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Speedy: "Just a friendly competition huh?"
Robin: "Yeah, should be fun."
Speedy: "Right. 'Cuz winning isn't everything."
Robin: "It's just the only thing that matters."Originally aired: March 6, 2004 Written by Dwayne McDuffie
Directed by Ciro Nieli
Robin, Cyborg, and Beast Boy are transported to an alternate dimension. There, the mysterious Master of Gamesinvites our heroes and five other superpowered teens (Aqualad, Speedy, Gizmo, Hotspot, and Wildebeest) to participate in a friendly competition: The Tournament of Heroes. As the contest rages on, Robin becomes more and more determined to win - while Cyborg becomes more and more worried about what happens to the losers after they disappear. Will Robin realize that winning isn't everything before he loses the only thing that matters: his friends?
Wil Wheaton as Aqualad
Mike Erwin as Speedy
Jim Cummings as Master of Games
Lauren Tom as Gizmo [uncredited]
Hotspot is uncredited
Wildebeest is uncredited
The episode was originally titled "It's How You Play The Game" but it was retitled "Winner Take All."
Producer David Slack on WINNER TAKE ALL: "With Speedy, we were looking for someone to mirror Robin. For the purpose of that episode, we wanted someone to go up against Robin. And Speedy ends up having some of the same problems Robin has. He's got kind of a dippy name, he shoots... arrows. [laughs] So there's stuff about him that's not all that cool. I think we managed to make him pretty cool. And we did that the same way we did with Robin. We searched for some more contemporary ways for him to express himself. ""We had so many characters in that episode. It's amazing how fast the script fills up with just five people - never mind nine. So Wildebeest just grunts. When you have that many characters to juggle, it's not so bad to have a character that just grunts. Dwayne [McDuffie] and I were still able to make some jokes about what he does. With Wildebeest, you just 'write the look'; He's this great, big guy."
"Then there's Hotspot. He was Joto originally, and then we learned what that meant in Spanish and changed his name. [note: Joto is Swahili for heat; in Spanish, it's a derogatory term]. With Hoptspot, the description we wrote was "A human flame-thrower with a fiery temper to match." So he became the not-so-nice one."
"Then there's Gizmo... who's just a pain in the butt. The guys we used in that episode - we just wanted them to all be different. We tried to give each character one distinct trait to write. We didn't have much time to deal with all of them. And we always run into timing issues and tight deadlines - especially with that one."
Producer David Slack on choosing the characters for WINNER TAKE ALL: "Dwayne [McDuffie] is EXTREMELY well-versed in comic books. And of course, he's worked on JUSTICE LEAGUE and STATIC SHOCK. Dwayne, Glen and I talked about which characters we wanted to use. There was a lot of phone calls and e-mails to get a final approved list of who we could use in the episode. We thought about doing Jericho - but we were concerned we wouldn't have time to deal with his powers in such a short time frame. He requires a bit of explanation. Plus, with Jericho there's the sign language thing. We'd have to make sure we got that right. "
"Who else were we looking at? We had a long list of guys. We originally had 10 and slimmed it down to 8. And we ended up doing a three-way match - which added some excitement. We had to keep it down for various reasons. We had to keep to a budget. Like the amount of voice actors and that kind of stuff, too. We had character designers about to die [laughs]. I think once we brainstormed the list of people, we let more practical concerns take over."
Producer David Slack on the Tournament of Heroines: Any thought to using more female Titans?: "Yeah, we did. But after working so hard on all the other characters - and trying to get the episode just right - we just sort of ran out of time. We did go with suggestive silhouettes - so you'd say "Hey, was that Wonder Girl?" We thought that would be fun."
Speedy - sidekick to Green Arrow - was a founding member of the Teen Titans as detailed in TEEN TITANS #53 [a flashback origin story] in 1978. Speedy later became the hero known as Arsenal. Speedy/Arsenal has been a member of just about every incarnation of the Titans.The comment about Speedy being a 'Robin clone' is more than amusing. In the 1960s, Green Arrow and his sidekick Speedy had much in common with Batman & Robin. Green Arrow had an Arrowcave, and Arrowmobile and an array of gadget arrows. Green Arrow was a millionaire in his alter ego, and adopted a young orphan, Roy Harper [Speedy]. In the 1970's, Green Arrow and Speedy were developed to stand on their own - with unique personalities. And the Batman/Robin similarities have become something of a running joke.
Hot Spot is based on the Teen Titan known as Joto in the comic book series; Joto is swahili for heat. Joto became a member of the reformed second group of Teen Titans in TEEN TITANS [second series] #1 [1996].
Wildebeest was originally a mysterious villain dressed in a Wildebeest costume who first appeared in NEW TEEN TITANS #36-37 [1987]. Later, it was revealed there was a whole Wildebeest Society; To that end, the original Wildebeest, who became the Society's leader, created the clever strategy of permitting only one member to be seen in public at any one time. The Society was defeated by the Titans, leaving them with a baby Wildebeest.
Baby Wildebeest was a genetic experiment created by the evil society. The docile baby would hulk-out to a giant Wildebeest creature to defend his newfound friends, the Titans.
The Master of Games was created for the animated series.
For more information on the comic book versions of the characters - including many images - visit titanstower.com's meeting room page.