Mar 13, 2025 · The first film-based animation was made by J. Stuart Blackton, whose Humorous Phases of Funny Faces in 1906 launched a successful series of animated films for New York’s pioneering Vitagraph Company.

animation, Process of giving the illusion of movement to drawings, models, or inanimate objects. From the mid-1850s, such optical devices as the zoetrope produced the illusion of animation. Stop-action photography enabled the production of cartoon films.

The first animated films appeared in the early 1900s. Walt Disney made the first animated film with sound, Steamboat Willie, in 1928. In 1937 Disney made Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. It was the first full-length animated film to be released as a …

Mar 13, 2025 · Włodzimierz Haupe and Halina Bielinska were among the first important Polish animators; their Janosik (1954) was Poland’s first animated film, and their Changing of the Guard (1956) employed the stop-action gimmick of animated matchboxes.

Mar 11, 2025 · Walt Disney (1901–66) was an American film and TV producer who pioneered animated cartoon films and created the characters Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck. He also planned and built the amusement park Disneyland and had begun a second one, Walt Disney World, before his death.

Mar 13, 2025 · A century after its birth, animation continues to evolve. The most exciting developments are found on two distinct fronts: the anime (“animation”) of Japan and the prime-time television cartoons of the United States.

Feb 27, 2025 · In the United States the term connotes a light entertainment popular from the mid-1890s until the early 1930s that consisted of 10 to 15 individual unrelated acts, featuring magicians, acrobats, comedians, trained animals, jugglers, singers, and dancers.

Mar 11, 2025 · The Disney studio also began making full-length animation romances, such as Cinderella (1950), Alice in Wonderland (1951), and Peter Pan (1953), and produced low-budget, live-action films, including The Absent-Minded Professor (1961).

Inspired by the work of Emile Cohl and J. Stuart Blackton, McCay began to experiment with animated cartoons and produced an animated version of Little Nemo that proved a great hit in his stage act.

In animation: Early history …William George Horner invented the zoetrope, a rotating drum lined by a band of pictures that could be changed. The Frenchman Émile Reynaud in 1876 adapted the principle into a form that could be projected before a theatrical audience.