Picked up a disk at a dollar store of the Max and Dave Fleischer Superman cartoons of the 40's. We watched half of them, very elaborate stuff. A truly cool visual experience. And unlike many cinematic works of yore, the kid was riveted.
http://content.answers.com/main/content/wp/en/thumb/9/97/250px-Superman-mechanical-monster.jpg
I can tell if they were way ahead of there time, or if the stuff I grew up with had a hard time keeping up.
http://www.flixens.com/files/superman5.jpg
I understand they were the biggest budgeted cartoon short subkect films ever, to the tune of 50k per episode.
http://www.flixens.com/files/superman1.jpg

I've got those laserdiscs, never spun them up- nice to know they're worth the trouble.

The cover says over $100,000 per episode...

Thanks,

je

The Fleischer brothers really didn't spare much expense when it came to animation. Some of their best work are the cartoons from the 30s --especially older popeye and betty boop cartons.

They layered the backgrounds on sheets of glass, and moved each one individually per frame. This gave the cartoon a true 3D effect. It was wayyy cool.