Superman and the mad scientist

This is the first animated Superman short from Fleischer Studios, in a series created between 1941 and 1942, and which is now in the public domain.
Fleischer Studios was dissolved in 1942 and re-organised as Famous Studios, which produced another eight shorts.
The voice of Superman for the series was initially provided by Bud Collyer, who also performed the lead character's voice during The Adventures of Superman radio series. The Fleischer cartoons were also responsible for giving Superman perhaps his most singular superpower: flight. When the Fleischers started work on the series, the Superman of the comic books could only leap from place to place (hence the classic phrase, "able to leap tall buildings in a single bound"). After seeing the leaping fully animated, however, the Fleischers deemed it "silly looking", and asked permission from Action Comics (later DC Comics) to have him fly instead; the publisher agreed and Superman was formally given the power of flight thereafter.
In the Crisis on Infinite Earths tie-in comic, the world of these cartoons takes place on Earth-F before being destroyed by the Anti-Monitor.
Warner Bros has released an official Blu-Ray set of these cartoons, which are in high-quality 1080p resolution based on a 4K scan of the original 35mm successive exposure negatives. Of course, those videos are not in the public domain.