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Superman (animated short)
Encyclopedia
Superman is the first in the series
of seventeen animated Technicolor
short films based upon the DC Comics
character Superman
. Also known as The Mad Scientist, Superman was produced by Fleischer Studios
and released to theaters by Paramount Pictures
on September 26, 1941. Superman ranked number 33 in a list of the fifty greatest cartoons of all time sourced from a 1994 poll of 1000 animation professionals, and was nominated for the 1942 Academy Award for Best Animated Short Subject
.
sums up the origins of Superman, and are as follows:
"In the endless reaches of the universe, there once existed a planet known as Krypton
, a planet that burned like a green star in the distant heavens. There, civilization was far advanced, and it brought forth a race of supermen, whose mental and physical powers were developed to the absolute peak of human perfection. But there came a day when giant quakes threatened to destroy Krypton forever. One of the planet's leading scientists
, sensing the approach of doom, placed his infant son in a small rocket ship and sent it hurtling in the direction of Earth
, just as Krypton exploded. The rocket sped through star-studded space, landing safely on Earth with its precious burden: Krypton's sole survivor. A passing motorist found the uninjured child and took it to an orphanage. As the years went by and the child grew to maturity, he found himself possessed of amazing physical powers. Faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive, able to leap tall buildings in a single bound, the infant of Krypton is now the Man of Steel: SUPERMAN! To best be in a position to use his powers in a never-ending battle for truth and justice, Superman has assumed the disguise of Clark Kent, mild-mannered reporter for a great metropolitan newspaper."
The story cuts to the Daily Planet building, where editor Perry White
reveals to his two best field reporters Clark Kent
and Lois Lane
that an anonymous figure has been mailing death threats to the Planet, should he not be paid in one million dollars to stop his rampage. About the only clue given is the alias The Mad Scientist
(voiced by Jack Mercer
, who also voiced Popeye). White assigns Kent to handle the story, but Lois, portrayed here as a strong-willed woman, insists that she investigate as well, much to the supposed chagrin of Kent.
Lois takes off in a private plane to an undisclosed location up at the mountain, where the main villain's secluded lair/laboratory is located. He is preparing to fire his futuristic weapon (perhaps a particle beam
or death ray
), until he spots her aircraft in the process. Upon her arrival, Lois finds herself kidnapped, bound, and gagged, as the scientist boasts to her about the success of his plan, and then demonstrates the beam weapon by aiming it at a bridge. While listening to the radio, Clark and the other journalists learn of the coming disaster by the military, who warns everyone to stay inside. Instinctively, Clark steps into a storage room and changes into Superman before flying away.
The Mad Scientist then has the beam weapon weaken the foundations of the Daily Planet skyscraper, causing it to tip over. Fortunately, Superman arrives in time and prevents the structure from crashing into neighboring buildings or falling to the ground, successfully restoring the skyscraper to its upright orientation.
Superman then pushes the laser beam away from the base of the skyscraper, but shortly afterward gets struck down as the scientists turns up the weapon's power to its full force. Superman remains determined to fight it and soon perseveres against the beam by punching it repeatedly, gradually pounding the beam back to its source. Seeing that the beam has been overpowered, the horrified Mad Scientist increases power, but Superman uses that against him by twisting the weapon into a knot, preventing the beam energy from escaping, and the buildup of pressure causes the machine to overheat and explode. As the scientist's lab disintegrates with the weapon's demise, Superman arrives to rescue Lois who has been left there, while also capturing the scientist as he attempts to escape, flying them to safety.
The scene dissolves back to the Daily Planet building, where Clark Kent and Lois report back to Perry White. She has gotten a scoop on the story of the Mad Scientist, who is now in prison, and Perry commends her on doing it. Seeing she hasn't suspected a thing, Clark looks at the camera
, winks, and nods to the audience, and the story ends.
acquired the film rights to DC Comics' Superman property, created by Jerry Siegel
and Joe Shuster
. Paramount pitched the idea of producing a Superman series to its animation producer, Fleischer Studios. Co-owner Dave Fleischer
did not want to take on the task of producing such a demanding series, he went up to Paramount and gave them a ridiculously high budget quota of $100,000 per cartoon - six times the cost of the Fleischers' black-and-white Popeye the Sailor cartoons, hoping to get Paramount to change its mind about the shorts. To his surprise, Paramount negotiated it down to a production cost of $50,000 for the first cartoon, and $30,000 for subsequent cartoons. , and Max
and Dave began work on the first short in the series, Superman.
Steve Muffati was placed in charge of the Superman cartoons (at Fleischer and later Famous, the credited director actually served the roles typically ascribed to a film producer
or supervising director, while the credited animators were the actual animation director
s). Superman was produced with the same care and attention to detail the Fleischer staff had given to their first feature film, Gulliver's Travels
(1939) . While some of the scenes in the cartoon made use of the rotoscope
, a Max Fleischer invention which allowed animation drawings to be traced from live action, others were done by relying upon poses sketched from live reference models instead of traced footage. Most of the lead character animators at Fleischer were used to animating caricatured humans and animals, and the assistant animators were tasked with maintaining the figures' realistic proportions. Character shadows, elaborate special effects animation, and detailed animation layouts contributed to the attention to detail evident in Superman and its follow ups.
Paramount promoted Superman with a campaign highly unusual for an animated short, which was usually treated as a throwaway bonus on a movie theater's bill. The short was a notable success, and was nominated for the 1942 Academy Award for Best Short Subject (Cartoons)
, which it lost to the Pluto
cartoon Lend a Paw
.
also was influenced to use Superman's vintage color scheme and film noir
approach to the successful Warner Bros.
television programs Batman: The Animated Series
and Superman: The Animated Series
. In both of these 1990s series, many of the character and background designs are based on the Fleischer Superman shorts. The scene where Superman disrupts the generator and causes the villain's lair to explode was used to some extent in the episode "Heart of Steel
", where Batman attempts to thwart a plan by HARDAC
to murder and replace humans with androids. A scene in which the background characters are shown as black silhouettes while Clark listens to the radio was similarly used in "Almost Got 'Im
". The Iron Giant
also references this short by playing the familiar motif at the mention of Superman.
(now DC Comics); TV syndication rights were licensed to Flamingo Films, distributors of the 1950s Adventures of Superman
TV series. The cartoons fell into the public domain
when National Comics failed to renew their copyrights in the late 1960s/early 1970s.
Superman (1940s cartoons)
The Fleischer & Famous Superman cartoons are a series of seventeen animated Technicolor short films released by Paramount Pictures and based upon the comic book character Superman....
of seventeen animated Technicolor
Technicolor
Technicolor is a color motion picture process invented in 1916 and improved over several decades.It was the second major process, after Britain's Kinemacolor, and the most widely used color process in Hollywood from 1922 to 1952...
short films based upon the DC Comics
DC Comics
DC Comics, Inc. is one of the largest and most successful companies operating in the market for American comic books and related media. It is the publishing unit of DC Entertainment a company of Warner Bros. Entertainment, which itself is owned by Time Warner...
character Superman
Superman
Superman is a fictional comic book superhero appearing in publications by DC Comics, widely considered to be an American cultural icon. Created by American writer Jerry Siegel and Canadian-born American artist Joe Shuster in 1932 while both were living in Cleveland, Ohio, and sold to Detective...
. Also known as The Mad Scientist, Superman was produced by Fleischer Studios
Fleischer Studios
Fleischer Studios, Inc., was an American corporation which originated as an Animation studio located at 1600 Broadway, New York City, New York...
and released to theaters by Paramount Pictures
Paramount Pictures
Paramount Pictures Corporation is an American film production and distribution company, located at 5555 Melrose Avenue in Hollywood. Founded in 1912 and currently owned by media conglomerate Viacom, it is America's oldest existing film studio; it is also the last major film studio still...
on September 26, 1941. Superman ranked number 33 in a list of the fifty greatest cartoons of all time sourced from a 1994 poll of 1000 animation professionals, and was nominated for the 1942 Academy Award for Best Animated Short Subject
Academy Award for Animated Short Film
The Academy Award for Animated Short Film is an award which has been given by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences as part of the Academy Awards every year since the 5th Academy Awards, covering the year 1931-32, to the present....
.
Prologue
The short's prologuePrologue
A prologue is an opening to a story that establishes the setting and gives background details, often some earlier story that ties into the main one, and other miscellaneous information. The Greek prologos included the modern meaning of prologue, but was of wider significance...
sums up the origins of Superman, and are as follows:
"In the endless reaches of the universe, there once existed a planet known as Krypton
Krypton (comics)
Krypton is a fictional planet in the DC Comics universe, and the native world of the super-heroes Superman and, in some tellings, Supergirl and Krypto the Superdog. Krypton has been portrayed consistently as having been destroyed just after Superman's flight from the planet, with exact details of...
, a planet that burned like a green star in the distant heavens. There, civilization was far advanced, and it brought forth a race of supermen, whose mental and physical powers were developed to the absolute peak of human perfection. But there came a day when giant quakes threatened to destroy Krypton forever. One of the planet's leading scientists
Jor-El
Jor-El is a fictional character, an extraterrestrial in the . He was created by the writer Jerry Siegel and the artist Joe Shuster, and he first appeared in a newspaper comic strip in 1939 as Superman's biological father....
, sensing the approach of doom, placed his infant son in a small rocket ship and sent it hurtling in the direction of Earth
Earth
Earth is the third planet from the Sun, and the densest and fifth-largest of the eight planets in the Solar System. It is also the largest of the Solar System's four terrestrial planets...
, just as Krypton exploded. The rocket sped through star-studded space, landing safely on Earth with its precious burden: Krypton's sole survivor. A passing motorist found the uninjured child and took it to an orphanage. As the years went by and the child grew to maturity, he found himself possessed of amazing physical powers. Faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive, able to leap tall buildings in a single bound, the infant of Krypton is now the Man of Steel: SUPERMAN! To best be in a position to use his powers in a never-ending battle for truth and justice, Superman has assumed the disguise of Clark Kent, mild-mannered reporter for a great metropolitan newspaper."
The story cuts to the Daily Planet building, where editor Perry White
Perry White
Perry White is a fictional character who appears in the Superman comics. White is the Editor-in-Chief of the Metropolis newspaper the Daily Planet.White maintains very high ethical and journalistic standards...
reveals to his two best field reporters Clark Kent
Clark Kent
Clark Kent is a fictional character created by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster. Appearing regularly in stories published by DC Comics, he debuted in Action Comics #1 and serves as the civilian and secret identity of the superhero Superman....
and Lois Lane
Lois Lane
Lois Lane is a fictional character, the primary love interest of Superman in the comic books of DC Comics. Created by writer Jerry Siegel and artist Joe Shuster, she first appeared in Action Comics #1 ....
that an anonymous figure has been mailing death threats to the Planet, should he not be paid in one million dollars to stop his rampage. About the only clue given is the alias The Mad Scientist
Mad scientist
A mad scientist is a stock character of popular fiction, specifically science fiction. The mad scientist may be villainous or antagonistic, benign or neutral, and whether insane, eccentric, or simply bumbling, mad scientists often work with fictional technology in order to forward their schemes, if...
(voiced by Jack Mercer
Jack Mercer
Jack Mercer was an American animator, storyman and voice actor. He is best known as the voice of cartoon character Popeye the Sailor...
, who also voiced Popeye). White assigns Kent to handle the story, but Lois, portrayed here as a strong-willed woman, insists that she investigate as well, much to the supposed chagrin of Kent.
Lois takes off in a private plane to an undisclosed location up at the mountain, where the main villain's secluded lair/laboratory is located. He is preparing to fire his futuristic weapon (perhaps a particle beam
Particle beam
A particle beam is a stream of charged or neutral particles which may be directed by magnets and focused by electrostatic lenses, although they may also be self-focusing ....
or death ray
Death ray
The death ray or death beam was a theoretical particle beam or electromagnetic weapon of the 1920s through the 1930s that was claimed to have been invented independently by Nikola Tesla, Edwin R. Scott, Harry Grindell Matthews, and Graichen, as well as others...
), until he spots her aircraft in the process. Upon her arrival, Lois finds herself kidnapped, bound, and gagged, as the scientist boasts to her about the success of his plan, and then demonstrates the beam weapon by aiming it at a bridge. While listening to the radio, Clark and the other journalists learn of the coming disaster by the military, who warns everyone to stay inside. Instinctively, Clark steps into a storage room and changes into Superman before flying away.
The Mad Scientist then has the beam weapon weaken the foundations of the Daily Planet skyscraper, causing it to tip over. Fortunately, Superman arrives in time and prevents the structure from crashing into neighboring buildings or falling to the ground, successfully restoring the skyscraper to its upright orientation.
The scene dissolves back to the Daily Planet building, where Clark Kent and Lois report back to Perry White. She has gotten a scoop on the story of the Mad Scientist, who is now in prison, and Perry commends her on doing it. Seeing she hasn't suspected a thing, Clark looks at the camera
Fourth wall
The fourth wall is the imaginary "wall" at the front of the stage in a traditional three-walled box set in a proscenium theatre, through which the audience sees the action in the world of the play...
, winks, and nods to the audience, and the story ends.
Production
In early 1941, Paramount PicturesParamount Pictures
Paramount Pictures Corporation is an American film production and distribution company, located at 5555 Melrose Avenue in Hollywood. Founded in 1912 and currently owned by media conglomerate Viacom, it is America's oldest existing film studio; it is also the last major film studio still...
acquired the film rights to DC Comics' Superman property, created by Jerry Siegel
Jerry Siegel
Jerome "Jerry" Siegel , who also used pseudonyms including Joe Carter, Jerry Ess, and Herbert S...
and Joe Shuster
Joe Shuster
Joseph "Joe" Shuster was a Canadian-born American comic book artist. He was best known for co-creating the DC Comics character Superman, with writer Jerry Siegel, first published in Action Comics #1...
. Paramount pitched the idea of producing a Superman series to its animation producer, Fleischer Studios. Co-owner Dave Fleischer
Dave Fleischer
David "Dave" Fleischer was an American animator film director and film producer, best known as a co-owner of Fleischer Studios with his two older brothers Max Fleischer and Lou Fleischer...
did not want to take on the task of producing such a demanding series, he went up to Paramount and gave them a ridiculously high budget quota of $100,000 per cartoon - six times the cost of the Fleischers' black-and-white Popeye the Sailor cartoons, hoping to get Paramount to change its mind about the shorts. To his surprise, Paramount negotiated it down to a production cost of $50,000 for the first cartoon, and $30,000 for subsequent cartoons. , and Max
Max Fleischer
Max Fleischer was an American animator. He was a pioneer in the development of the animated cartoon and served as the head of Fleischer Studios...
and Dave began work on the first short in the series, Superman.
Steve Muffati was placed in charge of the Superman cartoons (at Fleischer and later Famous, the credited director actually served the roles typically ascribed to a film producer
Film producer
A film producer oversees and delivers a film project to all relevant parties while preserving the integrity, voice and vision of the film. They will also often take on some financial risk by using their own money, especially during the pre-production period, before a film is fully financed.The...
or supervising director, while the credited animators were the actual animation director
Animation director
An animation director is the director in charge of all aspects of the animation process during the production of an animated film or animated segment for a live-action film...
s). Superman was produced with the same care and attention to detail the Fleischer staff had given to their first feature film, Gulliver's Travels
Gulliver's Travels
Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World, in Four Parts. By Lemuel Gulliver, First a Surgeon, and then a Captain of Several Ships, better known simply as Gulliver's Travels , is a novel by Anglo-Irish writer and clergyman Jonathan Swift that is both a satire on human nature and a parody of...
(1939) . While some of the scenes in the cartoon made use of the rotoscope
Rotoscope
Rotoscoping is an animation technique in which animators trace over live-action film movement, frame by frame, for use in animated films. Originally, recorded live-action film images were projected onto a frosted glass panel and re-drawn by an animator...
, a Max Fleischer invention which allowed animation drawings to be traced from live action, others were done by relying upon poses sketched from live reference models instead of traced footage. Most of the lead character animators at Fleischer were used to animating caricatured humans and animals, and the assistant animators were tasked with maintaining the figures' realistic proportions. Character shadows, elaborate special effects animation, and detailed animation layouts contributed to the attention to detail evident in Superman and its follow ups.
Paramount promoted Superman with a campaign highly unusual for an animated short, which was usually treated as a throwaway bonus on a movie theater's bill. The short was a notable success, and was nominated for the 1942 Academy Award for Best Short Subject (Cartoons)
Academy Award for Animated Short Film
The Academy Award for Animated Short Film is an award which has been given by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences as part of the Academy Awards every year since the 5th Academy Awards, covering the year 1931-32, to the present....
, which it lost to the Pluto
Pluto (Disney)
Pluto, also called Pluto the Pup, is a cartoon character created in 1930 by Walt Disney Productions. He is a light brown , medium-sized, short-haired dog. Unlike Goofy, Pluto is not anthropomorphic beyond some characteristics such as facial expression...
cartoon Lend a Paw
Lend a Paw
Lend a Paw is an animated short film produced in Technicolor by Walt Disney Productions and released to theaters on October 3, 1941. In the cartoon, which was largely a remake of Disney's 1932 film Mickey's Pal Pluto, Pluto saves the life of a kitten, and later feels jealous towards the kitten...
.
Influence
Animator Bruce TimmBruce Timm
Bruce Walter Timm is an American character designer, animator and producer. He is also a writer and artist working in comics, and is known for his contributions building the modern DC Comics animated franchise, the DC animated universe.-Animation:Timm's early career in animation was varied; he...
also was influenced to use Superman's vintage color scheme and film noir
Film noir
Film noir is a cinematic term used primarily to describe stylish Hollywood crime dramas, particularly those that emphasize cynical attitudes and sexual motivations. Hollywood's classic film noir period is generally regarded as extending from the early 1940s to the late 1950s...
approach to the successful Warner Bros.
Warner Bros.
Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc., also known as Warner Bros. Pictures or simply Warner Bros. , is an American producer of film and television entertainment.One of the major film studios, it is a subsidiary of Time Warner, with its headquarters in Burbank,...
television programs Batman: The Animated Series
Batman: The Animated Series
Batman: The Animated Series is an American animated series based on the DC Comics character Batman. The series featured an ensemble cast of many voice-actors including Kevin Conroy, Mark Hamill, Efrem Zimbalist, Jr., Arleen Sorkin, and Loren Lester. The series won four Emmy Awards and was nominated...
and Superman: The Animated Series
Superman: The Animated Series
Superman: The Animated Series is an American animated television series starring DC Comics' flagship character, Superman. The series was produced by Warner Bros. Animation and aired on The WB from September 6, 1996 to February 12, 2000. Warner Bros...
. In both of these 1990s series, many of the character and background designs are based on the Fleischer Superman shorts. The scene where Superman disrupts the generator and causes the villain's lair to explode was used to some extent in the episode "Heart of Steel
Heart of Steel
The Heart of Steel is a documentary directed by Angelo J. Guglielmo, Jr. and had its World Premiere at The Tribeca Film Festival in May, 2006...
", where Batman attempts to thwart a plan by HARDAC
HARDAC
HARDAC is a fictional character that appeared in Batman: The Animated Series....
to murder and replace humans with androids. A scene in which the background characters are shown as black silhouettes while Clark listens to the radio was similarly used in "Almost Got 'Im
Almost Got 'Im
Almost Got 'Im is the forty-sixth episode of the Warner Bros. animated television series Batman: The Animated Series, which first aired on November 11, 1992, and was written by Paul Dini and directed by Eric Radomski...
". The Iron Giant
The Iron Giant
The Iron Giant is a 1999 animated film produced by Warner Bros. Animation, based on the 1968 novel The Iron Man by Ted Hughes. Brad Bird directed the film, which stars a voice cast of Jennifer Aniston, Harry Connick, Jr., Vin Diesel, Eli Marienthal, Christopher McDonald and John Mahoney...
also references this short by playing the familiar motif at the mention of Superman.
Public domain
The rights to Superman and the other sixteen shorts in the Superman series reverted to National ComicsDC Comics
DC Comics, Inc. is one of the largest and most successful companies operating in the market for American comic books and related media. It is the publishing unit of DC Entertainment a company of Warner Bros. Entertainment, which itself is owned by Time Warner...
(now DC Comics); TV syndication rights were licensed to Flamingo Films, distributors of the 1950s Adventures of Superman
Adventures of Superman (TV series)
Adventures of Superman is an American television series based on comic book characters and concepts created in 1938 by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster. The show is the first television series to feature Superman and began filming in 1951 in California...
TV series. The cartoons fell into the public domain
Public domain
Works are in the public domain if the intellectual property rights have expired, if the intellectual property rights are forfeited, or if they are not covered by intellectual property rights at all...
when National Comics failed to renew their copyrights in the late 1960s/early 1970s.
External links
- Superman (aka The Mad Scientist) at the Internet ArchiveInternet ArchiveThe Internet Archive is a non-profit digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It offers permanent storage and access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, music, moving images, and nearly 3 million public domain books. The Internet Archive...
- Superman (aka The Mad Scientist) at the Internet Movie DatabaseInternet Movie DatabaseInternet Movie Database is an online database of information related to movies, television shows, actors, production crew personnel, video games and fictional characters featured in visual entertainment media. It is one of the most popular online entertainment destinations, with over 100 million...