Max & Dave Fleischer
The Fleischer Brothers (Max & Dave) were the founders of Fleischer Studios in 1929, which was the main competitor of Disney throughout the '30s. Fleischer Studios produced several successful cartoon series with characters recognisable worldwide to this day.
The Fleischer Brothers are a crucial part of the story of popular cartoons. Among Fleischers' successes were the Popeye cartoons, Betty Boop and the classic Superman shorts.
'Out of the Inkwell' (1918-27) was the Fleischers' early experimental series which introduced the world to Ko-Ko the Clown. Animation was still in its infancy and general audiences were new to the idea, so Ko-Ko was presented as a drawing come to life (here shown interacting with a fly on the drawing board). The animation still looks very smooth as the Fleischer Brothers invented and implemented rotoscoping, tracing the actual footage of a performer to attain true fluid motion.
The early Fleischer cartoons are incredibly rich in creativity, and still inspire a joy of animation, pushing the limits of the medium (usually for comic effect). There is a rubberiness to the characters in Fleischer cartoons, with limbs always bending in a signature goofy style. In contrast with Disney shorts of the same period, Fleischer Studios' output feels a little more adult in tone and often outright weird in the best possible way.
