by Jason Mitchell
Our resident public domain and creative content expert, Jason, is back to share his love of animated shorts.
I had intended to cover a public domain work with a holiday theme this month, but as it turns out, there really isn’t that much in the public domain that has a holiday theme. Instead, I’m going to talk about a series of animated shorts that I consider one of the greatest gifts the Golden Age of animation has given us. [rimshot]
Fleischer Studios is a name largely unknown today, but the company’s contribution to animation as an art form is immeasurable. While Disney was and remains the leader in animation, the Fleischer brothers’ works were a strong competitor of Walt’s for years, even more so than the Warner Bros. animation division for a time.
While Disney’s influence has shaped the popular conception of what animation should look like and who its audience is, in the early days of animation, there was no prejudice that cartoons should be cutesy affairs for kids. Before television, animated shorts played in theaters before feature films, and were meant for a mass audience.
While the Disney and Warner Bros. shorts primarily used animals as main characters, Fleischer Studios’ most iconic characters were human, such as Popeye and Betty Boop. This is partially due to Max Fleischer’s invention of the rotoscope.
Max’s invention allowed animators to use live-action footage as a reference for animation. Actors would be filmed portraying the action to be animated. The resulting footage would be projected onto glass and traced by an animator, frame by frame. This allowed for extremely lifelike animation. The technique of rotoscoping is still used today, although usually in digital form.
In 1941, Paramount Pictures, who had recently come to own Fleischer Studios, was interested in adapting the popular Superman comic books into a series of animated shorts. The Fleischers were already working on their second animated feature and were not interested in the project. In an attempt to dissuade Paramount from financing the Superman series, the Fleischers told Paramount that the shorts would cost an unheard-of $100,000 each to produce. Surprisingly, Paramount approved a $50,000 budget for the first short, which was still around three times the budget the Fleischers were accustomed to. With resources previously unavailable to them, the Fleischers decided to take on the Superman project.
The series is a landmark in animation history. The huge budgets allowed for elaborate action scenes, beautifully detailed backgrounds, and a fantastic musical score. The rotoscope animation techniques gave Superman realistic movements, and the already familiar cast of voice actors from the Superman radio series were used to voice Superman and Lois Lane.
Unlike the West-Coast Disney and Warner Bros., Fleischer Studios was based in New York, an advantage in making the Metropolis of the Superman shorts feel like a living presence. The lighting techniques, camera angles, and overall look would anticipate the film noir movement.
The series of 17 shorts would have a lasting influence, most notably in the modern depiction of another of DC Comics’ most popular characters. Frank Miller acknowledges Max and Dave Fleischer’s work as being influential on his 1986 series The Dark Knight Returns, a major milestone in the Batman canon. The Superman series was also highly influential on Batman: The Animated Series, which debuted in 1992. The series would become a milestone in its own right, launching the DC Animated Universe and promoting the idea that modern animation can reach an adult audience.
Any fan of animation, comic books, or just good action stories will love this series. It really doesn’t get any better. All 17 shorts are in the public domain and available for free download or stream on archive.org. Warner Home Video has also released a DVD set with restored versions from the original masters.
(PS….we’re also working on making these shorts fully accessible; with video description and captions! A choice few will be up on our YouTube page soon! We’ll be sure to announce it when they’re up and ready.)
