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Batman: The Animated Series episode

"Mudslide"
Airdate:	September 15, 1993
Production Number:	52
Airdate Order:	63
Animation Services by:	Studio Junio
Teleplay by:	Steve Perry
Story by:	Alan Burnett
Directed by:	Eric Radomski
Episode images (8)

"Mudslide" is the third episode of the second season of Batman: The Animated Series. It first aired on September 15, 1993. It marks the second appearance of Clayface on the series.

Plot Edit

At Tarnower Financial, a middle-aged guard goes to check the parking lot while his much younger colleague, Billy, keeps watch at the main entrance. The old guard returns a minute later, however, having forgotten to check Mr. Tarnower's office. However, as he goes into the lift, strangely sweating, Billy sees the guard in the parking lot on a security camera, meaning that the guard in the lift must be an impostor.

Billy sets off the silent alarm and gives chase and catches the impostor in Tarnower's office, breaking into the safe behind a portrait of Tarnower. However, from the behind the portrait emerges Tarnower himself, berating Billy for leaving the door unguarded, but Billy suddenly remembers that Tarnower is missing his accent and actually on holiday in Hawaii, prompting Tarnower to extend his arm and knock Billy out.

Before he can finish Billy, Batman appears. The impostor takes on Billy's appearance and tells Batman he caught a thief, but Batman examines Billy's body and finds a strange, clay-like residue on Billy's body. Realizing who the impostor is, Batman turns around, but is knocked down by a mace made of clay. Indeed, the impostor is Clayface, having finally resurfaced. Clayface, however, does not finish Batman, but instead flees the building.

Batman gives chase and notices Clayface quickly losing his energy and leaving a trail of clay wherever he goes. He offers to help Clayface become human again, but Clayface, assuming that Batman will likely send him to Arkham Asylum for the treatment, refuses. Clayface finally collapses onto a bin and starts to melt away until his colleague, Stella Bates, arrives in her car and rescues him.

Stella takes Clayface to her laboratory and uses a machine to put him in a plastic coating to keep him together, a procedure which knocks him out cold for a while, until he wakes up and lashes out at Stella for watching an old movie of his, ashamed of his former self. Clayface immediately apologizes, and Stella shows him a way to increase and restore his powers, allowing him to take the form of Matt Hagen permanently: an isotope called Mp40, the only source of which is found at Wayne Biomedical Labs. Willing to risk his life, Clayface vows to remove the plastic coating and steal the Mp40 from Wayne.

Batman, meanwhile, takes a sample of Clayface's body back to the Batcave, and learns of Clayface's condition. Also remembering Stella from the Tarnower Heist, Batman tells Alfred to look through Hagen's career records for any sign of a relationship with a female doctor.

An intrusion occurs at Wayne Biomedical Labs, and Batman and finds Clayface, disguised as a woman, fleeing the building with a canister of Mp40. He pursues Clayface onto a train, where Clayface's body starts to give up again, and he "melts" back into his own form, scaring the passengers out. Batman and Clayfce then fight alone, until Batman sprays Clayface with a freezing gas to get the canister back, but Clayface jumps out of the train window and lands in a truck's cargo hold, breaking into pieces. Nonetheless, Clayface has succeeded in getting the Mp40.

Batman returns to the Batcave, where he and Alfred finally learn the identity of the female doctor from Hagen's movie Dark Interlude (the movie Stella was watching), and Batman finds her location in the bank's records, tracking her to her laboratory by the ocean.

At the lab, Stella starts pumping the Mp40 into Clayface, who is once again inside the plastic coating. Clayface demonstrates the Mp40's success by attempting to transform back into Matt Hagen, which he almost does until Batman arrives and turns the machine off. Batman taunts Stella and Clayface for their carelessness, trying once again offer them a better way. Stella lunges at Batman, only to smash headfirst into a pile of test tubes when Batman dodges. Clayface, losing control, breaks out of his coating and proceeds to absorb Batman, hoping to drown his enemy. However, Batman uses his grappling gun to blast his way out of Clayface's body.

Batman and Clayface fight again, and take the battle outside. The rain weakens Clayface, giving Batman the upper hand. However, Clayface, determined to kill Batman at any cost, pushes him off the cliff, only to have Batman pull him off as well. Batman holds on with a Batarang as Clayface is barely able to hold onto Batman's leg. Batman tries to hold him, but Clayface accepts his fate as his arm breaks, sending him plunging into the ocean below where he dissolves.

At the edge of the cliff, Stella mourns Clayface as Batman takes her to the authorities.

Continuity Edit

In the later episode "Growing Pains", a flashback explains that Clayface actually survived.

Background information Edit

Home video releases Edit

Production notes Edit

According to Bruce Timm, the reason they did not use Clayface much is because he was too expensive to animate, as well as too difficult to come up with a good story for.
Eric Radomski came up with the idea due to the fans demanding another Clayface episode, after the success of "Feat of Clay".

Production inconsistencies Edit

After Clayface dissolves in the ocean, a brief outline of his remains rises to the surface, and it seems to have stopped raining. However, in the next shot, it hasn't stopped yet.

Trivia Edit

As in "Feat of Clay", Clayface targets Wayne Enterprises during his criminal activities, this time by robbing Wayne Biomedical. He previously attempted to help Roland Daggett acquire it through insider trading.
Clayface refuses Batman's help to become normal again, yet by stealing the Mp40 canister from Wayne Biomedical, he unknowingly accepts it.
The episode also contains several references to the moviemaking industry, given Clayface's background as an actor:
- Stella's surname, Bates, and past occupation is a homage to Norman Bates, the psychotic motel owner played by Anthony Perkins in Psycho. Batman mentions she once owned a motel in the past, akin to the Bates Motel, although Clayface is presented here as the psychopath and not Stella.
- When he is placed in the support suit that gives him structure, Clayface looks similar to an Oscar statuette.
- Towards the end, Clayface yells "STELLA!" a la Marlon Brando's Stanley Kowalski in the 1951 film A Streetcar Named Desire.
- The movie Stella watches, which Alfred later identifies as 'Dark Interlude' has a plot that is very similar to that of the 1939 film 'Dark Victory', starring Betty Davis

Cast Edit

Actor	Role
Kevin Conroy	Bruce Wayne/Batman
Efrem Zimbalist, Jr.	Alfred Pennyworth Security guard (uncredited)
Rob Clotworthy	Billy
Pat Musick	Stella Bates
Ron Perlman	Clayface
Marcia Wallace	Fiancée

Quotes Edit

Alfred: Don't take this the wrong way, Sir, but your goose is cooked.
(Alfred turns to a roast goose fresh out of the oven)

Batman: Hagen! I offered to help you become human again! The offer still stands.
Clayface: I don't need your help, Batman!
Batman: Have it your way.

Batman: It seems that Clayface is losing his integrity.
Alfred: I wasn't aware he had any to begin with.
Batman: I'm speaking in a physiological sense Alfred.

Batman: And that woman helping him-- What's her stake in this?
Alfred: Perhaps she enjoys mud baths.

Clayface: You cured more than my body. You cured my heart.

Stella Bates: A new isotope... MP-40. An experimental mutagenic adaptogen. I believe it can restore, even increase your powers, perhaps permanently, you can become Matt Hagen again forever.

Child: Look at that lady Mommy, she's got mud all over her. (Clayface's disguise fails) Eww. Mommy, she's melting!

Clayface: That's it... run. Run for your measly lives. Run from Clayface!

Batman: No time to explain now, Alfred.
Alfred: There never is.

Clayface: You've upstaged me for the last time, Batman. Time to bring down the curtain.

Clayface: We finish this now!
(Clayface hits Batman off the cliff, but Batman pulls him down as well)

Clayface: Too late. Curtain's going... down!
Batman: HAGEN!!!
(Clayface falls into the ocean and dissolves)

Previously produced episode: "The Man Who Killed Batman"	Episodes of Batman: The Animated Series	Next produced episode: "Paging the Crime Doctor"
Previously aired episode: "Shadow of the Bat"	Episodes of Batman: The Animated Series	Next aired episode: "Paging the Crime Doctor"