What blows my mind is that there were no cells, no frames, CGI wasn't even science fiction yet and yet this piece remains today a simply amazing masterpiece. Alot of modern animators could learn from Winsor McCay's genius.
Look how consistent and solid-looking everything is when it rotates. Look at Nemo's feet and hat. This guy was a total genius- the shapes of everything in his head were fantastically rounded, and it comes through in the beauty of his characters' movements. McCay knew something that was long forgotten when hand-drawn animation got into major production. Fantastic.
9:28, my jaw dropped when Nemo drew Princess Camille. As a cartoon fan I am in awe at this whole animation test. In only a months time he created this stunning master piece? I think i'm going to cry.
McCay's animation is amazing! He's turning those shapes in space and drawing his characters from all sorts of angles yet they still look solid. He's brilliant at depicting scale too. I read an old article in which McCay recommends that beginners start by drawing a cone, a cylinder and a cube for two months. "When you have learned to draw them well, you will be able to draw anything -including cartoons," he wrote.
What truly amazes me is how flawlessly he would free-hand with pen and ink. By the time I had finished the first figure, I would have smudged half the ink and gone through the better part of a bottle of cover fluid! Thanks for posting this. I can never get enough of McCay's work.
I am studying animation right now, and this just absolutely jaw dropping. Emile Cohl prior to this was impressive, but McCay practically invented western cartoon vocabulary as we know it with this short. To have gone from stick figures and chalk drawings to this--pitch-perfect perspective, consistently on-model characters that rotate, elaborately appealing designs, all animated with flawless fluidity and believable weight--is outrageous. Before Disney, before Fleischer, and most amazingly, before cel animation and any sort of existing technical systems were in existence for making this stuff. He also colored it, as primitive as it was, a practice that wasn't common for more than a decade afterwards. It's so goddamn perfect compared to what came before AND after. If I hadn't seen it prior and someone had told me it was made in 2014 and shown at a film festival, I would be none the wiser.
YusMat700 Seriously? Where are you learning animation, that they studied Cohn and not McCay? Incredible. Jaw-droppingI What are you getting aside of that, Lil' Abner? Coal Black and de Sebben Dwarves? I guess you are in the US with their racism towards Canada and Canadian born artists back in the day... I bet you haven't seen any early South American or Russian shorts then? Or Yellow Kid animations?
ghironda balorda What? I was merely admiring the artistic genius of McCay and acknowledging the importance of Emil Cohl. They, along with many others, have their place in animation history. What are you going on about? Why are you trying to start a fight? Man, there are all kinds of ppl on the internet...
YusMat700 I'm wondering only. Since I'm an amateur with an interest in animation (I create storyboards in my leisure time) I've done some research of my own and have noticed many of the pros and students are spoon-fed mainstream animation, completely overlooking the pioneers and creators. Some are unfamiliar with Max Fleischer even! I was just making a somewhat exasperated point at the teachers, not you. And if you notice... a troll does not give you suggestions like I did at the end of the comment. A good resource used to be Don Markstein's Toonopedia... but last I recall it was down.
At the end of the cartoon, when the camera zooms out: No. 4000. It stops and makes you think about the work that goed into a cartoon. And this was all done by one man. That is absolutely amazing. Windsor McCay, what a talented person.
133 Drawings a day (not counting all the other strips he was doing at the time...Dreams of the Rarebit Fiend, Hungry Henrietta, Little Sammy Sneeze, Tales of the Jungle Imps, Poor Jake, classic editorial cartoons, his vaudeville routine...not all in 1911, of course!)
How is it that we don't have brilliant people like Winsor anymore? To think, he's what helped inspire Disney to make all of his cartoons and create some of our childhood memories.
It's amazing how far animation has come. You got this guy who basically started it all, people like me who make amateur toons and then the professionals like Pixar and Dreamworks who are slowly making animations look more and more realistic which each new film.
never in a thousand years did these fine gentlemen would ever think that their high quality videos were going to one day be just regular potato videos on youtube
The animation's interesting (and historical as you-name-it), but what a profound treat it is to watch McCay's drawing hand in action. Like another animator, Bob McKimson, McCay always seemed to be inking over pencils nobody else could see. Photographic memory, and an unerring hand. It was also interesting finding that Nemo is black and orange, like, well, a clown fish.
One of the friends was perhaps Geo. McManus (Maggie and Jiggs) I wish I could figure out which one was him.. (Maybe the big guy on the right at table) Google images doesn't have pics of him back to 1911 so it's a bit difficult. George was a swell artist as well..very fine lines. But McCay gets the cigar--oops, he's not smoking? ha ha. I watched this once before and thought one of the men moving in ink and paper was Samuel Horwitz, SHEMP of Three Stooges fame?
I LOVE THIS. It's so adorable. Idk what this movie is. But this is almost the greatest movie ever made, almost 100 years ago. OMG. I can't get over how cute that was. 0.0 AMAZINGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG
Given the fact that this is one of the first bits of true animation ever, I'd have to say that it was extremely well done. The squash and stretch and distortion looks like it was made by using a feature on photoshop. Only Winsor had to do it entirely by hand and one picture at a time.
This connected to my childhood in more ways than 1. I saw this last night and plugged in my NES Just to play the game again. after finishing the whole game... i went to sleep. Ironically i was woke up by my mother's phone call at 8am to ask did i see lil-nemo on google... Im 25, and it's still part of the family,
Has any other American artist ever matched McCay? I don't think so,not in proficiency, draughtsmanship or consistency. My favorite artist for decades now.
You, sir, have been awarded the "Most Gracious Acceptance of Being Corrected on a TH-cam Comments Thread" award! Congratulations! Humility is kind of rare around these here parts! :)
I use to have the Little Nemo: Adventures in Slumberland 1992 movie on VHS when I was little. I loved that movie and wish I knew what happened to it. If you haven't had the pleasure of seeing it, go watch it!
Considering the technical media from the time, all hand production, no computer assistance, this was pure art and talent to bring those images into motion. Absolutely fascinating.
For it's era, that's pretty great animation and would be an immense amount of work to create. I like the shadow's under the feet, and drawing's drawing each other. The sequel 'Finding Nemo' just isn't the same quality. Kidding people! Thanks Google Doodle, this has been enriching.
as a computer animator, I'd have to take exception. The computer is just another tool, and we can create incredible beauty with it. The problems with the industry though are absolutely born of greed. Most animators are the greatest most genuine people you'd want to meet. The studio heads, for the most part, are squeezing the talent and killing the industry. And the new talent isn't helping by working for free.
Windsor McCay (Silas) era un artista con una gran profusión de detalles en sus dibujos, verdaderas obras de arte, que hasta el momento pocos dibujantes han igualado... Gracias por el corto animado... era también Gertie la dinosauria, uno de los primero cortos animados, de su inspiración...
Now that's classic animation. There should be a Little Nemo movie done soon. By a studio that cares more for McCay's work than selling Happy meals. Winsor McCay rocks.
YES! I checked around and that definitely does appear to be John Bunny, his list of credits include this short Winsor McCay film - good call! John Bunny is generally considered to be the very first Hollywood "star" - a real pity he died while film-making was still in its infancy, back in 1915!
Imagine back then when this came out people said holy crap that's the most amazing thing ive seen in my entire life and today when the next hd film comes out people just say meh and go onto something diffirent
It's astounding to even begin to comprehend how much passion and determination McCay had in order to do so much painstakingly difficult work to make his vision into reality. If every American today had his amazing work ethic, the country would be in much better shape than it is today.
Oh WOW... I'm very moved. I'm reading a book on the birth of animation... This was THE FIRST. Literally. Not just McCay's first- this was the first true animation. There was an earlier 'chalk talk' and that's on youtube too- 'humorous phases of funny faces'. But it's limited animation, never true animation. This is the real deal, years before anyone else and impossibly sophisticated.
You ever notice in history that the ideas that are laughed and scoffed the most are the ones we still use decades after the original idea? They laughed at the idea that pictures could move, yet here it is, 2010 and we still create animated works.
Winsor McCay, pioneer of the animated cartoon, AND of the "making off" as well!. It has been said that he created Gertie the dinosaur to show people that his previous movie wasn't made through life-action puppeteering, using a huge not-around-anymore animal to make his statement clear. The man was amazing: what animator would dare to animate such complicated drawings?
It's so amazing how far animation's evolved over the years and how much technology has changed. It's also absolutely mind blowing how much the human hand can accomplish. It's hard to believe that that was all it was, just 4,000 pictures hand drawn with exact precision and perfect position to make that tiny little short film. It's times like these that I feel blessed to be a human being! :)
The individual pictures he drew were just black ink on white paper and were photographed like that. When the film was assembled copies were made for distribution. Where there is colour, each copy was then painted over, frame by frame, by people with very fine brushes and incredibly steady hands. It was a lot of work, but labour was cheap back then.
This is a great piece of art and history. But the "Adventure Time" is amazing too. I think the kids have really good cartoons series nowadays to watch.
What blows my mind is that there were no cells, no frames, CGI wasn't even science fiction yet and yet this piece remains today a simply amazing masterpiece. Alot of modern animators could learn from Winsor McCay's genius.
Look how consistent and solid-looking everything is when it rotates. Look at Nemo's feet and hat. This guy was a total genius- the shapes of everything in his head were fantastically rounded, and it comes through in the beauty of his characters' movements. McCay knew something that was long forgotten when hand-drawn animation got into major production. Fantastic.
9:28, my jaw dropped when Nemo drew Princess Camille. As a cartoon fan I am in awe at this whole animation test. In only a months time he created this stunning master piece? I think i'm going to cry.
McCay's animation is amazing! He's turning those shapes in space and drawing his characters from all sorts of angles yet they still look solid. He's brilliant at depicting scale too. I read an old article in which McCay recommends that beginners start by drawing a cone, a cylinder and a cube for two months. "When you have learned to draw them well, you will be able to draw anything -including cartoons," he wrote.
What truly amazes me is how flawlessly he would free-hand with pen and ink. By the time I had finished the first figure, I would have smudged half the ink and gone through the better part of a bottle of cover fluid!
Thanks for posting this. I can never get enough of McCay's work.
I love the barrel of ink and the ton of drawing paper!
Such artistic ability AND a splendid sense of humour.
Winsor McCay, I salute you.
I am studying animation right now, and this just absolutely jaw dropping. Emile Cohl prior to this was impressive, but McCay practically invented western cartoon vocabulary as we know it with this short. To have gone from stick figures and chalk drawings to this--pitch-perfect perspective, consistently on-model characters that rotate, elaborately appealing designs, all animated with flawless fluidity and believable weight--is outrageous. Before Disney, before Fleischer, and most amazingly, before cel animation and any sort of existing technical systems were in existence for making this stuff. He also colored it, as primitive as it was, a practice that wasn't common for more than a decade afterwards. It's so goddamn perfect compared to what came before AND after. If I hadn't seen it prior and someone had told me it was made in 2014 and shown at a film festival, I would be none the wiser.
Was it a one man show? Must have been a lot of work for a person to finish.
Sumgai It took him about a year to make the drawings of a 30 second animation.
YusMat700 Seriously? Where are you learning animation, that they studied Cohn and not McCay? Incredible. Jaw-droppingI What are you getting aside of that, Lil' Abner? Coal Black and de Sebben Dwarves? I guess you are in the US with their racism towards Canada and Canadian born artists back in the day...
I bet you haven't seen any early South American or Russian shorts then? Or Yellow Kid animations?
ghironda balorda
What? I was merely admiring the artistic genius of McCay and acknowledging the importance of Emil Cohl. They, along with many others, have their place in animation history. What are you going on about? Why are you trying to start a fight? Man, there are all kinds of ppl on the internet...
YusMat700 I'm wondering only. Since I'm an amateur with an interest in animation (I create storyboards in my leisure time) I've done some research of my own and have noticed many of the pros and students are spoon-fed mainstream animation, completely overlooking the pioneers and creators. Some are unfamiliar with Max Fleischer even! I was just making a somewhat exasperated point at the teachers, not you. And if you notice... a troll does not give you suggestions like I did at the end of the comment. A good resource used to be Don Markstein's Toonopedia... but last I recall it was down.
thumbs up if you already loved winsor mccay and just got reminded of his awesomeness, nothing more : )
At the end of the cartoon, when the camera zooms out: No. 4000. It stops and makes you think about the work that goed into a cartoon. And this was all done by one man. That is absolutely amazing. Windsor McCay, what a talented person.
133 Drawings a day (not counting all the other strips he was doing at the time...Dreams of the Rarebit Fiend, Hungry Henrietta, Little Sammy Sneeze, Tales of the Jungle Imps, Poor Jake, classic editorial cartoons, his vaudeville routine...not all in 1911, of course!)
How is it that we don't have brilliant people like Winsor anymore? To think, he's what helped inspire Disney to make all of his cartoons and create some of our childhood memories.
It's amazing how far animation has come. You got this guy who basically started it all, people like me who make amateur toons and then the professionals like Pixar and Dreamworks who are slowly making animations look more and more realistic which each new film.
never in a thousand years did these fine gentlemen would ever think that their high quality videos were going to one day be just regular potato videos on youtube
The animation's interesting (and historical as you-name-it), but what a profound treat it is to watch McCay's drawing hand in action. Like another animator, Bob McKimson, McCay always seemed to be inking over pencils nobody else could see. Photographic memory, and an unerring hand.
It was also interesting finding that Nemo is black and orange, like, well, a clown fish.
I wish we could've saw his friends' reaction after the animation
One of the friends was perhaps Geo. McManus (Maggie and Jiggs) I wish I could figure out which one was him.. (Maybe the big guy on the right at table) Google images doesn't have pics of him back to 1911 so it's a bit difficult. George was a swell artist as well..very fine lines. But McCay gets the cigar--oops, he's not smoking? ha ha. I watched this once before and thought one of the men moving in ink and paper was Samuel Horwitz, SHEMP of Three Stooges fame?
I LOVE THIS. It's so adorable. Idk what this movie is. But this is almost the greatest movie ever made, almost 100 years ago. OMG. I can't get over how cute that was. 0.0 AMAZINGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG
Given the fact that this is one of the first bits of true animation ever, I'd have to say that it was extremely well done. The squash and stretch and distortion looks like it was made by using a feature on photoshop. Only Winsor had to do it entirely by hand and one picture at a time.
I have the whole Collection of Little Nemo Cartoons, but i never knew, Winsor did animation, too :O amazing!
Ah the awesome animation of one of the early masters Winsor McCay
I still love his work as well as gertie the dinosaur
Very classic and beautiful....
Wow that animation is soo hard to do, its so well done as well. Very incredible.
This connected to my childhood in more ways than 1. I saw this last night and plugged in my NES Just to play the game again. after finishing the whole game... i went to sleep. Ironically i was woke up by my mother's phone call at 8am to ask did i see lil-nemo on google... Im 25, and it's still part of the family,
Has any other American artist ever matched McCay? I don't think so,not in proficiency, draughtsmanship or consistency. My favorite artist for decades now.
Fantastic, I loved the movie.
Merci google Doodle en effet, je ne connaissais pas Winsor McCay du haut de mes 29 années. Et j'apprécie le travail :)) Bravo Sir McCay !!!
Is that like dramatization/documentary of behind the scenes of Little Nemo? Wow!.. And the animation is so trippy!!!!
better quality than other video I've seen on youtube
Wow that was impressive for it being from 1911, nice post!
People would come into a theater just to watch that alone I bet!
It's pure fascination even till today.
Thanks for sharing. This is priceless. I loved Mccay's work for years, and I always will.
Beautiful...
wow. the importance of winsor mccay on all animation up to now is incalculable. incredible.
That was magical!
Questo credo sia il primo cortometraggio di disegni animati della storia.. a quel tempo era un capolavoro
La verdad ver esto lo deja a uno sin palabras
Absolutely marvelous!!
Thank you!!!
I think it's amazing how people did animation like that way back when.
AWESOME, great, brilliant. Beautiful!
You, sir, have been awarded the "Most Gracious Acceptance of Being Corrected on a TH-cam Comments Thread" award! Congratulations! Humility is kind of rare around these here parts! :)
A mano alzada, sin necesidad del grafito . De un solo tiro....grandioso!!!!
Thanks so very much for this; I've just completed the complete works of Little Nemo and this was a rare treat.
I use to have the Little Nemo: Adventures in Slumberland 1992 movie on VHS when I was little. I loved that movie and wish I knew what happened to it. If you haven't had the pleasure of seeing it, go watch it!
Thank you for the video.
Considering the technical media from the time, all hand production, no computer assistance, this was pure art and talent to bring those images into motion. Absolutely fascinating.
For it's era, that's pretty great animation and would be an immense amount of work to create.
I like the shadow's under the feet, and drawing's drawing each other. The sequel 'Finding Nemo' just isn't the same quality. Kidding people! Thanks Google Doodle, this has been enriching.
It was the first appearance of Mickey, not the first cartoon by a long shot. Mccay was a superstar in his time.
Heart pleasing.....
Winsor McCay was just the best.
sigh... 1911 seemed like just yesterday... I was only 334 years olds then! My has time gone by! :)
as a computer animator, I'd have to take exception. The computer is just another tool, and we can create incredible beauty with it. The problems with the industry though are absolutely born of greed. Most animators are the greatest most genuine people you'd want to meet. The studio heads, for the most part, are squeezing the talent and killing the industry. And the new talent isn't helping by working for free.
Windsor McCay (Silas) era un artista con una gran profusión de detalles en sus dibujos, verdaderas obras de arte, que hasta el momento pocos dibujantes han igualado... Gracias por el corto animado... era también Gertie la dinosauria, uno de los primero cortos animados, de su inspiración...
this is amazing
pure genius - Winsor McCay was decades ahead of his time!
One of THE BEST animations used for Google :)
Now that's classic animation. There should be a Little Nemo movie done soon. By a studio that cares more for McCay's work than selling Happy meals. Winsor McCay rocks.
YES! I checked around and that definitely does appear to be John Bunny, his list of credits include this short Winsor McCay film - good call!
John Bunny is generally considered to be the very first Hollywood "star" - a real pity he died while film-making was still in its infancy, back in 1915!
Absolutely mind-blowing.
Absolutely amazing!!!
That's really amazing to see such a talent at work. Very cool.
It gives me a desire to applaud
Wonderful never heard of the guy till now .you learn something every day .
From a goat depicted jumping to eat a leaf atop a tree 5200 years ago to today's greatest animated shows, animation sure have come a long way :)
Amazing.
I love that the first animations ever were actually pretty fucking good.
Genius at work there!!!
me encanto me imagino la emcion q dio al ver las primera animaciones
Today this cartoon has become 107 years old 😁
i love it! :*) its beautful hardwork!!
Wauw! Amazing!
VSAUCE thank u!!!!!!!!!!
Hermoso, inspirador, me encanta! gracias google!
Imagine back then when this came out people said holy crap that's the most amazing thing ive seen in my entire life and today when the next hd film comes out people just say meh and go onto something diffirent
nice one...wonder if them drawings are still around..the color bit was fantastic even a 100 years later...master piece
awesome!!!!
It's astounding to even begin to comprehend how much passion and determination McCay had in order to do so much painstakingly difficult work to make his vision into reality. If every American today had his amazing work ethic, the country would be in much better shape than it is today.
How old you now
Fascinating. It's like looking into a 100 year old time capsule.
Like the cave paitnings in France, primitive and precognizant. Astonishing. Thank you,internet!
Oh WOW... I'm very moved. I'm reading a book on the birth of animation...
This was THE FIRST.
Literally. Not just McCay's first- this was the first true animation. There was an earlier 'chalk talk' and that's on youtube too- 'humorous phases of funny faces'. But it's limited animation, never true animation.
This is the real deal, years before anyone else and impossibly sophisticated.
As someone who likes to draw and given a task, If I was given THAT MUCH paper and ink.. I'd be one happy clam!!!!
You ever notice in history that the ideas that are laughed and scoffed the most are the ones we still use decades after the original idea? They laughed at the idea that pictures could move, yet here it is, 2010 and we still create animated works.
completely mind blowing! Who knew? Wow!
spectacular
That was amazing.
Have you ever had diarea but it doesnt hurt when it comes out? Thats what youtube thumbs are, Just so satisfying man.
Winsor McCay, pioneer of the animated cartoon, AND of the "making off" as well!. It has been said that he created Gertie the dinosaur to show people that his previous movie wasn't made through life-action puppeteering, using a huge not-around-anymore animal to make his statement clear. The man was amazing: what animator would dare to animate such complicated drawings?
ITS SO GOOD
Holy shit, 100 years. Has it really been over 100 years?
great man,,
this is so cool to think that they only made cartoons 100 years ago
definition of a cartoon
im speechless
It's so amazing how far animation's evolved over the years and how much technology has changed. It's also absolutely mind blowing how much the human hand can accomplish. It's hard to believe that that was all it was, just 4,000 pictures hand drawn with exact precision and perfect position to make that tiny little short film. It's times like these that I feel blessed to be a human being! :)
The individual pictures he drew were just black ink on white paper and were photographed like that. When the film was assembled copies were made for distribution. Where there is colour, each copy was then painted over, frame by frame, by people with very fine brushes and incredibly steady hands. It was a lot of work, but labour was cheap back then.
Sweet!
How they ever did this without computers just mind boggles me
really so nice
This is a great piece of art and history. But the "Adventure Time" is amazing too. I think the kids have really good cartoons series nowadays to watch.
amazing moves
Realmente fantástico. Gracias Google!!
Una belleza
Here because of google and glad I am !!