Danny Elfman's Batman Returns Cameo Came At The Expense Of Danny DeVito
After being constrained by the responsibilities of delivering a big budget blockbuster with 1989's "Batman," Tim Burton let his freak flag fly for its follow-up, "Batman Returns." The director had proven he could give Warner Bros. what it wanted with his first movie based on the Dark Knight, and returned to helm the sequel on the proviso that he could basically do whatever he wanted. Which, in practice, meant a total rewrite of the script, a lot more of Burton's expressionist aesthetic, and a horror-tinged tone that was perhaps best encapsulated in Danny DeVito's grotesque version of The Penguin.
Burton and DeVito's take on the legendary Batman villain was a deformed figure who inexplicably spewed black bile from his mouth at various points throughout the film, ultimately hatching a plot to drown all the firstborn sons of Gotham. No wonder Mcdonald's was upset.
DeVito, however, had a ball playing Oswald Cobblepot, the abandoned son of a well-to-do Gotham couple (the father was played by the late Paul Reubens in a small cameo role). The "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia" star fully committed to his part, staying in character between takes and creeping out almost everyone on set. And as it turns out, one of the people who happened to be on set during the filming of a pivotal Penguin scene was none other than the film's composer and longtime Burton collaborator, Danny Elfman.
A Gotham of every era and none
While "Batman Returns" was full-on Tim Burton, it still maintained much of what made its predecessor so popular. Michael Keaton's brooding Bruce Wayne returned sporting a streamlined version of the rubber Batsuit from "Batman." Michael Gough's Alfred was also back for the sequel, alongside Pat Hingle's Commissioner Gordon, who this time oversaw a Gotham City in the midst of the Christmas season.
And one of the most important elements of "Batman," which became just as crucial to "Returns" was Burton's take on Gotham as a city that belonged to every era and to none at all. "Returns" in particular showcased a Gotham inspired just as much by oppressive fascist architecture as it was by Art Deco design. The result was a version of the city that felt oddly timeless, in which high-tech Bat-gadgets seemed right at home alongside a populace that dressed as though suspended in some sort of 1940s stasis.
This idea of a city that combined various time periods was, incidentally, influential on Bruce Timm and Eric Radomski when designing the aesthetic of "Batman: The Animated Series." It also allowed Burton to sneak in some cultural tropes that would have seemed ridiculous were it not for his bizarre time warp of a city. For instance, the scene where Danny DeVito's Penguin flies into a rage after having his public speech sabotaged by Bruce Wayne ends with the audience pelting him with rotten vegetables — a practice often associated with public performances of Shakespeare plays back in the Elizabethan era and which is, of course, the genesis of a certain critic score aggregator website's name. Aside from once again reinforcing the timelessness of Burton's Gotham, this scene is also noteworthy for managing to sneak in a Danny Elfman cameo.
Elfman's enthusiasm
Danny Elfman was yet another piece of the "Batman" puzzle that returned for Tim Burton's brilliantly unhinged sequel. The composer created what is surely one of the most famous and recognizable scores in cinema history for the 1989 comic book adaptation, and that strident Batman theme was back in "Returns." But there were also so many new elements to Burton's sequel that Elfman was evidently quite keen on getting a sense for what he was supposed to be scoring prior to seeing a final cut, with the composer regularly visiting the Burbank set.
In "Batman Returns: The Official Movie Book," author Michael Singer wrote:
"During one of his visits to the Batman Returns set, Elfman enthusiastically joined in with the rest of the crew, who were recruited to toss a nasty salad of fruits and vegetables at Danny DeVito's Penguin for a crucial scene of the movie."
This was, of course, the scene where Oswald's plot to become Gotham's mayor had been foiled by Bruce Wayne, and required the slightly too committed DeVito to actually weather a real onslaught of fruit and veg from the enraged Gotham crowds. As Singer reported, "The actor refused a stand-in. Instead, he took the full brunt of the veg-attack himself, splattered with the gooey results in take after take."
And while Burton didn't make much out of the fact that Elfman was in the crowd (it's not like Elfman's "cameo" was a Paul Reubens-style credited role) it's a neat bit of trivia, and also quite funny considering Singer's assertion that Elfman was, for some reason, "enthusiastic" about pelting one of the film's stars with rotten vegetables. Maybe, having been on set a few times, Elfman was just expressing his distaste for DeVito's method approach.