As mentioned in the "Silent Movies and Family Guy" article I'm a huge fan of cartoons, something in my opinion that still honors Silent comedy to the fullest. Recently I ran across this charming Felix the Cat cartoon above titled "Felix Goes to Hollywood". I'm not going to claim it as a full fact, but if this isn't the first then it is one of the first cartoons to portray celebrities. Some of them are hard to distinguish but my guess is Gloria Swanson, Cecil B DeMille, William Hays, Charlie Chaplin, and Douglas Fairbanks are all caricatured here. I find it hilarious Doug was being rescued...how unlike him!
As with most 'firsts' the dispute over first cartoon goes between the French 1889 'Praxynoscope' system and the American "Humorous Phases of Funny Faces" in 1906. Click here to watch. It took awhile, but by 1914 Gertie the Dinosaur had found more satisfaction and acclaim for the animation field. Felix the Cat was likely invented in 1917 (by either Pat Sullivan or Otto Messimer depending who you ask), but found superstardom in 1919 making him the first big cartoon star. Felix was widely popular through the 1920s but his downfall came when his creator took too long to jump on sound, and Felix fell out of favor to that damn mouse.
Ripping off Felix, the Hearst favorite Krazy Kat came to the screen in the early 20s and returned in the late 20s. He was unfavorably compared to Felix for the 20s, but had an animation career off and on till the 60s. Other comic strip favorites Mutt and Jeff as well as Bobby Bumps also got cartoon series.
The Fleischer Brothers followed with the next superstars Koko the Clown and Bimbo the dog in 1919. Using a technique called 'rotoscope' these cartoons combined live action with the cartoons, generally showing the animators pissing off Koko and messing with the drawings to create comic mishaps. Honestly I've seen a few of them and find them dull as dirt, but some of them are cute. The actual animation parts look very similar to Felix and I still believe Bimbo stole Felix's "Magic Tail" trick. This series also invented the ''bouncing ball'' effect (for singing along to words) and was one of the first cartoons to synchronize with sound. In 1930 a little flapper named Betty Boop debuted and stole Koko's thunder...eventually making Bimbo HER sidekick and becoming the big cartoon star of the 30s...until the Hays Code found her too sexy and made her tone down (rendering her boring).
After Koko came Disney and Ub Iwerks with the Laugh O Grams and eventually the Alice Comedies. In 1923, after moving to Hollywood (though he had shot a test of it in Kansas City), Disney and Iweks began producing the Alice Comedies. These featured a live action Alice (the still living Virginia Davis) and her various cartoon friends...and villains. The shorts were popular and ran till 1927, at which point Iwerks and Disney created Oswald the Lucky Rabbit for Universal. Universal ended up screwing the duo over and retaining rights to Oswald, which led to the creation of Mickey Mouse. Oswald ran till 1938 without Iwerks or Disney, but never had as much success as he did in the early years. Mickey Mouse meanwhile debuted in 1928 with 2 shorts before sound was added to the third: Steamboat Willie. Being considered the first talkie cartoon it was a smashing success and the other 2 cartoons were redubbed with sound, making Mickey a (still) smashing hit and creating Disney's empire (forgetting poor Iwerks along the way).
Features
Though Disney is usually considered the first to make a full length animation film that isn't fully true. He was the first to make a full length, color, English language, animated film which was "Snow White" in 1937 (though production had began in 1934). Cartoons had been considered to that point to be a cute little novelty, a little short to see before the feature. Something that went with the live shorts and later newsreels. When Disney announced he intended to make it an art form people thought he was crazy. The press dubbed Snow White "Disney's Folly" sure it would be a major disaster. It ended up being a major success winning an Academy Award, funding Disney's future projects (now a $36 billion empire), and being one of the highest grossing films of all time.
However as said Disney wasn't the first. The first full length film debuted all the way back in 1917...albeit in Argentina. "El Apostol (The Apostle)" by Quirino Cristiani was said to be 70 minutes long and critical of the Argentinian President of the time. It was said to be well received however it is now lost which is unfortunate.
Quirino Cristani was a very interesting man and definitely a pioneer in film animation. Honestly he sounds very much like Seth Macfarlane or Matt Stone and Trey Parker to me. Click here for an interesting article on his life. Cristani followed Apostole with 1918's "Sin dejar rastros (Without a Trace)". The film was deemed 'too political' and he was forced to shelve it, instead starting a career of showing films to small villages. Its unknown if any prints exist. Cristani struck again as a first with his 1931 film "Peludópolis" which was also plagued with political issues. "Peludópolis" was the first feature cartoon to use sound. The film received poor reviews and Cristani in essence retired though he made a few shorts till the 40s. "Peludópolis" is also believed to be lost. A fire in Cristani's vault is responsible for his high percentage of lost films.
Cristani (and Argentina for that matter) were pretty much alone in this full length pursuit until 1926 when German animator Lotte Reiniger created "The Adventures of Prince Achmed". This made her the first (and one of the only) major female animator (women did animation work but never RAN it) as well as the first to use a type of silhouette puppetry and different camera angles. "The Adventures of Prince Achmed" also holds the honor of the oldest SURVIVING feature animated film. It's been released on DVD several times. Click here to purchase.
The interesting thing is after Lotte's silent and Cristani's talkie only one other animated film was released before Disney, and that was the Russian "The New Gulliver" in 1934. It combined live action with stop motion puppetry and took 3,000 puppets to make. So in another stroke of fairness Disney was the first to use traditional cell animation for a feature as well. Another stop motion mention would be 1925's "Lost World" though it is more a live film with animated parts then a fully animated film.
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