Brothers Max and Dave Fleischer stand as some of America's foremost animation pioneers alongside Walt Disney and Tex Avery. Their eponymous animation studio produced classic Popeye and Betty Boop shorts, but their most pop-culturally significant works were the seventeen Technicolor Superman shorts produced in the 1940s (nine by Fleischer, eight by the successor studio Famous).
The shorts were the first cinematic adaptations of Superman; they introduced him to vast swaths of the public and influenced later portrayals. They were also a major stylistic influence on Batman: The Animated Series.
10 "The Underground World" Is One Of The Better Famous Studios' Shorts
The eight Famous Studios Superman shorts aren't as strong as the earlier Fleischer ones; thanks to lack of either Fleischer brother, the animation quality deteriorated, and the stories leaned into propaganda and xenophobia. There are some bright spots, however, and the 16th short The Underground World is one of them.
When Clark and Lois join local scientist, Mr. Henderson, in investigating underground caverns, Superman has to save the latter two from the native race of bird-men. This is easily the most left-field story turn in any of the shorts, but it's entertaining all the same.
9 "Terror On Midway" Has One Of The Most Memorable Settings
Most of the Superman shorts are set in urban environments—as gorgeously animated as the backgrounds are, at the same time after time always breed monotony. So, for the ninth short (and the final one directed by Dave Fleischer), the animation team decided to spice things up a bit with a distinct setting, the circus.
Superman's brief scuffle with a panther, animated like a demon made of shadow, is a particular highlight. However, the main narrative crux—a tall, brown-furred ape chasing after a helpless Lois—is the sort of racist imagery that becomes more nakedly apparent in the Famous shorts. It may have been commonplace at the time, but it's abhorrent all the same and hard to stomach.
8 "Billion Dollar Limited" Had A Tough Act To Follow But Was Still Good
In the third Fleischer short, Superman faces his most mundane challenge yet. When a train transporting a billion US Dollars in gold is attacked, it's up to the Man Of Steel to foil the thieves.
This gives Superman the chance to put the opening's description of him as "more powerful than a locomotive" to the test. He passes with flying colors and the most exciting parts of the short feature Superman in a contest of strength with the train.
7 "The Bulleteers" Has Breathtaking Animation
In the fifth short, a trio of criminals in possession of a bullet-shaped airship has been terrorizing the city. As always, it's a job for Superman. The Fleischer Superman was the first iteration of the character able to outright fly, versus just "leaping tall buildings in a single bound."
While the choice was one made for animation's convenience, the pay-off is most clearly demonstrated in this short; the aerial battle between Superman and the Bulleteers remains astonishingly dynamic.
6 "Showdown" Has The Most Dynamic Villains
With only eight minutes to spare, the Superman shorts were light on narrative and the villains never had much in the way of motivation. That said, one of the more memorable antagonists comes in Showdown, the eleventh short (and second by Famous Studios).
In this, an unnamed criminal begins dressing as Superman while committing robberies, giving our hero some extra motivation; he's not just fighting for truth and justice, but to clear his name. In just one of the shorts' many legacies, the idea of a Superman doppelgänger has been revisited many times since.
5 "The Volcano" Has Impressively Destructive Animation
By the eighth Fleischer short, Superman had battled mad scientists, robots, monsters, and good old-fashioned criminals. In a nice change of pace, Volcano features him in conflict with the Earth itself. When Lois and Clark are sent to Mt. Monokoa to report on a volcano dormant for three centuries, the volcano's long slumber ends.
By making the antagonist a natural disaster, the short is able to convey the heights of Superman's power; he's defying the Earth in ways none of her children should be able to, but then again, Superman wasn't born of Earth, was he?
4 "The Magnetic Telescope" Repeats Some Beats But Executes Them Well
In the sixth short, Superman fights his third mad scientist. However, this one is driven not by greed but by hubris, and Superman does not have to confront the man himself but the consequences of his invention—namely, a meteor shower. Superman's final obstacle—an enormous green meteor—is one foe he can't overcome, and it's only with the help of Lois (operating the titular telescope) that he pushes it back.
It's more than possible that this short, and said meteor, in particular, were the primary inspiration for Kryptonite. Plus, this also has the best ending of any of the shorts when Lois walks up to embrace Superman, only for the lights to flicker on, revealing Superman has been "replaced" by Clark Kent.
3 "The Arctic Giant" Is A Proto-Kaiju Story
Superman fights an ape directly in Terror On Midway, but the fourth short, The Arctic Giant feels more like a spiritual adaptation of King Kong. In this short, an ancient (and very anatomically inaccurate) Tyrannosaurus is discovered frozen in Siberia.
When it's placed in the Metropolis museum, it's accidentally thawed and rampages until being stopped by Superman. Amazingly, The Arctic Giant premiered in 1942, more than a decade before both The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms and Godzilla popularized the giant monster movie.
2 "The Mad Scientist" Invented The Formula
Sometimes simply titled Superman, the first Fleischer short is also the longest, thanks to an extended introduction that recaps Superman's origin. From there, the Man Of Steel must leap into action when the scientist kidnaps Lois Lane and holds the city hostage with an enormous laser ray.
This first short laid out of the beats of all that would follow (Lois in peril, "This look like a job for Superman," the ending where Lois praises Superman to a knowing Clark) and set the standard along the way. The short's unnamed villain also resembles Superman's original arch-foe, the Ultra Humanite, and his future one, Lex Luthor.
1 "The Mechanical Monsters" Is The "Superman" Shorts At Their Peak
The second Superman has another mad scientist as its villain—this time, however, he's not just backed up by a pet raven, but by a fleet of robotic sentinels doubling as bi-planes. The Fleischer shorts are renowned for their animation and if you want to know why, just watch The Mechanical Monsters.
A big reason why is that this short best demonstrates the wide range of Superman's powers, from him using his X-Ray vision to see Lois trapped inside one of the tin soldiers to him saving her from a stream of molten metal by letting it flow off his back.