Afraid of Science...?

[DavidAllred]

I was just popping in the Superman board and someone was posting about the old Fleischer Superman cartoons that aired in the '40's. I picked up a DVD at Walgreen's for $1 last year, and my kids love it.

I was wondering if anyone had seen these and noticed that almost every episode is about a mad scientist of some sort. From the laser, to robotics, to unfreezing a T-Rex... the scientists are the bad guys in almost every episode that I've seen.

The art is amazing too, as each scientist has an overwhelming looking lab that is always over-heating, or exploding as Superman makes his way into the lair.

Was our culture that afraid of science during this time? I recognize that it was the birth of the atomic bomb, so the fear kind of makes sense.

It got me thinking about today's villians and shift from making science the villian toward the creation of random and meaningless violent types. I remember reading somewhere in my sociology class in college that it has been theorized that human beings will always choose an enemy for themselves. If one isn't availalbe, they create one.

There aren't too many evil scientists in comics anymore are there? It seems to be our villians are either motivated by a) nothing short of compounding suffering; or b) wealth and power.

Maybe that's a pretty good definition of the age we live in, like the fear of science was indicative of the Fleischer age cartoon.

[rick]

Those Superman catoons actually predate the Manhatten Project or at least the publics klnowlodge of it by a couple of years, so it isn't really Atomic terror going on there.

But I do think that quite a few people in the 1930's and 40's probably did tend to look at scinetists as almost wizards, busy creating miracles, but also creating horrors too.

But look at it from their view.

In 1940, cars and planes and radios and movies and vacinations and missles were all still pretty new.

Hell to the less educated, especially those who had been around in the early days of the century, the world propably did look like it was changing almost like magic.

In that kind of fast changing world it would be pretty easy to look at scinetists as scary.

[JKCarrier]

In the case of Superman specifically, a lot of it may just be trying to find something that would challenge him. Ordinary crooks are no threat, so bringing in super-science is one way to make him sweat a little. Note that a lot of his "classic" foes in the comics were science- or gadget-based too: Ultra-Humanite, Luthor, Brainiac, Toyman, et. al.

There's also the problem of violence: you can't have him tearing people limb from limb in a kids' cartoon, but smashing up robots and machinery lets you have action without bloodshed.

[rick]

In the case of Superman specifically, a lot of it may just be trying to find something that would challenge him. Ordinary crooks are no threat, so bringing in super-science is one way to make him sweat a little. Note that a lot of his "classic" foes in the comics were science- or gadget-based too: Ultra-Humanite, Luthor, Brainiac, Toyman, et. al.

There's also the problem of violence: you can't have him tearing people limb from limb in a kids' cartoon, but smashing up robots and machinery lets you have action without bloodshed.

It was the 1940's and there was a war on and in quite a few of those cartoons in fact Superman does if not tear from limb to limb, at least kill hundereds of enemy soldiers.

[DavidAllred]

Those Superman catoons actually predate the Manhatten Project or at least the publics klnowlodge of it by a couple of years, so it isn't really Atomic terror going on there.

I live in Oak Ridge, the Secret City created during the Manhattan Project for the purpose of constructing the A-Bomb. I think you are entirely correct about the timing, because most of the surviving folks around here will tell you that the common worker had no idea what he/she was handling. Many of them were getting sick, never knowing that what they were handling was the cause. The higher-ups knew, I'm sure.

I think you're right about the magic analogy, when you watch those cartoons, there is kind of similarity between the mad scientist and the evil wizard residing in his tower.

Given the popularity of the radio broadcast of War of the Worlds (1938), I am surprised there isn't more of an alien menance mentality to the cartoons. In fact, on my DVD, there are no aliens at all, save of course, Superman.

I'm not sure about popular literature during this time, but I wonder how much of it was fearful of science, or this was a bit more unique to the genre of comic books.

[Pink Bat Max]

You blinded me with science!

[Joshua Pantalleresco]

Mad Scientists are fun bad guys. What makes them really scary is that they're not the typical dumb bad guy. They are smart and access knowledge no one thinks about.

JP

[Cam63]

It was the 1940's and there was a war on and in quite a few of those cartoons in fact Superman does if not tear from limb to limb, at least kill hundereds of enemy soldiers.

Reminds me of the '40s cover with Batman and Robin manning a heavy machine gun.

'Wonder how many kills they racked up that day ?