Short version: my biggest problem with it was that the animation felt a little too stilted. But the Harvey Dent stuff? Primo.
Slightly longer version: I, too, thought that Timm’s/Tucker’s excuse for gender-flipping Penguin was flat-out absurd. When I told my wife that their argument was that Batman had ‘a lack of good villains,’ she looked at me with utter confusion and asked, Who has a better rogues’ gallery*? What they really should have said was, Penguin as a ruthless cabaret singer / mob boss made us laugh, which would have been both true and more defensible.
Regardless, BATMAN: CAPED CRUSADER was fun. A little weird on the animation front, but the story line was real classic BATMAN YEAR ONE street-level stuff (leavened with a surprising amount of Adam West-style Batman references, scattered hither and yon). My favorite bit is probably the Harvey Dent arc, though – and that’s because of the last two episodes, which were really good. If you like watching how Batman villains get that way, you’ll like this.
Moe Lane
*We are in general agreement that Spider-Man is a strong contender on that front. Past that, there was friendly disagreements on the definition, and how group team-ups should be counted. We’re both in agreement that Toyman from Super-Friends was pretty lame, although we were also apparently both wrong that he was there because they couldn’t get the rights to the Joker. They still should have, though.
#commissionearned