A lot of people know that Superman was originally much weaker, couldn't fly, etc; when he first came out he was just an amped-up bulletproof circus strongman. His powers came from the fact that everyone on Krypton was a superior physical specimen, no yellow suns and so forth. Superman couldn't do anything fundamentally beyond human capabilities; he could jump better than earth-folks can, but earth-folks can't fly and neither could Superman.

We see Superman's first tentative steps at flying in these cartoons, where they pretty often try to make a case for him jumping, but then there's a lot of mid-air control to what he's doing.

It was really Captain Marvel -- the Shazam guy -- who was first doing all the stuff we associate with Superman. Captain Marvel could fly on day one, was crazy invulnerable, and so forth; it's only later that Superman grew to take on Captain Marvel's characteristics, then later his writer, and shortly after that his sidekick. Yes, I am saying that Tawky Tawny and Jimmy Olsen are the same character.

My personal favorite is Mechanical Monsters because it's just such a pitch perfect example of the pulp robot fiction of that era and I love the design of the classic robots. (which were then intentionally used in Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow)

I still wonder if The Arctic Giant was seen by Eiji Tsuburaya at some point.

Wow, when this caught up to WWII, Superman kills a lot of people, and the cartoon explicitly shows people gunning each other down.

Take that, Batman TAS.

5'd for the theme being stuck in my head.

On an unrelated note I hope I live to see the day when somebody is crazy enough to animate Stardust the Space Wizard in this style. Can you imagine that weird way he flies animated?!