Max Fleischer's Superman in HD.

Great news for all fans of classic animation! On October 9th, Vivendi is bringing out a the collection of Max Fleischer's classic Superman cartoons on Blu-ray. It'll be the first time these cartoons are presented at the highest quality possible in HD, after all shorts had already received a beautiful digital restoration, made available by Warner (who owns the original movie prints) in 2009 on their 2-disc 'Max Fleischer's Superman' DVD set.

The 17 Superman theatrical cartoons, created by the Fleischer studio were originally released between September 26, 1941 and July 30, 1943. Founded by the brothers Max and Dave Fleischer, their studio was famous for the animated 'Betty Boop' and 'Popeye' cartoons. At the time they started producing the Superman shorts, they had just released their first full length, full-color animated feature, the classic 'Gulliver's Travels'.

Above: the Fleischer studio in 1929 in New York, before the move to their new studio in Miami, that would eventually lead them into financial troubles. Max Fleischer (wearing glasses, hands in his pockets) is standing prominently in the front row. To his right (our left) is his son-in-law and animator Seymour Kneitel, who worked as a storyman on the series and also directed one episode ('Japoteurs'). For more on his life and work check out his daughter's blog.

The first short, titled 'The Mad Scientist' was nominated for an Academy Award in the category 'Best animated short film', along with 'The Night Before Christmas', and 'The Rookie Bear' from MGM, 'Hiawatha's Rabbit Run', and 'Rhapsody in Rivets' (two Merrie Melodies cartoons produced by Leon Schlesinger) and two Disney shorts, 'Truant Officer Donald' and the Pluto cartoon 'Lend a Paw', which won the award. During production of the series,the animated shorts turned Superman into a flying superhero, where he would merely jump from one building to the next in the first episodes and in the orginal comic books, created by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster for National Allied Publications (now DC Comics).

After producing nine shorts, while working on their second feature film 'Mr. Bug goes to town' (also known as 'Hoppity goes to town'), the studio got into financial trouble and depended on loans from their distributor Paramount. The unsuccesful release of 'Mr. Bug' on December 9, 1941, (two days before the attack on Pearl Harbor), gave Paramount the opportunity to acquire full ownership of  the Fleischer studio and reorganized it into the 'Famous Studios'.  Max and Dave, who were constantly fighting at that time, were both fired. The last eight Superman shorts were therefore produced under a new lable.

Check out the difference. The first titlecard is from 'The mad scientist', the first Superman short created, the second is from 'Japoteurs' the tenth short from September 16, 1942, created after Paramount had taken control and reorganized the studio under a new name, run by Seymour Kneitel, Izzy Sparber and Sam Buchwald.

Below: last year, Koch entertainment released a fully restored 'Gulliver's travels' in High definition  on Blu-ray (restoration done by Cartoon Crazys), while Disney and Studio Ghibli released 'Mr. Bug Goes to town' on DVD in Japan in 2010, check here for the official site.

The artists working on the Superman series were among the best of the golden age of animation. The team included: Steve Mufatti, Frank Endres, George Germanetti, Myron Waldman, Willard Bowsky, Reuben Grossman, Orestes Calpini, Graham Place, Tom Moore, Arnold Gillespie, Jim Davis, Nicholas Tafuri, William Henning, H.C. Elliston and of course Dave Tendlar and Otto Feuer.

The stories were written Seymour Kneitel and Izzy Sparber, Bill Turner and Ted Pierce, Carl Meyer and Dan Gordon, Jay Morton and Robert Little.

Below (click to enlage): Model sheets from January 1941 from the Fleisher studios. To create realistic body movements and keep all figures anatomically correct, the animators used rotoscoping, a process were live actors would be filmed, and their movements traced afterwards onto paper.

Below is some of the amazing artwork for different titlecards from the various episodes (taken from the restored edition DVD release from 2009, I'll update this asap when I've received the Blu-ray).