Sound and Color
With their earlier experience with sound, Fleischer Studios made the transition with ease. Their production and distribution deal with Paramount allowed to expand on their song film format in their new Screen Songs, a continuation of the earlier Ko-Ko Song Cartunes. The first of these was The Sidewalks of New York, released on February 5, 1929. In October of that same year, the Fleischers introduced a new series called Talkartoons. Earlier entries in the series were mostly one-shot cartoons, but Bimbo would become a staple of the series. Bimbo was upstaged by his girlfriend, Betty Boop, who quickly became the star of the studio, and by August 1932, the Talkartoon series was renamed as Betty Boop cartoons; Fleischer Studios also gained more success by using Cab Calloway in three Betty Boop cartoons, Louis Armstrong, and Don Redman each featured in separate cartoons. Betty was the first featured female character in American animation, and she reflected the distinctive adult urban orientation of the studio's product.
The studio's initial successes began to turn as the 1930s continued. In 1934, the Hays Code was enacted in Hollywood, which resulted in severe censorship for films. Betty's sexuality was neutralized, and much of her charm was lost. At the same time, the Hays Code affected the tone of Paramount's films. Paramount had also gone through three reorganizations from bankruptcy between 1931 and 1936. And the new management set out to make more general audience films of the type made at MGM, but for lower budgets. This change in content policy affected the content of cartoons that Fleischer was to produce for Paramount, who was urging Fleischer to consider emulating Walt Disney's cartoons. The most notable example of the Fleischers' adaptation of the Disney style was their Color Classics series, which was essentially a copy and direct parody of Disney's Silly Symphonies.
The Fleischers' success was further solidified when they licensed E.C. Segar's comic strip character Popeye the Sailor for a cartoon series of his own. Popeye eventually became the most popular series the Fleischers ever produced, and its success rivaled that of Walt Disney's Mickey Mouse cartoons. Three Technicolor Popeye featurettes were produced in 1936, 1937, and 1939, and were billed in many theatres alongside with or above the main feature.
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