Bruce Timm is one of the most popular artists, animators, writers, producers, and directors. Having worked in some of the biggest animated shows of all time – Batman: The Animated Series, Superman: The Animated Series, Batman Beyond, Justice League, and Justice League Unlimited, Timm became one of the leading names in the DCAU. But other than working for the DC Animated Universe, he has worked on many other projects in his career.
The success of Batman: The Animated Series led to many accolades for Bruce Timm and the rest of the team behind the mega hit show. And one of the greatest compliments came in the form of Steven Spielberg, who absolutely loved the show. His love for the show extended to the legendary director wanting to collaborate with Timm on another animated show, which later took the form of Freakazoid.
Bruce Timm Collaborated With Steven Spielberg To Create Freakazoid
After Batman: The Animated Series came out, Steven Spielberg reached out to Bruce Timm’s team to congratulate them on the show’s success as well as ask Timm to collaborate with him in a project. They had meetings and discussed ideas that could lead to something fruitful, which finally took the shape of Freakazoid (1995-1997).
“Steven Spielberg, of all people, liked the Batman show, and said that he wanted to do something with us, but he didn’t know what; so we had a meeting with him, we talked about a bunch of different ideas for what we could do as an action-adventure show, and the one that he really liked was this one called Freakazoid.”
But Timm did not like the path the show was taking and bailed on Freakazoid soon after they started working on it. Talking to Comicology, the animator revealed that as time passed, the idea for the show kept changing from what he had initially planned, and was taking the form of a teenage cartoon that he wasn’t too interested in.
“I don’t mind that it’s not on my résumé. [Laughs] I bailed on it really early. It started out as an adventure show, but it ended up turning into more & more of a comedy show; every time we’d have a meeting with Steven, the concept would kinda change, and it kept leaning more & more towards zany comedy. It really started out almost like Spider-Man, on that level of, like, a teenage superhero. And it reached a point where it became a comedy with the Tiny Toons/ Animaniacs kind of humor.”
Freakazoid could not gain the favor of the audience and was canceled after a two-season run.
The Failure of Freakazoid Led to The Success of Superman: The Animated Series
For Bruce Timm, it was quite easy to walk away from Freakazoid after it kept changing direction. He said that he would just hang out in the office as his team was working on the show, but even though he was the creator, he was not managing it. Soon after, he had a meeting with Jean McCurdy, who asked him if he wanted to do a Superman show, and he jumped at the opportunity.
“At one point there was talk about a Superman movie. That’s probably what started the ball roll-ing [on the animated series]. So one day I had a meeting with my boss, Jean McCurdy, and she said, “Do you want to do Superman cartoons?” And that time I said “Yes!” [Laughs] After Freak-azoid, it was like, “Yes! I want to do Superman cartoons!” I didn’t even have to think about it.”
This led to Timm getting to work on Superman: The Animated Series, even though he wasn’t much interested in the character itself. But to get away from Freakazoid and all its freakiness, he was more than willing to work on the project.
Batman: TAS and Superman: TAS are both available for streaming on Max.
