The History of Animation - Part 1 Quiz

Answer: The Zoetrope

The Chinese version was made up of pictures on translucent paper attached to a fan over a lamp. The heat from the lamp would cause the fan blades to spin, rotating the pictures into animation when the right speed was reached. The modern zoetrope was invented by British mathematician Williams Horner.

He originally called his device a 'daedeleum', for the Greek mythological figure Daedelus. The device would catch on with children in Great Britain and the U.S. by the 1860s.

Answer: Blue Screen

The Stop-Trick was discovered accidentally while Méliès was filming a moving bus and the camera broke down. When filming resumed, a hearse was going past, giving the impression on film that the bus magically changed into a hearse while moving past the camera.

This trick, and others, were used in a lot of Méliès' work, including his masterpiece 'A Trip To The Moon' in 1902. The Stop-Trick would be extensively used in the U.S. TV comedy series 'Bewitched' and 'I Dream of Jeannie'. While Méliès dabbled in a lot of aspects of Thomas Edison's moving film invention, bluescreen, or chroma-key compositing, was not achieved until shortly before his death in 1936.

Answer: A blackboard

Using Thomas Edison's new invention, the motion camera, but not yet having access to the means of the modern artist, Blackton's cartoon characters were drawn and erased on a blackboard using stop-motion animation. Still, it amazed audiences for many years.

Answer: Gertie

McCay (ca 1869-1934) had performed with other of his animated creations before, but 'Gertie the Dinosaur' was widely hailed as among the first cartoon characters with a distinctive personality (she would misbehave and cry when scolded by McCay). This set the stage for the popularity of cartoon characters in later years from Disney and Warner Brothers.
Unfortunately, his live touring did not sit well with his boss, publisher William Randolph Hearst, so McCay accepted an invitation from filmmaker William Fox (of '20th Century Fox' fame) to make a movie within the cartoon featuring McCay and friends, including fellow cartoonist George McManus ('Bringing Up Father' and 'The Gumps') that toured the U.S. in his place.
'Gertie' was also significant in that it was the first cartoon made using keyframe animation (a filmed series of drawings on a fixed frame that suggested actual movement).

Answer: Col. Heeza Liar

Col. Heeza Liar was the epitome of the retired adventurer/explorer that fit Pres. Roosevelt and his exploits to Africa and central America. Heeza Liar may have been a small inspiration for Col. Blimp, who first appeared in the 1930s and later Commander McBragg, who appeared on TV in the 60s. Koko was first made in the Bray studios by the Fleischer brothers, Max and Dave, who joined Bray in 1916.

When they left to make their own studios, they took Koko with them. He would re-emerge as a sidekick to one of the Fleischer's biggest stars, Betty Boop.

Answer: False

Sadly, World War I nearly succeeded in killing off entire generations of young men, both in Britain and on the Continent, while physically ravaging and financially draining entire countries. In addition to this, the fees for using patented animation procedures, mostly established by the Bray studios, were too much for a lot of places. World War II was equally hard, if not worse in some areas. With the U.S. removed from most of the battlefields, they were able to maintain a firm hold on leadership in animation for many years.

Not until the 1960s, with Japanese anime ('Astro-Boy' and 'Gigantor') and British advances in puppetry and stop-motion ('Thunderbirds are Go') was there any answer to U.S. animation domination.

Answer: Shadow puppets

Reiniger was enamored by the films of French fantasy filmmaker George Méliès and German expressionist Paul Wegener and, in fact, made some artistic intertitles for Wegener starting in 1916. Taking her love of shadow and silhouette, she created her first film, 'The Ornament of the Enamoured (Loving) Heart', which featured two lovers reflected in a holiday ornament, in 1919.

Her crowning achievement has to be 1926's 'The Adventures of Prince Achmed', which intertwined some of the tales of the Arabian Nights.

It counts as among the first animated feature films at over an hour in length, earning its popularity in part through the endorsement of French film pioneer Jean Renoir. She married film historian Carl Koch, who also acted as producer and cameraman for many of her films.

They both escaped the Nazis in 1935, returning in 1944 to care for her sick mother. After World War II, she and Koch settled in England and made more than a dozen animated shorts until Koch's death in 1963. She returned to Germany for good in time for a revival of her work.

Her last work 'The Four Seasons' was finished for the Dusseldorf Museum only a year before she died.

Answer: Mickey Mouse

1928 was the year 'Steamboat Willie' was released by the Disney Brothers Studio (with Walt and Roy Disney) and produced by Disney and his friend Ubbe (Ub) Iwerks (1901-1971). This film marked the official debut of Mickey and Minnie Mouse, although both were already on a silent cartoon, 'Plane Crazy', that didn't get a distributor until the Disneys and Iwerks' reputation were firmly established ('Crazy' then got the sound treatment and became the fourth official cartoon of Mickey's career). There were sound cartoons before Mickey's debut. 'My Old Kentucky Home' by Max and Dave Fleischer and 'Dinner Time' by Paul Terry (of 'Terrytoons' fame) were premiered with sound, but did not get the publicity that Mickey got.

Incidentally, the vocals of all the characters in 'Steamboat' were performed by Walt Disney.

Answer: Looney Tunes/Merrie Melodies

'Looney Tunes' is actually a take-off of Disney's 'Silly Symphonies', and the WB's first cartoon star, Bosco, was loosely based on Mickey Mouse. The 'tunes' in 'Looney Tunes' and its sister branch, Merrie Melodies, came from the initial agreement with the Warners to start the studio...they had to incorporate at least one song from the studio's music department in each film.

A year later, Iwerks would leave to start his own studio. Harmon and Ising would leave in 1933, winding up at Van Bueren Studios (a subsidiary of RKO Pictures) and eventually to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer for a short run. Freleng would stay until Looney Tunes shut down for good in 1963, then join business partner David DePatie in making the popular 'Pink Panther' cartoons of the 1960s and 70s.

Answer: Betty Boop

Betty Boop began life as a nameless hybrid girl/dog (shaped like a girl, but with dog ears) who dated Bosco the dog, but would eventually lose the ears and become all woman in just over a year. Her slinky style would eventually get the notice of the Hays Office, who oversaw films for overt sex and profanity, and would force her to cover up.

She would be sued by a real-life chanteuse who claimed she stole her trademark 'boop-boop-bi-doo' phrase (Boop would win). The Fleischers would also get hate mail because Boop's cartoons would feature black performers like Cab Calloway and Louis Armstrong.

But she was loved by millions, including French playwright Jean-Paul Sartre. Betty's voice was provided by actress Mae Questel, who was so talented she did all the voices of the other choices of this question. Questel died January 4, 1998.