The Birmingham age-herald., 1924-09-14
FIRED COPY BOY
 BUT HELPED HIM
 BECOME FAMOUS
Max Fleischer, Animated Cartoon Man, Had Some
 Hard Shedding

NEW YORK. Sept. 13.-"Copy boy C-ah-pee-e boy-y!" The man on the city desk turned impatiently in his chair and exploded. Where in the name of all that's holy is that kid Max? I've fired him seven times in the last two months, but today he goes for good. C-ah-py bo-y!"
 The city editors voice broke in thrill staccato. Industrious reporters industriously battering upon battered typewriters in the newsroom glanced up uneasily as if expecting the gathering wrath from the city desk to fall upon their own heads. The man on the desk slammed drawer shut with menac- ing bang that augured no good for any one in that journalistic sanctum, the elusive Max in particular. "Damnation! !! If 1 ever get-
 A glass door of telephone booth at the far end of the room was pushed open slowly from the inside and skinny kid emerged, dragging behind him a drawing board almost as big as himself, on which had been scribbled various hieroglyphics- of an imma- ture artistic mind.
 He glanced sheepishly in the direction of the city editor, who by this time was
 
 Were you calling for me, sir" The words came in the squeaky pitch of a 14-year-old kid whose voice was just them beginning to change. His number tens shuffled uncomfortably beside the swivel chair of the lord and master of the newsroom. The bristol board he dropped behind him into a conve ,ient waste basket.
 Was I calling you? Didn't you hear mel"
 No, sir" meekly.
 "Where've you beenT'
 "In the telephone booth.
 "PhoniLg?"
 No, sir; drawing"
 Here, rush this copy upstairs and then go down and tell MT. Simpson that you're fired"
 That was the eighth time that Max Fleischer had been fired" as copy boy in the city room of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle in the year 190SI
 How He Started
 Max F1eischer, originator of the Out of-the- -Inkwell" animated cartoons, in- ventor of the recently introduced Monograph Analysis" in films, presi- dent of the Red Seal Distributing corporation, successful and still in his early thirties, sat in his office on the sixth floor at 1900 Broadway and rolled remii. cences off his tongue as nimbly as he thi..ks up stunts for his little screen clown. He used at length on the kindness of Gilhert Evans, then managing editor of the Brooklyn Eagle, who took Max in had after he was fired from the city room for the eighth time. and gave him a place on the art staff.
 "Gilbert Evans was the greatest news uaper man I've ever known" continued Mr Fleischer. And he could recognize genius when he saw it." this with twinkling in his eye which belied what might have sounded like a conceited afterthought Evans used to tell me that I had the makings of great car toonist. I took him at his word, and so. you see, I've been striving for great ness ever since"
 Fleischer is that way. He never takes himself too seriously and doesn't ike anyone else to. He has staff ot dozen artists and twice that number of technicians and office assistants in his studio on upper Broadway and every one jack of the office boys call him Max.
 Tt was after I had made a fairly sizable start as an artist on the Eagle, Mir. Fleischer went on, that 1 went to the Popular Science magazine ss spe- cial writer and illustrator. There l first began the study of the possibill- ties of the animated cartoon on the screen. I had some managed to save the magnificent sum of $100 and with that as a working capital l decided to establish myself as the worlds greatest producer of pen and ink movies.
 'I resigned from the staff Of Popu- lar Science, rigged up semblance Of laboratory in my six by ten-foot bed room and with the help of my brother Joe, began the photographing and devei- oping of some POO feet Of film. we worked for more than a year on that strin of celluloid. and when I began peddling it among the distributors, the first one who showed any sign of inter est in my new project said he'd buy 1t if I could guarantee to supply him with 800 feet of film week.
 You can see, then, how my first lofty hopes were smashed to smither- eens. It had taken me over year to turn out POO feet of that first screen cartoon, and here was a motion picture distributor who ;aid he's take 300 feet n week or none at all. l was practically broke then, I had been for a long time, and it was all too apparent that if l were going to make any headway l would have to find ~H~'eone sufficiently interested in my idea and with enough ready cash to back it.
 "NXhen I had about given up all hope and was ready to go back to magazine scribbling, I met Dr. Hugo Riesenfeld, who had just then been made managing director of the Rivoli and Rialto the aters. He saw possibilities in my new idea and offered to supply the necessary funds to carry on the work. From that day to this we have been turning out two 'Out-of-the- Inkwelr cartoons a month, and my little screen clown has grown to be as famous in Cape Town and Shanghai as he is in the and lO- cent picture houses from Harlem to where the pavement ends in Gopher Prairie.
 REVIVES MEDIEVAL CUSTOM.