McCay initially presented the film before live audiences as an interactive part of his vaudeville act; the frisky, childlike Gertie performed tricks at her master's command.

Although Gertie is popularly thought to be the earliest animated film, McCay had previously made Little Nemo (1911) and How a Mosquito Operates (1912).

It influenced the next generation of animators, including the Fleischer brothers, Otto Messmer, Paul Terry, Walter Lantz, and Walt Disney.

John Randolph Bray unsuccessfully tried to patent many of McCay's animation techniques and is said to have been behind a plagiarized version of Gertie that appeared a year or two after the original.

[7] Inspired by the flip books his son brought home,[8] McCay recognized the potential to create "moving pictures" from his cartoons.

[9] He claimed to be the first man in the world to make animated cartoons,[9] but he was preceded by the American James Stuart Blackton and the French Émile Cohl.

[14] In 1912, McCay consulted with the American Historical Society and announced plans to create a presentation featuring depictions of the great monsters that once roamed the earth.

[18] McCay had earlier introduced dinosaurs into his comic strip work, like the March 4, 1905,[d][19] episode of Dream of the Rarebit Fiend in which a Brontosaurus skeleton took part in a horse race,[20] and the May 25, 1913,[e] Rarebit Fiend episode in which a hunter unsuccessfully targets a dinosaur; the layout of the background to the latter bore a strong resemblance to what later appeared in Gertie.

Disney animator Paul Satterfield recalled hearing McCay in 1915 relate how he had chosen the name "Gertie":[18] He heard a couple of "sweet boys" [gay men] out in the hall talking to each other, and one of them said, "Oh, Bertie, wait a minute!"

She is animated in a naturalistic style unprecedented for the time; she breathes rhythmically, shifts her weight as she moves, and her abdominal muscles undulate as she draws water.

[28] In the live-action framing story added for later distribution, McCay and friends suffer a flat tire in front of the American Museum of Natural History.

They enter the museum and, while viewing a Brontosaurus skeleton, McCay wagers a dinner that he can bring a dinosaur to life with his animation skills.

The animation process and its "10,000 drawings, each a little different from the one preceding it" is put on display,[j][26] with humorous scenes of mountains of paper, some of which an assistant drops.

[31] McCay consulted with New York museum staff to ensure the accuracy of Gertie's movements; the staff were unable to help him find out how an extinct animal would stand up from a lying position, so in a scene in which Gertie stood up, McCay had a flying lizard come on screen to draw away viewers' attention.

[34] McCay was open about the techniques that he developed, and refused to patent his system, reportedly saying: "Any idiot that wants to make a couple of thousand drawings for a hundred feet of film is welcome to join the club.

[35] It appeared in movie theaters[41] in an edition with a live-action prologue, distributed by William Fox's Box Office Attractions Company from December 28.

[44] Advertisements reflected this by trying to educate audiences: "According to science this monster once ruled this planet  ... Skeletons [are] now being unearthed measuring from 90 ft. to 160 ft. in length.

[46] Though reviews were positive, McCay's employer at the New York American, newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst, was displeased that his star cartoonist's vaudeville schedule interrupted his work illustrating editorials.

[41] In November 1914, film producer William Fox offered to market Gertie the Dinosaur to moving-picture theaters for "spot cash and highest prices".

He initiated a restoration of the entire film and, with animation historian Donald Crafton, proposed a reconstruction of McCay's vaudeville performance.

Within a few years of Nemo's release, Canadian Raoul Barré's registration pegs combined with American Earl Hurd's cel technology became near-universal methods in animation studios.

"[66] That September he appeared on the radio at WNAC, and on November 2 Frank Craven interviewed him for The Evening Journal's Woman's Hour.

[71] On February 22, 1914, before Hearst had barred the New York American from mentioning McCay's vaudeville work, a columnist in the paper called the act "a laugh from start to finish  ... far funnier than his noted mosquito drawings".

[72] Upon its theatrical release, Variety magazine wrote the film had "plenty of comedy throughout" and that it would "always be remarked upon as exceptionally clever".

Eder compared McCay's artistic vision to that of poet William Blake, saying that "it was too strange and personal to be generalized or to have any children".

[35] Brothers Simon and Kim Deitch loosely based their graphic novel The Boulevard of Broken Dreams (2002) on McCay's disillusionment with the animation industry in the 1920s.

Shamus Culhane, Dave and Max Fleischer, Walter Lantz, Otto Messmer, Pat Sullivan, Paul Terry, and Bill Tytla were among the generation of American animators who drew inspiration from the films they saw in McCay's vaudeville act.

They appear to come from a single sequence, likely at the close of the film, and have Gertie showing her head from the audience's right and giving a bow.

[76] He and Disney animator Richard Huemer recreated the original vaudeville performance for the Disneyland television program in 1955;[72] this was the first exposure the film had for that generation.