Okay, so Superman's still alive and kicking (and neck snapping) in the movies with Henry Cavill being the latest to pull on the blue tights and red cape in Zack Snyder's Man Of Steel, but the animated version has been absent from our screens for quite a while at this point. One of the all-time greatest versions of Superman were the Max Fleischer cartoons from the forties which used to air in between features at cinemas of the time. The hand-drawn animation is gorgeous, the superheroics are really epic, and even the World War II propaganda is more sensitively handled than most of the serial's contemporaries. As in, not super racist. It's an old school version of Clark Kent that you don't see a whole lot of nowadays, unless you happened to be paying attention to a series of commercials that aired in the States advertising American Express credit cards. Commercials which starred a Fleischer-style animated Superman hanging out with his bezzie mate, Jerry Seinfeld. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bQeuKDXuoEo See these ones we don't mind so much, since the Man Of Steel has been used to shill countless over crummy products over the decades, and because these are genuinely entertaining. Seinfeld is a huge Superman nerd in real life - something which came up on his show from time to time as well - and The Adventures of Seinfeld & Superman, which filter his observational comedy style through the filter of an invincible cartoon superhero, is a neat twist on his established formula. Plus they were helmed by legit director Barry Levinson, with Patrick Warburton voicing Superman, so there's some serious talent on display there. He is still trying to sell you a credit card, mind.
Tom Baker is the Comics Editor at WhatCulture! He's heard all the Doctor Who jokes, but not many about Randall and Hopkirk. He also blogs at http://communibearsilostate.wordpress.com/
