After yesterday’s sucktacular Donald Duck cartoon fiasco, it’s heartening to note that Metafilter directs us to a site where you can download all the great old Max Fleischer Superman cartoons.
These are some fine little adventure cartoons, and the rotoscoping—basically tracing film to make a cartoon more three dimensional—blew away just about all the other animation that was being produced at the time. And the art deco design is lovely.
Of course, there are some issues. These cartoons were produced in the ’40s, and so though Lois Lane is a pretty kick-ass dame, there are some kidnapping situations and a few offhanded comments about women that will make feminists a little squinchy. And the episode titled—ahem— Japoteurs features some nasty caricatures that were commonplace at the time. Most of the bargain DVDs that have collected these cartoons didn’t include Japoteurs for just that reason.
My personal favorite cartoons are The Mechanical Monsters, where Superman fights giant robots that transform into aeroplanes, and The Mad Scientist, in which Superman stops a death laser beam by punching it back to its source and causing a massive explosion. The little vulture sidekick in that one is pretty cute, too. And they’re free! Download them to your iPod for the next time you fly and wonder why movie studios can’t seem to make a great Superman movie to save their lives.
word of advice: when you hyperlink only one word, it is very hard to discern the dark blue text from the surrounding black text.
One of the reasons why I love my Ultimate Superman Collector’s Set is that Warner Bros included all the Fleischer Superman cartoons, restored and remastered.
WB made one great Superman movie (the first one), two flawed but still pretty darn good Superman movies (Superman II and Superman Returns) and two Superman movies so bad that one almost made me walk out of a theater even though I was only a kid when I saw it (Superman III) and the other one I haven’t had the fortitude to sit through but understand is unwatchable (Superman IV). So, they’re about on par with the Spiderman series and X-Men series of movies, which each had flawed first installments, amazing sequels and unwatchable third installments.
Iron Man had a surprisingly great debut on film. The Hulk had a flawed but watchable debut and a sequel I can’t work up the energy to rent and sit through.
Batman had the shitty Burton/Schumacher misfires and two amazing Bale/Nolan installments that wiped those out of continuity, not to mention the great 1960s Adam West movie where Batman just can’t get rid of that bomb. So I guess Batman wins.
The thing about Superman is, once you tell his origin story and set up his villain and romantic triangle, there’s almost noplace to go. His overarching mythology since his debut has basically been about maintaining a status quo.
How many great Superman stories have ever been told, in 70 years of comics, movies, TV shows and animation? Even the Fleischer cartoons, great as they are, just follow a repeating formula. Superman is a tough character to write. I think I prefer the Timm/Dini/McDuffie/Burnett animated version to all others (with the possible exception of the All Star Superman miniseries by Morrison and Quitely), but even that one still seemed to fall just short of the ideal, because he’s still more a symbol than a character. Superman is a great American myth that doesn’t really have a story other than the one of his origins and neverending struggle for truth and justice.
I could go on and on and on, but I’m starting to feel ashamed…
Shit i haven’t seen those since i was a kid and rented a tape of them from the library
@3: If you’re talking about the most recent Hulk movie, it wasn’t a sequel, and it was about a hundred times better than the Ang Lee Hulk from a few years ago.
Aislinn @5, I was talking about that one, and I’m skeptical. I kinda liked Lee’s weird Hulk movie, though the Hulk itself was the dumbest part of it.
I vaguely recall watching these on TV when I was younger. I had no idea they were so old.
You are the nerdiest nerd to ever nerd, and I salute you for it.