The golden age of American animation was a period in the history of U.S. animation that began with the popularization of sound cartoons in 1928 and gradually ended from 1957 to 1969, where theatrical animated shorts began losing popularity to the newer medium of television animation since in 1957, produced on cheaper budgets and in a more limited animation style by companies such as Terrytoons, UPA, Paramount Cartoon Studio, Jay Ward Productions, Hanna-Barbera, DePatie-Freleng and Filmation, in artefact, The History of Animation became very important in the United States of America.
Fleischer Studios was an American animation studio founded in 1929 by brothers Max and Dave Fleischer, who ran the pioneering company from its inception until its acquisition by Paramount Pictures, the parent company and the distributor of its films. In its prime, Fleischer Studios was a premier producer of animated cartoons for theaters, with Walt Disney Productions being its chief competitor in the 1930s. Today [as of 2023?], the company is again family owned and oversees the licensing and merchandising for its characters.
Max Fleischer was an American animator, inventor, film director and producer, and studio founder and owner. Born in Kraków, Fleischer immigrated to the United States where he became a pioneer in the development of the animated cartoon and served as the head of Fleischer Studios, which he co-founded with his younger brother Dave. He brought such comic characters as Koko the Clown, Betty Boop, Popeye, and Superman to the movie screen, and was responsible for several technological innovations, including the rotoscope, the "follow the bouncing ball" technique pioneered in the Ko-Ko Song Car-Tunes films, and the "stereoptical process". Film director Richard Fleischer was his son.
Winfield B. Mercer, professionally known as Jack Mercer, was a prolific American voice actor, animator and TV screenwriter. He is best known as the voice of cartoon characters Popeye the Sailor Man and Felix the Cat. The son of vaudeville and Broadway performers, he also performed on the vaudeville and legitimate stages. Mercer provided numerous supporting voices in Superman 1941-1942.
The Fleischer Superman cartoons are a series of seventeen animated superhero short films released in Technicolor by Paramount Pictures and based upon the comic book character Superman, making them his first animated appearance.
Beans the Cat is an animated cartoon character in the Warner Bros. Cartoons series of cartoons from 1935–1936. Beans was the third Warner Bros cartoon character star after Bosko and Buddy. He is voiced by Billy Bletcher and occasionally by Tommy Bond. He was created by director Friz Freleng. The character was featured in nine cartoons made in 1935 and 1936.
Myron "Grim" Natwick was an American artist, animator, and film director. Natwick is best known for drawing the Fleischer Studios' most popular character, Betty Boop.
Color Classics are a series of animated short films produced by Fleischer Studios for Paramount Pictures from 1934 to 1941 as a competitor to Walt Disney's Silly Symphonies. As the name implies, all of the shorts were made in color format, with the first entry of the series, Poor Cinderella (1934), being the first color cartoon produced by the Fleischer studio. There were 36 shorts produced in this series.
Popeye the Sailor Meets Sindbad the Sailor is a 1936 two-reel animated cartoon short subject in the Popeye Color Specials series, produced in Technicolor and released to theatres on November 27, 1936, by Paramount Pictures. It was produced by Max Fleischer for Fleischer Studios, Inc. and directed by Dave Fleischer, with the title song's music composed by Sammy Timberg and lyrics written by Bob Rothberg. The voice cast includes Jack Mercer as Popeye, Gus Wickie as Sindbad the Sailor, Mae Questel as Olive Oyl and Lou Fleischer as J. Wellington Wimpy.
Mr. Bug Goes to Town is a 1941 American animated Technicolor feature film produced by Fleischer Studios, previewed by Paramount Pictures on December 5, 1941, and released in California and New York City in February 1942. The film was originally intended to be an adaptation of Maurice Maeterlinck's The Life of the Bee, but the rights could not be attained, or more rightly, Paramount was unwilling to purchase them from Samuel Goldwyn. Instead, they fashioned and crafted an original modern story loosely inspired on the book.
Martin Bernard Taras, also known as Morrie Tarasinsky, was an American cartoonist who mostly worked at Famous Studios, the New York–based animation division of Paramount Pictures.
Be Human is a 1936 Fleischer Studios animated short film starring Betty Boop and Grampy. It is now in the public domain.
Swat the Fly is a 1935 Fleischer Studios animated short film directed by Dave Fleischer and starring Betty Boop and Pudgy the Puppy.
Seymour Kneitel was an American animator, best known for his work with Fleischer Studios and its successor, Famous Studios.
Mother Goose Land is a 1933 Fleischer Studios animated short film starring Betty Boop.
Bingo Crosbyana is a 1936 Warner Bros. Merrie Melodies cartoon short directed by Friz Freleng, and notable for its title song, composed by Sanford Green and with lyrics by Irving Kahal. The short was released on May 30, 1936.
ThomasA.Palmer was an Italian-American animator, cartoon director, and U.S. training film supervisor. He was active in the animation industry throughout the 1920s and 1930s and was best known for his animation work at Walt Disney Productions. He spent a good chunk of his later career directing training films for the United States Army.
Popeye the Sailor is an American animated series of short films based on the Popeye comic strip character created by E. C. Segar. In 1933, Max and Dave Fleischer's Fleischer Studios, based in New York City, adapted Segar's characters into a series of theatrical cartoon shorts for Paramount Pictures. The plotlines in the animated cartoons tended to be simpler than those presented in the comic strips, and the characters slightly different. A villain, usually Bluto, makes a move on Popeye's "sweetie", Olive Oyl. The villain clobbers Popeye until he eats spinach, giving him superhuman strength. Thus empowered, Popeye makes short work of the villain.
The Spider and the Fly is a 1931 Silly Symphonies cartoon.
The 1937 Fleischer Studios strike was a labor strike involving workers at Fleischer Studios in New York City. The strike commenced on May 7 of that year and ended on October 12. The strike was the first major labor dispute in the animation industry and resulted in the industry's first union contracts.
