Batman: The Animated Series opened my world and changed my life

polygon.com:

Sept. 5, 2022, marks the 30th anniversary of Batman: The Animated Series. As a lifelong fan of the series, I feel compelled to write about the legacy and impact of Bruce Timm and Eric Radomski’s animated take on the Dark Knight. However, I do this while knowing the long shadow of that very legacy has already produced a body of robust critical work that would otherwise render any such effort redundant.

I could write about the origins of Batman: The Animated Series as a show that emerged as a result of 1990’s Tiny Toon Adventures, and how the show went on to not only redefine DC Comics’ iconic masked vigilante but the whole of American animated television itself, but that’s perhaps a story better told by the show’s creators themselves. I could have written about how the series reinvigorated Batman’s rogues’ gallery with a level of nuance and pathos unprecedented in any medium at the time apart from the comics, or about the show’s triumphant and bold title sequence. But these subjects, as you might have already guessed, are already well-trodden territory. To write about and celebrate Batman: The Animated Series in a way that doesn’t feel entirely redundant, that feels both true to myself and to the auspiciousness of the occasion, I have to tell a story that I’ve never fully told or written about before: my own.

To tell the truth, it’s difficult for me to remember a time before I knew about Batman: The Animated Series. I can’t even remember the first episode I watched. What I do remember is after I was introduced to the series, I, like so many other children of my generation, was hooked. I had watched more than my fair share of cartoons up to that point; from Looney Tunes and Pink Panther to Tom and Jerry and The Jetsons.