| Gotham Girls | |
|---|---|
| Genre | Animated comedy and drama. |
| Created by | Noodle Soup Productions |
| Starring | Adrienne Barbeau Arleen Sorkin Diane Pershing Tara Strong Jean Rasey Bob Hastings Tom Kenny |
| Country of origin | United States |
| No. of episodes | 30 (3 series of 10) |
| Production | |
| Producer(s) | Jeremy Rosenberg Ben Stein |
| Running time | 2–5 minutes per episode (more with interactive elements) |
| Broadcast | |
| Original channel | Internet (gothamgirls.com / |
| Original run | 2000 – 2002 |
Gotham Girls is an American Flash animation series about the females of Gotham City, created and produced jointly by Warner Brothers and Noodle Soup Productions in 2002. Episodes starred Harley Quinn, Poison Ivy, Batgirl, Catwoman and Zatanna in short stories of varying length about the daily lives of the characters (from the DC Comics universe).
It is also the name of a related comic book series.
Contents |
Gotham Girls is one of the few series of Flash animations made by a professional publisher of mainstream cartoons, and features professional voice-acting by the same actresses and actors as those who voiced the television series. Its use of Flash (and also vector graphics) enables the animation to appear undistorted and unpixellated at any resolution. However, the episodes do not tend to show the Symbols (the pieces used to create the flash) outside of the intended viewing area. For example, in Season 1 Episode 1 while the light beam on Harley continues off screen, her body is only drawn for the dimensions of the intended viewing area.
Each episode features a mini-game or puzzle which can be played while the clip downloads, as well as an interactive feature which allows viewers to help a character make a certain decision.
Other features of the website include downloadable trailers (1, 2), screensavers, desktop backgrounds, internet chat buddy icons, as well as biographies of the characters (additional bios can be viewed by clicking on the occasional flapping bat image appearing in the bottom-right corner while watching the show itself at certain points) and an online version of the classic game Othello (aka Reversi) featuring the Gotham Girls. The screensavers, desktop backgrounds and internet chat buddy icon sites, however, no longer work, and simply redirect to the Warner Bros. website. The Gotham Girls website also does the same.
The series lasted for three seasons (10 episodes each), with each episode released month-by-month. While the first two seasons featured primarily comedic episodes, the third season attempted to make the show more serious. These episodes linked directly to Batman & Mr. Freeze: SubZero. Dropping the magician Zatanna from its lineup and adding a host of new characters to the cast, including Detective Renee Montoya, each episode from this series tied into the next, forming a collective thirty-minute whodunit. The storyline also dealt with issues not seen since Batman: The Animated Series, such as the corruption of the Gotham Police Force, Poison Ivy's environmental crusade and Commissioner Gordon's wavering faith in costumed superheroes. It's also heavily implied that the series takes place in the DC animated universe. One significant aspect of the third season is the appearance of Det. Selma Reesedale, a character revealed early on to be a male-to-female transsexual.
The series finale, "Cold Hands, Cold Heart" aired in 2002, wrapping up the mystery and ending the website. The final episode was dedicated to the memory of Hilary J. Bader, script writer for numerous DC Animated series, and who had died in 2002 of cancer. GothamGirls.com is no longer online, but the individual flash files themselves remain on the Warner Brothers server and can still be accessed at the links below.
DC Comics produced a five-issue Gotham Girls comic book miniseries in 2003, written by Paul Storrie. It starred Poison Ivy, Harley Quinn, Catwoman, Batgirl, and Renee Montoya, with each issue spotlighting one of these characters to a certain degree. The story, which took place in the DC Animated Universe, involved a vial of chemicals that the three villainesses fought over, as they also tried to avoid capture by Batgirl and Detective Montoya. A three-issue miniseries, Batman: Harley and Ivy, followed the continued misadventures of Harley and Ivy, with Catwoman joining the mix in the monthly series that follow, Gotham City Sirens.
The complete Gotham Girls series was included as a bonus feature on the DVD release of the Birds of Prey TV series, released by Warner Home Video on July 15, 2008.[1][2] On the DVD the animated episodes are presented in a linear fashion, with the interactive, decision-making option omitted.
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