News Sketches by Max Fleischer - 1944
News Sketches by Max Fleischer – 1944

“News Sketches by Max Fleischer” is a short cartoon created by famed animator Max Fleischer with an irreverent take on bizarre stories “drawn from the wires of the Associated Press.”

As the news ticker types away, Fleischer literally illustrates the stories with pen and ink before our very eyes.

Using a combination of stop motion and traditional animation, the cartoonist breathes life into ridiculous but true stories, like the fire department that found themselves milking fifty cows by hand.

Then there is the most expensive kiss on record which knocked out all of the power in Phoenix, AZ.

There’s the college in Chicago offering classes on how to catch and keep a husband.

Through mail order via Tulsa, you can now marry your sweetheart in the UK even if you’re stuck in Florida.

And what about the diaper heist in Texas or electric overcoats for cold NYC winters?

Fisherman can now use radar to find the best fishing spots, and if you’re ever attacked by a shark, just use this step-by-step method to defend yourself.

There’s miscalculated expulsions of gas, and Yale grads who live in tree houses.

And, it being the height of WWII, a tribute to the Battleship Nevada, that persisted from Pearl Harbor through Normandy, and a patriotic nod to FDR.