Wednesday, March 28, 2018

GERTIE THE DINOSAUR - Winsor McCay - "Cartooning Pioneer" (1914)

Welcome back to the Wednesday version of The Dungeon! Tonight we're gonna go back over a hundred years! Is that something the human mind of today can even comprehend?  Doubtful! I love this poster, but it is slightly exaggerated in more ways than one!!

 The short cartoon I want to tell you about tonight was called "Gertie," and it was made in 1911! It was not Winsor McCay's first film!
Winsor McCay's first film was made in 1906 and called "Dreams Of A Rarebit Fiend." It was a tale of a drunken nightmare, and it wasn't a cartoon but it did have stop-action effects in it!

After that, in 1911 he made "Winsor McCay, the Famous Cartoonist of the N.Y. Herald and His Moving Comics" aka "Little Nemo," his best known character. and the actual first cartoon, I think!
Want to watch it? Here's the link!

 Next up for Winsor in 1912 was 
"How A Mosquito Operates!"
I really hate mosquitoes!
 
 Originally, it was just the line drawing cartoon, but they later added the real life footage to make it more palatable to the public! The story line they came up with has Winsor and his buddies cruising around, and then their car has tire trouble, so they stumble into this natural history museum!

  Winsor McCay lays down a challenge!

 
 It's not difficult to tell even from these crude drawings how talented of an artiste Winsor was!
In the last picture Gertie was free form dancing but rock and roll wouldn't be around for at least another 40 years! Follow the link, and see for yourself!

 The memory of the first dinosaur cartoon character of all time would probably be lost forever if it wasn't for this ice cream stand in one of the Disney theme parks!

2 comments:

Dr. Theda said...

We saw this one on PBS as a small child...!!! liked the way he interacted with the image upon the screen !!!
... great post !

EEGAH!! said...

Thanx Doc, glad you liked it! Always good to hear from you!!

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