O Falso Super-Homem

I know this is cruel, but the biggest thing that jumped out at me while I watched this cartoon was Jimmy Olsen's face. I kept thinking 'Oh, my....what horrible accident happened to make Jimmy THAT hideous?!'. At least I assume that was Jimmy--he was the office assistant and seemed to act a bit like Jimmy!! Let me explain further. In the Fleischer Brothers Superman cartoons, unlike other Fleischer shorts like Popeye and Betty Boop, the characters look more like real people. So, when in the middle of the cartoon a freakish and hideous character who looks like a cartoon imp appears, it just seems weirdly out of place! Okay, I've finished my rant about ugly Jimmy. I promise.

As for the rest of the cartoon, it's pretty good stuff. A local baddie is having his dopey assistant run about town committing crimes while dressed up as Superman. Apparently, the town is full of idiots, as they soon believe Superman has turned bad--even though this incarnation of the 'hero' cannot fly, stop bullets or do anything very super. So, it's up to the real guy to capture the two baddies and restore America's faith in its heroes. What a guy! Overall, this was enjoyable (apart from Jimmy) and well done. Worth your time and a decent installment in the series.

Someone disguised as Superman is committing robberies all over Metropolis. He's doing it under orders from The Boss (that's all he's ever called--and he sounds like Orson Welles!). Immediately the police start searching for Superman. One night Lois Lane and Clark Kent are covering the opera. The fake Superman decides to rob the patrons there that night. Lois scares him off---but Clark decides to meet him face to face and get to the bottom of this.

This has to be one of the quickest-moving Superman cartoons I've ever seen. It moves like lightning and (for once) Lois is NOT captured or put in danger. I do love how she casually jumps into the police car (in her beautiful new dress) to join them as they go after the villain. It's never explained how they KNOW where The Boss is though. Who cares? This is fun, fast and beautifully animated. A definite 9.

Showdown (1942)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

A fake Superman is going around robbing various shops and people but the real one gets a chance to grab him, which leads to another criminal. This isn't the greatest cartoon ever made but it's mildly entertaining simply because it breaks free from the plot lines of previous shorts. The movie mixes it up a little bit and for that I'm extremely grateful considering the previous shorts were starting to go down the same path. What really goes against the film is that the fake Superman is about a quarter the size of the real one so when they finally reach their showdown, it's pretty disappointing because the fake guy is so small and not much of a match.

Besides the comic-book superheroics, an interesting thing about some of these old Superman cartoons is the role of the narrator. They all begin with a voiceover from an unseen narrator who introduces the general concept of Superman, of course, but I'm talking about a character as narrator. In the original "Superman" (1941), Lois Lane was the storyteller; the film we saw was or became the story she wrote as a reporter for The Daily Planet. In this one, "Showdown," Lois takes a back seat to Supes and his alter ego--or double--Clark Kent. Added here is another doppelgänger for the man of steel in the form of a crook impersonating him (as, meanwhile, his crime boss impersonates Edward G. Robinson).

The short doesn't conclude with a story by Lane, either, but with Kent waking up from a snooze. One may read this as him continuing his impersonation of not being Superman, but another way to look at it is that the entire story of doubles (Clark/Superman and two Supermans) was Clark's dream after a boring night at the opera. In this final scene, Lois says she has a story to tell him, but we never hear it. This is Clark's story.

I love the Fleischer Superman cartoons. The animation is smooth and fluid with vivid colors. The distinct art-deco style, vintage science fiction imagery, and use of noirish shadows gave them a look unlike any other cartoons. The music and voice work is superb. They're fun, accessible, enduring animation classics. While this is a cartoon from Fleischer Studios' successor, Famous Studios, it still tries to maintain the Fleischer style.

In the eleventh in the series, someone disguised as Superman is committing crimes all over Metropolis. Lois and Clark are assigned to cover the opera and, while there, Lois has a run-in with the impostor. Clark wastes no time changing into his red & blues and confronting the fake. Impostor Superman leads the real Supes to his boss, who won't be taken easily. The second Superman short from Famous is their best and one of the most different in the whole series. It's the closest any of the shorts come to being a comedy. The fake Superman is very funny. An interesting note is that Jack Mercer and Jackson Beck, who voice the fake Superman and his boss respectively, also did the voices of Popeye and Bluto in Popeye cartoons.