Superman: The Fleischer Cartoons
Whether media is electronic, print, or online it’s a window to a different era. Even that post on a blog is a miniature time machine, tapping into a past perhaps just a few minutes ago. Maybe more than most, works in the public domain capture the zeitgeist of their times more than works in which copyright has been kept up to date.
The classic Superman cartoons produced by Max and Dave Fleischer in the 1940s are a prime example. The brothers are most well known for dozens of Popeye cartoons and for creating Betty Boop. They pioneered rotoscoping, which was used to animate live action, a process that is still in wide use.
The Superman cartoons are much like any of the other Fleischer cartoons, but at an even higher level. Full, fluid animation, great amounts of art-deco detail, unusual camera work. Most of the cartoons we see on TV now don’t come close to matching the work done by the Fleischers. Only expensive Studio Ghibli and Disney productions come close, or exceed, that level of animated quality. That’s not surprising, since the Fleischer Superman cartoons were budgeted at $100,000 per episode, which was a princely sum for a 10 minute cartoon in the 1940s.
From a plotting standpoint, the 17 cartoons are blandly similar, but hugely entertaining. Somebody does something they shouldn’t do, either through investigation or by accident Superman finds the culprits, and brings them to justice. There’s not much in way of subplots or subtext. But there is lots of property damage, lots of people get themselves shot up or crushed, Lois Lane is dangerously impetuous, and no one has a clue that Clark Kent is Superman.
They also have a darkness to them, which is unusual for most of the Superman library. Not only was there heavy use of earth tones and night sequences, the stories had shadows over themselves as well. The Fleischers were obviously quite influenced by film noir, a genre that was quite popular at the time (and still influences movie making today). It’s quite likely the tone of the cartoons reflected public anxiety during the run up to World War II.
Despite the sameness of the storytelling, they open a rare view into the attitudes and mores of the 1940s, a view that is often unseen and hidden away. There are many many movies and cartoons from that time period that are no longer seen because they would now be considered politically incorrect or simply embarrassing. I consider that to be a great tragedy. Not only are we missing out on some crackerjack entertainment, but there is much that we can learn about ourselves. As George Santayana has said, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”
Several of the Fleischer cartoons contain stereotypical mad scientists, with the value of scientific advances often questioned. “Better Living Through Science?” Not exactly. Although in The Electric Earthquake we are introduced to a motivation that was rare in movies during that time period. The city stomping T-Rex in The Arctic Giant predates Godzilla by more than a decade.
The most significant societal viewpoints, though, occurred after Paramount took full control of the Fleischer studio and booted out Max and Dave. Under the new name of Famous Studios, the Superman cartoons entered an era of war propaganda with extremely broad stereotypes of Japanese and German conducting nefarious deeds in the U.S. and Superman even single-handedly destroying the Yokohama Shipyards! There was very little subtlety in this propaganda. The designs of the Japanese characters are shockingly clichéd. There seems to be little motivation other than the fact they are bad guys and they are going to do bad things. I’ve seen the episode The Japoteurs whacked to the point where it was renamed The Saboteurs with all references to Japan eliminated, even though the spy looks and sounds clichéd Japanese. The pidgin Japanese and German spoken by the villains, hearing them decades afterward, is comical.
Again, reflective of the time, these cartoons are quite Caucasian. There aren’t many people of color, and when there are, they are painted with embarrassingly broad stereotypes. Blacks fare especially poorly in the one episode in which they are predominant.
During the 1940s, unions were on the rise and beginning to flex their economic and political muscle. This was also a time in which many unions were riddled with corruption. Sure enough, there’s a thinly disguised anti-union episode.
Because these cartoons are in the public domain, they’ve been packaged and repackaged in many different ways, and they go in and out of print. Most often, they can be found in DVD bargain bins, varying wildly in quality.
The DVDs I have are two discs, sold separately, by Goodtimes Video. The set was packaged by theme, not by production number or release date. The discs are Superman vs. “Nature & War” and “The Monsters & Villains.” Both feature nice artwork on the cases and full color screened labels on the DVDs. Goodtimes’ restoration is reasonably good with most of the problems probably resulting from the degradation of the prints they were working with. Picture quality is good for the most part, as opposed to adequate. Sound restoration is hit and miss. My biggest complaint is that they added special sound effects when building the stereo soundtrack from a mono source. The effects are intrusive and distracting. There are no bonus features on the DVDs.
Politically incorrect? You bet. Big Fun? Oh yes. Works of Art? Definitely. Historically relevant? Absolutely. I might even go so far as to encourage a teacher to use some of these cartoons in their civics or American History classes.