Superman (1940s cartoons)
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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. 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.
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[edit] History
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 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 four times the typical budget of a six-minute Fleischer Popeye the Sailor cartoon during the 1940s. To their surprise, Paramount agreed to the high cost, 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 1941 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 and ousted Max and Dave Fleischer. 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 Clark Kent. 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 used the classic opening line of 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! No, it's Superman!"
Famous Studios cancelled the series after a total of seventeen shorts had been produced, replacing it with a series of shorts based on 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. 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.
[edit] Influence
Decades later, the series strongly influenced the creation of the acclaimed animated television series Batman: The Animated Series, featuring Superman's main counterpart Batman, 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 them in his feature film, Castle in the Sky and the last episode of the second Lupin III TV series.
[edit] Filmography
As all of these cartoons are now in the public domain, free downloadable links from the Internet Archive have been provided where available. In addition, these films are widely available on VHS and DVD, usually in budget-line releases of varying quality. A more "official" release from restored and remastered 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 Superman: The Movie set, and the eight Famous Studios cartoons were included on the two-disc 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, the latter of which 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) and Dan Riba (Superman: The Animated Series) who detail the massive influence these historic animations have evoked on their own works.
[edit] Fleischer Studios
[edit] 1941
[edit] 1942
- Billion Dollar Limited [3]
- The Arctic Giant [4]
- The Bulleteers [5]
- The Magnetic Telescope [6]
- Electric Earthquake [7]
- Volcano
- Terror On The Midway
[edit] Famous Studios
[edit] 1942
- Japoteurs (no studio is credited on the original opening titles) [8]
- Showdown [9]
- Eleventh Hour [10]
- Destruction, Inc. [11]
[edit] 1943
[edit] External links
- The Super Guide to the Fleischer Superman Cartoons
- Superman (1941) at IMDB
- Timberg Alley - website of Sammy Timberg, the composer for the Superman cartoons
- "The Real Heroes of Superman" essay on Max Fleischer from Flixens.com
[edit] Movie downloads
- PPCVIDZ
- Toonami Digital Arsenal
- The Original Superman Cartoons
- Superman, Billion Dollar Limited, Destruction, Inc, and Volcano in Windows and Real file formats
- Vintage ToonCast: all 17 cartoons in flash, iPod, and Quicktime formats.
| Superman in popular media | |
|---|---|
| Actors: | Bud Collyer • Kirk Alyn • George Reeves • Danny Dark • Christopher Reeve • Beau Weaver • John Haymes Newton • Gerard Christopher • Dean Cain • Timothy Daly • Tom Welling • George Newbern • Brandon Routh |
| Film: | Superman (1948) • Atom Man vs. Superman • Superman and the Mole Men • Superman (1978) • Superman II • Superman III • Supergirl • Superman IV: The Quest for Peace • Superman Returns • Superman II: The Richard Donner Cut |
| Television: | Adventures of Superman • Superboy • Lois & Clark • Smallville • Look, Up in the Sky! |
| Animation: | 1940s cartoons • The New Adventures of Superman • Superman • Superman: The Animated Series • Legion of Super Heroes |
| Other media: | Radio • Broadway Theater • Newspaper Strips |
