STORY

Before animation became a billion-dollar global industry, it was an experiment.

Artists armed with pencils, ink, paper, cameras and enormous imaginations were trying to accomplish something that must have seemed impossible: make drawings come alive.

Welcome to Absolutely Toons, where AIN opens the cartoon vault and travels back to the wonderfully inventive beginnings of animation.

Long before computers could create entire worlds, early animators painstakingly drew movement frame by frame. Characters stretched, bounced, flattened, exploded, danced, disappeared and somehow popped right back into shape. Reality wasn't merely suspended — it was cheerfully thrown out the window.

And that was the magic.

Animation's earliest innovators included artists such as Winsor McCay, whose Gertie the Dinosaur helped demonstrate that an animated character could have something resembling a personality. Then came a parade of experimenters, inventors and wonderfully obsessive artists who kept asking the same question:

What else can a drawing do?

The answer turned out to be: practically anything.

Pat Sullivan and animator Otto Messmer helped bring Felix the Cat to movie screens, where the mischievous black cat became one of animation's first international superstars.

Max and Dave Fleischer took animation in another direction entirely. Their New York cartoons were strange, sophisticated, surreal, musical and sometimes downright wild. Max Fleischer was also an important technical innovator whose work helped advance the art of animation. The Fleischers' world eventually gave audiences unforgettable screen personalities including Koko the Clown, Betty Boop and Popeye the Sailor.

Meanwhile, another young producer named Walt Disney, working with extraordinary artists including Ub Iwerks, was building his own animation studio.

Disney first produced the Alice Comedies, followed by Oswald the Lucky Rabbit. After losing control of Oswald, Disney needed another character. The result was a certain little mouse who would change animation history.

On November 18, 1928, audiences at New York's Colony Theatre saw Steamboat Willie, starring Mickey Mouse and Minnie Mouse. It wasn't the first animated cartoon and it wasn't even the first Mickey cartoon produced, but its synchronized sound helped turn Mickey into a sensation.

And the cartoons kept coming.

Mickey Mouse. Minnie Mouse. Felix the Cat. Oswald the Lucky Rabbit. Koko the Clown. Betty Boop. Popeye. Olive Oyl. Bosko. Flip the Frog. Farmer Al Falfa. Krazy Kat.

They belonged to an extraordinary period when virtually every studio seemed to be experimenting with animation and nobody quite knew what the rules were yet.

That may be exactly why these cartoons remain so much fun.

They can be sophisticated and ridiculous. Beautiful and bizarre. Technically ingenious and gloriously primitive. Music drives the action. Animals play instruments. Skeletons dance. Houses develop personalities. Inanimate objects suddenly spring to life. And characters routinely survive things that would make even the toughest action hero reconsider his career.

Absolutely Toons celebrates that history.

From silent animation and the arrival of synchronized sound to the wonderfully surreal worlds created by animation's early pioneers, AIN brings together cartoons from an era when artists weren't simply making entertainment.

They were inventing an art form.

Some are famous.

Some have nearly disappeared.

Some introduced characters who would become cultural icons.

And some are simply seven minutes of magnificent animated lunacy.

So climb into the AIN cartoon attic, open that old steamer trunk and see who's waiting inside.

Because these characters may be more than a century old...

but you're never too old for TOON FUN!

AIN BACKSTAGE SECRETS & AINTOIDS

THE MOUSE WASN'T FIRST

Before Mickey Mouse, Walt Disney produced the Alice Comedies and the Oswald the Lucky Rabbit cartoons. Disney made 26 silent Oswald cartoons during 1927–1928 before losing control of the character.

MICKEY'S BIG NIGHT

Steamboat Willie premiered in New York on November 18, 1928. The combination of animation, character and synchronized sound helped transform Mickey Mouse into a phenomenon.

FELIX GOT THERE EARLY

Felix the Cat was already a major animated star years before Mickey arrived. His earliest screen adventures date to the silent era, with Feline Follies appearing in 1919.

THE FLEISCHERS WERE INNOVATORS

Max and Dave Fleischer weren't simply making cartoons. Their studio pioneered and developed animation techniques that influenced generations of filmmakers. Their unmistakable New York sensibility helped give animation an alternative to the emerging Hollywood style.

BETTY ARRIVES

An early version of Betty Boop appeared in the 1930 Fleischer Talkartoon Dizzy Dishes. She would evolve dramatically from those earliest appearances into one of the most recognizable animated stars of the 1930s.

AND THEN THERE WAS POPEYE

Popeye began in E.C. Segar's comic strip before becoming an animated sensation through Fleischer Studios. His supporting world included Olive Oyl, Bluto and eventually Poopdeck Pappy.

SKELETONS COULD DANCE

Disney's 1929 The Skeleton Dance became one of the earliest Silly Symphonies, a series that allowed Disney's artists to experiment with music, movement, storytelling and animation without relying entirely upon Mickey Mouse.

THE PUBLIC-DOMAIN CLOCK KEEPS MOVING

Copyright expiration happens year by year in the United States. That means additional early animation enters the public domain over time. Importantly, a particular public-domain cartoon does not automatically make every later version of its characters, music, artwork or trademarks public domain. AIN therefore evaluates the actual work and version being used rather than assuming an entire character franchise is free to use.