The tragedy of Jason Todd’s death would have never happened without a bit of inspiration from long-running sketch comedy show Saturday Night Live. A candid admission from former editor and Batman writer Denny O’Neil reveals that the audience participation aspect of Robin’s death came from a sketch he had seen on television.
Any Batman fan worth their salt is aware of the gruesome end that Jason Todd came to in the pivotal Death in the Family story arc. Thanks to a vote cast over two 1-900 numbers, DC allowed fans to have a say in the direction of a comic book by being able to choose whether or not Jason Todd would live or die. Despite the razor-margin, fans voted in favor of the Robin’s death, leading to one of the most infamous Batman stories that would shape the franchise for years to come.
However, fans may be less aware of how such an idea even came up in the first place. In “Notes from the Batcave: An Interview with Dennis O’Neil” by Roberta E. Pearson and William Uricchio from the book The Many Lives of The Batman: Critical Approaches to a Superhero and His Media (via Comics Beat), O’Neil discusses how the story came about. While at a writers retreat he brought up a sketch he had seen on Saturday Night Live. The sketch involved Eddie Murphy displaying a real lobster named Larry and telling audiences they would be able to decide on whether or not he would be boiled on air by voting via 1-900 numbers. DC President and publisher Jenette Kahn agreed the stunt had merit. “We began to discuss how we could use it, “O’Neil said. “I guess I came up with killing somebody and the logical candidate to be in peril was Jason, because we had reason to believe that he wasn’t that popular anyway.”
The death of Jason Todd shocked the comics world. Despite Jason struggling to find the same audience that Dick Grayson had during his Robin days, the idea that DC would kill a character so violently was a pretty unbelievable thing. Adding in the audience participation aspect makes the entire thing even more outrageous. But the event being connected to Saturday Night Live? Now that’s so over-the-top, it almost makes the situation comical.
For years, the murder of Jason was regarded as one of the most influential deaths in comics. It shook the status quo of Batman and proved that there could be consequences for Bruce Wayne that wouldn’t be reset by the next issue. Death in the Family is considered one of stories that brought superhero comics into the modern age. Saturday Night Live might not seem like the most obvious source of inspiration, but if it wasn’t for Eddie Murphy’s bit, chances are the arc may not have ever happened. Audience participation was relatively rare back then and it was one of the first times DC had ever done such a thing.
Death in the Family was a pretty controversial event during its day, with some fans taking issue over DC allowing people to kill one of its characters. Knowing that Jason Todd’s death was inspired from an equally controversial Saturday Night Live sketch makes things a lot more clearer in hindsight.
