“Over The Edge” kicks things off in dramatic style when Barbara Gordon as Batgirl is knocked off a building by Scarecrow before landing on the hood of a car carrying her own dad, Commissioner Gordon. She then dies in her father’s arms (yes, this was a kids’ show) in what is one of the most poignant and emotional scenes from the entire show’s run. But as the legendary voice actor behind Batman, Kevin Conroy, told Vulture: “In animation, you can’t actually kill anybody. Standards and practices won’t allow that.”
To get around this little wrinkle in their plan, the writing team used a few tactics. By the end of the episode, we discover that Barbara’s death and the ensuing war between her father and the Bat family was all a hallucination brought on by Scarecrow’s fear toxin. That went a long way towards placating the censors. Speaking to ScienceFiction.com, Timm revealed that “Over The Edge” was one of his personal favorite moments from the Kids’ WB era simply because he “really pulled one over on the Broadcast Standards and Practice people.”
“Even though it’s a dream, and that’s kind of a cheat, I feel that the episode kind of earns that cheat so that by the end of it you don’t go, ‘Oh it’s all a dream?’ Because we’re telling you from the beginning, the second you see Scarecrow show up you know it’s not real. But that was a really good episode! And that whole bit where we get to kill Batgirl, it was kind of fun! Because we got to play with people’s emotions.”
