Early life and career Fleischer was the youngest of five brothers and grew up in
Brownsville, Brooklyn, a poor
Jewish neighbourhood. By the time he was born, his father had lost his means of livelihood due to the mass production of garments. Fleischer worked as an usher at the
Palace Theater on
Broadway, where he was exposed to
vaudeville. This experience contributed to the development of his sense for gags and
comic timing, which came into play when he joined forces with his older brother, Max in the production of animated cartoons. At one point, the family lived in
Coney Island, and he became interested in being a clown for one of the sideshow amusements. This clown character would be recalled a few years later in connection with Max's early experiments with his first major invention, "
The Rotoscope", and was the source of their first character who evolved into
Koko the Clown in the pioneering series,
Out of the Inkwell. Around 1913–14, he began working as a
film cutter for
Pathé Exchange the American branch of
Pathé, the French company that was the world's largest film production and distribution company, and the largest manufacturer of film equipment in the first decades of the 20th century.
Fleischer Studios In 1921, he joined forces with Max in starting their first studio,
Out of the Inkwell Films, Inc. in a dingy basement apartment in
midtown Manhattan. He went on to become director and later supervising producer of the studio's output. Among the cartoon series Fleischer supervised were
Out of the Inkwell,
Inklings,
The Inkwell Imps,
Talkartoons,
Betty Boop,
Popeye the Sailor,
Color Classics. He also supervised two animated features ''
Gulliver's Travels and Mr. Bug Goes to Town''. Max Fleischer secured the license for
Superman after
Republic Pictures allegedly passed on the property as a potential serial. Budgeted at twice the cost of a Popeye cartoon,
Superman became the most successful cartoon series of the late Fleischer Studio period, representing its maturing into the 1940s. Relations between the brothers began to deteriorate around 1938, which was aggravated further by Dave's taking control of production starting in 1940, which resulted in the declining quality of the cartoons produced under his control compounded by his continued rejection of Max's input and late completion of films.
Harry Cohn fired Fleischer in 1944, replacing him with Paul Worth. After getting kicked out of Columbia, he approached
Republic Pictures with an elf-like version of Koko the Clown, a character named "Snippy", who was tried out as a live action–animation combo novelty at the end of the low-budget nightclub musical,
Trocadero. A "Snippy" cartoon series never materialized. Fleischer continued at Republic as associate producer of the minute-long animation sequence for another "B" movie, ''
That's My Baby!'' (1944). For a short period, he had a comic strip for
The Hollywood Citizen News. In the early 1950s, Dave animated a series of Technicolor theatrical
snipes for the Filmack Trailer Company of
Chicago, Illinois. Filmack at the time was America's largest producer of both theatrical and commercial advertising for decades. It was at the same Filmack headquarters in Chicago that he famously animated the ''
Let's All Go to the Lobby'' snipe in 1957. Following a series of oddball assignments, Dave landed a permanent position as a "technical specialist" at
Universal through animation producer,
Walter Lantz. At Universal, Dave was a Special Effects Technical and general problem-solver, working on films such as
Francis,
The Birds, and
Thoroughly Modern Millie. He was credited as "Technical Advisor" on Universal's American release of the Russian animated feature,
The Snow Queen (1957), supervising the English language dubbing. Following his assignment on
Thoroughly Modern Millie, Fleischer retired and continued to live at the Peyton Hall apartment complex on Hollywood Boulevard until his death. Fleischer died of a stroke on June 25, 1979, at age 84. His wife died in 1991. == References ==