The Original Superman

The animation of the first Superman cartoons are very rich in color. But one thing that I found lacking was the actual animation in the cartoon. It seemed as though the frame rate was very slow. That and there alot of quality drawing that were not actually moving. The characters moved very rigid as well. I think that the animators tried to focus too much on the coloring and the detail of the cartoon and left out the animation part of it. It resemebles mostly a comic strip that moves. The voices are also a little low and sluggish. It seems that the Betty Boop and Popeye cartoons flowed better than this one did. The Superman cartoon was also missing another key point that defined cartoons of the day- Comedy.

Comedy is what drove the cartoons in the 1920's and 30's. It was a way for the care free people of the 20's to entertain their fast paced lives and for the poverty ridden people of the 30's to escape theirs. But Superman did not draw upon this key ingredient. Instead drew upon the audiences preexisting knowledge of the superhero and made him move. Nothing more, nothing less. I think this cartoon was just meant to be eye candy for the people who loved him in his comic book and comic strip.

A quick deviation- I can't beleive Popeye was in the Coast Guard. A big icon like that mixed with the lax reputaion of the Coast Guard just doesn't sit well with me. One thing about the Popeye cartoons that I noticed was that although the characters were not drawn to a realistic human like appearance, the animation flowed very well and was fairly complex. The sound was a little shoddy though. It sounded like the characters were mumbling most of the time. I do not know if the cartoon was made like this or if the sound was not remastered.

On a side note- here is a testament to saying that with a little digging, you can find anything on the internet. The first 10 Superman cartoons by Max Fleischer can be found online to view for free at http://superman.ws/fos/thescreen/cartoons/.