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The Dark Knight's First Night is the 1990 unaired pilot episode of Batman: The Animated Series. It was originally an unaired pilot episode that was created to present to Warner Bros. with a view to becoming a full series. It was written and directed by Eric Radomskiand and Bruce Timm. That was the first episode of the series to feature the character James Gordon.

Background
In 1990 Jean MacCurdy called a meeting with Bruce Timm to inform him of the success of the show Tiny Toons and that they wanted to do create a number of new animated series, one of them being Batman. After the meeting Timm abandoned his work on Tiny Toons and started drawing Batman designs.

Later during another meeting MacCurdy brought in Eric Radomski who had designs of what Gotham City might look like. MacCurdy asked Timm and Radomski to create a pilot to show to Warner Bros.. For inspiration Timm used pulp covers from the 1930/40's and the 1940s Superman cartoons. Before the pilot was complete the studio confirmed they were going ahead with commissioning the series. After the studio both saw the pilot they asked Timm and Radomski to produce the animated series.

Plot summary
Two armed gun men on the top story of a building lookout whilst a third man emerges from a door carrying a box. He then trip and the jewels spill out onto the floor. Whilst he and another gunman tries to gather the jewels back into the box, a large shadow flies over them. One of the thieves is caught by surprise and with one punch is knocked out by the mysterious figure. The other two thieves begin firing their pistols at him but he quickly dodges the bullets. He then lunges at them tackling them to the ground, one criminal grabs his gun from the floor and he is disarmed again by a swinging batarang. The thief is unwilling to give up and is knocked out with multiple punches from Batman. Commissioner James Gordon and other police officers burst through the roof access door and watch as Batman leaps from the ledge of the building and swings away into the night.

Release
The pilot was released in 2004 as an extra on Batman: The Animated Series – Volume 1 DVD with the main shows them as the audio track due to the lost of the original track.