The Mad Scientist c.1941 : The First Superman Cartoon

Shortly after Action Comics No. 1 introduced the era of comic-book superheroes, Paramount Pictures acquired the film rights to Superman and wanted its animation studio, Fleischer Studios, to bring the character to series. This was a substantially different task than Max and Dave Fleischer were used to, forcing them to trade caricatured humans and animals for realistic-looking characters.

And yet the Fleischer Superman serial ended up as a definitive take on the Man of Steel. We get the origin, a bit of Clark Kent’s daily life as a journalist having to hide his identity, and Superman heroically saving innocents and doing great feats of strength with a smile on his face, all in the ten minutes of “The Mad Scientist,” the first of 17 shorts. The Fleischers’ patented rotoscoping technique seldom looked as smooth as it does here — the brief moment when Superman lands on the ground after saving a building from collapsing and stands tall to stop a laser beam with his bare hands still looks better than most live-action acts of superheroism.

“The Mad Scientist” was a huge success. Not only was it nominated for an Academy Award, but its influence on both Superman comics and action animation is undeniable. As the legend goes, the studio got permission from the comic’s publisher to make the Man of Steel fly because they were unconvinced with how giant leaps looked. Likewise, Superman’s iconic pose — fists on the hips, with the cape waving in the wind — first appeared in this short. And the shorts’ Art Deco architecture and noirlike aesthetic influenced animator Bruce Timm’s now-classic Batman: The Animated Series and, later, his own Superman: The Animated Series.

Ultimately, though, it was also the series that ended the Fleischer brothers’ working relationship. Amid financing troubles with Paramount Pictures, the Fleischers resigned from their own company having produced nine Superman shorts credited to Fleischer Studios, which was later renamed Famous Studios.

https://www.vulture.com/article/most-influential-best-scenes-animation-history.html