In the 1940s, animation filmmakers Max and Dave Fleischer brought Superman to life for the first time ever in a series of theatrical animated shorts that blew people away with the style and detail that went into them (which is why they remain so popular today). Reprising their voice roles from the Adventures of Superman radio show are Bud Collyer as Clark Kent/Superman and Joan Alexander as Lois Lane.
“The Marvel of the Fleischer Superman cartoons is that they did them at all,” opines film and animation historian Leonard Maltin. “They’d done the Betty Boop and Popeye cartoons, and they’re all wonderful, but there was no effort to create any imitation of reality. They live in a cartoon world. The first time the Fleischers and their staff got to stretch their muscles was when they made Gulliver’s Travels. For that, they invented the rotoscope to trace human live action movement. But nothing they did could prepare you for the astonishing results they got when they tackled Superman. They not only replicated the look and feel of the comic books, but the staging and look of those cartoons is exceptional.”
For more of Leonard Maltin on the Superman animated shorts, please check out the podcast episode of Voices from Krypton below.
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