Fleischer Cartoons: Spooky! Surreal!

Film

No upcoming events

Swing You Sinners! 1930. Directed by Dave Fleischer, produced by Max Fleischer. Courtesy of FleischerToons.

The Fortune Teller. 1923. DCP. 8 min.
Swing You Sinners!. 1930. DCP. 8 min.
Betty Boop’s Hallowe’en Party. 1933. DCP. 7 min.
Red Hot Mama. 1934. DCP. 7 min.
Koko's Hot Dog. 1928. DCP. 6 min.
Betty Boop, MD. 1932. DCP. 7 min.
The Cobweb Hotel. 1936. DCP. 8 min.
Goonland. 1938. DCP. 8 min.

The Fleischers’ special knack for loose-limbed, elastic animation was especially well suited to macabre, phantasmagorical, and just-plain-creepy subject matter. Whether human, animal, plant, or inanimate object, all who appear in these cartoons run the constant risk of being transformed into something (or someone) else. (Max Fleischer was known for saying, “If it can be done in real life, it isn’t animation.”) Red Hot Mama details Betty Boop’s attempts to stay warm on a cold winter night, only for her fireplace to become a portal to Hell. In Swing You Sinners!, a tune written by W. Franke Harling and Sam Coslow provides for a literal walk among the tombstones, as the petty chicken-thief Bimbo is confronted by ghosts and demons after hiding in a cemetery on the run from the police.

This film accompanies Fleischer Cartoons: The Art and Inventions of Max Fleischer.

Past events

Wed, Mar 13, 2024, 4:30 p.m.

MoMA, Floor T2, Theater 2

The Roy and Niuta Titus Theater 2
Sat, Mar 9, 2024, 4:30 p.m.

Followed by a discussion with Mauricio Alvarado, restoration artist Thad Komorowski, scholar Ray Pointer, and Fleischer Studios Creative Director Frank Caruso

MoMA, Floor T2, Theater 2

The Roy and Niuta Titus Theater 2

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