Batwheels: The First Preschool Batman Show Brings New Life to Bruce Wayne's Cars

Batwheels is the first Batman series that's being made for the preschool audience, but that doesn't mean Bruce Wayne is going to be acting any differently for younger audiences. Instead, the show, which debuted this week on Cartoon Network's Cartoonito block and HBO Max, brings to life the Batmobile and the other vehicles that call the Batcave home, along with a "Legion of Zoom" filled with vehicles partnered up with classic villains like Joker and Penguin.

Co-Executive Producer Michael G. Stern and Supervising Producer Simon J. Smith said that even with the younger audience, having an authentic Batman (voiced by Ethan Hawke) was a priority.

"We're going to keep Batman, Batman. We're going to keep Batman cool, and he's going to be in his space, and we're going to find other characters for the audience to see the world through. So that's Batwheels and that's how we married cars and superheroes and came up with this great combination," Stern said. 

Batwheels takes a Toy Story-like approach to its automobile characters, which consist of Bam the Batmobile (voiced by Jacob Bertrand), Robin's racecar Redbird (Jordan Reed), Buff the Bat-Truck (Noah Bentley) and Batwing the Bat-plane (Lilimar). The automobile characters can talk to one another as well as to the Batcomputer (Kimberly D. Brooks) and the robot mechanic Moe (Mick Wingert). They can't speak to any human character though, but all the vehicle characters look up to Batman as a mentor.

"They still look at Batman as a father figure and they still want his approval, and they look at the Batcomputer as the mom," Stern said. "When developing a preschool show, you need to have the parents -- or at the very least the mom is always so important. It just keeps everything grounded."

Creating each vehicle character involved striking a balance, allowing the cars the ability to express themselves while also being outfitted with plenty of tech. 

"If you look at the car designs, their front of the design is fairly neutral. It looks like a cool vehicle. But because we're going to have the mouths and the windshields be the eyes, we don't want anything to insinuate any type of emotion," Smith said. That design came after going through both fun car designs and realistic designs and ultimately combining the two.

And since the Batwheels are ultimately all vehicles designed by Bruce Wayne, production also had to find a fun yet consistent way for each Batwheels team member to reveal hidden gadgets and talents. Smith said show producer Steve Fink suggested incorporating a Bat-belt, similar to the one Batman himself uses, which can be how these abilities appear.

"Every vehicle has a Bat utility belt around them somewhere -- with [Bam] it's in front of his windshield and it opens up and that's where all the gadgets come from," Smith said. Abilities include Bam shooting the Baterang and Buff the Bat-truck using his wrench.

The rethink of Batman's world to support the vehicles also affected the show's design of the Batcave, which features several different levels and pathways for the characters to drive around on while talking. 

"Batcave was a big challenge because we wanted to make sure it felt like a home to the Batwheels and at the same time felt like a really cool Batcave," Smith said. A particular point was to make sure the vehicles could always be moving, including between multiple zones such as areas specific to each vehicle similar to a bedroom; a training area designed like a Holodeck; and an area for Moe the robot mechanic to do repairs.

While Batwheels will initially focus on the vehicles who live in the Batcave, Stern said other DC characters may also join the show eventually, but with a similar vehicle twist.

"We'll be drawing on other parts of the DC universe going forward, with lots of fun surprises to come, but it will all be the Batwheels version of that," Smith said. "So if a character shows up, they're probably going to be driving a vehicle. And if we see a new setting somewhere, it's going to be a little more vehicle-leading."

Here's hoping Wonder Woman and her jet or Aquaman in a submarine eventually make a visit to the Batwheels universe. Batwheels is now streaming on HBO Max, with a "secret origin" special followed by the show's first seven episodes.