"Baby-Doll" is the eleventh episode of the second season of Batman: The Animated Series, and the seventy-sixth overall episode of the series. It originally aired on October 1, 1994 on Fox Kids.
Plot[]
Brian Daly, one of the stars of the play "Death of a Salesman," exits a theater with two co-stars after a performance, only to hear a girl sobbing. Curious, Daly follows the sound and finds a little blonde girl leaning against the wall and crying. He kneels beside her and asks if she's lost. The girl, shielding her face with her hands, claims that her big brother has left her by herself. Daly offers her a handkerchief. The girl takes it and thanks Daly, finally revealing her face. A shocked expression crosses his face, but before he can react, he's knocked out cold by a silhouette from behind. The girl tiptoes around him, apologizing for "playing rough."
The next day, Batman & Robin are browsing through photos of missing actors from a 20-year-old sitcom called "Love that Baby," which Robin remembers from when he was a kid, but admits he never liked the show. Daly's the latest actor from the show to disappear. The blonde girl, as it turns out, is Mary Louise Dahl, the show's titular "Baby-Doll." According to Batman, Dahl suffers from severe systemic hypoplasia, an extremely rare medical condition that prevented her body from physically aging (in her case, she stopped growing past the age of 5). Though she would be 30 years old now, she still has the looks and body of a small child.
They are interrupted by a radio call from Detective Bullock, requesting immediate backup in stopping an attack at the same theatre where Brian Daly disappeared from. Batman & Robin arrive but are unable to stop the attackers from kidnapping another old costar from the show: Tammy Vance, who's also appearing in "Death of a Salesman." They try to give chase in the Batmobile but Baby throws herself in front of the car, forcing Batman to avoid her. The Batmobile crashes, and the attackers manage to escape.
Robin holds a crying Baby-Doll in his arms while the girl keeps asking for "her mommy." A red-haired woman emerges from the crowd and takes the little girl into her arms and starts scolding her. Baby replies with her trademark line from the TV show, "I didn't mean to," and Batman and Robin realize who she is. Baby-Doll throws a kickball-smoke bomb and disappears in the smoke along with her "mommy."
The Dynamic Duo go to Summer Gleeson and ask her why Dahl would hate her former costars enough to kidnap them. Summer tells them it's the exact opposite: They should hate her as she got them laid off when she left the show. She gives them tapes about the show so Batman & Robin can review its history of it, including its end. Back at her hideout, Baby-Doll is setting up a birthday cake stating her last birthday with her former costars didn't go so well. Tod roars in disgust "You mean you had us brought here just so you could throw yourself a surprise party?! That's it! I always knew you were a selfish little brat! Always throwing your temper tantrums and making life miserable for the rest of us! Well, this time you've gone too far! Expect a call from my lawyer!” Tod then tries to leave but the red-haired woman knocks him back. Baby-Doll scolds her "father" for losing his cool. Tod reminds her she's not his daughter and they're not a family adding "We're actors, remember?! You canceled our show because you whined you weren't getting enough attention!" Baby-Doll adds she realized she made a mistake. In her real voice, she explains she's had it hard out there and that's why she's bringing the show back. Back at the Batcave, Batman & Robin have been watching the tapes and reading old newspaper clippings about the show. During their research, Robin claims that the show is worse than what any of the supervillains they've fought have ever done to them. But on a more serious note, Robin tells Batman that it turns out that during the show's last season, ratings started to go down, and in an attempt to boost them, the show's executives added a new character called "Cousin Spunky" who quickly replaced Baby as the favorite character on the show. He became so popular in fact that even people who hated the show such as Robin liked Spunky. Feeling that Spunky was stealing her spotlight, Dahl angrily quit the show, forcing its cancellation and putting her costars out of their jobs, and attempted to launch a career as a serious actress. The attempt failed due to her performances receiving a "P.U." from the critics and she hasn't been heard from since. The actor who played Spunky is the only cast member who hasn't been kidnapped, and Batman and Robin form a plan to trap Baby-Doll and rescue her former costars.
Spunky, now an overweight man in his twenties, is playing guitar in his garage, when he's kidnapped by Dahl and Mariam, under the ruse of a passing mother and baby disturbed by the loud music. He is taken to her hideout, which has been decorated into a mock-up of the show's set. As the actors protest –- pointing out that, after all, it was technically Mary's fault the show got canceled in the first place -– she angrily retorts that her life after the show was a failure, so she's "going back" to the way things were before.
She plans to re-enact a birthday party episode, only with dynamite planted in the cake. She also doesn't step away from the rigged cake, indicating that she intends to commit suicide and kill her former costars in the process. At the last second, "Spunky" grabs the dynamite in his mouth and flings it away, saving the others and revealing himself to be Robin in disguise.
Enraged, Baby-Doll points her rag doll, Mr. Happy-Head (a disguised machine gun), at "Spunky," when Batman makes his entrance, disarming both Baby and her guards. Batman and Robin explained that they managed to get the real Spunky to safety after explaining to him what was going on, and disguised Robin as him while also planting a tracking device on him so they could find where Dahl and the costars were being hidden. But then Baby's "mommy," who is revealed to be Baby's henchwoman named Mariam, attacks Batman and Robin with her impressive martial arts skills, giving Baby the chance to run away. The duo is quick to dispose of the woman and Batman continues to pursue Dahl while Robin frees the actors and guides them to safety.
The pursuit takes the pair into the Funland amusement park, where Dahl ends up in the House of Mirrors. As she lies in wait for Batman, Dahl sees her reflection in the various trick mirrors. One of them elongates her reflection to make her appear like what she might have looked like as an adult if not for her medical condition. But this, she realizes in her true voice, is just as much of an illusion as the recreation she was trying to make. Breaking down, she begins shooting mirrors at random, aiming to shoot Batman, before finally turning to the reflection of her real adult self. With tears streaming down her face, she shoots it and continues to pull the trigger even after she's exhausted all of her ammunition. Batman appears and gently takes the doll from her unresisting hands. She cries as she clutches tightly at Batman's leg, and he places an understanding hand on her head at her words: "I didn't mean to."
Cast[]
- Kevin Conroy as Batman
- Loren Lester as Robin
- Robert Costanzo as Detective Bullock
- Bob Hastings as Commissioner Gordon
- Efrem Zimbalist Jr. as Alfred
- Mari Devon as Summer Gleeson
- Alison La Placa as Baby-Doll
- Jason Marsden as Spunky Spencer
- Robbie Rist as Brian Daily
- Judy Strangis as Tammy Vance
- Tasia Valenza as Mariam
- Alan Young as Tod Baker
Trivia[]
- The character model for Adult Cousin Spunky was later reused in the Superman: The Animated Series episode 'Maxima', where upon arriving on Earth, Maxima is harassed by a group of men, one of which is Spunky.