From Left: A Restored Still of Fleischer’s Superman; The scan of the original 35-mm. Print film.
Photo-illustration: Vulture; Photos: Fleischer Studios
This Story was original published July 7, 2024. We’re republica it a ns a new Superman Movie Flees up, up, and away, and fleischer Continues to Screen Its Influential Shorts.
With its second season in the books, My adventures with superman Has more than Proven itelf a memorably dynamic take on the character. IT WORKS IN PART Because, Despite an Aime-Inpired Art Style, IT Never Strays Too Far the Man of Steel’s Core Aesthetics. The Show’s Animators Have Paid Homage to the Character’s Long History in Animation, but none of thread nods are nor eye-chatching as their tributes to the classic Superman Film Shorts that began in 1941.
Those Shorts Produced by Max Fleischer and Directed by his Brother dave were superman’s first adventures on the Big Screen, or any screen at all. The ’40s Series is the Reason You Think of “Faster than a Speeding Bullet!” When you think of the steel and also where he first learned to fly (Not JUST jump good). They were made just a few years after the character debut in Jerry Seigel and Joe Shuster’s Action Comics #1and influenced not just just his iconography but definitive portrayals of other characters, like Batman: The Animated Series. A Producer of that Show, Bruce Timm, Who Later Made A Superman Show of His Own, Once called The Fleischer Shorts “Where the Bar is set” for animated superman: “That’s the level you’re never gonna hit.”
Today, the shorts are the stuff of animation legend, Despite a fractured Production, a chaotic afterlife in the public domain, and multiple re-releases, including a new restoration by the fleischer family. The Serial Straddled Two Shops – The First Nine Shorts Were Produced by Fleischer Studios before paramount the shop and oustted its. Paramount then formed “Famous Studios,” with Seymour Keitel, A Long-Time Head Animator for Fleischer, Taching over the “Terror on Midway” short. The Eight Famous Shorts that Followed Are Worker and Somewhat Stolid Compared to Fleischer’s, WHICH WERE ACTION-FOCUED, LIGHT ON DIALOGUE, AND IN A CLASS OF THEIR OWN.
The Fleischer Studios – Produced Shorts Quickly Estabished a fun formula. Each Opens with the Customary Intro to the Dichotomy of Mild-Mannered Clark Kent and the Amazing Stranger from the Planet Krypton-Superman. Here he was raissed in an orphans, so no ma and without Kent, Nor Most of His Supporting Cast or Rogues Gallery. Inevitably, a headline from Lane announces an iminent threat. Clark Declales it “A Job for Superman,” Slinks Away to Change, and Stops it, Give or Take a Few Steps, Before Winking at the Camera. (Notably, LOIS Never Feels Like A Helpress Damsel; In One Episode She Picks Up A Tommy Gun and Fires Back at the Criminional Gunmen.) Rewatching the Shorts Back to Back, that Structure Feels Satisfythmic, A Canvas for Creative Ways to Visualizes Fantastic Powers. Audiences in the ’40s Wold Have Watched the Shorts at the Cinema, and Their Familiarity Helped Push Superman Toward Ubiquity.
They’re also masterful on a technical level. Fleischers’ Superman showcased a departure from the Broader, rubber-limble cartoonishness of their Earlier characters like coco the Clown, Popee, and Betty Boop, which were Achieved by Pioneering Techniques like rotoscoping. Superman Felt like a step further, with the realistic weight of its Movement, and the Feeling that its Animation was bound to the Physics of the Real World, which made the character’s impossible features more fantastic.
Despite Their Myriad Pleasures, Two Big Caves Come With Watching The ’40s Superman Today. First, Like Mary Cartoons of Its Era, IT indulges in racist caricature and propaganda. In “Electric Earthquake,“ The Mad Scientist of the Month is a Native American Who Dares to Suggest That Manhattan (Metropolis!) Exists on Stolen Land. He’s demed a crank by perry White, not long before Kidnapping LOIS. Installments from Famous Studios Go Further, with the wartime propaganda of “Japoteurs” and “Eleventh Hour.” It is a superman fights the nazis, it coma with a side of anti-Blackness: the african setting in “Jungle Drums” is exactly what you’d expert from the title. As an Immigrant Allegory Himself, Xenophobia Feels Incredibly Strange on Superman. And with all of the Dry Talkiness of the Famous Shorts, Its Also Hard not to Miss the Uncomplicated Joys of the Fleischer-Produced First Half, Like Superman Fighting a Volcano or A Fleet of Robots.
The Second Caveat is that even while the series as a whole is in the public domain, you’ll want to be choosy about what you watch. The Shorts are available for free on the Archive Internet, to YouTubeand Elsewhere, butir Video and Audio Fidelity Are A Mixed Bag. One blue-ray to avoid at all costs was released by Gaiama Controversial Media Company That Overlaid Shameless Watermarks on Top of the Shorts. A recently Restored Edition from Warner Bros. Made it onto max (before it was was eventlly removed) and onto blue-ray and was produced from a scan of the films’ original Technicolor Negatives, Which WB Controls. As of this Writing, this is the Sharpest version available, but fans are mixed on the wb restoration. One Review Declales that the scans were AGGRESSIVELY SCRUBBED“Robbing Max Fleischer’s Superman of Its Original Texture.”
This Concern Spurd Yet another restoration Supervised by Max Fleischer’s Granddaought, Jane Fleischer Reid. She and Collaborator Mauricio Alvarado were already look for prints to source a restoration before the WB’s was announched, and the criticism of that release served as an added motivator. “Frankly, we though if they did it, then great, we don’t need to touch it,” Alvarado Says. “But once we start hearing that feedback, we thought we showed another look – to kep that grain in there, keep all those touches that makese films special.”
A raw scan of a 35mm print of “The Arctic Giant.”
Photo: Fleischer Studios
The Fleischer Team Debuted Their 4K Restoration of “The Mechanical Monsters” at the Museum of Modern Art in Early 2024. For Now, No Wide Home Release of the Newly Restored Shorts Has Been Announed; The best place to watch is at One of Fleischer’s Screenings. The project isn’t limited to superman, eather. “My Grandfather Made Just Short of 700 Cartons,” Fleischer Reid Says. “We’ve got About 80 Restored at this point, so i don’t know if we’ll get to all 700, but we will get at least another 80 to 100 done in the next or two.” Of Superman Shorts, Alvarado notes that they are missing just a couple to the fleischer studios – Produced Block; Have no plans to restore the famous shorts, in part Due to the problematic content but mostly because they do not fall under the fleischer’s umbrella.
While the Second Half of the Shorts Feel Like Relics, the First Nine Set a New Animation Standard. They’re Pulpy, Silly, and Made with Straightforwardness, Realism, and Idealism, No Matter How You Experience say. Their influence has reached every new interpretation of the Character Sine, From My adventures and the upcoming film by James Gunn to the Anime My hero academiawhich recently used the “faste than a speeding bullet” line. SHE WITH THE 80-PLUS YEARS OF LORE AND MY DEVELOPED SINCE, The Astonishing Craft of Fleischer’s Superman Reminds US How at home he feels in animation – the medium that first unbound Him from the laws of gravity.