Fleischer's Superman

>>88417575
What's going on with that sci-fi blaster thing in the first short? There's a beam but it also seems to be shooting something down the beam.

Reminds me a railgun I guess and checking I find that the earliest similar device dates back to a surprisingly early 1918.

I wonder how much thought was put into the weapon here.

>>88417737
I always thought of those as 'pulses' in the beam.

>>88417575
Favorite Short? I can't decide. Artic Giant, Mechanical Monsters, and Billion Dollar Limited all vie for the top spot.

The animation is still glorious thanks to the rotoscope.

For the time, and historically, it's one of the most important in animation.

I read that these shorts are the origins of Superman being able to fly because it was easier to animate.

I'm not a huge Superman guy. Can anyone compare the portrayals of Clark, Lois, etc. to trends of other times?

File: lois lights them up.gif (709KB, 500x375px) Image search: [Google]

709KB, 500x375px

>>88418070
Lois is pretty pro-active in the shorts. I like that she wasn't always just a damsel in distress.

>>88418070
It's more of a Superman antics sort of thing, rather than story, but the action is excellent.

>>88417575
Ten minutes in and this shit looks fucking amazing.

>>88417809
ditto

>>88418204
She wasn't a Damsel in Distress in the first batch of Actions/Superman as well. It wasn't till a little before Mort came around to edit all the Super Family books that she was just Superman crazy Lois.

>>88418070

And kryptonite only exists because the actor for Supes in the radio show wanted a vacation. It's funny how much of the lore we consider sacred text was practically made up on the spot to cover some trifling shortcoming

>>88417575
I love the opening narrator, using the word remarkable to describe Superman. Not amazing, incredible vs unbelievable just remakable, what kind of fantastical things had that narrator witness to see Superman puching electricity and just say remarkable.

>what is the best short

I kind of like the one with the Native American villain.

Some of these shorts were cringingly racist, particularly the WWII Japanese one. But the one with the Native American villain, while there's some cliches (he wants to destroy Manhattan Island, it having been stolen from his people), they make him fleshed out and competent (a mad scientist of all things). It's actually kinda interesting.

>>88418070
About the flight, while that's a popular myth, it's not actually true! Superman first flew in the radio serial, which started in the 1930s. In early episodes, he's described as flying like a "great bird of prey, red cloak streaming in the wind" and hovers in mid-air to avoid being seen while he tries to figure out how to put out a fire.

It's a popular myth that the cartoon shorts are the origin of the flight, but it's not actually true. It does, however, make a lot of sense, so it's considered the most popular origin of his flight.

>>88419326
>>88418204
The shorts are based more on the radio episodes of the 40s, which had Lois being fairly pro-active. While she still spent plenty of time being kidnapped, she almost never (as in only in one short storyline out of over fifteen hundred episodes) considers Clark to be Superman. The one time she thinks it's possible, it's because someone else convinces her that it must be true and she helps him trap Clark in a bank vault.

However, the entire time she's worried that they might be wrong and that Clark might be hurt, and she's so horrified by the results that she instantly turns on the guy who convinced her and never even considers Clark to be Superman again.

>>88417575
The first ones that spring to mind are the Mad Scientist (Specifically when he starts to punch the laser), Billion Dollar Limited (The one where he pulls a train across the country), and The Mechanical Monsters (where he fights the inspiration for the Ghibli robots and blocks the molten metal from splashing on Lois).

Of all the shorts, I think that The Mad Scientist (though lacking a decent ending and having that odd vulture) is probably the most iconic short. The Mechanical Monsters is probably the best, with great build-up, and an actually satisfying climax.

However, I'll always have a fondness for The Showdown, where a guy pretending to be Superman robs people in a theater, and the Bulleteers, with Lois trying to trash their car with a wrench.

>>88417575
The Mad Scientist hands down.

I'm sure other shorts were just as amazing, but none of them are as engrained in my mind as that episode. It blew my mind as a kid to see Superman punch his way through a LASER.

>>88420070
>Native American villain.
This makes me think of Apache Chief.

>>88420070
>Some of these shorts were cringingly racist

I think that's part of the charm to be honest.

It's also worth noting that nationalism increases before and after a war. I'd call them more "absurdly patriotic" than I would racist.

>>88420211
>About the flight

Interesting thanks. Well, the flight thing from the FS serials is in Wikipedia. I'm actually pretty sure it's also described that way in the Superman Homepage?

>>88417575

>Does the animation still hold up today

The question is not whether or not it still holds up, but how much money you need to shovel to get it back up to par with it.

>>88421879
idk.

I do know that the Fleischer series started over a year after the radio show.

>>88422556
This is a great question.
If it was all hand-drawn cells (done by in-country professionals earning a living wage) it would be crazy expensive.
To achieve the same level of results using computers and technology, slightly less so.
To achieve the same results using computers, technology, and 3rd world labor, even cheaper, but I would still argue that the standards these shorts set are still a mile beyond what a weekly cartoon show has, and on par with all but the most lavishly budgeted animated feature films.