Random Superman Cartoons

Anybody familiar with these old "Superman" cartoons from the 40s? Pretty neat stuff. They were produced/directed by the Fleisher brothers (Dave and Max), fresh off of the early "Popeye" toons. They made seventeen of them for Paramount Pictures (thru their own Famous Studios) between 1941 and 1945. I had a cheapo public-domain VHS compilation tape of these toons years ago but the quality was terrible so I dumped it. Years go by, my son becomes obsessed with Superman, and we find a DVD of these cartoons in the dollar store. He sez "Can we buy it Dad?" and I'm like "Aw geez, I remember these, they suck," haha. However, watching' em on this DVD was like seeing 'em for the first time. Whoever released these DVDs (there are a total of three on the Digiview label) must've sprung for a remaster/cleanup on the cartoons, or they were just lucky enough to find decent quality master copies, cuz the colors look fantastic, the sound is great, no scratches or dark spots, etc. Anyway, I'm rambling (must be the PBR) but these Superman toons KICK ASS.

This one "Billion Dollar Limited" is my son's favorite. We watched this one together tonight before he went to bed. It combines his two favorite things: superheroes and trains.

Enjoy!

Here's another one -- "The Arctic Giant" circa 1943. Toho, you might find this one particularly interesting, I'd swear that the scenes of the dinosaur rampaging thru the city were an influence on the guys who later made "Godzilla."

That animation is still beautiful by today's standards. All hand drawn. Super high quality stuff. You son is getting the good stuff. Of course in a couple of years he'll be exposed to the Simpsons. That's a whole different kind of high quality stuff.

Was never a huge Superman fan, I always preferred Batman. But I do like these early cartoons

One more and I'm out: this is "The Mechanical Monsters" (my son's second favorite of this series)... watch how many stupid things Lois Lane does during this one so Superman has to come rescue her... haha... my son sez "Well Daddy, if Lois didn't get in so much trouble, Superman wouldn't have a job!"

DeathCult wrote:

Was never a huge Superman fan, I always preferred Batman. But I do like these early cartoons

The toons from the 40s and 50s have so much style and pizazz. Nothing that's coming out nowadays has the same vibe.

I do like Batman a lot too, the "Batman: Animated Series" from the early 90s was freakin' kick ass... that's my fave filmed version of Batman (other than the Adam West TV show, which of course will always be #1!)

spectrefate wrote:

That animation is still beautiful by today's standards. All hand drawn. Super high quality stuff. You son is getting the good stuff. Of course in a couple of years he'll be exposed to the Simpsons. That's a whole different kind of high quality stuff.

I was reading up on these toons on IMDB and it sez that the Fleischer bros. didn't even wanna do "Superman" at first because they knew it would be a ton of work to make'em look good. So when they were approached by Paramount to do'em, they asked for a budget of something like $100,000 an episode, which of course was an outrageous sum at that time (even Disney's cartoon shorts didn't cost that much back then), figuring that Paramount would tell'em to go screw and they'd weasel out of it... but to their surprise, Paramount ponied up the $$. That's why these look so damn good. And you're right, they still look great today.

Fat Freddy wrote:

DeathCult wrote:

Was never a huge Superman fan, I always preferred Batman. But I do like these early cartoons

The toons from the 40s and 50s have so much style and pizazz. Nothing that's coming out nowadays has the same vibe.

I do like Batman a lot too, the "Batman: Animated Series" from the early 90s was freakin' kick ass... that's my fave filmed version of Batman (other than the Adam West TV show, which of course will always be #1!)

I still have The Joker that Mego made from that series

DeathCult wrote:

I still have The Joker that Mego made from that series

Awwww man, Mego action figures were DA BOMB! I saw a great web site devoted to those toys a while back,I think it was called "The Mego Museum," if I find it again I'll post a link for ya.

Fat Freddy wrote:

DeathCult wrote:

I still have The Joker that Mego made from that series

Awwww man, Mego action figures were DA BOMB! I saw a great web site devoted to those toys a while back,I think it was called "The Mego Museum," if I find it again I'll post a link for ya.

Theres a guy around where I live who has a ton of them and makes new custom Mego type figures, pretty cool stuff. When I have a chance, Ill post a picture of the Joker.

OK, since we seem to be having a lotta fun here, I'll throw out another one. This is titled simply "Superman" (a.k.a. "The Mad Scientist"), which was the first of the Fleischer series. I get a kick out of the mad scientist's vulture sidekick/mascot.



And here's a goody: "Japoteurs" (1942). World War II was in full swing by this time, so the Japanese bad guys in this one are such racist stereotypes that it's almost painful to watch now. But hey, they were "the enemy" back then!!

I can't believe you got a DVD of this stuff for a dollar. That's awesome.

http://www.amazon.com/Complete-Superman-Cartoons-Diamond-Anniversary/dp/6305943389/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=dvd&qid=1226026857&sr=8-1

I need to get my hands on these for that price.

Awesome stuff! I have a set of Popeye ones like this. Hopefully I can find these though

spectrefate wrote:

I can't believe you got a DVD of this stuff for a dollar. That's awesome.

Yep, I now have the entire series of 17 Superman toons and it cost a grand total of three dollars. Two DVDs were all Superman (one is called "Superman: The Bulleteers" and the other is "Superman: Showdown") and the last is a combo of Superman and a couple of Popeyes called "Out To Punch" (haha). Best three bills I ever spent at good ole Just-A-Buck.

spectrefate wrote:

http://www.amazon.com/Complete-Superman-Cartoons-Diamond-Anniversary/dp/6305943389/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=dvd&qid=1226026857&sr=8-1

I need to get my hands on these for that price.

Hell yea, for five bucks you can't go wrong.

These toons have apparently gone into the public domain so there are literally zillions of different DVDs of them out there. The ones I bought @ the dollar store were on the Digiview label.

Last time I was in there I noticed that they now have DVDs of those Superman cartoons in Spanish. "El Hombre Super!"

Here is the link Freddy for the Mego Museum


http://www.megomuseum.com/index.html

spectrefate wrote:

You son is getting the good stuff.

I feel I have to do something to counteract all the SpongeBob and other crappy cartoons he watches, so I try to dose him with as many classic toons as I can... we both enjoy watching vintage Looney Tunes and Tom & Jerry stuff together as well...!

I just watched a marathon of Batman The Animated series on Toon Disney yesterday night. You should get your son some of those DVD's too Freddy, great stuff!

Very heavily influenced by the animation of these early Superman cartoons too.

DeathCult wrote:

I just watched a marathon of Batman The Animated series on Toon Disney yesterday night. You should get your son some of those DVD's too Freddy, great stuff!

Very heavily influenced by the animation of these early Superman cartoons too.

Haha, yea, I caught a bit of that on Toon Disney last night too... the episode where Harvey Dent becomes Two-Face. That really was a fantastic show. I have a bunch of those taped on VHS, I've played 'em for my son from time to time. Now that I think about it, he has a DVD of a Batman/Superman team-up movie ("World's Finest") that was made by that same production team in the mid-90s (they had a Superman series going at the same time so it was only natural that they'd cross over at some point).