[7.7/10] There’s a formula that *Batman: The Animated Series* all but perfected for villain introductions. It basically consists of giving the villain a unique gimmick, but also a sympathetic backstory, and including an even worse baddie to where the audience feels for the antagonist du jour even as we’re rooting for them to lose. “Fun and Game” follows that to a tee. Winslow Schott’s “obsessed with toys as weapons of destruction” bit creates plenty of opportunities for the show’s creators to come up with fun set pieces involving a child’s playthings done up to be genuine threats. But it also gives us a reason to understand his plight. His father was a man who just wanted to make great toys, got wrapped up with the wrong people, and left Winslow himself bouncing around through the foster system and losing his childhood in the process. That not only provides a good explanation for why Winslow is in this state of semi-arrested development, but also why he wants to take out Manheim, the gangster who suckered in his father and let him take the fall for Manheim’s crime syndicate. Again, none of this is groundbreaking. Any kids like me who watched both *B:TAS* and *S:TAS* paired together probably recognized that the two shows went to this sort of well fairly often. But the Superman team does it well. Everything from Toyman’s deadly bouncing ball, to his toy airplanes with firepower (drone strikes anyone?), to his toy soldiers, knockout dolls, and wind-up bombs gives his attacks a certain flavor that helps distinguish him from the run of the mill bad guys and gives us a chance for neat action. At the same time, we get to see Clark Kent and Lois Lane play detective in a convincing fashion. The show finds a good reason to put Lois in the crosshairs after her efforts at breaking the story seem insulting to Toyman and he wants her to “get the story straight.” Conversely, while Clark isn’t a part of the story until Supes arrives, and while his cross-referencing Manheim and Toyman feels a little too CSI, the show at least depicts him as cracking the case and not just showing up at the right place at the right time. Regardless, while this one takes a little while to get going, once it leans into that standard villain formula, it really succeeds. Bud Cort does a great job at conveying both the childlike creepiness of Toyman, but also the type of pathos that he carries with him given he and his father’s troubled past. The set pieces are good (Superman’s goop-shedding tornado spin is particularly cool), and feel nicely connected to Toyman’s M.O. Overall, this is a nice first episode for *S:TAS* as a regular show, not trying to establish its world and its characters. Toyman only shows up a few more times in the DCAU, but with this intro, he’s set up quite well.