In Mike Roth’s ‘Bat-Fam,’ Prime Video’s ‘Merry Little Batman’ Gets The Series Spinoff It Deserves

Prime Video expands its Batman universe today with the premiere of Bat-Fam, a new animated spinoff of its holiday special Merry Little Batman from Warner Bros. Animation.

In the series, young Damian Wayne dons his father’s cape as Little Batman, joining the Bat family as he and his friends take on a new generation of villains. Together, this household of heroes must balance their crime-fighting adventures with the everyday chaos of life in Gotham.

Warner Bros. Animation produces the series in association with DC Entertainment and Amazon MGM Studios. Executive producers include Mike Roth, Jase Ricci, and Sam Register, and the series boasts a big-name voice cast, including Luke Wilson, Yonas Kibreab, James Cromwell, Haley Tju, London Hughes, Michael Benyaer, and Bobby Moynihan.

Ahead of the show’s premiere, executive producer and showrunner Roth (Regular Show) spoke to Cartoon Brew about how Bat-Fam continues his signature blend of heartfelt storytelling and family-friendly humor.

Cartoon Brew: What felt unfinished or worth expanding in the Merry Little Batman world?

Mike Roth: As expansive as the movie was, I still felt like it was just this very narrow view of what the world could be. And I think we were just excited to get back in there and dig around, and build the world out. I mean, the designs alone I think merit additional stories, just to see what some of these other villains look like through this — you know, I’m totally biased here — but through this really awesome design sensibility that we have with the movie.

We really love this relationship between Bruce and Damian. It’s very unique and different, and it feels very true to Bruce and Damian, but through a slightly different lens. And I think it was really fun for us to expand on that and see, not just what it looks like with a Christmas story [Merry Little Batman], but what does it look like when Damian goes to school? What does it look like when Damian isn’t getting along with his big sister, or he’s got two competing grandfathers — Ra’s al Ghul and Alfred — fighting for his attention and bonding over him.”

How did you go about making Bat-Fam feel grounded in family storytelling without making it gimmicky?

We took a lot of inspiration from our own personal lives — what we are dealing with on a day-to-day basis. For me, I wanted every story to begin like something that just felt like an everyday family type of problem — something small and simple that everybody’s dealing with in their own personal families, and then seeing how that problem continues through a story where they’re ultimately fighting Killer Croc at the end.

Was there a moment when you dealt with something in your personal life and then brought it into the writer’s room?

Yeah. There’s an episode where there’s a field trip and Bruce wants to be the chaperone, but Damian doesn’t want his dad to come because he’s getting to that point, getting older, and wants to hang out with his friends and all that. In my personal life, I remember a moment where my son didn’t want to hold my hand when he crossed the street because he felt like he was getting too old. So in a sense, these are feelings that I think we’ve all dealt with as parents, and then we’re just seeing that translated through this family that also happens to fight crime.

How did you go about telling these stories, threading humor without undercutting the high superhero stakes?

That’s always a tricky thing, you know? But I think in a lot of ways it sort of comes naturally to the stories, because you have these villains that want to destroy Gotham. So it’s the family — they might start where there’s a little bit of strife between them, but it’s the fun of the storytelling where you see them resolve that [strife] just in time to save the city and learn a fun lesson that they can keep in their back pocket for future moments.

What do you hope Bat-Fam brings to households that watch the series?

We wanted to make something that was like a family sitcom — something that was like co-viewing. Everyone has different tastes and some movies are inappropriate for little kids. But my mother-in-law, for example, doesn’t really watch a lot of animation, but she loved [Merry Little Batman] and it was really fun. So I just hope that it’s a fun series that the whole family can sit down and enjoy — from the grandparents all the way down to the little kids — right down to some of the technology that they have, which is a little antiquated for today, but they still have cell phones and are dealing with having a cell phone in the way kids and families do.