The stuff they were doing at with Fleischer animations was way ahead of everyone else...even Disney.

I wouldn't go as far as all that. Remember, it's a tribute to pulp sci-fi, and as such it focused on a lot of the old cliches found in the genre (the attack of the robots, the plucky female reporter, the retro special effects, the ridiculously grandiose schemes of the villain). It also pays a lot of homages to movies like Metropolis, The Forbidden Planet, Flash Gordon, and Buck Rogers. One scene is almost identical to the Fleischer Studios Superman short, "Mechanical Monsters."

If anything, it bears a lot of similarities to the Indiana Jones movies, except Indiana Jones plays on the adventure pulps and Sky Captain plays on the sci-fi pulps. If you're looking for a deep and immersive plot, you'll be hard pressed to find it in either movie. They're both essentially homages to these old styles of entertainment. (Granted Indiana Jones did it better, but Sky Captain did a respectable job as well.)

I will agree that the movie has its flaws, most notably Gweneth Paltrow's acting, though fortunately Jude Law makes up for this. However, the plot, music, stylistic elements, and visuals were, for the most part, spot-on, so I feel that it's not too much to say that it succeeded on most levels.

I guess the movie is most appreciated if you've seen some of the older works it's paying homage to. I spent a lot of my youth reading those older comics, listening to those older radio shows, and viewing a few of the movies/cartoons, so Sky Captain had a pretty big impact on me.

* Rush Limbaugh -- sought deferment (because of a cyst on his tail end).
* George Will -- sought graduate school deferment, (too smart to die).
* Pat Buchanan -- sought deferment (for bad knee).
* Pat Robertson -- his US Senator father got him out of Korea as soon as the shooting began.

* Sean Hannity: did not serve.
* Bill O'Reilly: did not serve.
* Chris Matthews: did not serve.
* Matt Drudge: did not serve.
* Steve Forbes: did not serve.
* Tony Snow: did not serve.
* Michael "Savage" Weiner: did not serve.
* Brit Hume: did not serve.
* Roger Ailes: did not serve.

# Paul Gigot: did not serve.
# Bill Kristol: did not serve.
# Ralph Reed: did not serve.
# Michael Medved: did not serve.
# Charlie Daniels: did not serve.
# Anne Coulter: did not serve.
# Jerry Falwell: did not serve.
# Alan Keyes : did not serve.
# Ted Nugent: did not serve.

* Karl Rove: did not serve.
* Paul Wolfowitz: did not serve.
* Richard Perle: did not serve.
* Douglas Feith: did not serve.
* Eliot Abrams: did not serve.
* Ari Fleischer: did not serve.
* Andrew Card: did not serve.
* Ken Adelman: did not serve.
# Mitt Romney - did not serve in the military but did serve the Mormon Church on a 30-month mission to France.
# John Bolton: did not serve.
# Rudy Giuliani: did not serve.
# Bill Frist: did not serve.
# John Ashcroft: did not serve. Seven deferments, to teach business.
# Trent Lott : avoided the draft, did not serve.
* Saxby Chambliss: did not serve. "Bad knee" He defeated tripelegic Max Cleland by questioning his patriotism!
* Don Nickles: did not serve.
* Mitch McConnell: did not serve.
* Rick Santorum: did not serve.

YOU try to manage, wrangle, and present all of the lies produced on a daily basis by various factions of the Bush Administration. I still prefer Snow to that ferret-faced weasel, Scott McClellan.

No one shall ever be better at this particular job than the great, glib Ari Fleischer, though.

Continued:

Much is often also made of the “exceptional” research that Clampett and his animators undertook (they visited night-clubs and “drafted” African-African musicians and actors) to provide an accurate, celebratory, authentic and incorporative vision of urban African-American culture of the time. Along with Tin Pan Alley Cats (1943) it highlights Clampett's fascination with African-American street culture, its syncopation and language, pushing its potent stereotypes to the extremes of comic absurdity.

Also, as with many of Clampett's cartoons, one can sense the direct influence of comic books, popular music, street culture, live-action cinema and contemporary art (especially surrealism) upon these two films. Like much of Clampett's best work, these films are syncopated snapshots of a particular time, place and set of social mores. So it is hardly surprising to discover that the greatest period of Clampett's tenure at Warners coincides with the ramped-up stereotypes encouraged by the World War II era. As Tim Onosko argues, “Clampett created an entirely new and irreverent style of animated filmmaking more suited to the era than either Disney or Fleischer” (17). Although Onosko's parochial account unnecessarily favours Clampett at the expense of his Warners' colleagues, as well as Avery at MGM, it does pinpoint the ascension of the studio to the pinnacle of Hollywood short animation during this period and accurately regards Clampett's work as a cornerstone of this process.

To me that is what this video is, a snapshot of that era, not a racist hate film.

Cab Calloway appears with Betty Boop in the Talkartoon Minnie the Moocher, Betty's 17th cartoon appearance. This is justifiably one of the most famous cartoons ever made.

The cartoon begins with actual film footage of Cab Calloway dancing a slow and sensuous dance in front of his orchestra, the former Missourians, while they perform the Prohibition Blues. This is the oldest known film footage of Cab. His attire is uncharacteristically casual, and we never get a good look at his face. We suspect that Cab wasn't aware that the Fleischers were going to use the actual footage. Cab was well-known for his love of good clothes and his high standards for professional dress.

The haunting and beautiful instrumental, Prohibition Blues, is an old Missourians piece that was recorded by them in early 1930, right before Cab took over as leader of their band. This cartoon has the only recording of the piece with Cab Calloway. By early 1932, when this cartoon was produced, the group had been renamed "Cab Calloway and His Orchestra," but in this film, they are still wearing their old Missourians uniforms. We can see the drummer, Leroy Maxey, playing with his drumsticks in the background.