Superman Showdown - HD Restoration; Color, Surround Sound Stereo Theatrical Cartoon

Описание: Released October 16, 1942 Superman "Showdown" is the 11th of the 17 theatrical cartoon Superman episodes and the second from The Famous Studio. This episode is unique in that it is the only one with a Jimmy Olson character, the sidekick paperboy/cub reporter that became a staple in the later live action TV Superman, though he was not actually called "Jimmy Olson" - that credit goes to the later TV show.

Trivia: Who was the voice of the "Jimmy Olson" character in this episode? None other than Jack Mercer (the voice of Popeye) and is credited as voicing Jimmy Olsen in the original credits of the film! Jack Mercer also does the voice of the imposter Superman.

Trivia 2: This is the first time that the (now overused plot) of Superman having an evil twin, or fake Superman, or imposter Superman - it all started right here!

Showdown if very dark, I believe to make it fit the popular genre of the day, Noir, but I also believe the went dark to avoid the expense of complicated backgrounds, and that they had gotten blowback for not using the 3D model rotoscoping method of Fleischer Studios for the backgrounds. You will recall that in the first 9 Superman's, Superman actually seems to fly by the cityscapes (read more on this in the description under our YouTube posting of Japatours).

Showdown begins as a figure dressed like Superman (but with the face of a real dim bulb gangster type, (an effect to make it clear to the audience it was a fake superman, a theme that was re-used in the early TV show, the Movie series, and even the modern TV and DVD releases) This "Fake" Superman is terrorizing Metropolis with various robberies and attacks. Now the "boss" looks so much like Edward G Robinson the only thing they are missing is Mel Blanc doing the voice lol!

Superman as Clark Kent at the opera with Lois Lane sees the fake Superman sneaking around and stealing jewelry, and you can guess the rest I won't spoil it for you by spelling it out. All in all, not the best of the Superman Theatrical Classic Cartoon Series, but better than 99% of anything else produced at the time!

Enjoy this excellent example of classic animation. As you know Cartoon Crazys first restored Superman cartoons for Max Fleischer's Superman, the bestselling animated DVD on Amazon in 1998 and 1999. Followed up by Superman The Lost Episodes, the 8 Superman cartoons done at The Famous Studios. We named them "lost" as an inside joke at the time, because the transition between Fleischer and Famous Studios was such a chaotic mess that the last 8 Superman cartoons in the series of 17 were wildly different in plot, animation and quality. But they were still all a lot of fun! For this YouTube posting I have established pure black, something that did not exist in the NTST era and does now exist in the HD era. True black gives this episode the look it had in theaters, as far as I can see, for the first time anywhere!

Enjoy these restorations for what they are, for what we do this for, to make classic animation fun for all to watch!