Paul Dini

One Thanksgiving weekend, I had a lost weekend at a friend's place with 'Grand Theft Auto.'

It's wrong to become a bully yourself or to take it out on other people, and in my case, I just retreated to a place where I was safe. And that place was my imagination, books, and television.

Bruce Wayne needs a sense of humor to do his job. Batman, for a very long time, was going to a very dark place.

The old Rankin-Bass animated specials seemed to exist in a loosely shared reality, which is what attracted me to them. Santa, Snow Miser, Rudolph, Frosty, even the Easter Bunny seemed to be on nodding acquaintance with each other, even if only in cameo appearances in each other's cartoons.

One of the things I've learned from animation is that some guys are really good at writing, some guys are really good at design, some guys are really good at directing. It's almost like working in a band - not everybody plays every instrument.

If we made the 'Batman' games more realistic, you'd have to be Bruce Wayne for half the game, counting his money and dating supermodels.

As much as I liked the build-up to Christmas, the week after always socked me with the blues.

I was one of those goofy kids whose year narrowed down to focus on Christmas from about September on. I guess I was like Ralphie in 'A Christmas Story,' in that I would get swept up into the anticipation of the holiday, watching the lights go up, hearing the songs in the stores, getting special Christmas issues of comics and all that.