The word animation derives from the Latin animatio, meaning the bestowing of life, a definition that has guided the medium since its earliest mechanical experiments. Before the invention of cinema, audiences were already captivated by moving images created through simple mechanics like the magic lantern and the phenakistiscope, which debuted in 1833. These early devices relied on the stroboscopic effect, where a rapid succession of images creates the illusion of motion, a phenomenon later attributed to the persistence of vision and the phi phenomenon. The first true animated film, Fantasmagorie, arrived in 1908 from the hand of Émile Cohl, establishing the principle of hand-drawn animation on standard film. This was followed by J. Stuart Blackton's The Haunted Hotel in 1907, which popularized stop motion, and Winsor McCay's Gertie the Dinosaur in 1914, which demonstrated that animated characters could possess personality and emotional depth. The silent era saw the birth of the animation industry in the United States, where John Randolph Bray and Earl Hurd patented the cel animation process in 1914, a method that would dominate the field for the rest of the century. By 1919, Felix the Cat emerged as the first fully realized anthropomorphic animal character, setting the stage for the golden age that would follow.
The Golden Age And The War
The golden age of American animation began in 1928 with the release of Steamboat Willie, which popularized film-with-synchronized-sound and placed Walt Disney's studio at the forefront of the industry. This era lasted until the 1960s and was defined by a plethora of cel-animated theatrical shorts that introduced characters like Goofy, Donald Duck, Bugs Bunny, and Tom and Jerry. The United States dominated the world market, but the industry faced significant challenges during the Second World War. Animation was widely exploited for propaganda, with studios like Warner Bros. and Disney lending their talents to convey war values. The English 1954 adaptation of George Orwell's Animal Farm is speculated to have been funded by the CIA to combat communism, highlighting the medium's power as a tool for political messaging. Despite the war, the industry continued to evolve, with the Soviet Soyuzmultfilm studio producing an average of 20 films per year and reaching 1,582 titles by 2018. The war also cut off foreign markets, causing financial struggles for studios like Fleischer, which followed Disney's example with Gulliver's Travels in 1939 but failed to replicate its success.Television And The Shift
Animation became a dominant force on television starting in the 1950s, when sets became common in developed countries. The demand for a huge quantity of content led to the development of limited animation, a more economic technique pioneered by United Productions of America and used extensively by Hanna-Barbera Productions. This method used fewer drawings per second, resulting in a choppy or skippy movement that was cheaper to produce but less fluid. The first prime time animated series, The Flintstones, aired from 1960 to 1966, followed by hits like Scooby-Doo and The Smurfs. The constraints of television programming and the need for speed resulted in formulaic scripts and a decline in quality until the late 1980s. A renaissance of American animation emerged with The Simpsons in 1987 and SpongeBob SquarePants in 1999. Meanwhile, Japanese anime TV series became successful internationally from the 1960s, leading to co-productions between European and Japanese studios. The shift from cels to computers began in the 1940s, with 3D wireframe animation appearing in the mainstream in the 1970s. The Rescuers Down Under became the first feature film completely created digitally without a camera, and Toy Story in 1995 established the 3D style as the dominant technique.