Max Fleischer: the cartoonist who changed animation forever
Richard Fleischer – a celebrated director in his own right – once said that his father, Max Fleischer, was “consumed” by animation. Indeed, the cartoon pioneer who gave the world Popeye the Sailor Man, Betty Boop, and the most iconic animated version of Superman ever put to screen had animation in his very soul. His influence can still be felt in the worlds of animation, comic books, and film to this day.
Born Majer Fleischer in Kraków, Poland, in 1883, Fleischer’s family had settled in Brooklyn, New York, by 1887. He studied art at Cooper Union before landing an unusual apprenticeship at the Brooklyn Daily Eagle – an apprenticeship he had to pay for. He told the paper’s bosses that he would pay them two dollars per day if he could sit beside their cartoonist and learn the trade from him. He soon became the paper’s sole cartoonist.
By 1914, the very first animations began to be shown in theatres. Fleischer wasn’t fond of the animation style, though, which he found very stiff and jerky – so he simply invented a new way to make cartoons. He patented the Rotoscope, a revolutionary method that allowed animators to trace over film footage frame by frame. This added an element of realism to animation that didn’t exist before. To this day, the same process is still used by animators and visual effects artists – the only difference is that it’s now executed on computers.
Despite this seeming call for realism, in many of his early 1930s efforts, Fleischer’s taste for the surreal tended to win out. As a musician – and Fleischer superfan – Gary Lucas told Down Beat in 2016: “The Fleischers have a real New York Jewish thing all their own. New York looks like a grim, fun, but sinister place, with broken windows and torn-up sidewalks. This stuff is pretty psychedelic, too. Everything’s in motion, the flowers are talking, everything is rubbery and anthropomorphic. What were they smoking up there? That’s what I want to know!”
It’s believed by many that Walt Disney himself may have been inspired by Fleischer’s taste for the absurd when he included the “Pink elephants on parade” section in 1941’s Dumbo. It’s not known, however, whether Fleischer and Disney were actually friendly with each other. Technically, after all, they were competitors, and when Fleischer’s son Richard was offered a job at Disney, he felt the need to clear it with his father first.
In 1941, Fleischer Studios – which Fleischer ran with his brother Dave – began releasing a series of Superman short cartoons. To this very day, they are seen as incredibly formative for the character, who had only been around for three years in the comic books at that time. Bruce Timm, the modern animated giant famous for Batman: The Animated Series and Superman: The Animated Series, once said that Fleischer’s Superman set the bar. He added, “That’s the level you’re never gonna hit.”
Sadly, Fleischer would endure hard times from 1942 until 1955, when Paramount Pictures bought over the ailing Fleischer Studios and renamed it ‘Famous Studios’. Cruelly, Paramount actually removed Flesicher’s name from all his creations, and it would take him until 1955 to win a lawsuit and have them restored. While he won in the end, though, being betrayed by the business took its toll on him physically and mentally.
In the end, Fleischer passed away at 89 years old in 1972. Amazingly, with the release of The Betty Boop Scandals of 1974, interest in his old creation skyrocketed. It spawned a new interest in Fleischer’s work as a genuine alternative to Disney, and his incredible work is now held up as an example of animation as a true art form.
