One thing that people don't discuss enough is that this show came out at the exact moment that kids and superhero fans needed a definitive, expansive Batman experience. https://twitter.com/Christian_rib/status/1304944634456543233
It was 1992, and while the process of getting this series into production was definitely helped by the success of Tim Burton's Batman, those films are much more idiosyncratic and singular in vision.
The main thing they probably assisted in is getting the pitch accepted: "Bombastic dark orchestra music! A gothic metropolis! Batman frowns sometimes! People love it!"

Oh, and the design of the Penguin. They were forced to kind of copy that, too.
But Burton's films were never designed to be this big, long adventure series, at least not to him. Rather they were explorations of whatever sad Batman theme he was most fascinated in at the time.

Kids needed something grander, something the adored the Batman mythos.
Secondly, we were just on the cusp of the comic book industry's 90s decline, a period where exaggerated sales tactics and branching multi-series storylines and events would exhaust readers rather than thrill them.
The Batman of early 90s comics, carefully balancing Frank Miller's "Dark" approach and a more action hero-ey style, was ripe for a series where kids didn't have to buy three different comic lines to understand what was going on.
Lastly, the "BUY TOYS. BUY TOYS. BUY TOYS" message of cartoons like GI JOE and Transformers and even Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was seen as increasingly problematic. In 1990, Congress passed the Children's Television Act, which required a closer eye on advertising.
And while the results of this were mixed (BTAS was rarely openly "educational" and it sold plenty of toys,) it did allow for a change in focus. TV producers had to figure out a way to make cartoons that were driven by prospective toy sales not feel like commercials for toys.
So much of BTAS' engaging storytelling and relatively mature themes came from this. Not from the fear of being fined by the FCC (though there was that, too) but from a change in the superhero cartoon genre as a whole away from being glorified Toys R Us ads.
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