Dr.T: Some of your most important influences in terms of comic book artists were Jack Kirby, Alex Toth and John Byrne. Do you feel you’ve absorbed any of their influences into the style you use?

GM: Yes, I do. Byrne was my idol in junior high and high school. As things went on after high school I got more into undergrounds, things like that. And the independent comics. Some of the influences on the show would be Love and Rockets, Betty and Veronica, The Hernandez Brothers — things like Mister X were a big influence on Batman, and Kirby was an influence on Superman. I think even growing up at that time I was exposed to a lot of variety as far as independent comics. I’m sure that affects the show. Titans, though, has been more influenced by anime than anything else.

Then there are some weird, more obscure things — for Titans, I went back and reviewed stuff I grew up with like Little Rascals, and for story inspirations I thought, “What were some of the shows I watched as a kid?” Brady Bunch, I Dream of Jeannie, things like that. Even with the Titans theme song, I wanted it to reflect how shows used to be. I feel that TV shows don’t really have cool theme songs anymore. I don’t know why the trend moved away from having a great theme song to hook you into the show! Like that title sequence from the Wild Wild West — now that was really stylish!

Dr.T: That title sequence reminds me of the one on your show.

GM: Yeah, kind of. I don’t know if I just absorbed a lot of that stuff or if it’s from working with all those guys on Batman — they’re all slightly older than me, and some of those influences rubbed off on me.

Dr.T: Going back to your career, Glen, it’s been about 12 years since you came to work at Warner Bros. with no previous experience in animation. And now you’ve won an Emmy and are executive producer of your own series. How would you sum up your progress at this point and what are you looking forward to?

Batman Beyond was one of the happy surprises in Murakami’s career. © Warner Bros. Animation.

GM: I’m actually surprised I’ve gotten this far. I’m just trying to be open-minded and see what happens next. Batman wasn’t anything I had planned on doing, Batman Beyond wasn’t anything I was planning on doing, same for Justice League and even Teen Titans . It’s pretty weird that I grew up reading all that stuff and now I’m working on it. I’ve been pretty lucky, getting to meet the people who I’ve met and worked with. Everything’s going fine right now. This is my first time running my own show. I’ve produced alongside Bruce Timm, but he was definitely the lead on all those other shows.

Dr.T: Were things Bruce took care of and shielded you from that later you wanted to go back and say, “Why didn’t you tell me about this?”

GM: I’ll be honest. I wasn’t ready before to run my own show. In the past there might have been opportunities for me to leave and get my own show, but I’ve been working on great shows for 10 years. There was no reason to leave. And during that time I’ve learned, well, tons of things and it’s really paid off. Hopefully, it shows in the final product.

Martin “Dr. Toon” Goodman is a longtime student and fan of animation. He lives in Anderson, Indiana.