Max Fleischer invented the rotoscope, released a synchronized-sound cartoon two years before Steamboat Willie, and brought Betty Boop, Popeye and Superman to the screen, yet he ended up locked out of the studio he built. This deep dive follows his path from a Krakow-born immigrant whose family fell from comfort into Brownsville poverty, through his dual training in commercial art and mechanical trades, to his work at the Brooklyn Daily Eagle and Popular Science. Between 1914 and 1916, working with his brothers Dave and Joe, he built the rotoscope, tracing live-action film of Dave in a clown suit to create movement with a fluidity no rival could match, a direct ancestor of modern motion capture.

The episode covers the Out of the Inkwell series, the follow-the-bouncing-ball sing-alongs, the DeForest Phonofilm sound cartoons of 1926, and how t ...