Gertie the Dinosaur (1914) by Winsor McCay.

Winsor McCay in a still from his first animated movie, Little Nemo.

One of the first and most successful early animated movies, Gertie the Dinosaur is distinctly different from other animations of the period. One of the most likely reasons is that Winsor McCay was already a professional and well established artist and quite talented being best known for his popular comic strip Little Nemo.

Prior animations were less fluid and did not display the knowledge and appreciation for movement, muscle and bone structure that make Gertie the Dinosaur so much more believable than the other animations.  Many of the others were not as detailed most likely due to the medium and method that was used in their production whereas with Gertie, Winsor McCay hand drew each frame (although his assistant traced many of the backgrounds). It may have been the first animation to use key frames and used many of the same sequences (such as the nodding "yes" and shaking head "no") repeatedly.

The animation also told a story as opposed to contemporary animations of the period which more or less were animated actions or moving objects with little story concept to them. The walking animations of Gertie, the scratching and neck movements are quite believable and the human like actions like crying at being called a bad girl hint at the direction American animation would go with future pioneers like Walt Disney.

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