Natalia Knight, also known as Nocturna, was intended to be a one-shot antagonist in Batman: The Animated Series, the first show of the DC Animated Universe. Unlike her comic book incarnation, this iteration of Nocturna was intended to actually be a vampire who was going to infect Batman and turn him into a bloodthirsty vampire. However, the network's rules prevented the episode from ever be made.
Biography[]
During the successful run of Batman: The Animated Series, several ideas were pitched for potential episodes by Bruce Timm, Paul Dini and their crew. Like most shows, however, every idea had to be approved by the network, as the network which aired Batman: The Animated Series was none other than FOX Kids. As such, there were strict rules regarding what could be shown and what could not be shown, like making The Joker look like a troublemaker instead of a murderous psychopath, forbidding any kind of direct references to death or making Robin appear in almost every episode.
Alan Burnett recalls that during this time, an idea was pitched for an episode including the seductive villainess Nocturna, whom the crew intended to make a real vampire unlike her original comic book incarnation. Bruce Timm drew a model for Nocturna's design (which is used as the article's image) and a script for the episode was written. The story would have involved Nocturna bitting and transforming Batman into a bloodthirsty vampire, leading him to crave for human blood.
Unfortunately, when the idea was presented to the censors, they objected to the storyline because, as Burnett recalls, the story would've involved bloodletting and there were concerns that it could scare children. As a result, the episode was dropped alongside many other proposed ideas which never saw the light of the day due FOX's censorship policies, which resulted in Nocturna never appearing in Batman: The Animated Series.
Much later, when the series was revived as The New Batman Adventures and aired on Kids WB, Paul Dinni was approached by some fans to pitch Nocturna's episode once more, as rules were now less strict. However, while Kids WB's rules weren't as hard like those imposed by FOX, the "no vampires" rule remained in spite of the crew's interest on using her. In the end, Nocturna didn't appear as well in The New Batman Adventures and in the DC Animated Universe as whole.
Trivia[]
- In animation history, as a result of the censorship rules imposed by FOX Kids and Kids WB, Batman would not face any kind of vampires until the 2005 release of The Batman vs. Dracula, a DTV based on The Batman, an animated Batman television show unrelated to the DC Animated Universe. However, it's possible that Batman was allowed to face Dracula because the show aired on Cartoon Network, which may have some to do that Cartoon Network's censorship rules are less strict.