Christmas Eve is officially upon us, and fans of pop culture are finding a lot of clever and different ways to celebrate the holiday. For DC fans, that might mean revisiting some of the best holiday-themed episodes of their animated and live-action TV shows — including Batman: The Animated Series‘ “Christmas With the Joker”. Mark Hamill, who voiced the Clown Prince of Crime within the episode, recently took to Twitter to pay tribute to it. As Hamill put it, he never would’ve believed that he would have gotten to sing the iconic “Jingle bells, Batman smells” song in a professional context.
🎶”Jingle Bells-Batman smells! Robin laid an egg!” 🎶 I remember singing this at recess in elementary school. If someone had told me one day it would be my job to sing it for a paycheck, I would have said they were crazy or joking (or both)!🃏#MerryXMasEve https://t.co/mak1hGWd69
— Mark Hamill (@HamillHimself) December 24, 2020
To an extent, it’s impossible to imagine The Joker‘s current prominence without Hamill’s performance, as he has voiced the iconic villain in countless animated series, video games, and more. As Hamill put it in a previous interview to THR, he actually thought that his role as the Star Wars saga’s Luke Skywalker would have prevented him from getting the role.
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“I figured there was no way they’d hire Luke Skywalker as the Joker. So, in a way it was very freeing,” Hamil revealed at the time. “I had great confidence at the audition because I thought there was no way I could get it. I thought, ‘I’m going to give them the best damn Joker they’ve ever heard and they’re really going to regret not being able to cast me.”
“I remember going in and they gave me the Nicholson note, which wasn’t anything I wanted to do,” recalls Hamill, a note that said ‘Don’t Think Jack Nicholson’. “I wanted to deliver an old-school comic book interpretation of the Joker. He’s a theatrical guy who really has fun; the joy has to come across in his battle with Batman.”
What do you think of Mark Hamill’s tribute to The Joker’s Christmas cheer? Share your thoughts with us in the comments below!
