Animation in the United States during the silent era

The silent age of American animation dates back to at least 1906 when Vitagraph released Humorous Phases of Funny Faces.

[1] Although early animations were rudimentary, they rapidly became more sophisticated with such classics as Gertie the Dinosaur in 1914, Felix the Cat, Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, and Koko the Clown.

Originally a novelty, some early animated silents depicted magic acts or were strongly influenced by the comic strip.

Early animation films, like their live-action silent cousins, would come with a musical score to be played by an organist or even an orchestra in larger theatres.

British-American filmmaker J. Stuart Blackton was possibly the first to use animation techniques in the US for film versions of his "lightning artist" routine.

In 1915, Max Fleischer applied for a patent[10] for a technique that would become known as rotoscoping: the process of using live-action film recordings as a reference point to more easily create realistic animated movements.

They produced adaptations of many comic strips from Heart's newspapers in a rather limited fashion, giving just a little motion to the characters while mainly using the dialog balloons to deliver the story.

Before the studio stopped in 1918 it had employed some new talents, including Vernon Stallings, Ben Sharpsteen, Jack King, John Foster, Grim Natwick, Burt Gillett and Isadore Klein.

The studio later came into trouble during the advent of sound cartoons in the early 1930s when the popularity of Walt Disney's Mickey Mouse was rising above Sullivan's Felix.