Gertie the Dinosaur

Gertie the Dinosaur is a 1914 animated short film by American cartoonist and animator Winsor McCay. It is the earliest animated film to feature a dinosaur. McCay first used the film before live audiences as an interactive part of his vaudeville act the frisky, childlike Gertie did tricks at the command of her master. McCays employer William Randolph Hearst later curtailed McCays vaudeville activities, so McCay added a liveaction introductory sequence to the film for its theatrical release. McCay abandoned a sequel, Gertie on Tour c.1921 , after producing about a minute of footage.

McCay conferred with the American Historical Society in 1912, and announced plans for the presentation of pictures showing the great monsters that used to inhabit the earth. He spoke of the serious and educational work that the animation process could enable. McCay had earlier introduced dinosaurs into his comic strip work, such as a March4, 1905, d episode of Dream of the Rarebit Fiend in which a Brontosaurus skeleton took part in a horse race, and a May25, 1913, e Rarebit Fiend episode in which a hunter unsuccessfully targets a dinosaur the layout of the background to the latter bore a strong resemblance to what later appeared in Gertie. In the September21, 1913, f episode of McCays Little Nemo strip In the Land of Wonderful Dreams, titled In the Land of the Antediluvians, Nemo meets a blue dinosaur named Bessie which has the same design as that of Gertie. g McCay considered a number of names before settling on Gertie his production notebooks used Jessie the Dinosaurus. Disney animator Paul Satterfield recalled hearing McCay in 1915 relate how he had chosen the name Gertie ........

Source: Wikipedia