In all the years I’ve had this site, I really haven’t written nearly enough about the Fleischer Superman cartoons.

Each short that the studio produced between 1941-1942 is nothing less than a masterpiece in animation that has few parallels, even today. The legendary story of how Fleischer’s people secured the license to the Man of Steel, by then a sensation in comics, newspapers and merchandise, by guaranteeing a massive budget for each cartoon is apparent in every cell they drew- the characters, the cityscapes, action, voice acting, absolutely every aspect of the production was top notch for any cartoon of the Golden Age, and has yet to be equaled today. For me, I would put these cartoons up there with the 1978 Donner film as the best adaptation of the character outside the comics ever.

Comic fans will notice the influence of Joe Shuster as well, who famously consulted with the Fleischer studio on a trip to Florida in 1941, and gave guidelines on Clark Kent, Superman and Lois Lane, as he did with ghost artists for the comics as well.

There’s a ton more that could be said about the Fleischer Superman cartoons, and I probably will more at length some day. For now, I decided to simply do a post about some amazing production art I’ve stumbled across over the years online, most recently in 2020 when Heritage Auctions dumped a huge collection for fans to bid online (and more can be seen on places like Pop Culture Safari, among other sites).

Although well out of my price range, I was tempted, believe me.

Enjoy!

And just for the fun of it, let me include two pics I took of the intro to “The Mechanical Monsters,” shown in 2018 with a rerelease of Superman: The Movie for the film’s fortieth anniversary!