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The Mechanical Monsters

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The Mechanical Monsters
Title card from The Mechanical Monsters
Directed byDave Fleischer
Story bySeymour Kneitel
Isidore Sparber
Based on
Superman
by
Produced byMax Fleischer
StarringBud Collyer
Joan Alexander
Jackson Beck
Music bySammy Timberg
Winston Sharples (uncredited)
Lou Fleischer (uncredited)
Animation bySteve Muffati
George Germanetti
Color processTechnicolor
Production
company
Distributed byParamount Pictures
Release date
  • November 28, 1941 (1941-11-28)
Running time
9 minutes (one reel)
LanguageEnglish

The Mechanical Monsters[1] is a 1941 American animated short film directed by Dave Fleischer. It is the second of seventeen animated Technicolor short films based upon the DC Comics character Superman. Produced by Fleischer Studios, the story features Superman battling a villainous inventor and his army of robots. It was originally released by Paramount Pictures on November 28, 1941.[2]

Plot

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A robot arrives at an inventor's secret lair and unloads a large amount of money it stole from a local bank into a vault. The robot is then revealed to be one of many others that the inventor has created. The front page of the Daily Planet reports the robot's robbery right alongside an announcement for the display of fifty million dollars of the world's rarest gems at the local museum.

A scene from the short detailing one of its titular robots on the attack.

Later, Clark Kent is covering the museum's exhibit for the Planet, though he is greeted by Lois Lane, who intends to cover the story as well. The robot soon resurfaces and infiltrates the museum while the police fail to stop it. Museum visitors, including Clark and Lois, flee as the robot begins loading the jewels into a compartment within its torso. While Clark phones the Planet from the nearest phone booth, Lois sneaks into the robot's compartment, just as it leaves the museum and takes to the sky. Clark emerges from the booth and notices Lois is gone, before going back into it and becoming Superman.

Flying high above the city, Superman spots the robot and uses his X-ray vision to see Lois inside it. He lands on the robot and struggles to open its compartment, only to have the inventor maneuver the robot upside down and throw him off into an overhead power line, tangling him in its wires. As the robot is upside down, its compartment opens up and all the jewels fall out in the process, with Lois surviving only by hanging on for dear life until the robot flips back over. As Superman struggles to free himself from the power line's wires, the robot arrives at the lair, but instead of the jewels, the inventor finds Lois inside it. When she refuses to tell the inventor what became the jewels at his demand, the latter prepares to lower her into a pot of molten metal in part of what appears to be an industrial foundry.

Meanwhile, Superman frees himself from the power lines and knocks down the door to the inventor's lair, only to oppose the rest of his robots. Initially, the robots appear to have the upper hand, but Superman is undeterred and soon defeats them, sending the inventor running. When Superman catches up with him, he manages to save Lois in the nick of time when the inventor threatens to drop her into the metal's pot, landing on a ledge below it. The inventor then attempts to douse the duo in the metal, but Superman shields himself and Lois from it using his cape. The inventor, realizing that he has lost, attempts to commit suicide by jumping over the ledge he is standing on, but Superman seizes him and escapes from the lair with Lois in tow. The next issue of the Planet details the robots' vanquishments, the stolen jewels and money's recovery and the inventor being brought to justice for his crimes. In the office, Clark compliments Lois for her story, to which she remarks that she owed it all to Superman.

Cast

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Production notes

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The short film marks the only instance in which Superman is depicted using X-ray vision in a Fleischer short.

The number on one of the titular robots changes from 13 to 5 in certain scenes.

References in later works

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The Mechanical Monsters is the first story (from any medium) that features Clark Kent using a telephone booth to discard his street clothes and change into Superman. This plot device would thereafter become commonly associated with the character.[3]

A scene from Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow (2004)

The Mechanical Monsters is referenced in Hayao Miyazaki's animated film Castle in the Sky.

In the 2004 film Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow (also released by Paramount) directed by Kerry Conran, an army of robots attack New York City as a reference to the short film.[4][5][6]

The short film was parodied on The Disney Afternoon series The Shnookums & Meat Funny Cartoon Show in the Pith Possum segment "Darkness on the Edge of Black" (part of episode 2).

Historians also point out the similarity between the robot in episode 155 of the anime series Lupin the Third Part II, "Farewell My Beloved Lupin" (also written and directed by Hayao Miyazaki), and the ones in The Mechanical Monsters.[4]

One of the short's titular robots is seen on display in Superman's Fortress of Solitude in the 2007 animated film Superman: Doomsday.

During a second season episode of the HBO drama television series The Wire, a character can be seen watching The Mechanical Monsters on television, paralleling a robbery that is about to occur.[7]

In 2011, animator Robb Pratt posted the short Superman Classic to his YouTube channel. In the short, the hero confronts giant robots, most of which are seen flying in the same manner as the ones from the short; at one point, he picks up a toy robot that also somewhat resembles one of them.[8]

In 2013, Sean "Smeghead" Moore, creator of the web series Cinematic Excrement, created a humorous commentary track for the short.[9]

Between 2013 and 2015, comic book creator Brian Fies released a webcomic entitled The Last Mechanical Monster, which acts as a sequel to The Mechanical Monsters.[10][11][12]

In the Batman: The Animated Series episode, "Deep Freeze", Mr. Freeze is kidnapped by a robot resembling the ones from the short and is hidden inside a compartment within the robot's torso, like Lois Lane does in the original short. The robot is also impervious to gunfire, like in the short.

In the Young Justice episode, "Og Htrof Dna Reuqnoc!", the second news report about Superman is shown to have been broadcast on November 28 at 19:41 and accounts his battle with "mechanical monsters".

References

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  1. ^ 100 Greatest Animated Shorts / Superman: The Mechanical Monsters / Dave Fleischer, Skwigly
  2. ^ Lenburg, Jeff (1999). The Encyclopedia of Animated Cartoons. Checkmark Books. p. 139. ISBN 0-8160-3831-7.
  3. ^ Younis, Steve. "Superman and the Phone Booth". SupermanHomepage.com. Retrieved August 17, 2012.
  4. ^ a b Greenberg, Raz (December 15, 2009). "An Auteur is Born – 30 Years Of Miyazaki's Castle Of Cagliostro". Animated Views. Retrieved February 10, 2021.
  5. ^ "The Mechanical Monsters". 21 November 1941 – via IMDb.
  6. ^ "The World of Tomorrow". 25 January 2005 – via IMDb.
  7. ^ David Simon and Ed Burns (writers); Elodie Keene (director) (June 15, 2003). "Hot Shots". The Wire. Season 2. Episode 3. HBO.
  8. ^ "Superman Classic creator Robb Pratt unveils Flash Gordon Classic". AnimatedViews.com. 2013-04-15. Retrieved 2013-04-16.
  9. ^ Riffed Excrement - Superman: The Mechanical Monsters-YouTube
  10. ^ Fies, Brian. "The Fies Files". Retrieved May 31, 2017.
  11. ^ Fies, Brian. "The Last Mechanical Monster". Retrieved May 31, 2017.
  12. ^ GoComics.com. "The Last Mechanical Monster by Brian Fies at GoComics.com". Retrieved May 31, 2017.
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