The most Joker Joker we’ve had in live-action was not from a movie, but from a TV series where he was banned from using his name… and dyeing his hair green

No fail. With each new Joker movie, or any of DC Comics where Batman’s villain appears, the networks are filled with polls asking for the best Joker interpretation. The usual answers? As always, but there is a version of the character that is often ignored by the audience for two reasons: it was not seen in theaters and Warner Bros. prohibited him from being called Joker.

Before jedi, he sought chaos as Joker

However, I believe it is fair to vindicate the figure of Cameron Monaghan in Gotham. The American actor, best known now for bringing Cal Kestis to life in the Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order and Star Wars Jedi: Survivor video games (he is the second jedi to play Joker after Mark Hamill in Batman: TAS), one day appeared on the Fox television series (currently not available on platforms in Spain) as Jerome, an episodic villain who came to like so much that the writers had no choice but to make him a recurring character on the show. Each of his returns boosted the audience.

“The pure green was out of our reach (as well as the name Joker), a decision taken from the top since they wanted to reserve the character for the movies. I respect the decision. I did not want to dilute a very profitable brand, and it also allowed us to be more creative.” — Cameron Monaghan

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He may never have been able to be called Joker, but in all his appearances he proved to be a king of chaos, he left us frozen to hear his “Ha ha Ha” and, above all, he was a real nuisance for the inhabitants of Gotham, even for a young Bruce Wayne who still had several years left to dress up and rise as Batman. Not to mention that he characterized very well, at least in his beginnings, although with the prohibition of not being able to dye his hair green among other things.

As we said, the decision not to refer to him, nor to his twin brother that I prefer to forget (his appearance still horrifies me), as Joker was not motivated by a creative decision, but by the unease caused in Warner Bros. to see him on television. The company gave carte blanche to reimagine villains like Riddler, Penguin, Mr. Freeze, Mad Hatter…, but with Joker drew a red line that not even the praise of fans on social media could break. Of course, the writers tried to give some depth to the issue:

“The other characters are who they claim to be: the Mad Hatter, the Scarecrow, etc. But no, he is not Joker. We have always chosen for Joker to be somewhere in Gotham carefully observing the actions of Jerome and Jeremiah, and even some others, and adopting them as inspiration to become the person he will one day become.”

With Jeremiah, at the end of Gotham, they were more lenient. They shouldn’t have been.

Other similar cases in Warner Bros. & DC

It was not the only time the studio prohibited one of its series from using a DC character, forcing its creators to be imaginative. The case of the Justice League animated series where they were not allowed to use the JSA and had to invent a whole new group inspired by them was very well known. But more recently, in Arrow, the series was more or less vetoed, the Suicide Squad when they started working on a movie adaptation of the franchise.

Gotham lasted for 100 episodes. It started with a certain air of a prequel to Batman Begins, but gradually mutated into a story from really fun other worlds, although often somewhat ridiculous, which managed to extract a lot of juice from the Batman mythology. It had quite difficult moments to watch, but if you come across it one day on platforms and you like Batman comics, I think you will find many attractive features to devour it almost completely.

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