Origin[]
These sixteen cartoons fell into the public domain when National Comics failed to renew their copyrights in the late 1960s/early 1970s.
However, the character of Superman is not in the public domain. While the cartoons are in the public domain, Superman's first appearance in Action Comics #1 (1938) will remain under copyright until 2034.
In addition, although all entries are in the public domain, ancillary rights, such as merchandising contract rights, as well as the original 35 mm master elements, are owned today by Warner Bros., which has also owned Superman's publisher, DC Comics, since 1969.
Superman is also held as a trademark by DC and their parent company Warner Bros. This means that although copies of these Superman cartoons can legally be sold, it cannot be advertised in a way that makes it appear as if it's a DC-endorsed product.
However any characters which first debuted in the animated shorts are public domain and could be used freely. These include the Arctic Giant, Gigantic the Gorilla, the Mechanical Monsters, the Bulleteers, the Mad Scientist, King Tush's Guards, the Secret Agent, and more.
Public Domain Animated Appearances[]
Fleischer Studios[]
- Superman (1941)
- The Mechanical Monsters (1941)
- Billion Dollar Limited (1942)
- The Arctic Giant (1942)
- The Bulleeteers (1942)
- The Magnetic Telescope (1942)
- Electric Earthquake (1942)
- Volcano (1942)
- Terror on the Midway (1942)
Famous Studios[]
- Japoteurs (1942)
- Showdown (1942)
- Eleventh Hour (1942)
- Destruction, Inc. (1942)
- The Mummy Strikes (1943)
- Jungle Drums (1943)
- The Underground World (1943)
- Secret Agent (1943)
Notes[]
- This series gave Superman the ability to fly. At the time Superman's aerial abilities were limited to literally "Leaping Tall Buildings In a Single Bound," and the Fleischer Studios intended to adhere to this, but they couldn't animate it without it looking awkward. They copped out and just gave him flight, and hence an archetype was born.
- The Mechanical Monsters is the first story (from any medium) that features Clark Kent using a telephone booth to discard his street clothes and change into Superman. This plot device would thereafter become commonly associated with the character.
- The first cartoon featured the first appearance of the 'Superman Wink', when at the very end, Clark breaks the fourth wall and winks at the audience, the joke being that he is the hero of Lois' story, but nobody in his world knows it, and he doesn't care. This became a regular feature of the Fleischer Superman cartoons and was later introduced to the comics.
- The cartoons featured the "Truth and Justice" motto, which eventually became the "Truth, Justice, and the American Way" motto with the premiere of the September 2, 1942 episode of the 1940s Superman radio series and was recently changed to "Truth, Justice and a Better Tomorrow" in 2021.
- In The Arctic Giant, the short depicts a Godzilla-esque scenario while predating the 1954 film by 12 years.
- The series strongly influenced the creation of the acclaimed animated television series Batman: The Animated Series, as well as the similar-looking Superman: The Animated Series.
- This animated version of Superman was planned to be made as a cameo in the original final scene from the 1988 film Who Framed Roger Rabbit.
- The robot robbery scene from The Mechanical Monsters has been echoed by several later works.
- In 1980, Japanese animated film writer and director Hayao Miyazaki created an identical robbery with a similarly functioning robot in the last episode of the TV series Lupin the Third Part II, a robot design he used again in his feature film Castle in the Sky.
- The 2004 feature-length film Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow (which Paramount released in several territories, Warner Bros. also distributed in a few countries) kept the setting in the 1940s, but scaled up the scene from a single robot robbing a jewelry exhibition to an army of gigantic robots stealing city infrastructure. The movie gave a nod to its source following the robbery with the newspaper headline, "Mechanical Monsters Unearth Generators".
- The elements of the scene were borrowed again in 1994 for "The Tick vs. Brainchild" (Season 1, Episode 9 of The Tick), with the robbery committed by Skippy, a cyborg dog.
- A 1988 music video for the song "Spy in the House of Love" by Chrysalis Records recording artists Was (Not Was) borrowed footage extensively from Famous' Secret Agent short.
- In the Crisis on Infinite Earths tie-in comic, the world of those cartoons takes place on Earth-F before being destroyed by the Anti-Monitor.
- In the Young Justice episode, "Og Htrof Dna Reuqnoc!", the second news report about Superman is shown to have been broadcast on November 28 at 19:41 and accounts his battle with "mechanical monsters".
- During a second season episode of the HBO drama television series The Wire, a character can be seen watching The Mechanical Monsters on television, paralleling a robbery that is about to occur.
- The line "We won't be intimidated by criminal threats" from The Bulleteers short has been used in various promos for the action cartoon block Toonami.