Sad to see two key voices in Batman’s animated resurgence pass. First, Kevin Conroy, probably one of the three best Batman voices (Adam West and Diedrich Bader). Now we lost the first Harley Quinn. I knew the Joker’s number one was created to keep the show from scaring children, it’s why Mark Hamill replaced Tim Curry too. I didn’t know that the great writer Paul Dini wrote the part for Arleen as they were friends. Great move. Harley definitely drove the ratings and went on to create a merchandising empire for David Zaslav to piss away. Well, that and to give the overrated Margot Robbie a role for Tarantino and other Incels to jerk off to.
I love Arleen’s take which inspired the good voice actresses who’ve followed, namely Tara Strong; Kaley Cuoco is a hack and Lady Gaga is Lady Gag-Gag. Arleen gave the villainess the right level of humor, craziness and menace for a psychiatrist enthralled to the scariest psycho killer on par with Charles Manson. In the end, you knew the original Harleen was still there as she could never go through with killing anybody, including Batman, the main rival in her relationship with the Joker.
Thanks to the sequel show Batman Beyond, Arleen returned as the elderly, retired Harley Quinn, now sane and pissed off at her granddaughters called Dee Dee for joining a gang inspired by the Joker’s legacy.
There was more to Arleen. Outside of providing voices for cartoon characters, she was the stand-in voice for callers on Frasier until they had the finished track with the real “caller;” she had guest roles on SitComs (Dream On, Frasier and Open House), movies (Trading Places, Ted & Venus) and wrote episodes for others (Fired Up, Tiny Toons). But Arleen’s main gig was 26 years on Days of Our Lives. It’s good to see someone break out from Soap Operas to mainstream stuff. Other actors have send the pay is OK but it’s exhausting work.
Thanks for everything Arleen! You laid down the foundation to the best comic book villain created in the Nineties! And your version will always be my go to version!