"Batman: The Animated Series" needs no introduction. Coming right off the hype of the majorly successful Tim Burton films in 1989 and 1992, Bruce Timm knew how to take what made the Caped Crusader such an inspirational, intriguing figure and expand the possibilities to not just a world open to more grittiness than before, but also a world put to animation. And needless to say, it left quite the major mark on both the animation industry and the television superhero industry.
One of the most major benefits of such a format was the ability to go all the more in-depth into the rogues gallery, in what kinds of schemes they are each able to devise and what makes them tick. Mark Hamill as the Joker is, to this day, seen as one of, if not the definitive version of the malicious clown for this reason. Whenever he's the antagonist of a story, he gets a lot of focus and they consistently use that time to delve into how unpredictable, hammy, and downright sadistic he can get. Many of the other villains fall under that same principle, with Clayface starting out as a famous actor who was very self-conscious over his appearance due to disfigurement, and Mr. Freeze being cursed with both a life-damaging condition and an ill wife stuck in a seemingly eternal limbo.
But every once in a while, they'd throw in an unique character of their own. By far the most well-known creation of the animated series was Harley Quinn, the Joker's bubbly henchwoman and pseudo-girlfriend, who managed to not just live on in the years since, but recently managed to net her own series and even starring roles in mainstream DCEU films. However, who I want to focus on is one of the more overlooked figures, one who only appeared in two episodes and (in a rather apt fashion, given the background we'll talk about later) didn't even get a future afterward: Mary Louise Dahl, AKA Baby Doll.
I am mostly talking about Baby Doll's titular introductory episode, so let's quickly run through how the episode plays out. A number of kidnappings have occurred in Gotham, and they all seem to tie to an old sitcom titled "Love That Baby" - the title character of which was played by young actress Mary Dahl, born with a rare condition that kept her body from aging past that of a small child, and thus rendered her unable to expand her career afterward. And sure enough, it turns out that a completely deluded Mary is holding her old co-stars hostage in a desperate attempt to live in the past forever. And it's up to Batman and Robin to not just discover where they're being kept, but to hopefully put Mary under control before she strikes again.
Now, this seems like a really standard, and admittedly pretty silly plot when looked at as an outline. But with Paul Dini's writing and Dan Riba's direction, they make it not just highly entertaining, but an immense tragedy with a figure who simply lost her way due to both self-absorption and oppression.
They do a great job really setting up the unfortunate realities of society that put her in this position, with her recurring riff being this really saccharine, childish chord. And the first scenes with her feature Mary using her appearance to act like a lost little girl, distracting her victims and allowing them to be captured. Just that idea alone, and the art direction of it all, is enough to make most people snicker. Like, really? *This* is what we're going for in a Batman villain now? And they only further follow that up with the place of captivity being a cheesy-looking sitcom set, her main weapon being a doll that's used as a rifle, and even the climax with her being chased through an amusement park fun house. Doesn't help either that she's constantly drawn and animated in a really cartoony way that would look much more at home in "Tiny Toon Adventures" or something.
However, as the episode goes on a ton of context is provided, pretty much bit-by-bit, showing what exactly transpired - most of which is a result of her own hubris. She had a seemingly obsessive desire to be in the spotlight, as the addition of cousin Spunky and the subsequent upstaging of her own performance caused Mary to break down, call foul on the series, and backstab everyone working on it for the sake of trying to start a more dramatic acting career. This decision horribly backfired as her acting chops didn't quite translate to Shakespeare, and that - combined with implied ableism on casting agencies' parts - led to her career reaching a complete dead-end. In an act of desperation, she then tried to crawl right back to those she left behind and revive "Love That Baby", but - possibly as a result of backstabbing them before - her proposal was refused. And she shut herself out from the world ever since.
It's there where you really see a much more... disturbing side to how she acts. For the entire first half of the episode, while she seems consciously aware of what's going on, she just about entirely acts and talks in-character as Baby Doll, with the cutesy voice, juvenile vocabulary, and bouncy innocence. The fact she constantly behaves like this, even in scenes separate of her old set and cast, combined with her background as an actress, makes it extremely apparent that she isn't really acting - more, her mind practically *lives* in her own little world now. And the few times where she *does* break character consistently have her really depressed and frustrated, implying that she does this to herself in order to make herself feel happy. In other words, she believes she is unable to feel good about herself unless she falls under complete delusion and becomes her old character.
This is most highlighted at the end of a lengthy, really entertaining sequence where Ms. Dahl, as stated before, starts to throw a birthday with her captive co-stars. While they're undeniably annoyed the entire time, only at a certain point does one of them finally snap and break it through her skull that they were merely actors and that they aren't family. A dramatic spotlight is cast on Baby as she weeps, solemnly opens her saggy eyes, and for the first time we hear Mary speak in her normal voice. The poignancy aren't necessarily in the words, but moreso how she *acts*. Her attention-seeking nature is highlighted with the overdramatic lighting and how she accentuates her position with a recorded 'aww' sound. And when she starts to express how nostalgic she became over her years on the show, she suddenly freezes mid-sentence for a solid second...
...Only to snap right back to Baby Doll right then and there. The contrast and brief dip to total silence is beyond disturbing, you can almost feel herself actively willing her brain to fall back in, almost like there's a little switch going on. This briefly happens again when she brings who she thinks is Spunky in and schemes to blow him up, blaming him for the downfall of both her character and, in her own beliefs, her life. But then we get the very end, after the aforementioned chase scene in the fun house.
Baby Doll wanders her way through a lineup of those funny-looking mirrors, only to find herself staring into an adult version of herself at the end. She once again breaks character and is excited over finally seeing "the real her", only for realization to set in. "But it's not really real, is it? Just made up and pretend like my family and my life and everything else." Batman then appears in each of the mirrors surrounding her, and distraught over him bringing her back to reality, Mary shoots all the mirrors she sees containing his face... and finally shatters the visage of her own adult-looking self. Out of bullets, she becomes very teary-eyed, and is only met with a blank look from Batman, removing the doll-rifle from her hands. All Batman does afterward is to let Baby Doll release her emotions, which she does, and give her a light pat on the shoulder as she lets out a final, broken "I didn't mean to...". Fade to black.
The way this is shot, paced, acted, and sound-engineered are nothing short of perfection. The gunshots combined with the sound of the glass shattering prove really loud against the relatively light soundtrack that both precedes and follows it, and it goes a long way in conveying exactly where Mary's mind is at. She's refusing to accept that she has wasted her life, believing these stupid falsehoods that are as plain as the reflection in front of her. But when the final mirror is nothing but fragmented shards, she has nothing to look at but the bitter reality, symbolized by the shard the camera points to by her foot, showing once again the child-looking self that she is. Even her lines are given all the more weight with the subtle but noticeable echo, making the drama hit even harder than it already has. And the fact it's left as a very ambiguous ending, with no indication if she's going to be locked up or even where her mind is now, adds a whole new layer of nuance to the entire story. Because not even Batman can provide the answer as to where such a soul can go from there.
Now, she did make a second appearance in the tail end of the series, namely the episode "Love is a Croc". She seems to be doing alright for herself to start with, being a modest motel desk clerk, but when a guest recognizes and moderately ridicules her, her heart twists once more and becomes distressed over how she is looked down by the world for being 'different'. That is, until she encounters a broadcast of Killer Croc being charged in court, who makes similar claims himself. The two then use this common prejudice to perform crimes together, with even a romantic relationship forming between them, but things only go South further once tension between them unfolds.
Unfortunately, this outing lacked the nuance of Paul Dini's writing, and just goes in a number of strange, often contrived directions. Even with the commonality of them being outcasts, it seems really out-of-place for someone like Baby Doll to become romantically interested in a reptilian criminal, especially since she wasn't exactly built as someone who performed such deeds for the thrill. It doesn't help they go straight from them meeting to them already having performed a few successful robberies and hitting the papers, which leaves a massive hole that could've been really crucial. And for a relationship that isn't too believable in how its executed, they make Baby so bizarrely clingy to him for really no good reason, to the point where she aims to commit a murder-suicide just for the sake of togetherness. The very last line she gives implies she got this kind of motivation and behavior from television, but this isn't suggested at all before that point beyond the vague connection of her being a former sitcom star.
To be fair, while the story is a mess, Baby Doll herself gets a number of strong moments. Just the idea of her trying to get her life back together by working at a motel is pretty amusing, and while her prime weapon in the previous episode is nowhere to be seen, she gets a number of interesting substitutes. You see her using jacks at bombs, and a home security system using all these childish toys, just to name a couple examples. Plus, she continues the motif of pretending to be a little girl in order to trick the authorities, which - although it doesn't seem as believable after she's part of a newsworthy crime duo - is very welcome. Also, while a lot of her original cuteness was sadly lost in the redesign process, the one they gave her here does at least fit the kind of story they're going for. And while I'm not crazy over the execution of this plot point, I think the idea of her believing the simplified values and emotion of television has some merit, given her background.
There's honestly multiple reasons why this attempt at a return didn't work out though, and why they needed to stretch this much for the plot. The character Paul Dini created here was rather open-and-shut in nature, in that it was very much tailor-made with that specific story in mind, and they unload a lot of details about her (and imply several more) in that one episode. Her motivations began and ended with a desire to always be in the spotlight and overall feel good about herself despite her stunted height; which, given the episode makes it clear all she had to her name was "Love That Baby", what else can you really do? Even the shtick of her being a 30-year-old woman in the body of a little girl, which could still be fun given the little moments in the aforementioned episode, only could be taken so far before it becomes overly silly and tonally dissonant, unlike most of the other villains who were generally much more intimidating by nature. In short, she simply isn't open to depth the same way Two-Face or the Joker were.
Since B:TAS has ended, the most the character has gotten were a few quick, Easter Egg cameos like her likeness being used as a bomb in an episode of "The Brave and the Bold", as well as appearing in a single panel during an Elseworlds comic. And to be honest, despite what I said earlier about the character only really working once, part of me believes that's not what Ms. Dahl here deserves. I don't expect her entire backstory to be retold, nor am I even remotely asking for her to be the next breakout DC star a la Harley Quinn, but there have been a number of DC reinterpretations in recent years that she would fit pretty well in as a tertiary or minor part of the cast. The current "DC Superhero Girls", for example, offers a world full of younger versions of many popular (and even some unpopular) DC characters. Or possibly even something like "Teen Titans Go!" which is a show pretty much built off in-jokes, non-sequiturs, and obscure references.
At this point, her ever finding a place in the modern world of DC unfortunately seems rather unlikely, and maybe in general she just wasn't meant to be more than a one-shot. But what I do know for sure is that that one time she did put on a show for us has left the kind of impression that, in my heart, ranks her well onto the very top of "Batman: The Animated Series" episodes. And honestly, that's a pretty good place to be in the grand scheme of things.