Fleicher Studio's Superman.

I recently watched Fleicher's Superman on YT and i can't help but to feel impressed with how good those cartoon shorts actually were.
Atmospheric, scary and quite dark at times. The dialogue is limited but it doesn't hurt the show, it actually improves it.
It is hardly to imagine that these came out when our grandparents were teens!
The spirit of the forties were depicted excellent and the animation quality is simply spectacular, it can easily eat today's 2d animated attempts for breakfast. The only negative aspect of it was the anti japanese propaganda in a certain episode.
It was a real same that they didn't made a Batman cartoon, they would have nail it.



My favourite episodes were...
[B]The Mad Scientist[/B]: Lex Luthor's prototype develops a deadly ray and blackmails the city to obey his demands.
[B]Terror In Midway[/B]: Chaos rises in a circus when a gigantic gorilla escapes from captivity.
Man... the scene were everybody are realising that the gorilla is out for blood is probably the scariest moment in animated history!
[B]Mechanical Monsters[/B]: Giants robots are terrorizing Metropolis.
[B]The Mummy Strikes[/B]: The death of an archaiologist and the wrongly accused assistant for the late doctor brings Clark face to fist with super human giant mummies.
Excellent dark and scary atmosphere...

A high point in animation, no doubt. And it's great they are still available.

Always refreshing to see someone discovering these for the first time. Reminds me of the first time I saw them and the feeling I had.


If I had my druthers, I'd like to see live action Superman based on these shorts. Not the story content necessarily, I'd like something not so juvenile. But I would like to see him in a period piece around 1940, and with the power set he has in those shorts, along with the general tone and design.

That animation technique was beautiful! "Mechanical Monsters" is probably my favorite non-comics Superman story.

Fleischer really used their rotoscoping technology to good effect on those cartoons. And their art direction was always strong and stylish, even on their more "cartoony" cartoons like Betty Boop and Popeye.

The Fleischer Supermans are the best Golden Age superhero cartoons, I think. And they are in the public domain, so they'll always be available.

I had these Superman cartoons on VHS and then my g/f's father gave me a DVD set of them for Christmas a few years ago.

I esp. liked how in one episode, Lois Lane goes off to cover a story and Clark says to Perry White, "Mr. White, don't you think it's dangerous for Lois to cover this story?" and Perry gives Clark a shrug and a look, as if to say, "You want to try and stop her?" Even back then, Lois was a strong and stubborn woman.

I also like how in The Mummy Strikes, they didn't want to use the name King Tut, so they call him King Tush. I laughed really hard at that one.

[QUOTE=AJBopp;3783373]Always refreshing to see someone discovering these for the first time. Reminds me of the first time I saw them and the feeling I had.


If I had my druthers, I'd like to see live action Superman based on these shorts. Not the story content necessarily, I'd like something not so juvenile. But I would like to see him in a period piece around 1940, and with the power set he has in those shorts, along with the general tone and design.[/QUOTE]

I think both Batman and Superman work best in a quasi 1940s ish timeline and/or look. It's why the cartoons are still the best Superman toons and why the BTAS is so timeless as well.

[QUOTE=Minerboh;3783316]I recently watched Fleicher's Superman on YT and i can't help but to feel impressed with how good those cartoon shorts actually were.
Atmospheric, scary and quite dark at times. The dialogue is limited but it doesn't hurt the show, it actually improves it.
It is hardly to imagine that these came out when our grandparents were teens!
The spirit of the forties were depicted excellent and the animation quality is simply spectacular, it can easily eat today's 2d animated attempts for breakfast. The only negative aspect of it was the anti japanese propaganda in a certain episode.
It was a real same that they didn't made a Batman cartoon, they would have nail it.



My favourite episodes were...
[B]The Mad Scientist[/B]: Lex Luthor's prototype develops a deadly ray and blackmails the city to obey his demands.
[B]Terror In Midway[/B]: Chaos rises in a circus when a gigantic gorilla escapes from captivity.
Man... the scene were everybody are realising that the gorilla is out for blood is probably the scariest moment in animated history!
[B]Mechanical Monsters[/B]: Giants robots are terrorizing Metropolis.
[B]The Mummy Strikes[/B]: The death of an archaiologist and the wrongly accused assistant for the late doctor brings Clark face to fist with super human giant mummies.
Excellent dark and scary atmosphere...[/QUOTE]

I had seen some of them years ago but just recently saw all of them. They were great. They came out when my parents were kids.