Animation is as old as cinema itself. Some of the earliest filmmakers used techniques like stop-motion and cel animation to create amusing short films that had people rolling in the aisles. Nowadays, animated features regularly achieve blockbuster status, wowing critics and thrilling audiences alike with their unique blend of imagination and creative flair.
So how did we get from there to here? To answer this question, I created the Animation Time Machine!
The Animation Time Machine’s mission was simple. Every month it zapped itself exactly 100 years into the past. Having scanned the film journals of the day, it returned to the present with news from the world of animation as it happened exactly a century earlier. All that remained was for me to write a monthly column based on the nuggets of gold panned by the Animation Time Machine from the river of cinematic time.
My “Animation Time Machine” columns were published month by month through 2023-2024 by Animation Magazine. Below you’ll find links to the columns in chronological order.
Animation Time Machine 1923
- November 1923 – An Exclusive Interview with Max Fleischer
- December 1923 – Colonel Heeza Liar Goes Bananas
Animation Time Machine 1924
- January 1924 – The Silhouette Films of Lotte Reiniger
- February 1924 – What did America Make of Wladyslaw Starewicz?
- March 1924 – Clash of the Titans: Walt Disney vs Paul Terry
- April 1924 – Felix the Cat Conquers Europe
- May 1924 – Earl Hurd and the Mystery Animated Short
Special thanks to Ramin Zahed, editor in chief at Animation Magazine, for publishing these columns.
Graham Edwards 