Humorous Phases of Funny Faces

J. Stuart Blackton, Vitagraph, copyright 6 April 1906, three minutes. Blackton's hand draws a man and a woman in chalk; they grimace, smoke, and vanish, followed by a clown, a dog, cutouts, and stop-motion, with a short stretch of true frame-by-frame drawing. The earliest animation on standard picture film that survives, after his own Enchanted Drawing (1900). The Library of Congress holds a print in the AFI/Blackton Collection and a fragment in the Paper Print Collection (H75272).