Fantasmagorie: The 'Bob’s Burgers' of 1908

Watch what historians consider to be the first animated cartoon in history.

To make this film, Cohl placed each drawing on an illuminated glass plate and then traced the next drawing-with variations-on top of it until he had some 700 drawings. In 1908, chalkboard caricaturists were common vaudeville attractions and the characters in the film look as though they've been drawn on a chalkboard, but it's an illusion. By filming black lines on paper and then printing in negative Cohl makes his animations appear to be chalk drawings.

Heck of an imagination this guy had. As a side note, I didn't know Marge (Simpsons) was that old. lolol

Thanks for sharing, O.

We've certainly come a long way since then.

Excellent find O

I love watching old films from the turn of the century. That was some seriously cool animation. In 1983 my roommate in college used the same technique to produce credit shots for his photography project. Black letters on white board printed in negative. 75 years later!

I feel that whoever thought that one up was related to the person who wrote and animated the "pink elephant" scene in dumbo.

That must have taken forever, all those abstract shapes and stuff without even a decent recording device. D: