Fleischer Studios, Inc., was an American corporation which originated as an animation studio located at 1600 Broadway, New York City, New York. It was founded in 1921 as Inkwell Studios (or Out of the Inkwell Films) by brothers Max Fleischer and Dave Fleischer who ran the company from its inception until Paramount Pictures, the studio's parent company and the distributor of its films, forced them to resign in April 1942. In its prime, it was the most significant competitor to Walt Disney Productions and is notable for bringing to the screen cartoons featuring Koko the Clown, Betty Boop, Bimbo, Popeye the Sailor, and Superman. Unlike other studios, whose most famous characters were anthropomorphic animals, the Fleischers' most popular characters were humans.

The company had its start when Max Fleischer invented the rotoscope, which allowed for extremely lifelike animation. Using this device, the Fleischer brothers got a contract with Bray Studio in 1919 to produce their own series called Out of the Inkwell, which featured their first characters, the as yet unnamed Koko the Clown, and Fitz the Dog, who would evolve into Bimbo in 1930. Out of the Inkwell became a very successful series. As the Bray theatrical operation started to diminish, the brothers began their own studio in 1921. Dave served as the director and supervised the studio's production, while Max served as the producer. The company was known as Out of the Inkwell Films, Incorporated, and later became Fleischer Studios in January 1929.

Max Fleischer (July 19, 1883 – September 11, 1972) was an American animator. He was a pioneer in the development of the animated cartoon and served as the head of Fleischer Studios. He brought such animated characters as Betty Boop, Koko the Clown, Popeye, and Superman to the movie screen and was responsible for a number of technological innovations.

Born to a Jewish family in Kraków, Poland, then part of the Austrian-Hungarian province of Galicia, Max Fleischer was the second oldest of six children of an Austrian immigrant tailor, William Fleischer. His family emigrated to the USA in 1887 and settled in New York City, where he attended public school; he spent his formative years in Brownsville and Brooklyn. He attended Evening High School, received commercial art training at Cooper Union, and also attended The Mechanics and Tradesman's School. While still in his teens, he worked for The Brooklyn Daily Eagle as an errand boy, and eventually became a cartoonist. It was during this period he met newspaper cartoonist and early animator, John Randolph Bray. He married his childhood sweetheart, Ethel (Essie) Gold on December 25, 1905. Shortly afterward he accepted an illustrator's job for a catalog company in Boston. He returned to New York as Art Editor for Popular Science magazine around 1912; he also wrote books, including one called Noah's Shoes.