Harleen Quinzel (Batman 1966 TV Series)

Dr. Harleen Quinzel, later known as Harley Quinn, was a scientific assistant working for Hugo Strange, who eventually fell in love with the Joker and decided to break him out of Gotham State Penitentiary.

History

Quinzel was originally the assistant of scientist and inventor Hugo Strange, who was employed by Warden Crichton at Gotham State Penitentiary to create a machine that was capable of extracting evil energies from criminals and rehabilitate them in the process. While she was working on the project, Harleen seemingly began to develop an affection for the Joker, a criminally insane inmate at the prison. One day, Batman, Robin and District Attorney Harvey Dent visited the prison in order to personally witness how Strange and his assistant Dr. Quinzel wanted to prove the capabilities of the evil extractor machine by sucking the combined evil from the brains of Joker, Penguin, Riddler, Egghead and Mr. Freeze. However, the experiment ultimately failed when the machine overloaded with the enormous amount of evil energies, eventually causing the collection vat that stored the evil gas to explode. Even though Batman tried to shield the DA from the explosion with the Batsuit's cape, the substance was still sprayed directly into parts of Dent's face, severely disfiguring it on the left side and transforming him into the dangerous villain Two-Face. Following the incident, Hugo Strange was fired from his job and the experimental project was terminated by the authorities.^[1]

At some point after these events, Dr. Quinzel decided to finally break the Joker out of prison. She donned a red and black jester suit, began carrying a mallet and adopted the alias of "Harley Quinn". One night, Harley went to Gotham State Penitentiary, where she used a time bomb to blow the door to the Joker's cell open. As the smoke cleared, Quinzel approached the surprised Clown Prince of Crime in his cell and introduced herself to her "Puddin'" as the "new and improved Harley Quinn".^[2]

Powers and Abilities

Abilities

Science
Weaponry
Stealth

Weaknesses

Mental Disorder

Paraphernalia

Weapons

Harley's Mallet
Time Bomb

Notes

This version of the character is exclusive to the continuity of the television series Batman, its tie-in comic book series, related live-action movie and animated movies, Batman: Return of the Caped Crusaders and Batman vs. Two-Face. It is an adaptation of Harley Quinn. The original character was created by Paul Dini and Bruce Timm and first appeared in the episode "Joker's Favor" of the series Batman: The Animated Series.
The origin story of Harley Quinn given in the 2017 animated movie Batman vs. Two-Face and the short Knock Knock, Mr. Joker! directly retcons the Holly Quinn character that was previously introduced as a 1966-style Harley Quinn equivalent in the Batman '66 comic series. Similarly, the comic backstories of Two-Face and Hugo Strange were also ignored for the animated continuation.
Harley Quinn was voiced by Sirena Irwin.

Trivia

Concept art shows that several different costume ideas were explored for a 1966 version of Harley Quinn before the production team of the Batman vs. Two-Face movie ultimately settled on the final design.^[3]
Dr. Quinzel's appearance as Harley Quinn in the short Knock Knock, Mr. Joker! was originally going to be a scene in the 2017 movie Batman vs. Two-Face, but was eventually dropped from the final version of the movie. However, the planned but deleted sequence was later repurposed into the Knock Knock, Mr. Joker! short and released under that name as a bonus feature on the Blu-ray release.