Max Fleischer's Superman (Blu-ray)

I've been a massive fan of these cartoons since I got a crappy PD VHS of 3 of them in 1987. These cartoons sent me down the animation rabbit hole. They are far and away my favorite cartoons made by any studio. I've easily viewed some of these 100s of times over the last 35 years.There have been a lot of assumptions going on surrounding these toons. First, I have the new blu ray set. It looks absolutely outstanding. It's equally the better of the WB DVD set as that DVD set was the better of the next best comp, the Bosko DVD. There is film grain in this set. It's a very fine grain and more noticeable in some scenes than others...it's there. Reading the early reviews and seeing the screencaps posted, I was not seeing what reviewers were seeing as far as the lack of detail was concerned. All the detail is there, and more. My concerns were that the image was soft. When I finally viewed them, I didn't see any of that softness in motion. The picture is crisp and clear, not quite as sharp as what is shown in the new featurette, but not far behind.....Speaking of that featurette, I'm fairly certain that the clips contained therein are from the previous DVD version, uncompressed. The idea that these are "raw scans" came from a declarative supposition from the first person that reviewed them, and everyone else has simply assumed that was true. They look just like the DVD versions. I did an experiment and raised the sharpness on my TV just a teeny bit for the new versions and I like that better, but they were just fine before. for all we know, the unprocessed shorts don't look much different than what's on this Blu-ray which contains a new 4k scan from the negatives. I've seen some toons done by Steve Sanchfield (Thunderbean Animation) from 35mm negs that look so clean and grain free they could be confused for digital. We also don't know what was used for the DVD versions. They didn't put much work into them. They look to me like very colorful, but very worn 35mm print scans.Again there is grain here, it's just very unobtrusive. there is so much detail that I'm now noticing small animation and ink and paint errors that I've not noticed in 35 years of viewing these. And yes, I've checked older versions to confirm. The lower fidelity of previous versions made it difficult to see those errors, but they are there.This release is not without its issues, however. Sound issues. based on the myriad of versions of these cartoons I've seen over the years, I'd guess that like a lot of Fleischer cartoons, the beginning and end titles were cut when they were sold to TV in the 1950s, and it looks like these were cut from the negatives. The Bosko release did manage to pull (washed out) prints that had all of the titles and original sound for each cartoon intact, with the exception of The Mummy Strikes. For this release, I'm guessing (which is all any of us can do since mum seems to be the word on how WB processes these) that they simply opted to go with whatever was the best sources they had for each cartoon, which means that for most of them, the beginning and ending titles have sound that often inelegantly cuts out or fades out. the good news is with a couple of exceptions, the body of the cartoons are fine (The Mad Scientist and Underground World are the only exceptions I've noticed so far...Mad Scientist has been an issue for decades).Also, the featurettes... I'm not sure we really needed 2 telling us the exact same thing "They're great". I really would have liked one that went into the nuts and bolts of how these cartoons were made great... basically, how they were made.If you are on the fence, absolutely buy this. If you insist on very noticeable grain in your image, probably you'll want to pass.

Timely arrival great reproduction of a classic piece of film history. The cartoon that gave Superman his flight. Before Max had a hand in it, Superman could only leap tall buildings and jump around. This was the cartoon that gave Superman the ability to fly.

These beautiful cartoons from the 1940s have been available for years in terrible 'private domain' DVDs. The prints were just awful..scratchy, grainy, too dark, poor sound..etc. They always deserved a great treatment since these 17 theatrical shorts were made with hard working and dedicated animation artists. These cartoons were meant to rival Disney cartoons at the time. An unprecedented amount of money was used to create these shorts. Unfortunately they were short lived, mostly because the Fleischer studios went bankrupt. But the first story (The Mad Scientist) truly shows how much time was spent on these cartoons, particularly when you see the machine explode near the end. The colors are magnificent and, of course, all of it was hand drawn rather than computer generated. What is great about this particular DVD set is that finally these shorts were cleaned up and beautifully restored to the quality the original audiences were able to watch back in the theaters. These same shorts with this quality are also available in the Superman tin collection with all of the Superman films including 'Superman Returns'. But the cartoons are scattered around in two disks with other unrelated special features. It's a pain to fumble around finding them. This DVD set is very inexpensive for what you get and it makes it so much easier to pop in the DVD player and just watch them. That's why I would recommend them even if you have them already in the tin collection. And if you by chance own them in a public domain format, I seriously urge you to throw it away and purchase this set. You will probably be absolutely amazed at the difference, making the older versions practically unwatchable. These are a great treat and finally are given the treatment they have deserved for years.

The discs are pressed, not burned. This is a good thing. The two discs were pressed in Mexico. The case is the flimsy type with holes. I threw it away and replace it with a more sturdy case that I purchased on Amazon.A pressed disc is always best because they will last a hundred+ years. (They are bright silver on the back.) An ordinary burned disc may only last 5 to 10 years. If a studio feels they MUST burn a disc, M-Disc should be utilized for longest life, (50+ years).What a fabulous animation we have here. The time and effort is incredible. Children just love watching these older cartoons. They're amazed at how good they are. Good animation, and great stories.Superman stands for Truth, Justice, and The American Way. The Superman we see here is the tough, take no prisoners hero of the golden age. He is in no way politically correct. A great series of cartoons, and as a Superman fan, I must say, I enjoyed them. It is best to view these cartoons spaced apart, otherwise, they may appear to be a bit repetitive sort of like watching the Three Stooges for two days in a row.The video and audio qualities of these are excellent. I'm very happy to have these in my DVD/Blu-ray collection.If this review was helpful, please click on the link below.