pilot for the animated series of Batman from the 90s

[Rectangular_businessman · 10/10 · 28 June 2015]

During the early nineties, Bruce Timm and Paul Dini created this short pilot in order to show their interest in making an animated series inspired in the Batman comics.

Is amazing how even after all this time, this brief animation hasn't lost any of its impact, being just as impressive as it was back then in the time were most of the action animated series produced in America were quite tamed and simplistic. I think that even many of the modern superhero shows we have these days pale in comparison of this brilliant short, which only needs less than two minutes to show many of the aspects that made "Batman: The Animated Series" so great: A magnificent atmosphere, cool action, a totally badass portrayal of Batman, nice animations and designs and excellent music.

In many ways, "The Dark Knight's First Night" (And the series which was inspired by it) has a timeless feel that made it age incredibly well, with enough virtues to be easily considered as one of the greatest achievements in the story of animation.

10/10

Excellent start to BTAS

[WeAreLive · 10/10 · 5 May 2018]

Even for small short it was very good. Although i am kind of glad they never kept the animation for the actual show.

There is not much for me to spoil but there is no talk in the short and the intro of the show will just keep on play through out.

Solid for a 2-minute video

[Horst_In_Translation · 6/10 · 23 February 2017]

"The Dark Knight's First Night" is a 2-minute animated short film from 1992, so this one has its 25th anniversary this year already. It was written and directed by Erci Radomski and Bruce Timm, who are most known for their work on "Batman: The Animated Series" and this very short film we have here is basically how it all started. It is okay in terms of tone and atmosphere and the animation sure has a bit of a retro look working well with the subject. I think this video also illustrates nicely that Batman is not just always up against super-evil super villains, but also random crooks who rob jewelry stores and fittingly it takes Batman not even two minutes to deal with issues like this one. An okay watch for everybody who likes the world' biggest bat superhero, but everybody else can probably skip it. Thumbs up from me. Oh yeah, no dialogues in here, just music and effects, so you won't need any subtitles no matter where you are from.