Baby Doll

"Why couldn't you just let me make-believe!"

- Baby Doll

Baby Doll is a minor villainess in Batman: The Animated Series. She is a former TV star turned psychotic criminal who suffers from hypoplasia, a medical condition that prevents her from physically aging. Although popular with many fans, she has yet to make any major appearances in any of the comics or other DC media.

Appearance
Due to her hypoplasia, Baby Doll looks like an adorable, small and very beautiful kindergartener, even though she is actually over 30 years old. She has curly blonde hair tied in two pigtails with dark purple ribbons, light blue eyes and wears a light purple short-sleeved blouse with a dark purple collar, cuffs and buttons, dark purple knee-length skirt, frilly white panties, matching ankle-length socks and black Mary Jane shoes. In her first TV appearance, she wore the same costume that she wore in her TV series "Baby-Doll" and talks in both her adult and baby-doll voice, depending on which voice is the most relevant to the situation. She carried an old doll of hers called "Mr. Happy Head" contained a hidden gun, with the end of the barrel disguised as one of his eyes.

When Batman: The Animated Series was revamped, many characters were redesigned, as was Baby Doll. In her new form, Baby Doll still looked like a 5 year old, but now wore a pink short-sleeved knee-length dress with white buttons, collar, frilly cuffs and sash, had simpler hair and wore pink or red lipstick.

History
Marion Louise "Mary" Dahl, was a TV actress who was born with systemic hypoplasia, a rare condition which kept her from ever growing, meaning that she spent all of her life looking like a young toddler. She became famous for a brief period when she played the title character in the fictitious TV sitcom "Love That Baby" (when she was 20, though she still looked like she was 5). She and the show were wildly popular, but as the series got older, the ratings dwindled. In the final season, the producers of the show decided to add a new character; Baby Doll's cousin who was called Spunky. Baby Doll was angry at Spunky because she thought that he was stealing her spot light, especially on one occasion on her birthday episode, where she got her face pushed into her birthday cake by Spunky. Furious, she left the show in order to turn herself into a proper dramatic actress. Her first role other than Baby Doll was in Macbeth.

Unfortunately, the reviews for the play and her acting were terrible, ruining Mary's chances of becoming a popular celebrity. When her career went down the tubes, she tried to get Baby Doll back on the air because it had been canceled when she left, but the networks turned her down. After that, Mary tried to get any job that came her way, but was always shunned and never got the role. Without any jobs coming her way, Mary went through a rough, depressing period of her life where she realized that the only time when she had been truly happy was when she was in the show as Baby-Doll, when she used to have a "family" in the show and was adored by millions of viewers. Keeping her persona as Baby Doll permanently, Baby went around with her 2 hired thugs as well as her personal caretaker Mariam, and kidnapped all of the original cast of Love That Baby, bringing them together so that she get revenge on Spunky and her fellow cast members. She tied all of the actors up in the Baby Doll sets and bought along a Birthday cake. After pushing Spunky's head into the cake, she then got a stick of TNT, put it on the cake like a candle and lit it, planning to blow up the crew members. Spunky ruined her plan by grabbing the TNT with his mouth and throwing it to the other end of the studio, throwing it far enough away that it exploded without hurting anybody. Batman crashed into the room and revealed that the actor who played Spunky wasn't the actor but was actually Robin in disguise. After Batman and Robin had realized what Baby Doll was doing, they had gone to the actor, told him what was going to happen and the man had let Robin take his identity. When Robin had been captured, he had sent a radio signal to Batman who had traced it and found out where Baby Doll was.

While Robin released the captives, Batman chased Baby into a nearby fair, and then into a Fun House. Inside the Fun House, Baby came across a hall of mirrors. Within one of the distorted mirrors, Baby saw herself as an adult, how she believed she should look. Knowing this to be fake, just as her character, Baby Doll, was, she shot and broke all of the mirrors before breaking down mentally and running out of bullets. When the Batman walked up to her, she went peacefully, uttering her infamous catchphrase "I didn't mean to".

The next time we see her in a substantial role, it has been a few years later. She is now the manager/concierge of a hotel but is frequently made fun of due to her condition and her history of her character and a criminal. Feeling like an outcast, she sees a news report about Killer Croc and identifies with him because he too is an outcast due to a medical condition. She helps him escape from prison and the two form a criminal duo: Baby Doll as the brain, and Croc as the brawn. Baby later found out that Killer Croc was cheating on her. Enraged, she later plans to kill both Croc and herself so that they could be "together forever" in their next robbery. While it seams that they're doomed, Batman and Batgirl come crashing in to stop them. Croc, originally at a disadvantage, gained the upper hand and started a fight with her and Batman. During the fight, Croc was knocked out when a blast of hot water shot out of a pipe he had torn from the wall as a weapon, leaving him unconscious. Baby felt sorry for Croc and yet again goes peacefully when Batman came up to her.

Trivia

 * Her first appearance bears similarities to Darla Dimple from Cats Don't Dance.
 * In the Batman: The Brave and The Bold episode "Invasion of the Secret Santas!", Baby Doll appears as a doll being hold by the villain Fun Haus and he uses it as a bomb used against Batman and Red Tornado, but the latter elevates it before it explodes.
 * She makes a cameo appearance in the Batman/Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Adventures crossover comic mini-series.
 * Dahl.jpg made an appearance in the critically acclaimed, all-ages comic book series Li'l Gotham.
 * Baby Doll is extremely similar to Balthazar Bratt, the main antagonist of Despicable Me 3.
 * Both are former TV stars who turned to a life of crime after the cancellations of their television series'.
 * Both shows were cancelled because of the stars themselves (Baby Doll quit because she believed that her spotlight was being stolen, Bratt entered puberty).
 * The partners of the heroes watched their TV show prior to encountering them (Robin had watched Baby Doll and Dru Gru had watched Evil Bratt).
 * Both use technology and gadgets, both themed around their TV series and an era of their life ( Baby Doll uses weapons and gadgets themed around Baby Doll and childhood, Bratt uses weapons and gadgets themed around Evil Bratt and the 1980's).
 * Both are Delusional.
 * Both attempted to destroy a city in an act of vengeance (Baby Doll attempted to destroy Gotham in a Nuclear Meltdown as revenge for both the humiliation she received and Killer Croc cheating on her, Bratt tried to destroy Hollywood for cancelling his show).