About Gertie the Dinosaur (1914)
The story behind the film
Winsor McCay was one of the greatest newspaper cartoonists of all time, creator of the lavish fantasy comic strip Little Nemo in Slumberland. He also toured the vaudeville circuit with a "chalk talk" act, drawing pictures live in front of audiences. In 1911 he began experimenting with animation, first bringing his Little Nemo characters to life and then, in 1912, making How a Mosquito Operates (also on Starlite TV). His third film, Gertie the Dinosaur, was designed to be part of his stage act.
Working largely in his spare time, McCay drew thousands of frames on sheets of rice paper (mulberry paper), with an assistant tracing the detailed backgrounds. On stage, McCay would stand beside the screen with a whip, like a circus trainer, and appear to give Gertie commands — to come out of her cave, raise her foot, bow to the audience — and she would respond. For the finale he walked offstage and "reappeared" inside the cartoon, where Gertie lifted him onto her back and carried him away.
When his employer, newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst, restricted his vaudeville appearances, McCay added a live-action prologue and title cards for the version released to cinemas, in which McCay bets his fellow cartoonists that he can make a dinosaur come to life.
Cast & crew
- Created, written and animated by Winsor McCay
- The live-action prologue features McCay and fellow cartoonists, including George McManus
- Gertie, a brontosaurus-type sauropod (the first animated dinosaur)
Why it's worth watching
Gertie the Dinosaur is not quite the first animated film, but it was the first starring a character with a real personality. Gertie is playful, sulky and childlike: she munches trees and boulders, gets distracted by a sea serpent, snaps back when scolded, then bursts into tears and has to be consoled with a pumpkin. She throws a passing mammoth into the lake and drinks the lake dry. More than a century later she is still charming.
McCay's animation is smooth and carefully observed. He developed methods that became standard in animation, such as keyframes and repeated cycles of movement, and inspired a generation of animators including the Fleischer brothers, Walter Lantz and Walt Disney.
Fun facts
- Gertie was the first animated film to feature a dinosaur.
- The prologue jokes about the "10,000 drawings" needed, each a little different from the one before.
- McCay began a sequel, Gertie on Tour, around 1921, but only fragments were finished; they are also on Starlite TV.
- The Library of Congress added Gertie to the National Film Registry in 1991.
Public-domain status
Gertie the Dinosaur was published in 1914 and is in the public domain in the United States. We broadcast it with a public-domain (CC0) piano score; see "Rights & source" below.