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Born in Vienna , Austria , Fleischer was the second oldest of six children. His family immigrated to the USA in 1887 and settled in New York City . Fleischer had the idea of using frames of a live action film as the basis for drawing animation, his patent for the Rotoscope was granted in 1917 , although Max and Dave Fleischer made their first cartoon using the device in 1915 . Extensive use of this technique was made in Fleischer's '' Out Of The Inkwell '' series, one of the highlights being a boxing match between the cartoon '' Koko The Clown '' and a live kitten. Fleischer was also responsible for "follow the bouncing ball" sing-along cartoons. In 1919 he established Fleischer Studios for producing animated cartoons and short subjects. At one point all of his siblings (as well as his son Richard Fleischer ) worked there. Fleischer produced the first sound animated cartoons in 1924 using the Lee DeForest sound-on-film synchronization process (years before '' Steamboat Willie '', which The Walt Disney Company says is the first Mickey Mouse cartoon with sound but makes no effort to emply as the first sound cartoon ever). Several of Fleischer's cartoons had soundtracks by (and often live or rotoscoped footage of) some of the leading Jazz performers of the time, perhaps most notably Cab Calloway . On May 24 , 1941 , Fleischer Studios was taken over by Paramount Pictures and was renamed Famous Studios . Fleischer and his brother ran the company for another year before resigning. He later took a job of producting and directing the Handy Corporation's rare cartoon shorts, one of which was Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer . Fleischer left Handy in 1954 and went to Bray Studios (which he had worked for in 1916 ). He later tried unsuccessfully to sue Parmount and get money back from the company for selling his cartoons to television. In his late years, Fleischer was poor and ended up living at the Motion Picture Country House , where he died in 1972 . Ironically, he died eleven days after signing a contract with King Features to reintroduce Betty Boop to the world, a deal which would have made him millions. REFERENCES Out of the Inkwell: Max Fleisher and the Animation Revolution, Richard Fleischer , University Press of Kentucky, 2005, ISBN 0813123550 EXTERNAL LINKS |
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