Superman destroys a museum using giants as weapons.
Okay, like the last one, this short begins with a fresh corpse. Kids love that. This time it is a scientist at a museum that focuses on Ancient Egypt where a guy has been found dead, and his assistant gets the blame for his murder. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: I always like when a Superman story is about proving someone’s innocence of a crime. This time, though, the woman has not been the victim of a frame-job or even police incompetence. This time the real culprit was a booby-trapped sarcophagus. Some scientist guy discovers that and tells Clark about it, then Clark immediately trips the exact same trap relying only on his Superness to prevent his own death. And then there’s a fight with some giants and the short is done.
I’ve spent pretty much all of these write-ups about the shorts pointing out that they love Superman as a sci-fi figure going up against the newest science stuff of the day. They love putting him up against big machines like trains or planes, or devices like death rays and robots, or marvels of nature like gorillas and volcanoes. This is the one where I have to say we’re up against what seems to be a supernatural threat. When Clark opens the sarcophagus, it activates four giant guards. I guess they could be some kind of artificial creation, but that isn’t the story we’re told and they sure look like giant people. This is straight-up magic in this one, people. That said, I do still think science is the feature here. 1943 feels a little late for the prime era of America’s obsession with Egypt, but still that archaeological fad was a big deal in the youths of the people making this cartoon. The bulk of this story is actually a museum guy giving us the story of King Tush, a King Tut-inspired child king, while we see ancient artifacts and drawings, all designed to appeal to the young Egyptophiles of the day.
And once you realize that the real set piece is the lecture on Egypt, you can see how phoned-in the fight is. Sure, the giants almost throw Lois and the museum guy into the big fire pit that I assume all museums have, but Superman beats these guys by just shoving them around and breaking the museum. It feels like the whole fight lasts a couple seconds.
Also, I just want to note that Lois (who follows along to try to steal the scoop from Clark) is shown as being bandaged after the attack at the museum. It’s kind of surprising to see physical consequences for these adventures. She’s still in good enough spirits to make a bad joke, though.
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.
