Animation is now in a kind of new “golden age,” with highly creative computer animation. But where did it start?
The very first animated cartoon consisted of 500 painted images, in a system developed by Charles-Émile Reynaud. The film opened at his his Théâtre Optique at the Musée Grévin in 1892:
Here is what is considered to be the first animated film — from 1908: Fantasmagorie is an 1908 French animated film by Émile Cohl.
Then from 1914 Gertie the Dinosaur:
And then there was Walt Disney’s classic 1928 Mickey Mouse cartoon. “Steamboat Willie,” the first cartoon with a fully post-production synchronized soundtrack.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.