Fleischer Retrospective – Part 4

By the time the 1940s began, the Fleischers had already lost most of their unique style, “forced” to chase after Disney and, generally speaking, the West Coast style of animation. The Popeye shorts, the closest thing to the old Fleischer style, was mostly taking influence from other comedy masters around the same period such as …

Fleischers’ “Gulliver’s Travels” (1939) Review

After the release of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937), the world of animation and cinema changed drastically. Walt Disney and his team of animators were able to prove to Hollywood that animation didn’t have to be restricted to short stories of six or seven minutes and that it could explore several different genres …

Fleischer Retrospective – Part 3

During the Golden Age, every cartoon studio was trying to find their own star. At the time, animated characters were considered actual actors themselves: Mickey Mouse was seen as the animated equivalent of stars like Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton, and every other studio was trying to surpass him in popularity. The Fleischer Studios were …

Fleischer Retrospective – Part 2

The end of the silent era brought a notable amount of changes at the Fleischer’s studios. The Out of the Inkwell series was closed, and KoKo temporarely retired. Instead, a new series took its place, the Talkartoons, started as a series of one-shots, but later transformed into a vehicle to promote the studio’s new stars, …

Fleischer Retrospective – Part 1

  During the 1930s, the biggest figure in animation was undoubtedly Walt Disney, who started his career in the 1920s as a cartoonist and ended up becoming the face of the biggest company in the field. Despite what others may want you to believe, though, he wasn’t unrivaled: many other artists were making animated shorts …