Animated Films
ANIMATED FILMS
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Animated Films are ones in which individual        drawings, paintings, or illustrations are photographed frame by frame (stop-frame        cinematography). Usually, each frame differs slightly from the one preceding        it, giving the illusion of movement when frames are projected in rapid succession        at 24 frames per second. The earliest cinema animation was composed of frame-by-frame,        hand-drawn images. When combined with movement, the illustrator's two-dimensional        static art came alive and created pure and imaginative cinematic images -        animals and other inanimate objects could become evil villains or heroes.
Animations are not a strictly-defined genre category, but          rather a film technique, although they often contain genre-like elements.          Animation, fairy tales, and stop-motion films often appeal to children, but          it would marginalize animations to view them only as "children's entertainment." Animated films are often directed to, or appeal most to children, but          easily can be enjoyed by all. See section on children's-family            films .
Also see this website's related sections on Pixar-Disney           Animations , Visual                and Special Effects Milestones in Cinematic History as                well as AFI's 10 Top 10 - The                Top 10 Animated Films .
Early Animation:
The inventor of the viewing device called a praxinoscope (1877)           , French scientist Charles-Emile Reynaud, also created a large-scale           system called Theatre Optique (1888) which could take a strip of pictures           or images and project them onto a screen. He demonstrated his system           in 1892 for Paris' Musee Grevin - it was the first instance of projected         animated cartoon films (the entire triple-bill showing was called Pantomimes         Lumineuses),         with three short films that he had produced: in order:
"Pauvre Pierrot" (Poor           Pete) - the only surviving example (500 frames)
"Le           Clown et Ses Chiens" (The Clown and His Dogs) (300 frames)
"Un           Bon Bock" (A Good Beer) (700 frames)
To create         the animations, individually-created images were painted         directly onto the frames of a flexible strip of transparent gelatine         (with film perforations on the edges), and run through his projection         system. The three animated films lasted about 12-15 minutes each. Depending         upon one's definition of terms, some consider Pauvre Pierrot the         oldest-surviving animated film ever made and publically         broadcast.
The predecessor of early film animation was the newspaper         comic  strips of the 1890s. Historically and technically, the first         animated  film (in other words, the earliest animated film ever made         on standard motion-picture film) was Humorous            Phases of Funny Faces (1906) by newspaper cartoonist J. Stuart         Blackton,  one of the co-founders of the Vitagraph Company. It was         the earliest surviving  example of an animated film. It was the first         cartoon to use the single frame  method, and was projected at 20 frames         per second. In the film, a cartoonist's line drawings of two faces         were 'animated' (or came to life) on a blackboard. The two faces smiled         and winked, and the cigar-smoking man blew smoke in the lady's face;         also, a circus clown led a small dog to jump through a hoop.
This was soon followed by the first fully-animated film - Emile Cohl's Fantasmagorie (1908, Fr.),  which consisted solely of simple line drawings (of a clown-like stick figure) that blended, transformed or fluidly morphed from one image into another.
Winsor McCay ("America's Greatest Cartoonist"):
New          York Herald comic-strip animator and sketch artist Winsor McCay (1869-1934)          produced a string of comic strips from 1904-1911, his three best being Dreams            of the Rarebit Fiend, Little Sammy Sneeze, and Little Nemo in              Slumberland (from October 15, 1905 to July 23, 1911). Although McCay wasn't          the first to create a cartoon animation, he nonetheless helped to define the          new industry. He was the first to establish the technical method of          animating graphics. His first animation attempt used the popular characters          from his comic strip (and became part of his own vaudeville act): Little            Nemo in Slumberland (1911) (with 4,000 hand-drawn frames), followed by How a Mosquito Operates (1912) (with 6,000 frames).
His          first prominent, successful and realistic cartoon character or star was a          brontosaurus named Gertie in Gertie the Dinosaur (1914) (with 10,000          drawings, backgrounds included), again presented as part of his act. In fact,          McCay created the "interactive" illusion of walking into the animation          by first disappearing behind the screen, reappearing on-screen!, stepping          on Gertie's mouth, and then climbing onto Gertie's back for a ride - an astonishing          feat! It was the earliest example of combined 'live action' and animation, and the first "interactive" animated cartoon. Some consider it the first successful, fully animated cartoon          - it premiered in February 1914 at the Palace Theatre in Chicago.
McCay's 12-minute propagandistic, documentary-style The Sinking of the Lusitania (1918), an animation landmark, was the first serious re-enactment of an historical event - the torpedoing of the RMS Lusitania by a German U-boat on May 7, 1915, resulting in the loss of almost 2,000 passengers. It was one of the earliest films to utilize cel animation.
Soviet animator (W)ladislaw Starewicz created the first 3-D, stop-motion narratives in two early films with animated insects: The          Grasshopper and the Ant (1911) and The Cameraman's Revenge (1911).          And John Randolph Bray's first animated film, The Artist's Dream(s) (1913) (aka The Dachshund and the Sausage), the first animated cartoon made          in the U.S. by modern techniques was the first to use 'cels' - transparent          drawings laid over a fixed background.
Felix the Cat: First Appearance in 1919
The first animated character that attained superstar status (and was anthropomorphic)          during the silent era was the mischievous Felix the Cat, in Pat Sullivan Studios.          He was inspired by Kipling's The Cat That Walked By Himself in the Just So Stories published in 1902.
Originated by young animator Otto          Messmer, the (unnamed) cat's first two cartoons were the five-minute Feline            Follies (1919) and Musical Mews (1919), when Felix was known only          as "Master Tom." Feline Follies was a segment of the Paramount            Magazine, a semi-weekly compilation of short film segments that included          animated cartoons. By the third Felix cartoon, The Adventures of Felix            (1919), Felix took his permanent name. For the first few years, the Felix          cartoons were distributed by Paramount Pictures, and then by M.J. Winkler.          Messmer directed and animated more than 175 Felix cartoons in the years 1919          through 1929. Felix was the first character to be widely merchandised. The          last Felix the Cat cartoon, The Last Life (1928), was due to the advent          of the talkies and the success of Walt Disney's Mickey Mouse. Messmer continued          with his comic strip (begun in 1923) until 1966.
First Color Cartoon:
Producer John Randolph Bray's (and Bray Picture Corporation's) The Debut of Thomas Cat (1920) has often been credited as the first color cartoon, using the expensive Brewster Natural Color Process (a 2-emulsion color process), an unsuccessful precursor of Technicolor. This was the first animated short genuinely made in color using color film. Drawings were made on transparent celluloid and painted on the reverse, then photographed with a two-color camera. However, some sources have claimed that the Natural Colour Kinematograph Company's In Gollywog Land (1912, UK) was the earliest, using Kinemacolor.
First Animated Feature:
The little-known but pioneering, oldest-surviving          feature-length animated film that can be verified (with silhouette animation techniques and color tinting) was released by German          film-maker and avante-garde artist Lotte Reiniger, The Adventures of Prince            Achmed (aka Die Abenteuer des Prinzen Achmed) (1926, Germ.), based on the stories from the Arabian Nights. Reiniger's          achievement is often brushed aside, due to the fact that the animations were          silhouetted, used paper cut-outs, and they were done in Germany. And the rarely-seen          prints that exist have lost much of their original quality. However, the film          was very innovative -- it used multi-plane camera techniques and experimented          with wax and sand on the film stock.
Early Walt Disney:
A classic animator in the early days of cinema was Walt Disney,          originally an advertising cartoonist at the Kansas City Film Ad Company, who initially experimented with combining          animated and live-action films. The very first films he made himself at his own animation studio in Kansas City           were short cartoons called Newman Laugh-O-Grams, such as Little Red Riding Hood (1922) - the first Walt Disney cartoon, and the Four Musicians of Bremen (1922).
His first successful          silent cartoons (from 1923-1927), after relocating and setting up his own studio in Los Angeles (the Disney Brothers Studio) were a series  of shorts (56 episodes) called Alice Comedies (or Alice in Cartoonland) that debuted in 1924 with Alice's            Day at Sea (1924). Disney's Alice cartoons placed a live-action          title character (Alice) into an animated Wonderland world. Soon after, Oswald the Lucky Rabbit became Disney's first successful animal star in a 26-cartoon series distributed by          Universal beginning in 1927. Oswald was the first Disney character to be merchandized. Oswald appeared in a  number            of cartoon shorts, such as: Trolley Troubles (1927) and Poor Papa              (1927). Disney produced about two dozen of the silent, black and white            Oswald cartoons from 1927-1928 until forced to give up the character to Walter Lantz. He moved onto another memorable character - first named Mortimer Mouse - or Mickey Mouse (looking like Oswald with his ears cut off) in            1928.
The          Debut of Mickey Mouse:
In 1928, Disney Studios' chief animator Ub Iwerks (1901-1971)          developed a new character from a figure known as Mortimer Mouse, a crudely-drawn          or sketched, rodent-like 'Mickey Mouse' - slightly similar to Felix the Cat.          [Mickey Mouse was never a comic strip character before he became a cartoon          star.] The first Mickey Mouse cartoon was released on May 15, 1928: Plane Crazy (1928) in which Mickey, while impressing Minnie, imitated          aviator Charles Lindbergh. The second was Steamboat Willie (1928), first released (on a limited basis) on July 29, 1928, with Mickey as          a roustabout on Pegleg Pete's river steamer, but without his trademark white          gloves. The third was The Gallopin' Gaucho (1928) released on August 2, 1928. (These early films were soon re-worked and re-released            with sound - with electrifying results.)
To help make Mickey stand out from other cartoon characters          at the dawn of the talkies, the 7-minute Steamboat Willie (1928) was          re-released on November 18, 1928 with sound and premiered at the 79th Street Colony Theatre          in New York - it was the first cartoon with post-produced synchronized soundtrack (of music, dialogue, and sound effects) and          is considered Mickey Mouse's screen debut performance and birthdate. Animated          star Mickey (with Minnie) was redrawn with shoes and white, four-fingered          gloves. [The character was a take-off based upon Buster Keaton's Steamboat            Bill (1928) . ] It was a landmark film and a big hit - the first sound cartoon to be a major hit - leading to many          more Mickey Mouse films during the late 1920s and 1930s. Strangely, Mickey's first sound cartoon didn't include Mickey's voice -- he didn't speak          until his ninth short, The Karnival Kid (1929) when he said the words: "Hot dogs!" [Walt's voice was used for Mickey.] Walt            Disney was fast becoming the most influential pioneer in the field of character-based            cel animation, through his shrewd oversight of production.
The Fleischer Brothers: Inventors, Cartoon Makers
At the same time, serious rivals to Disney's animation           production  came from the Fleischers (Max, Dave, Joe, and Lou). They           were already making  technical innovations that would revolutionize           the art of animation. In 1915,  Max Fleischer invented the rotoscope (patented           in 1917) to streamline the frame-by-frame copying process - it was           a device used to overlay drawings on live-action film. The Fleischers           were also pioneering the use of 3-D animation landscapes, and produced           the hour-long Einstein's           Theory of Relativity (1923), the first feature animation (a documentary).
In           1919, Max Fleischer created a series known as Out           of the Inkwell, which starred Koko the Clown (see further below).           After working for John Bray for two years, the brothers left him and           formed their own studio in 1921 - dubbed Inkwell Studios, and           titled their short subjects and animations Out           of the Inkwell Films.           In 1923 when they expanded, Max founded the Red Seal Distribution Company           to circulate their animated films (or cartoons) and shorts. One animation           series was composed of 36 short, 3-4 minute films              called Ko-Ko           Song Car-Tunes (1924-1926). The Red Seal company and Out of           the Inkwell Films only lasted for two years until 1926, when they            went broke, and Paramount Pictures took over distribution. (In 1929,           Max started a new studio on Long Island, named Fleischer           Studios, and still in a relationship with Paramount.)
The Ko-Ko Song Car-Tunes were  the first animated           films (cartoons), some of which featured a synchronized soundtrack           (the first animated films with sound) -            the precursors to karaoke, that used the  Lee DeForest Phonofilm           sound-on-film process. They were the first talking cartoons - even           pre-dating Disney's Steamboat Willie (1928) -           see above.           They were also the first audience participation films, with sing-along           lyrics and a 'bouncing-ball' helper. The gimmick was a bouncing ball           atop the lyrics on screen, to help audiences follow along with the           song.
Nineteen of the 36 short films were released in both           silent and sound versions. Sound versions are in red in the chart below.           The first cartoon was Oh, Mabel (1924) - it began with           Ko-Ko the Clown jumping out of an inkwell and running through a few           hijinks before the song Oh Mabel. The songs         ranged from contemporary tunes to old-time favorites. In My         Old Kentucky Home (1926), an early attempt at synchronizing animation         with sound, Bimbo said to the audience: "Follow         the ball and join in everybody."
Bimbo: "Follow the Ball and Join in Everybody"
Ko-Ko Song Car-Tunes (1924-1926)
(not necessarily in chronological order by month)
1924