He brought such comic characters as Koko the Clown, Betty Boop, Popeye, and Superman to the movie screen, and was responsible for several technological innovations, including the rotoscope, the "follow the bouncing ball" technique pioneered in the Ko-Ko Song Car-Tunes films, and the "stereoptical process".

He was the second of six children of a tailor from Dąbrowa Tarnowska,[6] Aaron Fleischer, who later changed his name to William in the United States, and Malka "Amelia" Pałasz.

During his early formative years, he enjoyed a middle-class lifestyle, the result of his father's success as an exclusive tailor to high society clients.

With the outbreak of World War I, Max was sent to Fort Sill, Oklahoma to produce the first Army training films on subjects that included Contour Map Reading, Operating the Stokes Mortar, Firing the Lewis Machine Gun, and Submarine Mine Laying.

Fleischer's initial series was first produced at the Bray Studios and released as a monthly installment in the Bray-Goldwyn Pictograph Screen Magazine from 1919 to 1921.

In addition to producing Out of the Inkwell, Max's position at Bray was primarily production manager, and supervisor of several educational and technical films such as The Electric Bell, All Aboard for the Moon, and Hello, Mars.

Out of the Inkwell featured the novelty of combining live action and animation and served as semi-documentaries with the appearance of Max Fleischer as the artist who dipped his pen into the ink bottle to produce the clown figure on his drawing board.

Huemer created Ko-Ko's canine companion, known as Fitz, and moved the Fleischers away from their dependency on the Rotoscope for fluid animation, leaving it for special uses and reference points where compositing was involved.

Max assigned Art Davis as Huemer's assistant and this was the beginning of the animation position of "inbetweener", which was essentially another Fleischer "invention" that resulted in efficient production and was adopted by the entire industry by the 1930s.

It was during this time that Max developed Rotoscoping, a means of photographing live action film footage with animation cels for a composited image.

The Rotograph technique went into more general use as "aerial image photography" and was a staple in animation and optical effects companies for making titles and various forms of matte composites.

[12] In 1923, he made two 20-minute features explaining Albert Einstein's Theory of Relativity[13] and Charles Darwin's Evolution[14] using animated special effects and live action.

In 1924, Fleischer partnered with Edwin Miles Fadiman, Hugo Riesenfeld and Lee de Forest to form Red Seal Pictures Corporation, which owned 36 theaters on the East Coast, extending as far west as Cleveland, Ohio.

During this period, Fleischer invented the "Follow the Bouncing Ball" technique in his Ko-Ko Song Car-Tunes series of animated sing-along shorts.

[15] The Song Car-Tunes series lasted until early 1927 and was interrupted by the bankruptcy of the Red Seal company—just five months before the start of the sound era.

Fashioned after popular singer Helen Kane, she originated as a hybrid poodle/canine figure and was such a sensation in the New York preview that Paramount encouraged Fleischer to develop her into a continuing character.

While she originated under animator Myron "Grim" Natwick, she was transformed into a human female under Seymour Kneitel and Berny Wolf and became Fleischer's most famous character.

During its zenith by the mid-1930s, Fleischer Studios was producing four series, Betty Boop, Popeye, Screen Songs, and Color Classics, resulting in 52 releases each year.

As a founding member of the Society of Motion Picture Engineers, Fleischer was aware of the technical advancements of the industry, particularly in the development of color cinematography.

These color cartoons were often augmented with Fleischer's patented three-dimensional effects promoted as the "Stereoptical Process", a precursor to Disney's Multiplane animation.

While Fleischer petitioned for this for three years, it was not until the New York opening at Radio City of Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (February 1938) that Paramount executives realized the value of animated features and ordered one for a 1939 Christmas release.

Following the strike, Max and Dave Fleischer decided to move the studio for more space and to escape further labor agitation.

[citation needed] In March 1938, Paramount approved Max's proposal to produce a feature just when he was preparing to move the studio from New York City to Miami, Florida.

His efforts resulted in a reflex camera viewfinder and research into line transfer methods to replace the time-consuming and tedious process of cel inking.

While ahead of his time, that same year Fleischer and Paramount experienced lost revenues owing to the failure of the new series Gabby, Animated Antics, and Stone Age, all launched under the leadership of Dave.

The cost for the Superman series has been grossly overstated for decades on the basis of Dave Fleischer's UCLA 1968 Oral History interview by Joe Adamson.

Fleischer was also involved with top-secret research and development for the war effort including an aircraft bomber sighting system.

Fleischer left Handy in 1953 and returned as production manager for the Bray Studios in New York, where he developed an educational television pilot about unusual birds and animals titled, Imagine That!

However, in his collection of memoirs entitled Just Tell Me When to Cry, Richard relates how, at the mere mention of Disney's name, Max would mutter, "that son-of-a-bitch".

While Fleischer had issues over the breach of contract, he had avoided suing for a decade to protect his son-in-law, Seymour Kneitel, who was a lead director at Paramount's Famous Studios.