
The story of how TV writer Paul Dini saw Arleen Sorkin's portrayal of Calliope the Court Jester on "Days of Our Lives" differs depending on who's telling it. While Vulture reports that Sorkin gave Dini a tape of Calliope scenes that he happened to watch on a sick day, Dini told The Hollywood Reporter he saw the episode by chance. He wanted to include a woman in the Joker's gang because the Adam West series did that for other Batman villains.
Dini knew Sorkin from college and thought of giving the Joker's new henchwoman a similar personality. He added, "I was home sick and had the TV on, and there she was on 'Days of Our Lives' playing a jester in a fantasy sequence. I saw her running around in a pied piper outfit, and I thought, 'That's kind of cute.'" Dini is also the one who pitched Sorkin as the voice for Harley and who wanted her back for more episodes than the one she was written for — despite initial hesitance from Harley's co-creator Bruce Timm.
"She was fun and fawned over the Joker and was a willing audience for him," Dini said of Harley. "The more we used her for that, the more we had this twisted relationship growing between them, where she idolized him or followed his orders to the letter. That really gave us an interesting dynamic."
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