"A Death in the Family" is not just a lousy idea, it's a lousy idea told with teeth grinding, bowel knotting, brain achingly levels of badness.
A few of my "favourite" groan inducing moments;
"Oh no, my birth certificate is water damaged... Whatever shall I do? Wherever shall I go? I know! I'll go on a globetrotting trip to find one of the three women that my lousy father, who was clearly unsually well organised with his address/litte black book, because one of them might be my mother." As opposed to
"Oh no, my birth certificate is water damaged... Whatever shall I do? Oh yeah, the Gotham City Hall of Records where people go to get replacement birth certificates all the time, office hours 09:00 to 17:00 five days a week, nominal charge of $20 for a copy."
+ - +
"Oh no, I'm all out of money and so I must resort to suddenly becoming an international atomic weapons dealer." As opposed to
"Oh no, I'm all out of money, I know, let's ROB A BANK, let's ransack some jewels... Let's pull a THEMED CAPER! I haven't done that since about 1974 and those are actually FUN!"
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"Gasp! Someone has shot this pilot through the head... Based on no evidence whatsoever I shall decide that this is the work of the Joker". As opposed to
"Gasp! Someone has shot this pilot through the head, drawn a big grin on his face in his own blood and left a note pinned to him saying "I just flew in from Gotham City, and boy are MY arm's tired! I wonder who that could be?"
+ - +
"Oh noes... I've just killed Robin in the most unimaginative, dull, unJoker-ish way possible... I must make sure that Batman never finds out that it was me because I am scared of his wrath!" as opposed to;
"Hello? Is that CNN? Joker here! Look, I have Robin the Boy Wonder here, and I'm about to kill him... Oh I dunno, haven't decided... something Jokerish... smother him with a custard pie laced with superglue... Stick the hose from this tank of helium up his ass and turn him into a Macy's Parade balloon... Maybe just dose him with Joker venom, it's an oldie, but a goodie. I just want to be sure that when I actually DO kill my greatest enemies Achilles heel, who I have been trying to kill reguarly since 1940 that the whole world knows about it because what would be the point of . I was going to film it and send it to you, possibly set up a follow up interview... what's your local office's address... Thanks!"
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"Oh noes... there's dynamite here in the building with me and the door is locked so we can't get out!" as opposed to;
"Oh noes... there's dynamite here in the building with me and the door is locked so we can't get out! Wait, why don't I (or my mother) throw the dynamnite OUTSIDE through one of these windows? That'll sheild us from most of the blast."