Feat of Clay Part 1 and 2 – Batman the Animated Series – The Film Buff Review

Discover Feat of Clay Parts 1 & 2: Batman The Animated Series – The Film Buff Review

In this AKAPAD Film Buff podcast episode, Peter A. DeLuca celebrates one of the most powerful and influential two-part stories in Batman: The Animated Series — “Feat of Clay” (Parts 1 & 2). Originally aired September 8–9, 1992, these episodes introduced Matt Hagen (voiced by Ron Perlman), the tragic actor who transforms into the shape-shifting villain Clayface after a desperate experiment with a youth-restoring cream goes horribly wrong.

Tied to the excitement around the upcoming live-action Clayface movie (with Mike Flanagan attached), this review explores why these episodes remain a landmark in animated storytelling. From groundbreaking cell animation and emotional horror to deep themes of identity, addiction, manipulation, and desperation, “Feat of Clay” helped establish Batman: The Animated Series as far more than a kids’ cartoon.

[00:00:00]
Introduction and Context: “Feet of Clay” and the Live-Action Clayface Movie

• The discussion opens with enthusiasm about Batman: The Animated Series and specifically the episode(s) titled “Feat of Clay”.
• Recently, a trailer for a live-action Clayface movie has sparked conversation. The speaker references Mike Flanagan, a well-regarded filmmaker, as a reason for optimism about this adaptation.
• The video sets out to explore why a live-action Clayface movie is happening now, grounding the conversation in the original animated episodes from September 8-9, 1992.
• The tone is nostalgic and reverent, emphasizing the significance of these episodes in the broader Batman lore.

[00:01:16]
Plot and Character Background: Matt Hagen / Clayface

• Matt Hagen is introduced as a fading actor who uses an experimental cream to restore his youthful appearance.
• The cream, however, corrupts him and grants him molecular control, enabling shape-shifting abilities.
• He becomes Clayface, a “mess” in physical form but powerful and dangerous.
• In the episodes, Clayface shape-shifts into Bruce Wayne attempting to frame him, setting up a detective story where Batman and Bruce Wayne work to clear his name.
• The narrative also explores Matt Hagen as a manipulated, desperate individual, a “patsy” exploited by forces beyond his control.

[00:02:00]
Animation Style and Emotional Depth

• The episodes represent a transitional moment in animation history, coming near the end of traditional cell animation before the rise of digital and hybrid techniques.
• Despite this, the animation conveys strong emotional resonance, particularly through the character design and movement of Clayface’s cells.
• The storytelling balances emotion, horror, and detective mystery, with the audience invited to unravel the mystery alongside Batman/Bruce Wayne.

[00:02:40]
Early Series Context and Personal Anecdotes

• These episodes arrived early in the series, which was airing weekly.
• The speaker shares a personal story about growing up with Batman merchandise and watching the animated series primetime, underscoring how impactful this show was to fans.
• The nostalgic recounting includes references to collecting vintage Batman toys and the significance of the 1989 Batman movie as a cultural touchstone that maintained Batman’s popularity.
• The speaker also recalls missing the premiere episode but catching a part of it at grandparents’ house, highlighting the primetime broadcast on Fox as a major media event.

[00:05:27]
Creative Team and Influence

• The episode was directed by Kevin Altieri, known for his work on Gen 13 (a project the speaker laments was mishandled by Disney).
• The importance of primetime placement on Fox is reiterated, with comparisons to X-Men: The Animated Series, which also had a primetime slot but did not reach the same emotional and storytelling depth.
• The writer Marv Wolfman, described as a top 5-10 comic book creator, is credited for reintroducing and reforming Clayface in these episodes.
• Wolfman’s work builds on Alan Moore’s earlier disturbing portrayal of Clayface, where the character struggles psychotically with his identity due to shape-shifting powers.

[00:06:51]
Clayface’s Powers and Story Impact

• “Feet of Clay” showcased a new evolution of Clayface’s powers:
• The mud/liquid form could solidify into objects.
• Clayface could become massive and Hulk-like, adding to his physical threat.
• The character design is noted for its sinister features: crooked mouth, yellow eyes, and eerie grin.
• The episodes delve into the underworld and darker themes, with one standout moment being a tense talk show sequence where Clayface confronts the doctor responsible for the cream.
• This interaction shows the doctor’s horror and desperation, highlighting the ethical and human cost behind the villain’s creation.
• Supporting characters include Lucius Fox, who is manipulated by Clayface to frame Bruce Wayne, underscoring Clayface’s intelligence and cunning.

[00:08:43]
Narrative and Thematic Significance

• These episodes are positioned as seminal Batman Animated Series moments, often overshadowed by the more popular Mr. Freeze episodes but arguably just as important.
• They represent a shift toward mature, long-form storytelling, distinguishing the series from typical children’s cartoons focused just on merchandising.
• The narrative encompasses horror, emotional depth, and complex villains, with Gotham City portrayed as a relentless environment full of terrifying antagonists.
• Batman is framed as the greatest hero because he faces the greatest villains, and the show does not shy away from the darkness inherent in these characters.

[00:10:39]
Personal Reflection and Availability

• Revisiting these episodes in light of the movie trailer has renewed the speaker’s appreciation for them, acknowledging that familiarity sometimes dulls enthusiasm.
• Feet of Clay is available for viewing on HBO Max, specifically episodes 20 and 21 of season 1.
• The speaker encourages viewers to watch or re-watch these episodes to appreciate their craftsmanship and storytelling.

[00:11:21]
Upcoming Content and Release Schedule

• The video transitions to an overview of the content release schedule for the channel or podcast, emphasizing a long-term plan and consistency.
• Key time slots: Day Time Content Type Notes Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday 8:00 p.m. Movie retrospectives / new releases Example: Marvel franchises, Sylvester Stallone/Rocky series Wednesday 8:00 p.m. Creator spotlights Focus on directors (e.g., Scorsese, Spielberg), composers (e.g., John Williams), and others Saturday, Sunday 8:00 a.m. Cartoons Emulating nostalgic weekend morning cartoon watching experiences Saturday, Sunday 8:00 p.m. Educational documentaries Focus on creative documentaries covering graphic arts, special effects, makeup, and more
• The speaker expresses a personal connection to being largely self-educated in film and animation, with some formal training but primarily autodidactic.
• The weekend evening slots emphasize education and deep dives into filmmaking craft, aligned with the speaker’s passion.

[00:13:44]
Closing Remarks

• The video concludes with a warm address to the community (“AKA Patters,” “film buffers”), expressing gratitude and excitement for the journey ahead.
• The tone is encouraging, inviting viewers to join in for future content drops and emphasizing the love for the medium and its storytelling power.

Key Insights and Conclusions

• “Feet of Clay” is a landmark two-part episode of Batman: The Animated Series that redefined Clayface’s character with emotional depth, horror, and innovative animation techniques.
• The episodes showcase the transition from traditional cell animation to digital methods, capturing a unique moment in animation history.
• Clayface’s powers are expanded upon in ways not commonly seen before, including solidifying mud and size transformation, making him a formidable foe.
• The story explores themes of identity, manipulation, desperation, and ethical responsibility, highlighted by Clayface’s tragic origin and the doctor’s role.
• The episodes helped establish Batman: The Animated Series as a mature, narrative-driven show, moving beyond simple toy marketing to true storytelling.
• The speaker emphasizes the cultural significance of the series’ primetime slot on Fox, which allowed for more adult themes and storytelling complexity.
• Availability on HBO Max makes these episodes accessible for a new generation or for re-examination by longtime fans ahead of the live-action movie.
• The channel’s content schedule is thoughtfully planned to balance new releases, retrospectives, creator spotlights, cartoons, and educational documentaries, fostering a comprehensive film and animation community.

Definitions and Comparisons

Timeline Table – Key Events in “Feet of Clay” Episodes

00:00:00
Why you don’t understand? Camera speed down production take one. Action. There there was something special AKA powers about watching Batman The Animated Series for the first time. But welcome back. We’re talking about Feet of Clay. A lot of people are talking about this right now because well, we just got a trailer for a live-action Clayface movie. And if if a lot of people are saying why would there be a live-action Clayface? There’s there’s some remarkable talent. I mean Mike Flanagan, the genius that

00:00:40
that he is. We we love him a lot on the the Film Buff. Why would why would this happen? Why would they allow this to happen? Well, we’re talking about that reason. Feet of Clay September 8th, 1992 September 9th, 1992. And welcome back guys. We do animation on the weekends. I I just wanted to go. We’re we’re all guests guests today. We’re we’re busting through a wall. And the reason for that is I feel like we we have a lot of ground to cover with this. Feet of Clay is the origin story of Matt

00:01:16
Hagen. Matt Hagen is an actor who is fading away. He works something out experimental cream. He makes his face younger. And through that this cream absorbs corrupts him. He’s now able to control his molecules and he becomes a mess, but he can shape-shift and and during this he shape-shifts during Bruce Wayne and tries to frame Bruce Wayne. And so these two episodes we the the little bit of the the B plot is Bruce Wayne perfectly exonerated at the end. But here we go. The animation itself the emotion

00:02:00
that comes through from the cells and how they put this thing together cuz we’re we’re approaching the digital age. Cell animation is dying. Cell animation for network television is really almost gone at this point. Everything’s going to become hybrid and everything’s going to be no cells. We get this emotion from this character. We get this detective story where Bruce Wayne and Batman are just trying to figure out what the hell is happening. And then we get Matt Hagen who is manipulated. He is somewhat of a patsy.

00:02:40
He’s well given something that’s not fully tested. He’s his desperation is taken advantage of. Having these two episodes come this early in the series. Yeah, we can say it’s a weekly series. Maybe like a like a monthly to Batman The Animated Series going weekly and and I was there AKA powers primetime. I remember for some reason I I I had like a little Sony mobile TV in my room that sat above toy shelves. See when I was young my room was a little bit of a toy museum and everything. Now

00:03:26
like I I dumped got rid of it. Yeah, I guess in early 2000s I guess I was like somewhat of a pioneer vintage toy dealer. I sold to a lot of people all over South Jersey thriving eBay eBay account. I was buying collections up from people. I was doing all the stuff that you see all over social media today, but I was doing it to to make extra money to just to I like the the the business of it all. But I had this IKEA bed. I’m pretty sure you you can Google or you you can search it on AKA pad.com the the associate website of the

00:04:08
Film Buff. This bed little bit of a bunk bed had a ladder, had a work desk, had a closet storage like behind and and and like behind the closet and so you would you would crawl and you can store whatever you want and I just had nothing but Batman merchandise you know going back to the 60s cuz we would go to flea markets, things like the Berlin Mart and I would just buy like anything that was in like old Batman in good condition. And back then too always a market for Batman cuz that 89 movie so impactful.

00:04:47
So we we we get the movie and then yeah, a couple years go by and I see an advertisement for the cartoon and it’s primetime and and I knew that was important. So in in my bunk bed I couldn’t I couldn’t catch the premiere episode. I remember the premiere episode as a Catwoman episode. I I have to go back and re-explore on another wings if Catwoman is is featured there. Directed by Kevin Altieri who did you know the Gen 13. Disney destroyed that movie. Uh Gen 13 should have been one of the biggest

00:05:27
movies of all time and was Pearl Jam Do the Evolution one of the greatest animated rock videos of all time. So I couldn’t watch it like in my room so I go to my grandparents who you know would just sit down and you know like Wheel of Fortune and whatever. I asked them if they could put it on. We put it on and I caught like the last maybe like 10 10 minutes of it. And I at that point knew there was just something that like it’s hard to describe because you didn’t get this with like X-Men The Animated Series

00:06:05
also had a Fox primetime drop. Yeah, okay like they killed Morph and there’s Sentinels and it’s okay. It’s not this. This was on all levels. So to have that experience of having the animated series arrive in primetime and then we get to Feet of Clay the story AKA powers. Keep in mind Marv Wolfman. Top five top 10 comic book writer size creator of all time. Marv Wolfman is one of the best of the best. He’s able to reintroduce and reform this character that previously was reformed by the great Alan Moore

00:06:51
whose version I there is a shopping mall annual it might have been annual six shopping mall annual where Alan Moore writes Clayface and it is disturbing, amazing, awesome. He he his mind is lost. And a little bit of Alan Moore’s positioning with Clayface is that he he is a little bit psychotic because he doesn’t know who he is because he can be like anyone. That’s like a little bit of the hook of of the character. Feet of Clay has moments where you say to yourself Batman there’s no way our guy can beat this

00:07:29
dude. He’s so devious powerful, strong. We see an evolution of his powers that we’ve never seen before in the comics where the the the the liquid or the mud part is solidified and can become other objects and and he’s giant like the Hulk and just the the crooked mouth and the yellow eyes and the weird grin of this character. And then we get into the underworld side and we my favorite sequence of these two episodes is the talk show episode where you know disguised Matt confronts the the the doctor. The

00:08:10
doctor that came up with all of this. The guy that’s pedaling it on. They’re on somewhat like TV and they’re being taped. I don’t know if they’re live or not. And he he confronts him. And it’s such a wild moment seeing like just the horror and the the desperation in the doctor’s face. And and I believe uh Daggett. It might it might might have been Daggett. It’s some of the supporting characters do escape me. Also like Lucius Fox is in the beginning and and bookends this episode where

00:08:43
Lucius Fox is is manipulated by Clayface to to frame Bruce Wayne. Really intelligent, insanely intelligent. These two episodes and everyone will go for the the Mr. Freeze episodes. And yeah, the Mr. Freeze episodes ended up in back the Batman and Robin movie. To me these are these episodes like these are the episodes. These are the episodes that broke the ice pun intended that told everyone that we’re not just dealing with Bobby’s World. Like we’re not just trying to trying to sell toys

00:09:27
here. This is a long-form narrative. This is a world with characters and there’s parts like there there’s horror in this and heart of even even someone like later when it comes to Gotham Knights like the Creeper episode. Like horrible stuff. The Batman villains were always the best because they are the absolute scariest. They’re the absolute scariest because Gotham City is a relentless town. Batman is the greatest villain cuz he’s dealing with the greatest set of I mean, Batman is the greatest hero cuz he’s

00:10:05
dealing with the greatest villains. And I’m just talking about Batman. No Robin, no Batgirl. What they did with this series is monumental. Watching these two episodes recently because of that trailer opened up my eyes to where maybe I’ve neglected maybe I’ve been away from this for a little bit too long, but I loved it so much when I was younger and watched and memorized so much of it that I’m almost like too familiar with it to bring it to you guys cuz I don’t feel like I can add much.

00:10:39
Feat of Clay is available on HBO Max. They’re episodes 20 and 21 of season 1. Go check it out. Do yourself a favor. I love you guys. Rock Roll sound. Sound production take two. Let’s take this time real quick AKA Patters, my fellow film buffers, and let’s just go over the schedule. This is years in the making. This type of rollout I’ve I’ve been planning for for years, but we’re finally here. So, here we go. Early in the morning, that’s the new stuff. 8:00 a.m. Now, 8:00 p.m.

00:11:21
Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, these are movies maybe of something coming out like if there’s a Marvel movie coming out and we want to do a retrospective on a that particular franchise or you know, if Sylvester Stallone comes back and gives us Rocky part 18, we might want to use the later time slots for a week or two to go over all of the Rocky movies. Now, we have a lot of different threads on this podcast that’s explored 8:00 p.m. So, 8:00 a.m., 8:00 p.m. Wednesdays at 8:00 p.m. This is our creator

00:12:00
spotlight. We could do an episode on Martin Scorsese, Steven Spielberg, some of the new guys, Spike Lee, even composers, guys like John Williams. This brings us into the weekend. Saturday, Sunday morning, again, we’re back at that 8:00 8:00 a.m. drop. We do cartoons because I want emulate the times where you would wake up with a bowl of cereal and watch cartoons all day Saturday and all day Sunday, and then eventually you would get to touch grass because you would have one of your friends knocking on your door

00:12:34
to play in a touch football game or even some baseball, basketball. The weekend nights, let’s get into education. 8:00 p.m. Again, all of our drops are either 8:00 a.m. or 8:00 p.m. But, the weekend nights documentaries and I focus on creative documentaries because I feel like a part of this film buff movement that we’re all bathing in that I’m super grateful for is education. And some of this some of where we’re finding our facts some of the you know, general enjoyment cuz I love documentaries.

00:13:12
All of this is explored at 8:00 p.m. And trust me, there is a lot there. There’s a lot out there that I even know existed. And we we’re going to go beyond that, too. We’re going to get into some of the graphic arts, some of the special effects, some of the the makeup documentaries. There’s a lot to learn and I’m so happy to bring you the 9:00 p.m. cuz guys you guys know, I’m an autodidact. I am self-educated. Sure, I have some certifications. Sure, I spent time at the Art Institute of

00:13:44
Philadelphia for animation, but in large I’m a self-educated, self-made person that’s connected to the weekend 8:00 p.m. drops. My AKA Patters, my film buffers, I hope to see you there for all of it. I love you guys and rock and roll. Okay, THAT’S A WRAP. >> [applause] >> OKAY, THAT’S A WRAP. >> [applause]

PETER A DELUCA AKAPD

AKAPAD is a versatile thinker known across Philadelphia, Europe, and even in the vast Multiverse as The Electic One. By day, he excels as an IT Mastermind, assisting individuals, both big and small, with a wide range of simple and complex solutions. In contrast, he is also a talented illustrator, a passionate comic book enthusiast, a creative content creator, and an active live streamer. Additionally, his podcast, “AKAPAD The Film Buff Podcast,” boasts an impressive catalog of over 500 episodes available on nearly every major platform.