Fleischer Cartoons: Greatest Hits

Film

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Held on Thu, Mar 7, 2024, 6:30 p.m.

Followed by a discussion with Jane Fleischer Reid, Mauricio Alvarado, scholar Ray Pointer, and restoration artist Thad Komorowski

MoMA, Floor T2, Theater 2

The Roy and Niuta Titus Theater 2

Popeye the Sailor Meets Ali Baba's Forty Thieves. Directed by Dave Fleischer, produced by Max Fleischer. 1937. DCP. Courtesy of FleischerToons.

Koko's Earth Control. 1928. DCP. 7 min.
Bimbo's Initiation. 1931. DCP. 6 min.
Snow White. 1933. DCP. 7 min.
Dinah. 1933. DCP. 7 min.
Betty Boop & Grampy. 1935. DCP. 7 min.
Popeye the Sailor Meets Ali Baba's Forty Thieves. 1937. DCP. 17 min.

This program testifies to the Fleischers’ many technological breakthroughs: the collision of live-action shenanigans with painstaking hand-drawn animation epitomized in the 1928 masterpiece Koko’s Earth Control, and the rotoscoping of flesh-and-blood performers into eerie dancers, such as Koko the Klown embodying Cab Calloway in the Fleischers’ utterly deranged take on Snow White, starring Betty Boop. Bimbo’s Initiation sees Bimbo driven to madness as he tries to escape a mysterious fraternal order trying to induct him (only to discover the ringleader is Betty in cult disguise—anticipating Eyes Wide Shut?).

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

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