Your column certainly makes a key point - perhaps, unintentionally - that I think deserves comment.

"but I have to wonder why Batman: The Brave and the Bold isn't written about with the same obsessive reverence as genre standouts like The Simpsons, Family Guy, South Park and Archer. Because, when it's on it's game -- and despite a general sense of polite restraint largely missing from the others -- it belongs in the same company...."

That lack of "polite restraint" is the principal reason that many of us do not slobber over those other series the way many of your critical colleagues do. I'm saying that many of these supposed "genre standouts" mainly use vulgarity as a crutch to hide lazy writing. Unfortunately, today's critical emphasis is on the young demographic for monetary purposes. So it isn't that surprising that many critics don't like to admit that "eat my shorts", "Doh!" and fat slobs of any age acting as stupid and rude as possible (I haven't forgotten Family Guy or South Park) wasn't THAT hilarious or innovative originally and CERTAINLY isn't after up to 20+ years of ENDLESS repetition. And they especially don't like to admit that a large part of the popularity of this type of stuff is that the intended audience hasn't seen enough TV to know that they're not getting THAT much that's fresh and innovative stuff AND that all the old, "more polite" stuff isn't that bad, either.

That's part of the problem that plagues Brave and the Bold: since it doesn't spit in the face of authority and doesn't feature characters that are Homer, Peter, Steve Carrell, or Cartman rude and stupid, it must be conventional. And, to the advertiser's desired adult only in their own eyes audience (and the critics who pander to them), conventional is the WORST thing a show can be. I believe that's the main reason your colleagues haven't trumpeted the show. Too, it's partly because they, and I, wouldn't agree that B&B belongs in the same "genre" you place it in, anyway. It's just a superhero cartoon with a considerable amount of humor, not a satire. (On the other hand, Doh! is satirical?)

Also, B&B has been criticized by fanboys/girls/critics for that humor and it's somewhat "cartoonish" look. They can't accept anything that doesn't look like Batman TAS or that doesn't present Batman as a misanthropic, obsessive loner. To them B&B smacks too much of Adam West and, unfairly, of "limited animation". (Which makes me laugh, because the same people slobber over anime and ignore it's MANY cost cutting techniques, such as ENDLESS dialogue.) So word of mouth about how satisfying this show can be has been slow to develop.

Finally, it's ironic that one of the blogs that hosts this column - TV Worth Watching - recently featured another blog post that trumpeted the Dick Van Dyke show. A post Eishenhower sitcom about Camelot proto-yuppies living the suburban dream? A show that only had one thing going for it: that it was - often hilariously - funny? How conventional! Hardly cutting edge. Doh!

I don't know if I merit a 2nd post, but I felt bad because I was a little unfair in my criticism of Ed Martin's blog entry. I really am not trying to criticize him, but the "colleagues" he wonders about.

Where I was wrong is in my classification of B&B. Though I still disagree that it's a straight ahead satire, I believe we both may have missed the right word here: B&B is a "parody" of a Superhero cartoon. It also shrewdly features a lot of straight superhero action so that it can attract both Cartoon Network's young and adult audiences. It's this parody aspect, though, that gets it unfairly compared to the 60's Batman series, also a parody. In both cases, parodies are not always insults, they often show affection for the source material. They often just emphasize the "tongue in cheek" aspects of the original.

Lifted from the Wikipedia article on the subject, likely the first recorded use of the word in English by the great poet/writer Ben Jonson:

"A Parodie, a parodie! to make it absurder than it was."

Most importantly, though, and my apologizes Mr. Martin, I agree on B&B's quality. It's both a good parody and a good superhero cartoon.