June 8, 2013
Hey, check out this bit of coolness I found online. Superman may be an icon, and he may always (almost) wear the red and blue, but it isn’t just the new movie coming up that has changed his costume. Take a look at how his shield has varied over the decades.
My favorite may be 1952, but for this blog, I want tog all the way back to 1941. So sit back and relax, turn up the speakers, and enjoy from Fleisher Studios Superman and The Mechanical Monsters. In fact, since these cartoons are in the public domain, they are all online, all 17 of them, so after this go back and watch them all. This animation puts most modern cartoons to shame, so settle back and enjoy.
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Mr. Blog's Tepid Ride 
I first saw the Fleischer Superman cartoons as a kid. Not too long ago, I found them again. I’ve tried to turn people onto the Fleischer Superman and because it’s “old” well you know, it isn’t something they are interested in.
But you are so right, B. These cartoons are so cool. I’ve seen them dozens of times (literally) and will watch them dozens more.
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This series is most definitely one of the very best American animated series ever. If you own a dvd version (and if you don’t, what are you waiting for???), the most dynamic scenes are well worth watching frame by frame, in order to analyze the brilliant techniques they implemented – the way they blurred parts of the background synchronizing them to perfection with camera panning to get the sense of movement was just amazing.
The episode mentioned here also features the first shape-shifting robot ever to appear in an animated series (as far as I know). They made the fortune of Japanese animation in the 70’s and 80’s (this, for example http://www.encirobot.com/groi/groi-mec03.asp which does exactly what the robot in Superman does), but this came 30 years before…
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