ANIMATION ANARCHY PRESENTS: THE INSANE HISTORY OF ANIMATION – PART 2

“When Men Died for Cartoons: The Early Days of Animation”

Welcome back to Animation Anarchy, where we take a chainsaw to history books and rip apart the glorious, ridiculous, and deeply exhausting history of animation.

Last time, we covered cavemen inventing GIFs, French guys flexing with mirrors, and some dude proving horses could fly. But today, we’re diving into THE SUFFERING—the grueling, soul-crushing, hand-destroying early days of animation, when men literally sacrificed their sanity to make drawings move.

If you’ve ever thought, “Wow, my job is killing me,” just wait till you hear about how animators in the 1900s basically worked themselves into the grave for cartoons.

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1. The First Animated Films: When People Thought Magic Was Real

Imagine living in 1906. There are no TVs, no internet, no TikTok, just a horse-drawn buggy and the overwhelming fear of polio. Then suddenly, some guy makes a drawing MOVE.

Enter J. Stuart Blackton, a Vaudeville guy who decided to play around with stop-motion, creating the first-ever animated film, Humorous Phases of Funny Faces.

• It was literally just some faces drawn on a chalkboard, but in 1906, people LOST THEIR MINDS.

• “THE DEVIL HIMSELF HAS COME TO LIFE!” – probably some guy in the audience.

• It lasted three minutes, which, for 1906, was basically a Marvel movie runtime.

Blackton had no idea he just accidentally kickstarted an industry where people would later sell their souls to draw talking animals.

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2. Winsor McCay: The Guy Who Drew Until His Hand Stopped Working (Literally)

Blackton may have started animation, but Winsor McCay made it an art form.

McCay was a comic artist who thought, “What if I murdered my own wrist by drawing thousands of images by hand?”

Thus, in 1911, he released Little Nemo, one of the first detailed animated films. Then, in 1914, he made Gertie the Dinosaur, and OH BOY, did this man suffer:

• Over 10,000 drawings, all painstakingly drawn BY HAND without assistants.

• Gertie the Dinosaur was a Vaudeville act where McCay literally talked to his own cartoon.

• People thought it was ACTUAL WITCHCRAFT.

Yes, Gertie was the first animated character with personality, and people believed she was REAL. That’s right—before Disney, before Pixar, people thought a janky black-and-white brontosaurus was a living, breathing creature.

McCay’s reward for this suffering?

• A destroyed wrist.

• Getting overshadowed by every animator who came after him.

• A legacy that boiled down to “Oh yeah, that guy who drew a dinosaur.”

Pour one out for McCay—he walked so Pixar could make us cry over toys.

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3. The First Studios: When Animation Became a Sweatshop

As animation caught on, people realized something important:

“Wait… drawing thousands of frames by hand is AWFUL.”

Enter the 1910s-1920s, where studios were created not to push artistic boundaries, but to crank out cartoons faster than humanly possible.

Fleischer Studios (1919) – These guys said, “Screw suffering, let’s invent shortcuts!”

• They created the Rotoscope, a technique where animators traced over live-action footage instead of drawing everything by hand.

• This saved time and wrist pain, meaning animators could now die from overwork slightly slower.

Bray Studios (1914) – Named after some dude named John Bray, this studio pioneered assembly-line animation, where animators were split into teams to divide the suffering more evenly.

• Background artists, in-betweeners, inkers, and painters all had to work like 19th-century factory workers.

• No one was paid well. No one had health insurance. No one saw their families.

• But hey! Cartoons!

Studios were pumping out shorts at a terrifying rate, and by the 1920s, the animation industry looked suspiciously like a labor camp.

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4. Walt Disney: The Man Who Broke Everyone’s Spirits (Including His Own)

And then came Disney.

Oh boy.

Before he became a corporate god, Walt Disney was a scrappy young animator trying to make a name for himself. He started with Laugh-O-Gram Studios, which failed spectacularly, leaving him broke and eating beans out of a can.

So, naturally, he moved to Hollywood and made Mickey Mouse.

• Mickey’s first film, Steamboat Willie (1928), was a huge hit and introduced synchronized sound.

• Disney realized animators could suffer even MORE!

• He pioneered full-length animation, releasing Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937).

Now, if you think your job is hard, consider this:

• Snow White required over 200,000 hand-drawn frames.

• Hundreds of animators worked in complete misery.

• Some of them literally collapsed from exhaustion.

And yet, Snow White made millions, so Disney thought: “Yes. More pain. Let’s do it again.”

Thus, Disney became a monstrous animation empire, and animators realized:

• Animation is amazing.

• Animation is a nightmare.

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5. The Rise of Talking Animals and Rubber Hose Nightmares

By the 1930s, the animation industry had evolved from “let’s draw and suffer” to “let’s draw animals with terrifying bendy limbs and suffer.”

This was the Golden Age of Animation, aka the time when:

• Every single character wore gloves for NO REASON.

• Everyone bounced like they had no bones.

• Every animal had eyes the size of dinner plates.

Studios like Disney, Warner Bros., and Fleischer gave us Mickey Mouse, Betty Boop, Popeye, and Looney Tunes, while animators drowned in ink and crushed dreams.

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What We Learned Today:

1. Winsor McCay sacrificed his wrist for animation.

2. Early animation studios were basically sweatshops.

3. Disney broke records (and souls).

4. If you didn’t have white gloves, you weren’t a cartoon character.

5. People in the 1900s thought Gertie the Dinosaur was real, which is both adorable and concerning.

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NEXT TIME: When Animation Got Weirder (and the Government Got Involved!)

In Part 3, we’re diving into the bizarre era of propaganda cartoons, censorship, and the moment when the U.S. Government thought animation was a great way to brainwash people.

Did Mickey Mouse fight in World War II? Yes. Was it terrifying? Also yes.

Until then, go watch Steamboat Willie and pretend you don’t hear the ghosts of overworked animators screaming in the background.

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Stay Anarchic, Stay Animated!

(And PLEASE like, share, and subscribe to our YouTube channel—otherwise, Winsor McCay’s ghost will haunt your dreams.)