The Insane History of Animation, Part 1: From Cave Walls to Spinning Discs

Before cartoons, there were cave walls, candles and a very big argument about a horse.

People have been trying to make pictures move for a very, very long time. Let's go back to the beginning.

1. Cave art: the first animation?

REAL: the paintings in Chauvet Cave in France are more than 30,000 years old. They show horses, lions and rhinos.

RUMOR: some researchers think certain animals were painted with extra legs or heads on purpose, to suggest movement when flickering firelight hit the wall. It's a fascinating idea, but historians still debate it.

Either way, people have always wanted their pictures to tell stories.

2. The magic lantern (1600s)

REAL: the magic lantern was an early projector. A candle or lamp shone through a painted glass slide, and a lens projected the picture onto a wall. By sliding or swapping the glass, showmen could make pictures appear to move.

REAL: in the late 1700s, "phantasmagoria" shows used magic lanterns to make ghosts and skeletons appear to float toward the audience. People screamed. It was the haunted house of its day.

3. The toys that tricked your eyes

In the 1800s, inventors discovered something amazing: if you show the eye pictures quickly enough, the brain blends them into motion. That idea led to a wave of optical toys.

• The thaumatrope (1825). REAL: a disc with a picture on each side, like a bird and a cage. Spin it on its strings, and the bird appears inside the cage.

• The phenakistiscope (1833). REAL: a spinning disc of drawings, viewed through slits in a mirror. Belgian scientist Joseph Plateau created one of the first. The drawings move!

• The zoetrope (1830s, popular in the 1860s). REAL: a spinning drum with slits around the sides and a strip of drawings inside. Look through the slits as it spins, and the drawings loop forever, like a GIF made of paper.

4. The praxinoscope and the first cartoon shows (1877–1892)

REAL: French inventor Émile Reynaud built the praxinoscope in 1877. It used mirrors instead of slits, so the picture looked brighter and clearer.

REAL: in 1892, Reynaud projected his hand-painted animations for paying audiences in Paris, years before movie cameras took off. His first show took place on October 28, which is now celebrated as International Animation Day.

5. Eadweard Muybridge and the flying horse (1878)

REAL: did a galloping horse ever have all four hooves off the ground at once? People argued about it. A California businessman, Leland Stanford, hired photographer Eadweard Muybridge to find out.

REAL: Muybridge lined up 12 cameras along a track. As the horse ran past, it set off each camera, one after another. The photos proved it: all four hooves leave the ground.

REAL: Muybridge then built a projector that showed his photos in quick order, and the horse ran on screen. His work helped lead to motion pictures.

What we learned

1. People have wanted moving pictures for thousands of years.

2. Magic lanterns were the first spooky light shows.

3. Spinning toys taught us how our eyes see motion.

4. Reynaud put cartoons in front of paying audiences in 1892.

5. A horse argument helped invent the movies.

Try this

Make a thaumatrope. Cut out a paper circle. Draw a fish on one side and a fishbowl on the other (upside down). Tape it to a pencil and spin it between your hands. You just did what people did 200 years ago.

Up next

Part 2: The First Cartoons. Chalkboards, a dinosaur named Gertie and the first animation studios.

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