Actually, no he didn't do a great job. Nicholson's Joker was not The Joker of Batman but Nicholson unhinged doing what he thought Joker should be like. I doubt JN knows anything about Batman and The Joker beyond what he watched of the Adam West show, so I don't think I trust him to give me an authentic portrayal. It's already Hollywood legend that he took the excellent Sam Hamm script and changed his part to suit what he wanted to do with it. His version was somewhere between a semi-authentic take (there are actual moments of authenticity after all) and goofy campy C. Romero from the 60s series. Hamm's original version was more inline with the character at the time. I'm not saying his performance was bad or that he wasn't funny, but Joker isn't really supposed to be funny and goofy (to himself maybe but not to those around him). I'm simply saying Nicholson's Joker was Joker in name and look only.

The best version of Joker, off the page, is Mark Hamill's from the Animated Series (and it wasn't until halfway into the series that he finally got it right..even he admits that in interviews...his Joker stunk in the first few Joker episodes), but I doubt Nolan/Ledger are going that route. They're going to give us the true, comic book version which is a psycho killer that just happens to look like a clown and doesn't dance to Prince songs and act like a goofy Jack Nicholson. You can't really pull off mass murder and a true psychotic personality in a "kid's show," so they really never got it truly right in the show, but it was close enough.

I liked the first Burton Batman movie and the one after it (and in some ways the 3rd one Batman Forever was more faithful than any of them but too campy and let's not utter Batman and Robin). However, with the exception of Mask of the Phantasm (Animated Series movie), Batman Begins is the most authentic and best Batman movie made. Given it has no relation to the previous four films, that should be of no surprise. TDK is shaping up to take the crown.