Oh thank goodness, the new Urkel and Batman cartoons are apparently both safe
Batman: The Caped Crusader (and the Urkel animated Christmas special) are reportedly still in production, with Hulu, Netflix, and Apple all expressing interest
A silver lining, dimly visible within the flickering light of the prolonged garbage fire that is HBO Max’s animation efforts at the moment: The Urkel cartoon still lives. (Batman, too, if you’re some kind of deviant who cares more about that than the fate of animated Urkel holiday special in the year of our lord 2022.)
This is per THR’s Heat Vision column, expanding on recent reports on a number of animated shows that were supposed to debut on embattled streaming service HBO Max, but which have now been pulled from its schedule. The most prominent of these, of course, is Did I Do That To The Holidays: A Steve Urkel Story, which we have been following for almost exactly a year at this point, lured in by the idea of Wyatt Cenac writing a holiday special starring Family Matters breakout star Steve Urkel (still Jaleel White), as he attempts to un-ruin Christmas by finding Santa Claus at last.
We cannot stress enough how real of a project this is.
Anyway, DIDTTTH:ASUS was one of several upcoming cartoons—including Merry Little Batman, The Day The Earth Blew Up: A Looney Tunes Movie, Bye Bye Bunny: A Looney Tunes Musical, and The Amazing World Of Gumball: The Movie—that were originally planned for Cartoon Network’s Acme Night programming block, but then appear to have been moved over to HBO Max, and which then got un-moved to HBO Max amidst all the, y’know, unpleasantness. And, yes, that list also includes Batman: The Caped Crusader, the J.J. Abrams and Matt Reeves-produced spiritual successor to Batman: The Animated Series that we guess some people might think is more interesting than a new piece of Urkelmation.
There had already been reports that The Caped Crusader and the other series hadn’t been so much canceled as farmed out; THR now confirms that the Batman show, at least, is getting fairly heavy attention from “Apple, Hulu and Netflix.” (No word yet on what kind of Urkel bidding war is currently in the offing.) It also reports, with some measure of definitiveness, that all of the shows are still in production, just waiting to be sold off (or, possibly, returned to Cartoon Network’s loving embrace.)
So, there you have it: A veritable Christmas (special starring Urkel) miracle!