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SILENT FILMS '' cartoon, '' Smiles '' (1929).]] The company had its start when Max Fleischer invented the . Throughout the 1920s, the studio was one of the top producers of animation, with clever humor and numerous innovations. These included '' Ko-Ko Song Cartunes '', sing-along shorts (featuring the famous " Bouncing Ball "), which were a precursor to Music Videos ; and extended length educational films such as '' The Einstein Theory Of Relativity ''. The studio even produced some experimental sound films years before ''' The Jazz Singer ''. The sound shorts attracted little interest at the time though, in part because only a few theaters were then equipped with electronic speakers. The studio used Lee De Forest 's methods to produce over a dozen early cartoons with synchronized sound tracks, including, ''Come Take a Trip in My Airship'', ''Darling Nelly Gray'', '' My Old Kentucky Home '', and ''In the Good Old Summer Time''. The Ko-Ko Song Cartune series lasted between 1924 and 1926. SOUND AND COLOR With the full adoption of sound films in the late 1920s, the studio was one of the few animation companies to successfully make the transition with '' Screen Songs '', a continuation of the earlier ''Ko-Ko Song Cartunes''; the new Fleischer Studios now had a distribution deal with Paramount as well. The first of these was '' The Sidewalks Of New York '', released on February 5 , 1929 . In October of that same year, the Fleischers introduced a new series called '' Talkartoons ''. Earlier entries in the series were mostly one-shot cartoons, but Bimbo would become a staple of the series. Bimbo was quickly upstaged by his girlfriend, Betty Boop , who quickly became the star of the studio, and by August of 1932, the Talkartoon series was renamed as Betty Boop cartoons; Fleischer Studios also gained more success by using Cab Calloway in three Betty Boop cartoons. Betty was the first featured female character in American animation, and she reflected the distinctive adult urban orientation of the studio's product. The Fleischers' success was further solidified when they licensed E.C. Segar 's Comic Strip character Popeye The Sailor for a cartoon series of his own. ''Popeye'' eventually became the most popular series the Fleischers ever produced, and its success rivaled that of Walt Disney 's Mickey Mouse cartoons. Three Technicolor ''Popeye'' featurettes were produced in the late 1930s, which were billed in many theatres alongside with or above the main feature. Unfortunately, the studio's fortunes began to turn as the 1930s continued. In 1934 , the Hays Code was enacted in Hollywood, which meant severe censorship for films. As a result, Betty was desexualized and much of her charm was lost. Even worse, the Fleischers caved in to pressure from their distributor, Paramount Pictures , to begin emulating the style and content of Walt Disney's cartoons. The most notable example of the Fleischers' adaptation of the Disney style was their '' Color Classics '' series, which was essentially a copy of Disney's '' Silly Symphonies ''. LATER PERIOD Fleischer Studios' efforts to emulate the Disney studio culminated in the production of animated feature films, following the success of Disney's '' Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs '' ( 1937 ). Paramount loaned Fleischer the money for a larger studio, which was built in Miami, Florida in order to take advantage of Tax breaks and to break up Union activity resulting from a bitter 1937 strike. The new Fleischer studio opened in October 1938 , and production on the first feature, '' Gulliver's Travels '', went from the development stage into active production. Upon its . '' series, Fleischer Studio's most successful late period project.]] However, this late success did not help the studio lift its financial trouble. The expanded staff of the new Miami studio created a high overhead, necessitating steady production. A number of the shorts turned out during this period, such as the continuing ''Popeye'' shorts and a 1941 two-reel adaptation of '' Raggedy Ann And Andy '', maintained a high level of quality. Others, like the ''Stone Age'' shorts, and the various ''Gulliver'' spin-off series, were among the studio's least successful output. ACQUISITION BY PARAMOUNT See Also: Famous Studios |
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