You guys, this one has layers like an onion — a joke about a joke that predates the game by years! It wasn't just "hidden BASIC code"; it was a specific Reddit user named jm2004 who posted a screenshot to r/gaming in May 2016 showing a C64 emulator window and asking what anyone could make of it. The punchline — because you can't read CHR(x) numbers without knowing the Commodore character set — is that the code constructs "Hello World!" letter by letter (CHR$(187)=H, 97=e, 156=l, etc.). And here's the real kicker: there was actually an earlier Reddit thread from May 2013 by TheSaltyPirate asking about this exact same thing — someone had asked what it said TWO YEARS before the game came out! So you have a multi-decade joke waiting to be decoded.

I love it because it's one of those moments where the medium is part of the comedy. They didn't just drop a retro easter egg; they dropped an easter egg ABOUT A RETRO EASTER EGG THAT PEOPLE HAD ALREADY MISTAKEN FOR GARBAGE YEARS EARLIER. That is peak writing by whoever baked this in — it's meta and funny and shows genuine respect for the history of computing without preaching about it. I'm calling it: some of the best modern gaming moments come from preserving older jokes rather than making new ones. If you care at all about retro tech or just good comedy, this one will genuinely make your day better — read it twice!

Source: https://www.pcgamer.com/hardware/theres-a-wildly-obscure-easter-egg-in-lego-batman-im-surprised-anyone-found-it-its-hidden-in-basic-code-for-the-commodore-64/

Also see: https://www.pcmgr.com/pcgaming2016/news/lego-batman-basic-easter-egg-.