Out of the Inkwell: Max Fleischer and the Animation Revolution

22. It seems that Max’s aim in life was to be

Richard Fleischer 131 22 It seems that Max’s aim in life was to be fully occupied and challenged all the time. He had an enormous capacity for creative work. However, his mind reached out in so many different directions that I don’t believe he could ever be completely satisfied . In fact, in the middle of all the inventing and film producing that he was doing for the Handy Organization, he was getting restless. I find the following note from Max to Jam Handy revealing and touching. It is a mental giant’s cry for help: Dear Jam: My full knowledge and ability to assist JHO in many directions has never been utilized. Will the future offer such an opportunity? Apparently, Max felt that it wouldn’t. A few years later, he was back in New York, living at the Windermere Hotel, in apartment 11J, the same apartment in which he and Essie had always lived. 132 Out of the Inkwell Max spent the next few years commuting between New York and Detroit, supervising the Jam Handy productions and the development of his many inventions, like one of the most important and widely used inventions ever created for motion pictures , Rear Screen Projection, as well as 3-D movies that didn’t require special glasses. He lectured at various schools and universities ; wrote a delightful book, Noah’s Shoes, published in 1951; put together a mail-order animation course that included a thirteen-page manual and a miniature animation table; and kept a careful watch on that burgeoning new entertainment upstart, television. During this period, a strange and rather odd thing happened . In 1953, Max resigned from the Jam Handy Organization and signed a contract with Bray Studios, the same studio for which he had worked in New York in 1916 at the very beginning of his career, the same J. R. Bray with whom he had worked at the Brooklyn Daily Eagle in 1902. How this arrangement came about, I have no idea. Did Max seek Bray out, or was it the other way around? Would going back to Bray look like Max’s career was in reverse? My excuse for not being fully aware of the Bray connection was that I was pursuing my career in Hollywood and was, literally , totally immersed in directing Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea for, of all people, Walt Disney. In any event, on March 2, 1953, Max and Bray Studios signed an agreement setting up the Bray-Fleischer Division of Bray Studios, Inc. The two pioneers in the field of animated cartoons and technical drawings would concentrate on, among other things, new techniques in 3-D film cartoons for the theatrical and industrial fields.The Bray-Fleischer relationship lasted Richard Fleischer 133 until at least 1956, but unfortunately, I can find no record of what, if anything, was ever created. Max watched as a new medium, television, grew into a ravening beast, stuffing itself with every form of entertainment known to the public. He watched and wondered what would happen to the hundreds of his cartoons in Paramount’s possession . He finally found out when, in 1955, Paramount announced the sale of all its shorts, some two thousand of them, to various television outlets, including those owned by Paramount, for $4.5 million dollars. Naturally, all 661 of the Fleischer product were included. The sale of all the Paramount shorts to television wasn’t at all surprising. What was surprising was that it hadn’t taken place sooner. After all, Paramount was the first motion picture company to recognize the importance of television, having formed, in 1939, Paramount Television Productions, Inc., which operated Station KTLA in Hollywood. Max’s question to Balaban, “What is the purpose of all this?” was suddenly, in Max’s mind, answered. The Fleischer Studios agreements with King Features, beginning in 1932, in which the studio obtained motion picture rights to Popeye and other characters associated with the Thimble Theatre comic strip, required Fleischer to destroy each Popeye cartoon, and all its elements, as it reached ten years in distribution . To make certain that this destruction, which was to begin in November 1942, actually took place, the contract required that Fleischer Studios furnish affidavits that the Popeyes were, indeed, destroyed. When the first contract was drawn with King Features in 1932, there were very few television sets in the entire country. 134 Out of...