Brothers Max and Dave Fleischer founded Fleischer Studios in 1929. They achieved international success for their blend of surrealism, humor, and inventiveness with Betty Boop, Popeye the Sailor, and their bouncing-ball cartoons. The Fleischers and their staff of about 250 employees created cartoons, each rarely more than 8 minutes long. In 1937, Disney Studios released Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, their first feature-length animated film. In response, the Fleischers and their distributor, Paramount Pictures, decided to make a feature as well. Unable to accommodate the massive project in New York, the Fleischers moved their operations to Miami in 1938. This 32,000-square-foot animation studio was built to house a staff of about 760 artists. It was one of the first fully air-conditioned buildings in Florida. The studio produced two feature-length films: Gulliver’s Travels (1939) and Mr. Bug Goes to Town (1941), the former being the second feature-length animated film released in the United States. The artists also created one-reel cartoons, including the first Superman films. Though Paramount closed the studio in 1942, Fleischer Studios’ cartoons and characters have endured to entertain generations of audiences.
Slide toward Today to fade the historical sheet and see the modern map underneath.