• I also have the "Word to the wise" promotional comic and want to point out that it was free when you bought two packages of loose leaf paper during back to school.

• Woah yeah. Awesome. I wish this would've been a realy cartoon.

• I think your right. "I smell a cat" isn't much of a line. It has potential though, just change just use another name for cat.

• Yeah these are amazing...well done Zellers!

• I actually have two copies of the Zellers exclusive Batman: A Word to the Wise comic book. It's so prime; the Batmobile is parked right outside a Zellers in the middle of the freaking day as he carts these kids around and teaches them things and... stops... the Joker... from ruining Canada's natural history or something like that. SOMETHING LIKE THAT. I must have been no more that 5 when I got them, and I was convinced that this was the best comic in the whole wide world. I was proven wrong, but I still have a special place in my heart for them. :D

• Something new I've noticed: in the Penguin one, Batman actually takes the time to walk around behind Robin while he's giving the whole Law of Toyland speech.

• OMG that is EPIC BATMAN! The animation is cartoonish and over the top. I LOVE IT!

• I ALSO remember these commercials (just barely) since I'm also Canadian and shop at Zellers. It is pretty over-animated.

• I work there too (my condolences, HA!). I don't think HBC owned Zellers until maybe the late 90's or early 00's, though.

• I rememebr those commericals. I always thought it was neat that Batman and Robin were shilling for a Canadian department store. HBC had the deep pockets to license them back then.

• I recall K-Mart, Zellers, and Woolco existing together for quite some time around these parts. I also vaguely remember those commercials.

• I work at Zellers and let me say, I'm not surprised that this exists. Zeller's is part of the Hudson's Bay Company (Canada's oldest company), and it's always looking for trendy ideas to make money. Believe it or not, Zeller's punchline still holds true today.

• i remember this one. thanks for the blast from the past!

• but what exactly did these criminals do? they were somehow making parents overpay for toys? how did they manage that, open a store? and how is charging high prices for toys a crime? batman of course knows all this, which is why he just lets them go, while alerting the parents to their errant ways.

• My pal stole me all the store displays during that promotion, they're awesome.

• interesting . Batman was taking Robins bit and making some puns plus seems to be talking in an english accent. not to mention Robin spouting off about a law of toy land. wonder how much Zellers sales did with these adds back then.

• As much as I hate to say it, nice move Zellers, play these on T.V. forever and I might call you cool again.

• Quite the cartoon milf in the Penguin ad.

• That animation is incredible especially for a commercial

• Wow! It's great to see these again! I animated these (along with a few other people at Lightbox Animation) back in the Eighties, and my video copies are a mess! Far worse than these! Nice to see them again. WHO THE HECK had a copy of these cartoons? Ty the Guy. Amused as all hell.

• What's blowing my mind is that, from the background colors to the designs and artwork on the Batman and the Joker...it looks *exactly* like brian Bolland's art on The Killing Joke. (Minus Robin, of course.)

• Oh man, those were AWESOME! If they made a cartoon like that, back then... I love the concept of Batman's Biggest villains pulling off the nefarious scheme of.....opening a toy store...and charging too much. For toys.

• Plastic Man is awesome. Shaddupa you face.

• There's also a comic where Batman goes to Canada to stop the Joker from poisoning the Calgary Stampede. He stops at Zellers for cowboy clothes for the kids he is protecting. These are the only images I could find: http://viathebatpole.blogspot.com/2009/04/good-bad.html

• Haha! I actually did notice that in all four of them. Not one of the criminals was caught. Plastic Man could have done better!

• Hey, I'd settle for World's Most Mildly Competent Detective.

• Have you seen the Japanese opening to the '90s X-Men cartoon? Much better animation. On the flip side, the Venture Brothers opening was done with absolutely no money.

• OK, did anyone else see the Superman anti-smoking one? That's a trip-out right there!

• Oh, Paradox.. you and your annoyingly high standards for World's Greatest Detectives!

• You bastard! How dare you release only the annoying Celine Dion albums to the rest of the world! That's it, we're giving you Shania Twain back.

• I would like to point out that, in the two I watched, The Dynamic Duo failed to actually catch any criminals.

• I just realized, that the sound effects for the villains comes from the 60's Batman show. I know that's the theme they were going for in the commercial, but nice of them to include Cesar Romero's Joker laugh, Burgess Meridith's Penguin squawk, and Frank Gorshin's Riddler giggle in there.

• You're kidding right? That looks just like the costume Alan Davis had her sporting...

• HEY! I remember these! The way the Joker runs at the end....I remember that. Whenever I saw the Joker from BTAS I would imagine him running that way and try to remember where I saw him do that before! (did that make any sense?) And as for the zellers/wallmart/target thing...up until the mid-to-late 80's we only had K-Mart and Wolco's. All K-Marts were overtaken by Zellers (just in time for those snazzy Batman commercials), and Woolco's were taken over by the evil evil WalMart.

• The Catwoman had to be the last one made. By that time, it seems like Batman and Robin's dialogue in the Batmobile was becoming a bit of a stretch.

• This Batman is how the animated Tick should have looked...not that the animated Tick we had wasn't great, but...

• No catwoman actually sported that outfit in the comics.

• Wow, I almost forgot about these... who leaked them out of the country? We're supposed to keep these to ourselves... Along with the non-annoying Celene Dion albums.

• Holy shit that's damn awesome.

• Correction: It is the TARGET of Canada... Don't forget about that "other" bit department store in America (which usually has better prices than Walmart even, I find >_>)

• Did they design Catwoman's costume specifically for the ad? It's pretty good if they did.

• It is nicely animated. I love the Jokers exagerated movements! I can see how commercials like this would appeal to kids. Well done Canada!

• They also put out a comic that looked similar to these... There was also a set of Spider-Man anti-drug comics that they put out in the schools. They were pretty good in terms of Spider-Man comics for kids in the 90s... I've got at least five of them at my parent's place, I think.

• That's so weird.... certain movements look almost real.

• Often the opening sequence will have a significantly larger budget than an average episode. A series can get a lot of mileage out of one opening sequence of animation.

• eeeeeeeeeeeeee NUN seee aaaaaaaaaaaaa shun!

• Wow that is stunning... why is it these days western animation is stuck with that clunky blocky animation that seems to have been a main stay since Jackie chan adventures. It's strange because over time animation is supposed to improve but it seems to have reached its peek in the 80's(atleast in terms of style) and slowly degraded ever since. I mean go back and look at the openign to Jem. Whatever happened to human looking characters? Idea for a list: top X most beautifully animated western tv shows.

• Switched mouth with Jim Carrey as The Mask?

• Since Wal-Mart expanded into Canada in the early 90s, Zellers has explicitly marketed themselves in the Target position - "nicer," newer and cleaner stores, etc. At the time these aired, though, they'd have been very much in the dingy-discount-store end of the market.

• They had to do a Mr. Ed and put peanut butter on his gums to get him to move his mouth.

• Peanut butter on the roof of his mouth?

• This is so amazing. What is up with Batman's face though?

• What the heck is up with Batman's mouth in this?!?

• Ah, Zellers. It's the Wal-mart of Canada, from back when we Canadians didn't have Wal-mart. And you are perfectly correct. If you were a child and saw this ad, you were well and truly hooked. How hooked? Working in the toy department at Zellers was my first job, ten years after thes ads were run. Batman can sell anything, even lackluster jobs to slack-ass teenagers.

• It sounds like Batman has an english accent.

• Wow... that's almost TOO animated. Also, I'm from Canada, and I've never seen this. It's a shame that Zellers is not like Wal-Mart for poor people. Yes, I know what I typed. The only more depressing department store in Toronto would have to be Honest Eds.

• The animation may be gorgeous, but it also is weird & ridiculous.

TotalComments: 57