 Most of the lead character animators at Fleischer were used to animating caricatured humans and animals, and the assistant animators were tasked with maintaining the figures' realistic proportions.Character shadows, elaborate special effects animation, and detailed animation layouts contributed to the attention to detail evident in "Superman" and its follow ups.Paramount promoted "Superman" with a campaign highly unusual for an animated short, which was usually treated as a throwaway bonus on a movie theater's bill.