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'Max Fleischer' (July 19, 1883 – September 11, 1972) was an important Austrian-American pioneer in the development of the animated cartoon. He brought such characters as Betty Boop, Koko the Clown, Popeye, and Superman to the movie screen and was responsible for a number of technological innovations.

Contents

Early life

The rotoscope

Fleischer Studios

Finding success

Animated features and decline

Later career

References

External links

Early life

Born to a Jewish family in Kraków, Poland then part of the Austrian-Hungarian province of Galicia, Fleischer was the second oldest of six children. His family immigrated to the USA in 1887 and settled in New York City.

The rotoscope

Fleischer came up with a concept to simplify the process of animating movement by tracing frames of live action film. His patent for the rotoscope was granted in 1917, although Max and his brother Dave Fleischer made their first cartoon using the device in 1915. Extensive use of this technique was made in Fleischer's ''Out of the Inkwell'' series, which started in 1919 and starred Koko the Clown and Fitz the dog.

Fleischer Studios

Fleischer produced his ''Inkwell'' films for Bray Productions until, in 1921, he established Fleischer Studios (initially named "Out of the Inkwell Films") to produce animated cartoons and short subjects. Koko and Fitz remained the stars of the ''Out of the Inkwell'' series, which was renamed ''Inkwell Imps'' in 1927.
The Fleischer Studio invented the "bouncing ball" technique for its "Song Car-Tunes" series of animated sing-along shorts. In 1924, Fleischer added synchronized sound to this series, using the Phonofilm sound-on-film process developed by Lee De Forest; these Song Car-tunes would last until 1926. This was years before Walt Disney's ''Steamboat Willie'' (1928), which is often mistakenly cited as the first cartoon to synchronize sound with animation.
In 1923, Fleischer made a 50-minute animated film to explain Albert Einstein's theory of relativity. In 1925, he made a feature-length film about Charles Darwin's theory of evolution combining animation and live action.
Several of Fleischer's cartoons had soundtracks by (and often live or rotoscoped footage of) some of the leading jazz performers of the time, most notably Cab Calloway, Louis Armstrong and Don Redman. Black musicians contributed songs to Betty Boop cartoons as well. Fleischer's use of featured black performers was unusual at a time when cinematic depictions of blacks were often minor and/or stereotypical roles.

Finding success

In 1928, as film studios made the transition to sound, Fleischer decided to revive the Song Car-Tunes, as Screen Songs, and made a distribution deal with Paramount; Out of the Inkwell Films was renamed as Fleischer Studios. In 1929, Walt Disney would also gain a great amount of success through sound cartoons Mickey Mouse and Silly Symphonies. Fleischer responded to Walt Disney by discontinuing his silent ''Inkwell Imps'' series and concentrating on the production of sound cartoons through both the new Talkartoon-which debuted in October of 1929- and Screen Song series. A year into the series, Fitz was renamed "Bimbo" and became the star of the Talkartoon series, starting with the cartoon ''Hot Dog''. By 1931, it became clear that Bimbo's girlfriend, a tall, sexy girl/dog hybrid with floppy ears, was making a hit with audiences. The canine characteristics were eliminated and the new, fully human girl, christened "Betty Boop," became the new series star. By the time of the 1932 cartoon Minnie the Moocher, Betty Boop could stand her own against the popularity of the Disney shorts; indeed, Fleischer would be considered Disney's primary rival in the 1930's.
Disney, however, was clearly still on top. In 1932, Disney's Flowers and Trees became the first cartoon short produced in the new three-strip Technicolor process. Disney shrewdly negotiated an exclusive license with Technicolor, preventing other studios from using the new full-color process until 1935. Additionally, the tremendous success of Three Little Pigs (1933) significantly boosted the popularity of the Silly Symphonies.
Fleischer's next move was to license the comic strip character Popeye the Sailor from King Features Syndicate. The sailor made his film debut in July, 1933, introduced in the Betty Boop short ''Popeye the Sailor''. Popeye was an immediate hit for Fleischer, and his popularity would grow to rival that of Mickey Mouse by 1935.
The Color Classics series was introduced in 1934 as Fleischer's answer to Disney's Silly Symphonies. These color cartoons featured innovative techniques, such as the use of the setback, which allowed animation cels to be photographed in front of three-dimensional backgrounds.

Animated features and decline

The popularity of Betty Boop was irreparably damaged as a result of the enforcement of the Hays Code in 1934. Her overt sexuality was downplayed, and her racy flapper attire was replaced with longer skirts and a less revealing neckline. As a result, the character lost much of her audience appeal.
In 1937, film production at Fleischer Studios was disrupted by a 5 month long strike, which was ended when Paramount Pictures pressured Fleischer into settling with the striking workers. In 1938, Fleischer Studios moved from New York City to Miami, Florida to avoid pending unionization of the New York studios. In the wake of Disney's triumph with ''Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs'' in 1937, Paramount pressured Fleischer to move to feature-length animated films. Fleischer borrowed heavily from Paramount to finance the new state of the art studio and the production costs of the feature length films ''Gulliver's Travels'' (1939) and ''Mr. Bug Goes to Town'' (1941). Both films suffered from unfavorable comparison to Disney, received mixed reviews, and had disappointing box-office receipts.
On May 24, 1941, Paramount foreclosed on the Fleischer loans and took over the studio. Max remained nominally in charge, but a long-simmering personal feud with his brother Dave complicated the situation further. Shortly after the release of ''Mr. Bug'', Dave left for California to take over as head of Columbia's Screen Gems animation studio in April 1942, Max was then forced out as Paramount installed new management, among them Max's son-in-law, Seymour Kneitel. Within a year, the studio was renamed Famous Studios and, soon after, moved back to New York.
Despite the disappointing performance of the feature films, one of Fleischer's most successful productions, the Superman cartoon series, was launched during this late period. Nine episodes were completed by Fleischer Studios, with the final eight made by Famous Studios after the reorganization.
Unlike Disney, Fleischer did not own many of his characters and he was not interested in merchandising. This is one of the reasons why the studio was financially beholdent to Paramount.

Later career

After leaving his namesake studio, Fleischer took a job making commercial and educational films for the Jam Handy Corporation, including ''Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer'' (1944). Fleischer left Handy in 1954 and went to work for his old colleague John Randolph Bray, who had given Max his big break in 1916.
Fleischer brought suit against Paramount in 1956 over the distribution of his old cartoons to television, which had resulted in many cartoons being edited and broadcast with Fleischer's credits removed. The case was pending for five years before Paramount was granted a summary judgment dismissing the suit, as too much time had elapsed and the statute of limitations had expired.
In 1958, Fleischer and cartoon producer Hal Seeger created 100 Koko the Clown cartoons for television. Koko was voiced by Larry Storch, as were friends Kokonut and Mean Moe. These cartoons were aired on many local channels during the 1960s.
Fleischer, along with his wife Essie, moved to the Motion Picture Country House in 1967, where he died from congestive heart failure on September 11, 1972, at the age of eighty-nine. Eleven days earlier, Fleischer had signed a contract with King Features for a Betty Boop merchandising campaign, a deal that would generate millions of dollars in revenue after his death.

References

★ Fleischer, Richard (2005): ''Out of the Inkwell: Max Fleischer and the Animation Revolution'', University Press of Kentucky, ISBN 0-8131-2355-0

★ Review by Mindy Aloff: The Animated Life of a Film Giant", ''The Forward'', October 14, 2005. Accessed 1 July 2006.

★ Maltin, Leonard (1987): ''Of Mice and Magic: A History of American Animated Cartoons''. Penguin Books.

External links

★

★ Freely downloadable Max Fleischer cartoons

★ The history of the Fleischer's Popeye series

★ Max & Popeye