The Animated Batman Episode That Was Banned For Being Too Raunchy

When it debuted in 2008, "Batman: The Brave and the Bold" reintroduced a more lighthearted tone to the Dark Knight's animated escapades. Ever since "Batman: The Animated Series" attained legendary status with its mature storylines and alluringly dark aesthetic, Batman cartoons had tried somewhat to emulate that approach. But "Batman: The Brave and the Bold" diverged, using a more comedic tone to appeal to younger audiences and discarding the brooding, noirish elements that had made "B:TAS" such a hit.

Based on "The Brave and the Bold" comic series which ran from 1955 to 1983, the show saw Batman teaming up with various and mostly lesser-known DC heroes, with each episode telling a standalone story involving the Dark Knight and his chosen teammate of the week. Zanier characters such as Detective Chimp would show up in this more outlandish show, which also featured more obscure villains including Starro, the main villain in James Gunn's "The Suicide Squad." It wasn't quite as campy as the Adam West-led "Batman" series of the 1960s — several episodes explored darker themes — but it was a heck of a lot more fun than most of the other animated shows that had sprung up in the wake of "B:TAS."

"Batman: The Brave and the Bold" ran for three seasons on Cartoon Network until November 2011, and during that time it did manage to keep alive one grand tradition started by "B:TAS:" upsetting the censors.

Simply by virtue of the fact it wasn't afraid to tell more mature stories rather than talking down to kids, "Batman: The Animated Series" established a long and proud tradition of upsetting the Fox Kids censors, which decreed there were nine things the show wasn't allowed to do. The Fox censors also stopped the Batman series from turning Bruce Wayne into a vampire, while the successor series, "The New Batman Adventures" used Scarecrow to pull one over on the censors. Though "Batman: The Brave and the Bold" was an altogether more silly take on the Dark Knight and his various DC Universe friends, it certainly had moments of adult humor, and in one instance managed to continue its predecessors' tradition of upsetting the adults. 

In the season 2 episode "The Mask of Matches Malone!" Batman suffers a blow to the head which causes him to believe he is actually a criminal Matches Malone, leaving the Birds of Prey (Catwoman, Huntress, and Black Canary) to fix things. At one point during the episode's second act, the trio breaks Matches' hideout at the Iceberg Lounge and, finding themselves in need of a distraction to escape, perform a musical number.

The song, entitled "Birds of Prey," starts out as a harmless enough musical interlude, but things start to get a bit blue when the trio starts singing innuendos about male heroes and their shortcomings. The Flash is accused of being "too fast" while Green Arrow comes under fire for his inability to "shoot straight." But it's the line about Aquaman, whose "little fish" is accused of being "less outrageous," that seemed to cause the most controversy. As she delivers the "little fish" line, Huntress wags her finger, leaving no question as to what she's singing about.

Written by Gail Simone, who had written for the "Birds of Prey" comic series, "The Mask of Matches Malone!" caused upset due to its thinly veiled allusion to Aquaman's manhood, but just what happened in terms of the episode's airing remains somewhat unclear.

There's no doubt that the Birds of Prey's innuendo-laden musical number caused upset, but the exact nature of that upset remains somewhat hazy. Some reports claim that the episode aired once and was then pulled for the finger-wagging to be replaced, while others say the episode never actually aired in the first place and was only shown in syndication with a cutaway to a fish tank used instead of the offending finger gesture. As Casually Comics notes in its coverage of the whole debacle, the controversy appeared to be a U.S. thing, with other countries airing the episode unedited. It does appear that the episode wasn't included on the original DVD release for season 2 of "Batman: The Brave and the Bold," but was subsequently added to the season 3 DVD set as a special feature. However, the unedited version is available on MAX and can be found quite easily on YouTube.

It wasn't quite as bad as the time "The New Batman Adventures" had Batgirl killed by being pushed off a skyscraper and landing on the hood of a car carrying her own father, but this kind of suggestive musical performance was apparently too much for some — though in the grand scheme of things this is a fairly minor controversy. What's more, it's arguably one of the more memorable moments from "Batman: The Brave and the Bold," which is fondly remembered by fans for injecting some fun back into the Dark Knight's animated adventures for a brief time.

Now that Bruce Timm has debuted the scariest, best, and most mature Batman in years with "Batman: Caped Crusader" it seems those days are long gone. But with James Gunn and his newly-minted DC Studios set to produce a "Brave and the Bold" movie, perhaps we'll see some of that same energy return to DC's on-screen offerings — maybe with less discussion of Aquaman's crotch, though.