🎬 Chase Me (2003)

Chase Me is a unique curiosity from the DC Animated Universe: a 2003 silent animated short film that plays like a love letter to both classic cinema and the cat-and-mouse dynamic between Batman and Catwoman. Released as a bonus feature on the DVD for Batman: Mystery of the Batwoman, the short is explicitly based on The New Batman Adventures, the 1997 revamp of Batman: The Animated Series that introduced redesigned characters and a slightly darker, more streamlined visual style.

The short's premise is elegantly simple. Bruce Wayne, bored at a high-society gala, discovers Catwoman robbing his penthouse safe. What follows is a wordless, music-driven chase across the rooftops and streets of Gotham City, with no dialogue or sound effects — only an original score by composer Lolita Ritmanis. The silent-film approach is a clever homage that allows the animation and character expressions to do all the storytelling, and it perfectly suits the flirtatious, adversarial relationship between the two characters.

As a direct spin-off of The New Batman Adventures, Chase Me uses the character designs and continuity established in that series, with Catwoman sporting her TNBA-era black suit rather than the gray costume from the original Batman: The Animated Series. It stands as one of the few original animated shorts produced for the DC Animated Universe's direct-to-video releases, offering fans a stylish, experimental bonus that captures the essence of Batman's world in just a few minutes of screen time.