Watch the Original Fleischer Superman Cartoons in 3D – For Free!
If you’re a fan of the classic Max Fleischer “Superman” cartoons of the 1940s, you’re in luck. You can now watch them remastered in high definition, and even in 3D. Best of all, it’s free – if you use Roku.
If you’re unfamiliar with the Fleischer Superman cartoons, they are a series of seventeen animated short films released in Technicolor by Paramount Pictures between 1941 and 1943. Released shortly after the first “Superman” comic book was released in 1938.
In actuality, Fleischer Studios only produced the first nine shorts. In 1942, Famous Studios took over the series and produced the final eight shorts. Even though the final eight were not Fleischer productions, they kept the look and feel, as well as the music and voice actors.
Unlike the first nine Fleischer shorts, which featured science fiction themes, the eight Famous Studios shorts mostly featured a war theme, with Superman battling our global enemies at the time, the Japanese and the Nazis. It should be noted that some of the cartoons feature some very dated racial stereotypes of Asians and African tribesmen.
Although Warner Bros. owns the original 35mm film stock of the shorts, they are actually in the public domain. Over the years, low-quality versions of the shorts have been released by various companies on DVD. Warner Bros. even remastered the shorts themselves and included them as special features in a box set of the Christopher Reeve Superman films.
However, media company 8ctive has created a Roku channel featuring all 17 of the shorts, remastered in high definition. They have even gone further, offering all the shorts in anaglyph 3D, using the old-school “red and blue” effect.
The cartoons are available on a Roku channel titled “Superman 3D,” and is easily found when that term is entered in channel search. There is no cost to add the channel.
The shorts are combined into one video, which lasts just over two hours. You are given the choice of watching the shorts in HD or 3D. If you leave the channel before finishing the shorts, the channel will remember where you left off when you return.
The quality of the video, although branded as high definition, is at best standard DVD quality, as the source material definitely exhibits age. Also, the 3D effect, because it utilizes old school “red and blue” 3D, isn’t nearly as good as modern 3D, but it is fun to watch.
Commercials do play in between most of the cartoons, but do not last long.
Of course, you’ll need Anaglyph 3D glasses to watch them, and they can be easily purchased on Amazon, either in plastic frames or the old-school cardboard glasses.
Here are some links to purchase 3D glasses on Amazon.
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