Like most kids cartoons, this one begins with a corpse being dumped into a swamp.
Saboteurs! It’s saboteurs again. But this time we’re not told they’re foreign agents or anything, they seems to just be Guys Who Do Crimes. It’s weird for this era of these shorts, but it’s what we’ve got. Anyway, whatever this conspiracy is, they seem to have got into a pretty good position at the Metropolis Munitions Plant. I’d expect that’d be a pretty good position to use for various crimes, but their plan is to blow the place up. I guess they know their business better than I do.
Lois goes undercover at the plant to see what’s going on, and naturally this ends with her being chased through the rafters and getting locked in a torpedo to be killed. Fortunately, Superman is on the case ready to save our intrepid reporter and the munitions plant. It’s pretty standard stuff, without even a rudimentary sci-fi twist to make it more interesting to me. And I have to admit that the animation, while still good compared to plenty of cartoons I’ve seen from the decades since, has fallen a bit since the Fleischer era.
Going into this one I had no strong memories of which it was, so when we see the apparently-elderly night watchman I did think to myself that he looked like he was built exactly like Clark I didn’t realize how right I was. But, of course, I’m no Lois Lane. She sees through the outfit easily. Apparently there’s nothing that Clark could put on that would disguise him from her.
One thing I did remember (though I didn’t know which short it happened in) is Louis. At one point in this cartoon Clark thinks he’s talking to Lois, but there’s actually a goofy little guy called Louis standing there. It’s not especially funny now, but I bet at the times this had kids rolling in the aisles. Let’s bring Louis back in the next Superman movie, people.
In this one, America tells Japan that their cartoon can beat them up.
After the opening (it’s the new nature-themed one again) this short is basically just a montage of Superman sabotaging Japan (it’s apparently okay when he does it). Our intrepid reporters are prisoners in Japan, but every night Clark secretly busts out of the room he’s being kept in to bust up all the boats and bridges and stuff. I’m all for Superman wrecking up violent empires, but I could stand to see it with less wanton destruction. Take “How Superman Would Win The War” in which he strikes directly at the leaders of the aggressive nations. There at least he doesn’t kill a bunch of soldiers and destroy cities. Maybe you say that he can only do that in a sort of What If scenario like that short story because in the real world he can’t end the war? Well, to that I say maybe Superman isn’t the best place for this particular kind of propaganda then.
But hey, speaking of propaganda, we are still dealing with racist depictions of Japanese men, with the buck-teeth and so on. I’d take wanton destruction if we could get rid of that.
Anyway, they try to stop Superman by saying they will kill Lois if he keeps it up. He keeps it up. They put Lois in front of a firing squad, but just in time to block the bullets Superman arrives and beats them up and saves her. He brings her back to America, where she notes that Clark is still captured in Japan, but Superman will be there to protect him. It’s genuinely a sort of never-give-up bit of badassery that people like in superhero stuff and it would go down soother if not connected to the racist propaganda.
It’s a story that has been done in the comics and the shows and probably more. A guy dresses as Superman and does crimes that make people (even the Daily Planet) lose confidence in their hero. In this short’s case we don’t even get a name for the imposter or his boss. Honestly, I barely understand why this guy is bothering with the Superman costume given that half his crimes are smash and grabs or pickpocketing that he could do just as easily without it. Anyway, Lois investigates, Superman stops the baddies, standard stuff.
Things worth mentioning:
A copy boy appears at the Planet, never given a name, but his high-pitched Jack Mercer voice reminds me of Beanie Martin from the radio show, so I assume it is him.
The boss bad guy has one of those desks with a button that opens a trap door in front of the desk! That’s cool.
Clark seems to fall asleep at the opera for real, not as a bit.
Clark does do a bit with his top hat at the end. I may love a wink at the end, but a top hat bit is an acceptable substitute.
At one point Clark says “my double’s in for some trouble” which is also fun. It rhymes.
Finally, It’s interesting that the things Superman is compared to in the opening have changed again. I only remembered it happening once, but now he’s “faster than a streak of lightning, more powerful than the pounding surf, and mightier than a roaring hurricane.” It’s a very natural group of things. If that matters, I can’t think of why right now, though this is indeed one of the least science-fictiony of these shorts to date.
Oh, by the way, there’s been a war going on this whole time. Time for it to be in the Superman shorts.
They use the version of the opening with the “higher than any plane” bit, which is appropriate for this short, and then we see a Daily Planet announcing that the world’s biggest bomber plane has been constructed. And so a Japanese man in an office somewhere hits that button that all Japanese businessmen must have that transforms their Statue of Liberty picture into a Rising Sun flag. If the title of the short wasn’t clear enough for you, it should be clear now that we’re in propaganda town. The short is basically saying that no matter how American they seem, any Japanese person could turn out to be a spy. Just great. And yes, the lead Japanese spy is a buck-toothed guy who looks like Daffy Duck should be messing with him.
Anyway, Lois and Clark are checking out that new big plane. And it is a big friggin’ plane, they weren’t lying about that. It definitely fulfills the sci-fi component for this short. Anyway, Lois and Clark are there and when they are supposed to leave, Lois hides and stays on there and obviously that means she’s there when the plane is hijacked. A Superman fight ensues and in the end Superman catches it before it can crash into the city.
Leaving the wartime propaganda element aside, I’d say that the first of the Famous shorts doesn’t seem that much like a visual quality dropoff to me. The takeoff sequence isn’t anything special, I guess, but I like the transition with the burning newspaper.
The circus is in town and Lois Lane doesn’t love it. She has been sent by the Daily Planet to review the circus, a job she clearly considers beneath her. But then a little monkey accidentally releases Gigantic the Gorilla and a rampage ensues! Lois’s day is saved! Hooray!
Some other circus animals are also involved in the rampage, so Superman gets to catch a panther and some lions (though I think one lion is still on the loose at the end of the cartoon), but the real feature here is Superman versus Gorilla. I’ve made a big deal about how most of these shorts lean into Superman versus some Sci-Fi concept, but this one continues the trend of last episode of pitting the hero against Nature. Now, granted, I argued that the the T-Rex should count as a sci-fi thing because they were relatively recently discovered at the time. And yeah, gorillas had only been accepted by the scientific community as existing for less than a century at the time of this cartoon’s creation, but still, this is post-King Kong. A regular ape is not sci-fi post-King King.
Does Lois wind up in distress in this one? Of course she does. Is it because she’s inherently a weak, feminine figure? No, it’s because she rescues a little girl from Gorilla Attack. Good for you, Lois. She earned her scoop on this story.
Also worth mentioning: the little monkey that incites the problems in this one is dressed like a bellhop. I’m pretty sure this design will be reused as a toy owned by Titano the chimp in the 90s Superman cartoon.
Now, this is the last of the actual Fleischer Studios Superman cartoons. After this they are taken over by Famous Studios. I remember the general opinion being that quality drops after this, but there are several things that haven’t happened yet that I remember being good. Let’s find out if I still think so as we continue down the path, I suppose.
