Cartooning America: The Fleischer Brothers Story
FAIN: TR-261087-18
Filmmakers Collaborative, Inc. (Melrose, MA 02176-3933)
Kathryn P. Dietz (Project Director: January 2018 to present)
Production of a three-hour film series about the family of animators who created such iconic early cartoon characters as Koko the Clown, Popeye the Sailor Man, and Betty Boop.
Cartooning America: The Fleischer Brothers Story is a three-hour film series about a family of artists and inventors who revolutionized animation and created some of the funniest and most irreverent cartoon characters of all time. They began working in the early 1900s, at the same time as Walt Disney, but while Disney went on to become a household name, the Fleischers are barely remembered. Our film will change this, introducing a wide national audience to a family of brothers—Max, Dave, Lou, Joe, and Charlie—who created Fleischer Studios and a roster of animated characters who reflected the rough and tumble sensibilities of their own Jewish immigrant neighborhood in Brooklyn, New York. “The Fleischer story involves the glory of American Jazz culture, union brawls on Broadway, gangsters, sex, and southern segregation,” says advisor Tom Sito. Advisor Jerry Beck adds, “It is a story of rags to riches—and then back to rags—leaving a legacy of iconic cinema and evergreen entertainment.”