Fleischer Studios, Inc., was an American corporation which originated as an animation studio located at 1600 Broadway, New York City, New York. It was founded in 1921 as Inkwell Studios (or Out of the Inkwell Films) by brothers Max Fleischer and Dave Fleischer who ran the company from its inception until Paramount Pictures, the studios parent company and the distributor of its films, forced them to resign in April 1942. In its prime, it was the most significant competitor to Walt Disney Productions and is notable for bringing to the screen cartoons featuring Koko the Clown, Betty Boop, Bimbo, Popeye the Sailor, and Superman. Unlike other studios, whose most famous characters were anthropomorphic animals, the Fleischers most popular characters were humans.\r
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The Popeye series was acquired by Associated Artists Productions (a.a.p.), which later became part of United Artists (for info on the Popeye retitling, see the a.a.p. article) and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Turner Entertainment, after failing to buy MGM outright, settled for ownership of the library, including the Popeye cartoons, in 1986. A number of Popeye cartoons have also gone public domain, but not nearly as many entries as other Fleischer series due to better copyright management on UAs part. Popeyes trademark has been strictly enforced over the years by King Features Syndicate.\r
The Superman series reverted to National Comics after Paramounts rights to the character expired. TV syndication rights were initially licensed to Flamingo Films, distributors of the 1950s Superman TV series. All 17 entries in this series would enter the public domain in the late 1960s-early 1970s, when National/DC failed to renew their copyrights.\r
Both of these series are now under the ownership of Warner Bros. Entertainment, a subsidiary of Time Warner. WB bought the original film elements to the Superman series in 1969 after buying DC Comics. Then in 1996, Time Warner bought out Turner, giving WB ownership of the Popeye series, although technically speaking these two franchises are owned by the various units of Time Warner (Turner and DC, respectively). WB has since produced (alone or with other companies) numerous other animated works featuring Superman, including a TV series in the 1990s.\r
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This is a list of the 109 cartoons starring Popeye the Sailor, produced from 1933 to 1942 by Fleischer Studios for Paramount Pictures.\r
During the course of production in 1941, Paramount assumed control of the Fleischer studio, removing founders Max and Dave Fleischer from control of the studio and renaming the organization Famous Studios by 1942. Popeye cartoons continued production under Famous Studios following 1942s Baby Wants a Bottleship (see Popeye the Sailor filmography (Famous Studios)).\r
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All cartoons are one-reel (6 to 10 minutes) and in black and white, except for the three Popeye Color Specials (Popeye the Sailor Meets Sindbad the Sailor from 1936, Popeye the Sailor Meets Ali Babas Forty Thieves from 1937, and Aladdin and His Wonderful Lamp from 1939), which are two-reels (20 minutes) long and in Technicolor.\r
Dave Fleischer was the credited director on every cartoon produced by Fleischer Studios. Fleischers actual duties were those of a film producer and creative supervisor, with the head animators doing much of the work assigned to animation directors in other studios. The head animator is the first animator listed. Credited animators are therefore listed for each short.