Where to get your Batman fix on TV this weekend

And where … is the Batman?

Well, most notably the Caped Crusader will be kicking ass at the box office starting Friday, July 20, as the final installment of Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy, The Dark Knight Rises, premieres in theaters. But if that’s not enough for you, or if you can’t get tickets, Gotham’s Dark Knight can also be seen on television in various incarnations throughout this coming weekend. Here are some highlights:

* Batman: The Animated Series Rises Marathon — July 20, 4-9pm ET on The Hub. A 10-episode marathon of episodes from the superb early ’90s series Batman: The Animated Series (including a couple from the later ’90s series The New Batman Adventures). Includes episodes featuring Dark Knight Rises characters Catwoman and Bane, as well as the fan-favorite episode “Legends of the Dark Knight.” To promote this marathon, The Hub created the pretty cool teaser below that re-creates the trailer for The Dark Knight Rises, replacing clips from the film with scenes and the original voice cast from the animated series.

* FX will be airing the first film in Nolan’s trilogy — 2005’s Batman Begins (some early reviewers say it can be helpful to reacquaint yourself with this film before seeing Rises) — July 20 at 8pm ET/PT, July 21 at 5pm ET/PT and in back-to-back showings July 22 at 8pm and 11pm ET/PT.

* TNT airs the second film in Nolan’s trilogy — 2008’s The Dark Knight, featuring Heath Ledger’s posthumous Oscar-winning powerhouse turn as The Joker — July 20 at 8pm ET/PT.

* Batman Forever — July 21 at 4:40pm ET on HDNet Movies. Joel Schumacher took over the directorial reins from Tim Burton with this 1995 installment, with Val Kilmer donning the cowl as Batman and battling Jim Carrey as the Riddler, and Tommy Lee Jones as Two-Face.

* Batman & Robin — July 21 at 6:45pm ET on HDNet Movies. The first big-screen treatment of the villain Bane was in this laughable 1997 installment from director Joel Schumacher, which effectively killed off the first round of Batman movies from Warner Bros. Arnold Schwarzenegger is also on hand as a pun-filled Mr. Freeze, with Uma Thurman as Poison Ivy. George Clooney plays Bruce Wayne/Batman, with Chris O’Donnell as Robin and Alicia Silverstone as Batgirl in a pretty crowded film.

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BATMAN and all related characters and elements are ™ and © of DC Comics. © 2005 Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. All Rights Reserved. Credit: David James