The Superman animated cartoons , commonly known as the "Fleischer Superman cartoons" were a series of seventeen animated Technicolor short films, released by Paramount Pictures between 1941 and 1943, based upon the comic book character Superman.

History

The first nine cartoons were produced by Fleischer Studios (the name by which the cartoons are commonly known). In 1942, Fleischer Studios was dissolved and reorganized as Famous Studios, which produced the final eight shorts. These cartoons are seen as some of the finest, and certainly the most lavishly budgeted, animated cartoons produced during The Golden Age of American animation. In 1994, the series was voted #33 of the 50 Greatest Cartoons of all time by members of the animation field.

By mid-1941, brothers Max and Dave Fleischer had recently finished their first animated feature film, Gulliver's Travels, and were deep into production on their second, Mister Bug Goes to Town. They were reluctant to commit themselves to another major project at the time when they were approached by their distributor, and owner since May of 1941, Paramount Pictures. Paramount was interested in cashing in on the phenomenal popularity of the new Superman comic books by producing a series of theatrical cartoons based upon the character. The Fleischers hoped to discourage Paramount from committing to the series, so they informed the studio that the cost of producing such a series of cartoons would be about $100,000 per short -- an amazingly high figure, about six times the typical budget of a six-minute Fleischer Popeye the Sailor cartoon during the 1940s. To their surprise, Paramount agreed to a budget of $50,000 - half the requested sum, but still three times the cost of the average Fleischer short - , and the Fleischers were committed to the project.

The first cartoon in the series, simply titled Superman, was released on September 26, 1941, and was nominated for the 1942 Academy Award for Best Short Subject: Cartoons. It lost to Lend a Paw, a Pluto cartoon from Walt Disney Productions and RKO Pictures.

The Fleischers produced nine cartoons in the Superman series before Paramount took over the Fleischer Studios facility in Miami and ousted Max and Dave Fleischer, due to the fact that the brothers were no longer able to cooperate with each other, and the studio's co-owner Dave Fleischer had left Florida to produce Screen Gems cartoons for Columbia Pictures in California as well. The sleek look of the series continued, but there was a noticeable change in the storylines of the later shorts of the series. The first nine cartoons had more of a science fiction aspect to them, as they involved the Man of Steel fighting robots, giant dinosaurs, meteors from outer space, and other perils. The later eight cartoons in the series dealt more with World War II propaganda stories, such as in Eleventh Hour, which finds Superman going to China (then occupied by Japan) to commit acts of espionage in order to reduce the morale of the enemy.

Rotoscoping, the process of tracing animation drawings from live-action footage, was used extensively to lend realism to the human characters and Superman. Many of Superman's actions, however, could not be rotoscoped (flying, lifting very large objects, and so on). In these cases, the Fleischer lead animators, many of whom were not trained in figure drawing, animated roughly and depended upon their assistants, many of whom were inexperienced with animation but were trained in figure drawing, to keep Superman "on model" during his action sequences.

The first seven cartoons originated the classic opening line which was later adopted by the Superman radio series: "Faster than a speeding bullet! More powerful than a locomotive! Able to leap tall buildings in a single bound!" However, for the final two of the first nine Fleischer-produced cartoons and first of the eight Famous Studios-produced cartoons, the opening was changed to "Faster than a speeding bullet! More powerful than a locomotive! Able to soar higher than any plane!". With the changeover to Famous Studios and the loss of the Fleischers, the opening line of the cartoon series was changed to "Faster than a streak of lightning! More powerful than the pounding surf! Mightier than a roaring hurricane!" This series also continued (from the radio series) the use of the now-classic exclamation: "Look! Up in the sky! It's a bird! It's a plane! It's Superman!"

Famous Studios ended the series after a total of seventeen shorts had been produced, replacing it with a series of shorts based upon Marge's Little Lulu. The high cost of the series kept it from continuing in the face of budgetary restrictions that were imposed after removing the Fleischers from the studio. The first cartoon had a budget of $50,000 (equivalent to $1,316,000 today), and the other sixteen each had a budget of $30,000 (equivalent to $789,600 for each of the 8 other Fleischer cartoons and $731,111.10 for each of the 8 Famous Studios cartoons), bringing the total cost of the series to $530,000 (equivalent to $13,481,688.80 today). In addition, Paramount citing waning interest in the Superman shorts among theater exhibitors.

All seventeen cartoons were sold to Motion Pictures for Television (producers of the TV series The Adventures of Superman) in 1955, and all eventually fell into the public domain (their copyrights having not been renewed by either Paramount, NTA/Republic, EMKA, Ltd./Universal Studios, or even Motion Pictures for Television and DC Comics), and have been widely distributed on VHS, laserdisc, and DVD. Nonetheless, Warner Bros., via parent Time Warner's ownership of DC Comics, now owns the original film elements to the cartoons.

The voice of Superman for the entire series was provided by Bud Collyer, who also performed the lead character's voice during the Superman radio series. Joan Alexander was the voice of Lois Lane, a role she also portrayed on radio alongside Collyer. Music for the series was composed by Sammy Timberg, the Fleischers' long-time musical collaborator.

A 1944 Famous Studios Popeye the Sailor cartoon entitled She-Sick Sailors parodied the Superman cartoons, two years after production on the cartoons had ceased. In this cartoon, Popeye's enemy Bluto dresses up as Superman to fool Olive Oyl, and he challenges Popeye to feats of super-strength that "only Superman" can do. The musical score for She-Sick Sailors includes echoes of Sammy Timberg's Fleischer/Famous Superman score.

In a rare move for a competing studio, Leon Schlesinger Productions, producers of Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies, featured Timberg's Superman theme in Snafuperman, a 1944 Private Snafu cartoon Schlesinger produced for the U.S. Army.

Influence
Decades later, the series strongly influenced the creation of the acclaimed animated television series Batman: The Animated Series, the 1990s Superman: The Animated Series, and the feature length film Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow. Award-winning comic book artist Alex Ross has also listed the shorts among the inspiration for his take on Superman's look. Japanese animation director Hayao Miyazaki was influenced by the robots from "The Mechanical Monsters" short and used designs based on them in his feature film, Castle in the Sky and the last episode of the second Lupin III TV series. Other famous animators, such as Osamu Tezuka (Astro Boy), also say they were heavily influenced by these films. The 2006 film Superman Returns also pays homage to these Superman cartoons.

Availability
The Paramount Superman cartoons are widely available on VHS and DVD, usually in budget-line releases of varying quality due to their public domain status. Among the best reviewed of these was a 1991 VHS set produced by Bosko Video, titled The Complete Superman Collection: Golden Anniversary Edition - The Paramount Cartoon Classics of Max & Dave Fleischer released as two VHS volumes which featured high-quality transfers from 35mm prints. The Bosko Video set was issued on DVD by Image Entertainment as The Complete Superman Collection: Diamond Anniversary Edition in 2000. The Bosko Video release was not associated with DC Comics or their parent company Warner Brothers in any official way.

Another DVD was Superman: The Ultimate Max Fleischer Cartoon Collection from VCI Entertainment released on May 30, 2006, a month prior to the release of the film Superman Returns. DVD features included: all 17 animated shorts digitally restored in Dolby Digital 2.0 audio, bonus cartoon: Snafuperman (1944 Warner Bros. wartime parody of the Fleischer cartoons, featuring Private Snafu and produced for the U.S. Army), "Behind the Cape" synopses and fun facts with each cartoon, a DVD fold-out booklet with notes on the series, bios of the voice actors, producer Max Fleischer, and Superman, a bonus trailer for the 1948 Superman serial with Kirk Alyn, and a recorded audio phone interview with Joan Alexander (voice of Lois Lane). This release, like the Bosko Video release, was not associated with DC Comics or their parent company Warner Brothers.

The first "official" home video releases of the series were by Warner Home Video in 1987 and 1988, in a series of VHS and LaserDisc packages called TV's Best Adventures Of Superman. Four volumes were released, where each volume contained 2 selected episodes of the classic 1950s TV series Adventures of Superman (one black & white episode and one color episode), plus a selected Max Fleischer Superman short (marking the first "official" release of such as Warner holds the original film elements).

A more "official" release from restored and remastered superior vault elements was released on DVD on November 28, 2006 as part of Warner Home Video's Superman re-releases. The nine Fleischer Studios cartoons were released as part of the four-disc special edition Superman: The Movie set, and the eight Famous Studios cartoons were included on the two-disc special edition Superman II set. The entire collected Fleischer / Famous cartoons were included in the box sets The Christopher Reeve Superman Collection and The Ultimate Superman Collection, where both sets also included a 13 minute short documentary on the history of these cartoons, entitled First Flight: The Fleischer Superman Series. This documentary features interviews with surviving members, relatives and biographers of the animation and production team, also contemporary animators such as Bruce Timm (Batman: The Animated Series), Paul Dini and Dan Riba (Superman: The Animated Series) who detail the influence these cartoons have had on their own works.

Filmography
As all of these cartoons are now in the public domain, free downloadable links from the Internet Archive have been provided where available.

Fleischer Studios
1941

* Superman (a.k.a. The Mad Scientist) (September 26)
* The Mechanical Monsters (November 28)

1942

* Billion Dollar Limited (January 9)
* The Arctic Giant (February 27)
* The Bulleteers (March 27)
* The Magnetic Telescope (April 24)
* Electric Earthquake (May 15)
* Volcano (July 10)
* Terror on the Midway (August 28)

Famous Studios
1942

* Japoteurs (no studio is credited on the original opening titles, September 18)
* Showdown (October 16)
* Eleventh Hour (November 20)
* Destruction, Inc. (December 25)

1943

* The Mummy Strikes (February 19)
* Jungle Drums (March 26)
* The Underground World (June 18)
* Secret Agent (July 30)

The article "Superman (1940s cartoons)" is part of the Wikipedia encyclopedia. It is licensed under the terms of the GNU FDL.

modified: 2007-11-27 16:40:36