The Museum of Modern Art Presents Fleischer Cartoons: The Art and Inventions of Max Fleischer

The Museum of Modern Art presents Fleischer Cartoons: The Art and Inventions of Max Fleischer. As America approaches 100 years as an animation powerhouse, MoMA is thrilled to present a comprehensive survey of classic cartoons by the Fleischer Brothers, most famous for their Jazz Age creations Betty Boop and Koko the Clown as well as their wildly popular screen adaptations of E.C. Segar’s Popeye and DC Comics’ Superman. This retrospective will include family-friendly matinees, but also programs historical (spotlighting Max Fleischer’s very early Koko the Clown silents, which famously combined live-action hijinks with hand-drawn animation) and thematic, all too appropriate given the Fleischers’ merciless sense of humor and profound eye for anything phantasmagorical and transgressive – including sound-era triumphs like the Betty Boop headliner Minnie the Moocher, featuring a ferocious rotoscoped performance from Cab Calloway, or the Technicolor two-reeler masterpiece Popeye The Sailor Man Meets Sindbad the Sailor Man. Much of the material in Fleischer Cartoons draws from a wealth of new 4K restorations supervised by Max Fleischer’s granddaughter Jane Fleischer Reid, many of which will be making their world premieres at MoMA.