Cesar Romero played the first Joker in the '60s Batman TV show but over the years, many other star actors have tossed on the purple suit and become the darkly sympathetic villain. Here is every version of The Joker ranked from worst to best.
Category
😹
FunTranscript
00:00The Joker is unquestionably one of the greatest villains in the history of comic books.
00:05Unfortunately, though, the character's track record outside the comics hasn't exactly been
00:09spotless.
00:10With over a dozen major appearances in TV, movies, and video games, the varied interpretations
00:16of the Clown Prince of Crime have cast a pretty wide net from amazing to terrible.
00:20Here's our ultimate guide to every version of the Joker, ranked from worst to best.
00:25Scooby-Doo Joker
00:27Despite coming in dead last on our list, the version of the Joker that appeared on the
00:31new Scooby-Doo movies isn't unforgivably terrible.
00:34He's just flat-out boring, which might be an even bigger problem.
00:38Plus, he's a complete failure, as he can't manage to even scare Scooby-Doo, a character
00:43defined by being terrified of everything.
00:45Now, pengi-wengi, watch me lure them into the room of doom.
00:53The only thing that's worth mentioning about him is that he was voiced by veteran comedian
00:57and actor Larry Storch.
00:59And let's be real here, that's only interesting if you're the kind of person who likes to
01:03get into some hardcore trivia about the cast of F Troop.
01:06You've got to be putting me on!"
01:08The new adventures of Batman Joker
01:11If you want to develop a whole new appreciation for Batman the animated series, take some
01:15time to head back to 1977 for the new Batman Adventures, which features some of the worst
01:20character redesigns ever.
01:22Amazingly, the Joker who was voiced by Lenny Weinrib managed to escape that particular
01:27flaw in the show.
01:28But he looks a lot like he does in the comics, is about the only good thing you can say about
01:33him.
01:34His major accomplishment during the show's entire 16-episode run was losing an election
01:38for President of Criminals when the Penguin invented a mind-altering substance called
01:42Crime Slime.
01:44If you can't win an election against the Penguin, what are you even doing?
01:47I, the Notorious Joker, will stage the biggest rip-off in the history of Gotham City!"
01:55Son of Batman Joker
01:57In all honesty, we only included D. Bradley Baker's turn as the Joker on this list in
02:01order to be as thorough as we can.
02:03That's not to knock the guy, but it's the Joker's appearance in Son of Batman is limited
02:07to appearing as a shadow on a wall and letting out one laugh.
02:11But it was a nice laugh, at least.
02:16Super Friends Joker
02:17The Super Friends saga ran for eight years under various titles, but the Joker only ever
02:22appeared once, when the show was commonly known as the Super Powers Team in 1985's The
02:28Wild Cards, where he was voiced by Frank Welker.
02:31Unfortunately, his appearance was both minor and bizarre, with the Joker turning up as
02:36part of the playing-card-themed supervillain team the Royal Flush Gang.
02:40He's not the team's Joker, though.
02:41He's actually disguised as the Ace.
02:44If your story calls for a chalk-white villain named after a playing card to dress up as
02:48a different chalk-white villain named after a playing card, things are getting a little
02:52needlessly complicated.
02:53The Super Powers' old headquarters will soon be our new base on Earth.
02:59Oh, don't you love the irony?
03:03Young Justice Joker
03:05You know those memes where they intentionally mix a bunch of geeky franchises in order to
03:09induce nerd rage?
03:10Well, the Young Justice version of the Joker feels a lot like that.
03:14Ladies and gentlemen, we interrupt your regularly scheduled mayhem to bring you this important
03:21announcement.
03:22He's the Joker, but he looks like David Tennant as the Doctor and is voiced by Brent Spiner
03:28from Star Trek The Next Generation.
03:30It's not exactly terrible, but it's overshadowed by just about every other version of Joker
03:34ever.
03:35Lego Batman DC Superheroes Unite Joker
03:39If you enjoyed the big-screen Lego Batman movie, then we have good news and bad news.
03:44The good news is there's already a second Lego Batman movie you can watch, and in fact,
03:48it's been available on home video since 2013.
03:52But here's the bad news.
03:53It's actually just a collection of cutscenes from the Lego Batman 2 DC Superheroes video
03:58game, thrown in with a few new scenes to recreate the events that happened when you actually
04:03play the game, all edited into a 71-minute movie.
04:07It's actually not that bad.
04:08And Christopher Corey Smith gives a solid voice performance, even if it is just a standard
04:13riff on Mark Hamill's Joker.
04:14I'd have to be crazy to say no to that offer.
04:18The Dark Knight Returns Joker
04:20To say the role of the Joker in an animated version of Frank Miller's classic The Dark
04:24Knight Returns presented a challenge is putting things pretty mildly.
04:28The character's arc went from catatonic to insanely murderous, requiring a ton of range.
04:34Season of Interest star Michael Emerson gave it a shot, but played it just a little too
04:38flat during the first parts of the Joker's journey.
04:41At the end, he ramps up to a satisfying fever pitch, but this one is a little too uneven
04:46to rank any higher.
04:47Lego Batman video game's Joker
04:49Steve Blum became the first voice actor to voice both Batman and the Joker in the first
04:55Lego Batman game.
04:56But that accomplishment comes with an asterisk, because he had almost no dialogue.
05:00That changed in the second and third games, where the game's designers decided to expand
05:05the dialogue in order to tell a more complex and rewarding story.
05:09Blum was replaced by Troy Baker for the role of Batman, but stayed on as the Joker, turning
05:13in a fine performance heavily influenced by Mark Hamill.
05:17I've got the whole world in my pants!
05:20I've got the whole wide world in my pants!
05:24Joker, shut up!
05:26DC Super Friends short, Joker
05:29When you're hiring someone to play the Joker, it stands to reason that two of the most important
05:33qualifications are going to be a morbid sense of humor and an insanely creepy laugh.
05:39If that's the case, you could do a hell of a lot worse than just going out and getting
05:43the guy who played the Crypt Keeper on Tales from the Crypt.
05:46Beware of skeletons, unless they're yours truly.
05:53That's exactly what happened in 2010, when John Kasia lent his voice to a series of shorts
05:58packaged with Fisher-Price's line of Super Friends toys.
06:01Kasia does a good job of mixing up his performance, though it's still instantly recognizable to
06:06anyone who was a fan of the 80s HBO anthology, which probably did not include any of the
06:11kids in the target audience.
06:13We hope.
06:14Finally!
06:15You made it!
06:16Now the fun can really begin!
06:22DC Super Friends Joker
06:24The Joker we're given in DC Super Friends is pretty great if only because of how much
06:29he clearly hates working with the other supervillains.
06:32Voice actor Lloyd Floyd's audible eye-rolling adds some fun nuance to a performance that's
06:36otherwise pretty much by-the-book.
06:38But hey, he does get bonus points for not copying Mark Hamill like so many others have
06:42done.
06:43You created him, Lexi?
06:44Oh, and I thought you had no sense of humor, you old card, you!
06:50It was a lab accident.
06:52Suicide Squad Joker
06:53First, you have to get past a design that starts with the tattoo of the word Damaged
06:58on his forehead, and just spirals out from there until he looks like he should be performing
07:02alongside Dark Lotus at this year's gathering of the Juggalos.
07:06Then, you have to get past all the stories of Jared Leto going method and sending his
07:11co-stars live rats, dead pigs, and used condoms.
07:15What you're left with is… well, not much of anything, really.
07:24For all the hype surrounding Leto's appearance as the Joker in Suicide Squad, it pretty much
07:32amounted to about ten minutes of screen time that were mostly there for Harley Quinn's
07:36origin story, and some ill-advised fan service.
07:40Arkham Origins Joker
07:42When Arkham City was announced as Mark Hamill's final outing as the Joker, there was a pretty
07:46big problem.
07:47As Batman's arch-nemesis, the clown prince of crime was definitely going to be in the
07:51next game, which told the story of an encounter much earlier in Batman's career.
07:56Thus, the role of the Joker fell to Troy Baker.
07:59And the problem here is obvious.
08:01He pretty much just did a dead-on impression of Hamill's Joker for the entire game.
08:05To be fair, he actually does a really good job of it, but a copy is just never going
08:10to beat the original.
08:11Oh, that's…
08:12It's just… it's so…
08:16What a night!
08:20Gotham's Jerome Valeska
08:22The people behind Gotham clearly know that they can't really have the Joker show up years
08:26before Bruce Wayne becomes Batman on account of his origin story being so tightly intertwined.
08:31So they just went ahead and created a guy who isn't technically the Joker, but is definitely
08:36a maniacal supervillain with a permanent rictus grin who dresses as a circus clown and wants
08:41to sow chaos wherever he can.
08:43Cameron Monaghan's performance as Jerome Valeska is ridiculously compelling, and has made for
08:48some pretty wild television.
08:50I'm the boss.
08:57Arkham series Joker
08:59First things first, the Arkham franchise has produced some of the best video games in recent
09:04memory — and, without question, the best Batman games ever.
09:07Unfortunately, even though they got the legendary Mark Hamill to do the voice for Three Out
09:11of Four, they also ended up giving us a Joker who has what might be the single stupidest
09:16master plan in the character's 75-year history.
09:20Seriously, after perfectly executing his scheme, he unveils his ultimate masterstroke.
09:25Which is…
09:26…turning himself into a giant drug monster and getting in a fistfight with the greatest
09:30hand-to-hand fighter in the world.
09:32Really, dude?
09:33Dumb things like this are why you never beat Batman.
09:36I can take it.
09:37I can take anything you throw at me, Bats.
09:40You can't beat me.
09:43I'm actually going to win!
09:45The Batman Joker
09:47The redesign of the Joker for the Batman is remembered as one of the most divisive missteps
09:51in the history of DC animation.
09:53Laboring under the shadow of the legendary Batman the Animated Series, and stuck with
09:58the task of incorporating the BatWave gimmick of the accompanying toyline, designer Jeff
10:03Matsuda decided to go as far in the opposite direction as possible from Bruce Timm's sleek
10:08design from Batman the Animated Series.
10:11The result wasn't very well received, to put it mildly, but Kevin Michael Richardson's
10:16take on the Joker actually had some really good stories, such as The Laughing Bat, where
10:21Joker becomes a vigilante and uses joke venom to turn Batman into a bad guy, so he has a
10:26supervillain to fight.
10:27That's pretty awesome.
10:29Graffiti.
10:30That's a pretty serious offense, girls.
10:33But that's why I became a crime fighter, to take out garbage like you.
10:38Lego Gotham City Breakout Joker
10:41Sometimes the Joker is a sinister, psychopathic murderer, and then other times he's a goofy
10:46and delightfully manipulative weirdo who brings down an entire city armed only with a spoon.
10:52Joker stories that are actually funny are pretty rare these days, so having a version
10:56of the Joker as whimsical as Jason Spisak's take on the character is a rare treat.
11:01And the fact that this short also introduced his sidekick Spoonie is a hilarious bonus.
11:06Can you make dogs invisible?
11:09Spoonie, that's not even a real superpower.
11:11Perhaps a demonstration for Spoonie.
11:16Batman Return of the Caped Crusaders Joker
11:18Adam West, Burt Ward, and Julie Neumar returned to the roles of Batman, Robin, and Catwoman
11:24in Batman Return of the Caped Crusaders.
11:26That was great, but the rest of the cast was given the unenviable task of playing specific
11:31versions of characters identified with actors who had died years before.
11:35For Jeff Bergman, that meant playing Cesar Romero playing the Joker.
11:39It was a high-wire act, as Bergman had to be respectful of both Romero and Romero's
11:44take on the Joker.
11:46But Bergman nailed it in a performance that feels like a true tribute.
11:50Who you dare defy us?
11:52You must be insane, and here's the proof.
11:58Batman The Brave and the Bold Joker
12:01Another show that had to follow in the footsteps of Batman the animated series was Batman The
12:05Brave and the Bold, which decided to embrace the character's lighter Silver Age phase from
12:10the comics of the 50s and 60s.
12:13This Joker, which was voiced by Jeff Bennett, looked a lot like the work of legendary Batman
12:17artist Dix Brang, and really shined in stories like the alternate world tale of Earth-3,
12:23where a heroic version of the Joker became the last superhero on Earth under the name
12:28The Red Hood.
12:29Whoever he is, I hope my counterpart on your world will have a chance to repay you.
12:34Somehow that seems unlikely.
12:36Batman 89 Joker
12:38Jack Nicholson's performance as the Joker in Tim Burton's 1989 Batman movie is pretty
12:43fantastic on almost every level.
12:45He's certainly the best part of the movie, with Nicholson's already creepy grin extenuated
12:50by caked-on makeup and some truly amazing fashion choices.
12:54Whereas the scene where he trashes an art museum might be the most baller thing a supervillain
12:59has ever done.
13:00"...Gentlemen, let's broaden our minds.
13:04Lawrence!"
13:06The only problem with this version of Joker is his alter ego, Jack Napier.
13:10In the comics, a big part of Joker's origins is the idea that some fundamental change in
13:15his personality occurred when he fell in that vat of acid.
13:18Here, though, he's pretty much already the Joker.
13:20He even carries a deck of cards with him, and he's obviously a criminal.
13:24And that undermines his arc.
13:26Otherwise, though, it's totally awesome.
13:29Batman Under the Red Hood
13:30Even if you don't recognize his name, you're almost certainly familiar with John DiMaggio
13:35from his roles as Bender on Futurama, Jake the Dog on Adventure Time, and Aquaman on
13:40Batman the Brave and the Bold.
13:42In 2010, he landed the role of the Joker in Under the Red Hood, and he didn't disappoint,
13:47delivering a Joker who delivers every line as though it is an actual joke, giving you
13:51the sense of someone who genuinely thinks that beating someone to death with a crowbar
13:55is hilarious.
13:57It's memorable, in the creepiest of ways.
13:59"...So, let's try and clear this up, okay, pumpkin?"
14:03Batman 66 Joker
14:05Pretty much everything about Cesar Romero's portrayal of the Joker on the 1966 Batman
14:10TV show is great, from the way he attacks every scene with manic, scenery-chewing glee,
14:16to the way he twists his painted-on grin into a disappointing scowl when he's inevitably
14:20defeated, all the way down to the fact that Romero refused to shave his mustache for the
14:25part, instead caking on the clown makeup and leaving it completely visible in every episode.
14:31There's a panache and even a little menace to the role that makes him one of the show's
14:34most memorable characters.
14:36"...Mwahahahaha!
14:37Oh, how delicious it is!"
14:41Unfortunately, the show's writers were bigger fans of The Penguin and Catwoman, and Romero
14:46often got stuck in boring and forgettable stories which didn't allow him to really shine.
14:51A true shame.
14:53Lego Batman movie Joker
14:55Of all the Joker's appearances across movies and TV, who would've expected that the one
14:59that really went into whether his motivation stems from a twisted sort of love would be
15:03the one based on building block toys for tiny children?
15:07And yet, here we are, in a world where that's just not acknowledged in the Lego Batman movie,
15:11but serves as the driving force for the entire plot.
15:14Zach Galifianakis nails the voice work, too, making this modern Joker one of the best ever.
15:20"...You're obsessed with me!"
15:21"...Pfft, no I'm not."
15:23"...Yes you are."
15:24"...No I'm not."
15:25"...Yes you are!
15:26Who else drives you to one-up them the way that I do?"
15:27"...Bean!"
15:28"...No he doesn't!"
15:29The Dark Knight Joker
15:31Between the massive initial hype and the outpouring of grief following the untimely death of actor
15:36Heath Ledger, it can be a little difficult to judge his performance as the Joker on its
15:41own merits.
15:42But when you put aside all the baggage and really look at it, the truth becomes clear.
15:47It really is that good.
15:48"...Good cop, bad cop routine."
15:50"...Not exactly."
15:59The Joker of The Dark Knight is both terrifying and genuinely funny.
16:03But more than that, he's got an air of mystery that's almost impossible for a character so
16:08well-known to cultivate.
16:10With virtually every line he delivers turning out to be a carefully conceived manipulative
16:15line.
16:16Here's one truth you can bank on, though.
16:18Ledger's Joker is one of the most influential and iconic movie villains of all time.
16:23But he's still not the best Joker of all time.
16:26Batman the Animated Series Joker
16:28When you get right down to it, Batman the Animated Series did everything right.
16:33The slick, stylish take on the Caped Crusader boiled everything down to essentials, and
16:38no character benefitted as much as the Joker.
16:40The Joker was frightening and funny, with a sweeping theatricality that came directly
16:45from Mark Hamill's amazing turn providing his voice.
16:53And the desire to give Hamill's Joker even more to do directly led to the creation of
16:57Harley Quinn, who has gone on to become one of DC's most popular characters.
17:02Add it all up, and the Animated Series Joker remains the definitive take on the character.
17:07And that's… no joke.