To tie in with the news of this year’s upcoming sci-fi cinema releases, our online movie of the week is actually three episodes of Superman from 1941, ahead of the Bryan Singer helmed Superman Returns. These shorts were animated by the Fleischer Brothers, who were also responsible for the iconic Betty Boop and the Popeye cartoons. More importantly, they were the inventors of the rotoscope technique of animation, of which an enhanced digital version is used in the upcoming, A Scanner Darkly.
The quality of the animation in these shorts matches anything produced today, and the stories aren’t bad either.
To watch online, click on the thumbnail. Broadband and QuickTime required.
To download the files, right-click (ctrl-click on Mac) on the appropriate link.
Note: There seems to be limited bandwidth on the downloads of around 40-50 KB/s, no matter what your provider’s bandwidth is. Be patient.
 64Kb MPEG4 (12 MB) 256Kb MPEG4 (27 MB) MPEG1 (69 MB) MPEG2 (525 MB) |
 64Kb MPEG4 (12 MB) 256Kb MPEG4 (27 MB) MPEG1 (74 MB) MPEG2 (516 MB) |
 64Kb MPEG4 (10 MB) 256Kb MPEG4 (23 MB) MPEG1 (57 MB) MPEG2 (435 MB) |