In its prime, Fleischer Studios was a premier producer of animated cartoons for theaters, with Walt Disney Productions being its chief competitor in the 1930s.

These innovations include the "Rotograph", an early "Aerial Image" photographic process for compositing animation with live action backgrounds.

Other innovations included Ko-Ko Song Car-Tunes and sing-along shorts (featuring the famous "bouncing ball"), a precursor to karaoke.

Carrie of the Chorus, also known as Backstage Comedies, was one of the Red Seal series that featured Max's daughter, Ruth, in a supporting role.

It was during this time that Lee de Forest started filming his Phonofilms experiments featuring several of the major Broadway headliners.

While the intent was to develop him as the star of the series, it was the cameo appearance of a Helen Kane caricature in the seventh entry, Dizzy Dishes that took center stage.

Audience reactions to the New York preview were so great that Paramount encouraged the continued development of the most famous character to come from the Fleischer Studio by that time, Betty Boop.

The "Jazz Baby" Flapper character, Betty Boop lifted the spirits of Depression Era audiences with her paradoxical mixture of childlike innocence and sexual allure.

This affected the content of all of Paramount's films as well, which tended to reflect a more "mature" tone in the features of the Marx Brothers, W.C. Fields, and most of all, Mae West.

As a result, each of these stars was released as Paramount changed the content of its films to reflect a more "general audience" in order to comply with the new Code and stay in business.

By 1936, the Disney exclusivity had expired, and Fleischer Studios used the three-color process in its color cartoons beginning with Somewhere in Dreamland and continued using it for the remainder of its active years.

This series of longer-format cartoons were an indication of the emergence of the animated feature film as a commercially viable project beginning with Walt Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937).

Due to the phenomenal success of the Popeye cartoons, Paramount demanded more, and the Fleischer Studio experienced rapid expansion in order to balance out the increased workload.

The crowded conditions, production speedups, drawing quotas, and internal management problems resulted in a labor strike beginning in May 1937 which lasted for five months.

This strike was a test case, the first launched in the motion picture industry, and produced a nationwide boycott of Fleischer cartoons for the duration.

While the relocation had been a consideration for some time, its final motivation was made a reality due to lower corporate tax structures and an alleged escape from the remaining hostility from the strike.

While limited to only 60 theaters in a one-month release, Gulliver's Travels earned more than $3 million in the United States alone, exceeding its original $500,000 estimated cost.

The studio was in need of new products going into the new decade, but the new shorts series that debuted in 1939 and 1940, Gabby, Stone Age Cartoons, and Animated Antics, were unsuccessful.

Mr. Bug Goes to Town, various Betty Boop cartoons, and the 1938 Color Classic, The Tears of an Onion, are among the few films that remain under copyright to Melange Pictures, LLC.

Paramount has reacquired ownership of the original Fleischer film library (through their acquisition of Republic Pictures) since 1996 and continues to own the theatrical rights.

[citation needed] Most of the Fleischer color titles have been widely available on video since the 1980s, often on inexpensive videotapes sold in supermarkets and discount stores.

These include a 1991 VHS set produced by Bosko Video, titled The Complete Superman Collection: Golden Anniversary Edition – The Paramount Cartoon Classics of Max & Dave Fleischer released as two volumes which featured transfers from 35mm prints.

A third (and more "official") compilation using restored and remastered materials was released in November 2006 by Warner Home Video as part of their DVD box set of Superman films.

It includes only a fraction of shorts remastered from 35mm film, but otherwise taken from the best available sources Kit Parker could provide VCI, and digitally recreating the original front-and-end Paramount titles.

Animation archivist Jerry Beck served as consultant for this box set, as well as providing audio commentary for select shorts.

[15] Today, a new iteration of Fleischer Studios effectively holds the rights to Betty Boop and associated characters such as Koko the Clown, Bimbo and Grampy, though courts have never supported their ownership claims.

[18] In March of 2023, a week long screening event took place at the Museum of Modern Art which showcased around 60 brand new Fleischer restorations.

The loose, improvisatory animation, frequently surreal action generally termed "The New York Style" (particularly in films such as Snow White and Bimbo's Initiation), grungy atmosphere, and racy pre-Code content of the early Fleischer Studios cartoons have been a major influence on many underground and alternative cartoonists.

Much of Richard Elfman's 1980 cult film Forbidden Zone is a live action pastiche of the early Fleischer Studios style.

[19] Genndy Tartakovsky has also cited the works of the studio as a major inspiration for the look of his 2023 animated series Unicorn: Warriors Eternal.