Product Details

• Actors: Artist Not Provided
• Format: Black & White, Color, DVD, Flash, Full length, Full Screen, Original recording remastered, Restored, NTSC
• Language: English
• Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
• Number of discs: 2
• Rating: NR (Not Rated)
• Studio: A2ZCDS.com
• DVD Release Date: October 3, 2005
• Run Time: 93 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B000ARGHCS
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #16,322 in Movies & TV (See Bestsellers in Movies & TV)

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Editorial Reviews

From the Studio
"Plots? We never bothered with plots. They were just a series of gags strung together. And not very funny, I'm afraid." Long before the first animated cartoon film was made, artists had tried to suggest movement in theirs drawings and paintings. Egyptian wall paintings from 2000 BC portray a serialized account of a wrestling match between two men. Cave paintings from other parts of the world show animals having eight legs, which suggest that the animal was running. The Japanese used scrolls with a series of drawings implying movement. Frenchman Paul Roget, who invented the thaumatrope, achieved the first true movement of an object in a picture. His invention consisted of a disc with a string or peg attached to both sides. One side of the disc showed a bird, the other an empty cage. When the disc was twirled, the bird appeared to be inside the cage. This experiment led to the understanding of persistence of human vision and proved that the eye retains images when it is exposed to a series of pictures, one at a time. Joseph Plateau's phenakistoscope developed in 1826 gave the necessary leg-up to other inventors. In 1860, Pierre Desvignes inserted a strip of paper containing drawings on the inside of a drum like cylinder. The drum twirled on a spindle, and the viewer gazed through slots on the drum. The figures on the inside magically came to life, endlessly looping in an acrobatic feat. Around this time, several other American inventors such as Thomas A. Edison were bending their backs to develop a successful motion picture camera, while others were perfecting the art of producing drawings and paintings that could move. Chief among the latter was Stuart Blackton, who issued a short film in 1906 entitled Humorous Phases of Funny Faces where he drew comical faces on a blackboard, photographed them, and then erased the picture to draw another stage of the facial expression. This "stop-motion" effect astonished audiences by making drawings comes to life.

Product Description
This fascinating DVD is a rare compilation of the earliest animated films. In effect, it represents an early history of this thrilling medium of communication.

Animation came as a boon to producers who were looking for a vehicle to express their ideas in a form that defied logic and challenged imagination. Bringing inanimate objects to life on the screen would certainly make the presentation both amusing and memorable. Only in an animated film could the moon be made to talk or a cat sing a song and a can of your favorite cereals wink at you naughtily. The acrobatics that characters in an animated film could perform were well beyond the reach of live actors.

In an era when special effects were unheard of, this was a huge bonus. Humor, the key element in these animated films was often achieved by emphasizing the more bizarre or through exaggeration.

Technology has advanced far beyond anything early producers would have imagined or even hoped for. Yet we cannot forget the efforts of this adventurous lot who took movie entertainment to new heights at a time when the regular films were still trying to find a firm footing. We owe the Edison Manufacturing Co., the Vita graph Co. of America, International Film Services and the Mutual Film Corp. a huge debt for opening the doors to a fascinating medium that is so widely employed in entertainment, education and advertisement.

Amazingly, the quality of films in this DVD is superbly preserved, and the features can be enjoyed without straining your eyes. Superb musical scores by Philip Carli and catchy headers make up for the lack of recorded speech. The caricatures are superbly crafted and each clip is a work of art. Based on strong moral themes, these films carry a relevance that has not diminished in any way.

Be prepared for over an hour of amusement, historical insight and loads of laughs as you slip in this amazing DVD into your player.

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

64 of 67 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Slapdash presentation of downloaded content - do not buy!, December 25, 2006

By	James L. Grosbeck - See all my reviews

The Library of Congress "American Memory" website has since 1999 included an exhibit called "Origins of American Animation" featuring films from 1900-1921. This product is no more than the video files from that website, downloaded and carelessly burned to DVD, with ugly template title cards and slightly misplaced chapter marks. This is a 2 disc set for no clear reason - each disc only runs for 45 minutes. There are many other ways in which the presentation is shoddy and tasteless, but the most damning is the misleading and illegal inclusion of Mickey Mouse on the packaging. [...]

11 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Unusual Animation, May 1, 2006

By	Deacon (America) - See all my reviews

I ordered this DVD out of simple curiosity. I'd been watching a lot of modern animated films with computer graphics and I wanted to learn a little bit more about what cartoons were like before CGI graphics came into vogue.

I got more than I bargained for. These are pre-Disney era cartoons and as such are not as techonologically advanced as most that you see on television - but, they are very well done for what they are.

You can tell that the animators considered what they were doing "art" so they fill in every section of the screen with something going on - which meant that I was able to watch the DVD several times and see different things each time.

Of course, some of the clips are a bit scratchy, but what the hell, they were made by Thomas Edison and you have to expect some degrdation in film stock over 80 years.

5 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Good Change From Disney, May 3, 2006

By	Bart (Montpellier, France) - See all my reviews

Watching documentaries on early animation techniques I sometimes get bored because so much time is spent discussing the way Disney revolutionized animation, but no time at all is spent talking about what animation was like before Disney started putting together his films.

In that sense, this DVD is a good, rare catch. Obviously if you are looking for Mikey Mouse, this is not the disk for you. These shorts come from about 10 years before Walk and company started making their films. Instead you get to see very early shorts that demonstrate how the concept of animation was being developed.

Some of the ideas were good and some were nowhere near as well done, but they all put other animation into context.