A new Superman arrives in theaters this weekend, but the Man of Steel’s legacy stretches back to the 1940s and the highly influential animated shorts by Fleischer Studios. Started in 1941, there were 17 shorts in total, but only the first nine were produced by Fleischer. Famous Studios took over production for the remaining eight episodes, collectively known as the Fleischer Superman animated series. Bud Collyer provided the voice of Superman, a role he had been playing in the radio series that began in 1940 and continued until 1951. The Fleischer series introduced the idea that Clark Kent needs to enter a phone booth to transform into Superman and that he could fly. Before the animated series, Superman was able to “leap tall buildings in a single bound” but didn’t fly. The series influenced many future iterations of Superman, from Alex Ross’s take on the character in the comics to the 90s Batman: The Animated Series and Superman: The Animated Series. All the episodes entered the public domain, and you can watch all 17 in 4K below via YouTube.
