80 Fun Facts About Animation

Which French artist made Fantasmagorie (1908), considered the first animated cartoon?

The whole film is a stick figure meeting morphing objects, and it was drawn in white on black to look like a chalkboard.

Which American game company introduced the definitive zoetrope, with replaceable picture strips, as a toy in 1866?

Its inventor, William Ensign Lincoln, was a Brown University sophomore of about 18 when he came up with it.

Reynaud's 1877 praxinoscope improved on the zoetrope by replacing its narrow viewing slits with what?

The reflections stayed almost stationary as the drum turned, giving a brighter, less distorted picture.

Which Belgian physicist invented the phenakistiscope around December 1832, simultaneously with Simon Stampfer?

The inventor never settled on one name for it, using both phénakisticope and his preferred fantascope.

Émile Reynaud's Pantomimes Lumineuses, the first projected animated films, opened in 1892 at which Paris venue?

The shows beat the Lumière brothers' first paid film screening by more than three years.

Blackton's 1906 Humorous Phases of Funny Faces, an early hand-drawn animation, was drawn on what surface?

Blackton had co-founded Vitagraph Studios and did 'lightning sketch' acts on film before this.

Winsor McCay first showed Gertie the Dinosaur (1914) not in cinemas but as an interactive part of what?

Gertie obeyed McCay's spoken commands on stage; a live-action prologue was added when his boss William Randolph Hearst curtailed his stage career.

Winsor McCay's most ambitious film (1918) recreated which 1915 event?

It was a commercial disappointment and McCay's later films attracted little attention.

El Apóstol (1917), considered the first feature-length animated film, was made in which country?

The only copy burned in a 1926 studio fire, and its director Quirino Cristiani was paid a meagre 1,000 pesos.

The Adventures of Prince Achmed (1926), the oldest surviving animated feature, used what technique?

Reiniger's cardboard-and-lead figures were inspired by Wayang shadow puppets, and the original prints were colour-tinted.

Which pre-digital animation device is Lotte Reiniger, maker of Prince Achmed, credited with first devising in 1923-26?

Layering flat planes at different depths gave her shadow films a sense of parallax that Disney would later industrialise.

What did industry insiders derisively call Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs during production?

Walt mortgaged his house to finish it; the film then became the highest-grossing film of 1938.

Which technique, tracing over live-action footage frame by frame, did Max Fleischer invent in 1915?

He used it in the Out of the Inkwell series, and other studios could only use it freely once his patent expired by 1934.

Betty Boop began life in Fleischer cartoons as an anthropomorphised what?

She had evolved into a fully human 'Jazz Baby' flapper by 1932.

'Termite Terrace' was the affectionate nickname for the classic animation department of which studio?

The name came from a small building on the Sunset lot that Tex Avery's unit was moved into for about a year.

At which studio did Tex Avery create Droopy, Screwy Squirrel and Red Hot Riding Hood after 1941?

Avery's humour was aimed squarely at adults, the opposite of Disney's approach.

Which Chuck Jones short topped Jerry Beck's 1994 book The 50 Greatest Cartoons?

Ten of the fifty entries were directed by Jones, who only got an Oscar in his own name in 1966 for The Dot and the Line.

Hanna-Barbera's five-minute Ruff and Reddy episodes had to cost no more than how much apiece?

Their seven-minute Tom and Jerry shorts had cost around $35,000 each.

Which 1960 series was the first animated show to air in prime time?

It ran six seasons on ABC and held the prime-time record for animation until 1997.

Before becoming a half-hour series in 1989, The Simpsons began as shorts on which variety programme?

It is now the longest-running American animated series, sitcom and scripted prime-time show.

Ray Harryhausen's celebrated fight between three actors and seven living skeletons is in which 1963 film?

It expanded on the single-skeleton duel he had animated for Sinbad five years earlier.

What did stop-motion pioneer Ladislas Starevich use as protagonists around 1910?

His live stag beetles kept dying under the studio lights, so he wired their legs and animated them instead.

Which 2000 film, Aardman's first feature, is the highest-grossing stop-motion film of all time?

Its escape plot is set on a Yorkshire egg farm and it grossed about $228 million.

Nick Park's Creature Comforts (1989) matched animated zoo animals with recordings of real people discussing what?

It was his contribution to a Channel 4 series of shorts called Lip Synch and won his first Academy Award.

Wallace, the cheese-loving inventor of Wallace & Gromit, is especially fond of which cheese?

His accent comes from the Holme Valley of West Yorkshire, though his letters end with a Wigan address.

Stop-motion studio Laika (Coraline, Kubo) is owned by the co-founder of which company?

Phil Knight first invested in 1998, and his son Travis Knight now runs the studio near Portland, Oregon.

In which city were Rankin/Bass 'Animagic' specials like Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer actually produced?

Japanese animator Tadahito Mochinaga's MOM Production headed the puppet work throughout the 1960s.

Toy Story (1995), the first entirely computer-animated feature film, was directed by whom?

It premiered at the El Capitan Theatre in Los Angeles and set a record for the biggest opening weekend.

The inaugural Academy Award for Best Animated Feature, presented in 2002, went to which film?

It was also the first animated film named to the American Film Institute's top ten of the year.

Which film was the first hand-drawn, non-English winner of the Best Animated Feature Oscar?

It also shared the Golden Bear at Berlin in 2002 and became the highest-grossing film in Japanese history.

Which 2023 film, made after Hayao Miyazaki came out of retirement, won the Oscar for Best Animated Feature?

It was the first PG-13-rated film to win the category.

Flow (2024), the first independent film to win Best Animated Feature, was animated with which open-source software?

Director Gints Zilbalodis used no storyboards, and the film has no dialogue at all.

Flow, the 2024 film about a cat surviving a flood, was the first Oscar winner from which country?

It became the most-viewed film ever in the country's cinemas and its Oscar went on display at the national art museum.

Ghibli, an Italian word for a hot desert wind, was also the nickname of what?

Miyazaki, an aircraft obsessive, wanted the studio to 'blow a new wind through the anime industry'.

Which artist directed Akira (1988), the Neo-Tokyo cyberpunk landmark, adapting his own manga?

Its budget of ¥700 million was unusually large, and the manga kept running for two more years after the film.

In Into the Spider-Verse, why was Miles animated 'on twos' while Peter was on ones?

The film mixed 12 and 24 images per second on purpose, and it won Best Animated Feature at the 91st Academy Awards.

Persepolis (2007) follows a girl growing up during the 1979 revolution in which country?

The black-and-white film shared the Jury Prize at Cannes with Silent Light.

Ari Folman's animated documentary Waltz with Bashir traces his lost memories as a soldier in which conflict?

It won the Golden Globe for Best Foreign Language Film but is banned in Lebanon itself.

Sylvain Chomet's The Illusionist (2010) was based on an unproduced 1956 script by which French filmmaker?

The script was written as a personal letter to his estranged eldest daughter.

The Annecy International Animation Film Festival, held each June since 1960, is in which country?

Its top prize has been called the Annecy Crystal (le Cristal d'Annecy) since 2003.

Which legendary voice actress first conceived the Annie Awards, presented since 1972?

The very first honourees were Max and Dave Fleischer, cited for Betty Boop, Popeye and inventing rotoscoping.

Frank Thomas and which fellow animator wrote The Illusion of Life (1981), setting out Disney's twelve principles?

Animation World Network readers voted it the best animation book of all time in 1999.

In realistic squash and stretch, what property of the object must not change?

Stretch a ball vertically and it has to get narrower to compensate.

The 'cel' in cel animation is a contraction of the name of which material?

The flammable cellulose nitrate sheets were later replaced with more stable cellulose acetate.

Between 1927 and 1930, what frame rate became the standard for 35 mm sound film?

It was a compromise between the 22 to 26 fps at which theatres had been running silent films.

Animating 'on twos' holds each drawing for two frames; how many drawings per second is that at sound-film speed?

Animators revert to 'ones' for fast movement, since twos are too slow to convey it.

Which animator of Steamboat Willie left Disney in 1930 and launched Flip the Frog?

He later returned to Disney and did effects work on Mary Poppins and even Hitchcock's The Birds.

What was the first feature film from the studio Don Bluth founded after quitting Disney in 1979?

Bluth agreed to the first profit-sharing contract in the animation industry for its 160 animators.

What was DreamWorks Animation's first feature film, released in October 1998?

The studio was formed in 1994 with alumni of Spielberg's Amblimation and has now made more than 50 features.

Richard Williams won a Special Achievement Oscar for animating which 1988 live-action hybrid?

Production moved from Los Angeles to Elstree Studios in England to accommodate Williams and his animators.

Which 1937 film was the first cel-animated feature ever made?

Hollywood called it 'Disney's Folly' during production. Walt received an honorary Oscar for it in the form of one full-size statuette and seven miniature ones, presented by Shirley Temple.

Which 1991 Disney film was the first animated feature nominated for Best Picture?

It lost to The Silence of the Lambs and remained the only animated Best Picture nominee until Up in 2010. Its title song and Alan Menken's score both won.

Which Pixar film was the first animated film to open the Cannes Film Festival, in 2009?

It was also Pixar's first 3D release. Ed Asner voiced 78-year-old Carl Fredricksen, and the wordless four-minute 'Married Life' montage is routinely cited as the studio's finest sequence.

In Spirited Away, what becomes of Chihiro's parents after gorging on food in the abandoned town?

To free them she works in a bathhouse for spirits run by the witch Yubaba. The film was Japan's highest-grossing ever for 19 years and the first hand-drawn, non-English film to win the animation Oscar.

Who actually directed The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993), which Tim Burton conceived and produced?

Burton was busy on Batman Returns. Danny Elfman wrote the songs and sang for Jack Skellington, the Pumpkin King, while Chris Sarandon spoke his lines.

Which comedian voiced the Genie in Aladdin (1992), improvising hours of unused tape?

He took scale pay on condition that Disney did not use his voice heavily in marketing; when it did, he fell out with the studio and skipped the first sequel.

Coraline (2009) is based on a novella by which author?

It was the first feature from the Oregon studio Laika, built inside a 140,000-square-foot warehouse. Gaiman said he wrote the book for his daughters, who wanted something scary.

Inside Out (2015) takes place inside the mind of an 11-year-old girl. What is her name?

Five emotions run her thoughts: Joy, Sadness, Fear, Disgust and Anger, with Amy Poehler voicing Joy. The film won the Oscar for Best Animated Feature.

The name of Pixar's trash-compacting robot WALL-E is an acronym. What does the first word stand for?

Waste Allocation Load Lifter: Earth-class. Sound designer Ben Burtt, who also voiced him, recorded about 2,500 sounds, and most characters in the film's first act never speak a word.

In How to Train Your Dragon (2010), what does Hiccup name the Night Fury he befriends?

The name refers to the dragon's retractable teeth. The film is based on Cressida Cowell's 2003 novel and is set on the island of Berk.

Under what title was Disney's 2016 film about rabbit cop Judy Hopps released in the UK and much of Europe?

Disney cited trademark issues for the change. The film's scene-stealer is Flash, the 'fastest' three-toed sloth at the DMV.

Brad Bird's The Iron Giant (1999) is loosely based on a 1968 children's novel by which British poet?

Vin Diesel voiced the Giant. Warner Bros. barely marketed the film and it flopped, but Bird went on to direct The Incredibles and Ratatouille at Pixar.

Which two rival studio mascots first shared a scene, as skydivers, in Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988)?

Warner insisted its star get exactly as much screen time and dialogue as Disney's. Bob Hoskins acted the whole film opposite characters who were painted in later.

Which conductor, seen in silhouette shaking hands with Mickey Mouse, led the performances in Fantasia (1940)?

Seven of the pieces were played by the Philadelphia Orchestra. The film introduced Fantasound, the first stereo system used in a commercial film.

Which song from The Prince of Egypt (1998) won the Oscar for Best Original Song?

Val Kilmer voiced Moses. The Oscar went to Stephen Schwartz; the pop version by Whitney Houston and Mariah Carey was the first time the two had recorded together.

Which 2016 Makoto Shinkai body-swap romance overtook Spirited Away as the highest-grossing Japanese film ever?

Country girl Mitsuha and Tokyo boy Taki wake up in each other's bodies without ever having met. It made about $400 million worldwide.

Frozen (2013) was loosely inspired by which 1844 fairy tale?

Hans Christian Andersen's story went through several treatments before Disney commissioned the film in 2011.

Which film overtook Frozen as the highest-grossing animated film in August 2019?

Frozen had grossed over $1.28 billion and won Oscars for Best Animated Feature and Best Original Song for 'Let It Go'.

Shrek (2001) was loosely based on a 1990 picture book by which author-illustrator?

DreamWorks bought the rights from Spielberg in 1995; the ogre was first voiced by Chris Farley, who died in 1997 before finishing.

Which comedian originally recorded most of Shrek's dialogue before dying in 1997?

Mike Myers took over the role in the finished film, alongside Eddie Murphy and Cameron Diaz.

Which Pixar film became the best-selling DVD of all time, with over 40 million copies sold by 2006?

Directed by Andrew Stanton, it was also the highest-grossing G-rated film at the time.

The Lion King's plot draws notably on which Shakespeare play?

It grossed $763 million on first release, then second only to Jurassic Park, with songs by Elton John and Tim Rice.

How was the pilot episode of South Park made, before the show moved to computers?

The series debuted on Comedy Central on 13 August 1997 and had aired 338 episodes at last count.

Which 1940 Disney film was the first animated feature to win a competitive Academy Award?

It won two Oscars, for Best Original Score and Best Original Song, and pioneered highly realistic effects animation.

Mickey Mouse was created as a replacement for which earlier Disney character owned by Universal?

Steamboat Willie premiered at New York's Colony Theater on 18 November 1928 and entered the US public domain on 1 January 2024.

In which year did Steamboat Willie enter the US public domain?

Disney had been inspired by The Jazz Singer to make one of the first fully synchronised sound cartoons.

Which producer ran the Looney Tunes studio from 1933 until selling it to Warner Bros. in 1944?

Harman and Ising had co-produced the earliest shorts from 1930 to 1933, starring characters like Bosko, Foxy and Buddy.

Which of Matt Groening's comic strips caught James L. Brooks's eye and led to The Simpsons?

Groening first meant to animate that strip, then invented the Simpsons instead; the shorts joined The Tracey Ullman Show on 19 April 1987.

Spirited Away shared which festival's top prize, the Golden Bear, in 2002?

It held Japan's box-office record for 19 years until Demon Slayer: Mugen Train overtook it in 2020.

Which 2020 anime film broke Spirited Away's 19-year Japanese box-office record?

Spirited Away had earned ¥31.68 billion, and it remains the only hand-drawn non-English winner of the animated feature Oscar.