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The Phenakistoscope
Belgian physicist Joseph Plateau and his sons introduced the phenakistoscope ("spindle viewer"). It was also invented independently in the same year by Simon von Stampfer of Vienna, Austria, who called his invention a stroboscope. The phenakistoscope used a spinning disc attached vertically to a handle. -
Stop Motion
Stop-motion animation was developed in the late 1800s by pioneers such as J Stuart Blackton. Blackton's The Humpty Dumpty Circus (1898) is considered one of the genre's earliest examples. ... Known as clay animation or claymation, this technique was used by Art Clokey to create the The Gumby Show. -
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Silent Age of Animation
The earliest age of mainstream animation known to man, lasting from the early 1900s to the late 1920s with the rise of sound technology. Gertie the Dinosaur in 1914, Felix the Cat, and Koko the Clown. -
The Enchanted Drawing
The Enchanted Drawing. The Enchanted Drawing is a 1900 silent film directed by J. Stuart Blackton. It is best known for containing the first animated sequences recorded on standard picture film, which has led Blackton to be considered the father of American animation. -
Gertie the Dinosaur
Winsor McCay:
A landmark short in personality animation, influencing many artists and future animation pioneers. -
Cel Animation
The earliest widely popular animated short films in the US, it was drawn frame-by-frame entirely by hand on paper. Celluloid or cel animation is a film-based media form, where transparent individually-created films frames are projected with light sequentially onto a reflective screen, creating an illusion of motion. -
Disney Animation
Snow White and The Seven Dwarves, December 12, 1937
Pinocchio, February 7, 1940
Fantasia, November 13, 1940 -
The Bouncing Ball
The bouncing ball was named and invented by Max Fleischer, the founder of Fleischer Studios, in 1924. Usually the "ball" is a big red dot, but sometimes it'll be a different color, or some manner of icon appropriate to the setting. The ball may also highlight whatever word or syllable it touches, or leave a dotted line as it travels across the words. -
Cut-Out Animation
Cutout animation is a technique for producing animation using flat characters, props and backgrounds cut from materials such as paper, card board, stiff fabric or even photos. ... Today, cutout-style animation is often produced using computers, with scanned images taking the place of physically cut materials. -
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Golden Age of Animation
The Golden Age Of Animation is a period in animation history that is generally agreed to have begun on November 18th, 1928, with the release of Steamboat Willie, and cemented with with Fleischer's, Warner's and MGM's rise to prominence in the years following. It faded out in the late-50s / early-1960s when theatrical animated shorts lost ground to the new (and far lower budget) medium of television animation. -
Steamboat Willie
Walt Disney/Ub Iwerks:
Disney's Steamboat Willie is a landmark in the history of animation. It was the first Mickey Mouse film released and the first cartoon with synchronized sound. -
Warner Brothers Animation
One of the most successful animation studios in American media history, it was primarily responsible for the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies theatrical cartoon short subjects. ... A successor company, Warner Bros. Animation, was established in 1980. -
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Dark Age of Animation
The unfortunate successor to The Golden Age of Animation, slowly setting in in the late 1950s and lasting until the mid-80s. Limited Animation was the rule, not the exception during this time. Its start coincided with the Fall of the Studio System in Hollywood. The theatrical short slowly died off, and cartoons moved to television. Naturally, this era would leave a lasting impression on American culture, for better or for worse, as the primary target audience for cartoons became children. -
Little Nemo
Winsor McCay:
Made 4,000 rice paper drawings for the animated portion of the film.
