These Superman Cartoons Changed Animation. Now They Look Better Than Ever

“Faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive, able to leap tall buildings in a single bound!” Those iconic words first bedazzled moviegoers as the opening to one of the greatest series of animated shorts of all time, the 17 legendary Superman cartoons produced between 1941 and 1943 by Max Fleischer studios, and later Famous Studios. And now, after decades of inferior versions circulating through the market, they are finally available in gloriously remastered detail and clarity in HD on streaming platforms or DVD from Warner Bros. Discovery
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These cartoons, with their realistically shaded figures, detailed backgrounds and natural character movements, were not only ahead of their time in the early 40s: they still look ahead of their time today. Every other subsequent effort at superhero animation down to the present day owes an enormous debt to these early efforts, which also represented the first time comic book superheroes were seen on the big screen.

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“The first time I saw a Max Fletcher Superman cartoon, well, to say it changed my life is both accurate and an understatement,” said John Semper, who produced the award-winning Spider-Man: The Animated Series in the mid-1990s, among other things in his 40 year career. “It was the personification of everything I wanted to see in an animated cartoon, everything that I wanted to someday make in animated cartoon form. It was just brilliant and stunning. It’s a rare instance of something being done that just is perfect right at the moment.”

“These Superman cartoons had the smooth-flowing, higher-quality look and feel of the great Disney cartoons,” said comics and animation historian Arlen Schumer, who produced a webinar on the series. “I later learned that was the result of the Fleischers’ combination of painstakingly hand-painted cel animation and rotoscoping (animating over live action film). So you could feel Superman straining to exercise his super-strength, struggling against bigger opponents; you could feel his physical effort as he literally leapt tall buildings in a single bound. And he flew like we imagined he flew in our dreams, both gracefully and dynamically. He was grounded in our recognizable reality. He was relatable.”

Because they lapsed into the public domain when Superman’s owner, DC (then National Comics) failed to renew the copyright, they have been kicking around in forms of widely varying quality for decades, often released on bargain-basement tapes and DVDs. However, DC’s parent, Warner Bros. Discovery, owns the rights to the original camera negatives.

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According to the company, the advanced remastering process began with a 4K, 16-bit scan of Fleischer’s original 35mm successive exposure negative. Staying true to the original theatrical aspect ratio of 1.37-to-1, the highest quality raw image was then scanned and then entered into the recombine process , using special proprietary software to merge the successive exposure Technicolor negatives into a single RGB color image. Warner Bros. Discover says “the end result are pristine animated shorts that have been restored to the animators’ originally intended production quality.” In fact, they are so clear and sharp that they can seem almost jarring to viewers accustomed to the degenerated versions that circulated since the 1950s.

“As someone who’s worked decades on superhero cartoons, discovering the Fleischer Superman animations in my youth had a profound effect on me,” said Shannon Eric Denton, a writer/producer who has worked on animated series featuring DC and Marvel characters. “Even though I started in comics, I quickly transitioned to animation where I think I’ve been chasing that high Max and his Fleischer Studios gave me all those many years ago.”

“These things were just rare gems,” said Semper. “I couldn’t even believe that they existed. So imagine my little kid mind sitting in front of a TV screen, black and white. And suddenly one of these magnificent Max Flesher Superman cartoons comes on, and it was just like something from another planet. It was hard to even understand how they got made.”

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The DVD set includes several special featurettes on the history, production and influence of the Superman cartoons. All 17 theatrical shorts are included for historical completeness, including several produced during World War II that reflect the attitudes of the time.

““I am thrilled and delighted with the Warners release,” said Semper. “The cartoons look better than any previous version I’ve ever seen. My only regret is that they didn’t interview me for the for the extra.”