Why did they change the looks in TNBA?

[The Game]

Basically I'm just curious as to what all of you guys think- is the character animation better in the New Batman Adventures or the original Batman: The Animated Series. As many of you have noticed, all of the characters, particullarly the villains underwent redesign, and I wanted to know what you thought. Personally I think the NBA characters are much less realistic- particularly Catwoman- why did they change her hair color? Well, things like this bother me, and I was just curious what you guys think.

[Bobby Boy 101]

OK, the main reasons for the BTAS redesign was (1) because when it was moved the the WB, they wanted something else with the package other than re-runs or even new shows. they wanted to be special, I guess. One of the other main reasons was that it was the way Bruce Timm wanted it all along, especially the angular-ness (sp?) of the girls, Ivy in particualr. Also, i remeber him once saying a small factor was that the WB wanted a more cartoony look to the series.

As for Catwoman, what happened was the mainstream fans were complining about her being blonde (Fox wanted Selina to be blonde because of Returns), and Bruce and the rest of the ppl on the series agreed to give her black hair. They didnt want her to be a total copy of the mainstream, so they chopped all the hair off. You can read the character explanation in Batman Gotham ADV #4, and You Scratch my back shed a bit of light.

[The Mad Hatter]

Short reason for why they changed the looks... because they could.

Hey, that's what you get with creative types... but me, I like experimentation.

[Karkull]

The new animation also cost a lot less.

However, in many cases, it was a chance for Timm to "fix" some old mistakes:

1) He wanted a smaller, more nymph-like Poison Ivy.
2) After being forced by FOX to do the Batman Returns versions of Catwoman and Penguin, he had the chance to "correct" it.
3) He was able to make Bane more of his own creation (as cool as the BTAS Bane episode was, Bane looked pretty stupid in his wrestler getup).
4) He wanted to make the show a bit more similar to the Superman show--that way they could a) cross over without having to redesign everyone, b) share extras, and c) eventually get packaged together.

Some of his redesigns were hits (Bane, Scarecrow), some were misses (Riddler), and some...still get debated to this day (the Joker); but overall it worked out in our favor--if TNBA didn't get done the Superman show may have died a quicker death and we wouldn't have gotten Justice League.