Early Animation – Winsor McCay (Father of American Cartoons)

In the early 20th century, theaters were already showing animated films on the big screen, but the characters were usually no more than “spokes drawings” for various advertisers. That is, until Winsor McCay drew his way onto the scene in 1914, he believed that animated characters could hold an audience’s attention without the help of a sales pitch. With that in mind, McCay created the groundbreaking film Gertie the Dinosaur.

The most innovative part about the movie’s animation was the way McCay interacted with it. Gertie actually started out as part of McCay’s “chalk talk” vaudeville act, and rather than having Gertie attempt talking via speech balloons, McCay spoke for both of them. Standing on stage next to a projected image of the dinosaur and holding a whip, he would bark out commands like, “Dance, Gertie!” Then, suddenly, the image would change and she would obey. In another sequence, McCay would toss an apple behind the screen and the impish dinosaur would appear to catch it in her mouth.

Eventually, McCay was ready to let Gertie loose on the big screen by herself, using cell animation and drawing thousands of illustrations, he turned Gertie into one of the first successful character-based animated cartoons.

Advertisement