# Little Nemo (1911 film)
**Little Nemo** is a 1911 American silent animated short film by cartoonist Winsor McCay, one of the earliest animated films and McCay's first. Its full title on the surviving print is *Winsor McCay, the Famous Cartoonist of the N.Y. Herald and His Moving Comics*, and it features characters from McCay's comic strip *Little Nemo in Slumberland*. Its expressive character animation distinguished it from the experiments of earlier animators.[1](https://recherche-collection-search.bac-lac.gc.ca/eng/home/record?app=filvidandsou&idnumber=424000&resource=folderlist)
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Full title | Winsor McCay, the Famous Cartoonist of the N.Y. Herald and His Moving Comics; commonly known as Little Nemo[2](https://recherche-collection-search.bac-lac.gc.ca/eng/Home/Record?IdNumber=15789&app=filvidandsou) |
| Production | The Vitagraph Company of America; released April 8, 1911[3](https://www.loc.gov/static/programs/national-film-preservation-board/documents/little_nemo.pdf) |
| Length and format | One reel, silent with English intertitles; about 11 minutes, of which roughly 4 minutes is animation[4](https://www.co.silentera.com/PSFL/data/W/WinsorMcCayTheFamousCa1911.html) • [3](https://www.loc.gov/static/programs/national-film-preservation-board/documents/little_nemo.pdf) |
| Drawings | 4,000 pen drawings, promised and delivered within one month in the film's own story[5](https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Little_Nemo_%28film%29) |
| Characters animated | Nemo, Flip, Impie, and the Princess, from the comic strip[3](https://www.loc.gov/static/programs/national-film-preservation-board/documents/little_nemo.pdf) |
| Recognition | Added to the Library of Congress National Film Registry in 2009[6](https://blogs.loc.gov/now-see-hear/2018/12/reading-the-film-registry-little-nemo-1911/) |
| Survival | Prints exist in the Cinémathèque Québécoise and elsewhere; Milestone's DVD was mastered from the only known 35mm print[4](https://www.co.silentera.com/PSFL/data/W/WinsorMcCayTheFamousCa1911.html) • [7](https://milestonefilms.com/collections/clip-and-footage-rights-available-for-licensing/products/winsor-mccay-the-masters-edition) |
## Spoilers
### Plot
The film opens in a New York gentlemen's club, where the famous cartoonist Winsor McCay (Winsor McCay) sits at cards with three friends: John Bunny (John Bunny), the popular silent comedian; George McManus (George McManus), creator of the strip [Bringing Up Father](https://www.edgepedia.org/bringing-up-father); and matinee idol Maurice Costello. McCay, who has built a vaudeville reputation on his speed drawing, makes a boast: give him one month and he will produce a moving picture from four thousand consecutive drawings, using the characters of his [Little Nemo](https://www.edgepedia.org/little-nemo) strip. His friends laugh at him and take the bet.[17](https://www.filmpatrol.com/2016/04/nfr-project-little-nemo-1911.html)
The middle of the film is the labor itself. McCay sits at his drawing board while an assistant hauls in stacks of paper, and the intertitles announce the grind of the month. The live-action sections, played with vaudeville timing, build anticipation the way a stage magician does, with pauses and gestures toward the pad of paper.[18](https://trettleman.medium.com/little-nemos-metanarrative-highlights-the-magic-of-its-animation-b16f67f6399e)
**Then the drawings come alive, and the film becomes an influential early animated cartoon.** The sequence, hand-colored frame by frame in most surviving prints, opens with the Imp, a racist jungle caricature of the era, assembling himself from falling blocks, while Flip, a stogie-smoking Irish stereotype, appears beneath the words "Watch me move" and gestures with his cigar.[19](https://cartoonwiki.toonsmag.org/wiki/Little_Nemo_(1911_film)) Little Nemo himself takes over: he stretches and squashes the two sidekicks like taffy, pulling their bodies long and letting them snap back, a gag lifted almost directly from the February 2, 1908 episode of the strip.[20](https://drgrobsanimationreview.com/2010/06/19/little-nemo/) The characters move with a weight and rhythm no flickering two-pose novelty had achieved; they drive a car in the foreground while a dragon moves in the background behind them, a staging that remains a landmark moment in the history of animation.[18](https://trettleman.medium.com/little-nemos-metanarrative-highlights-the-magic-of-its-animation-b16f67f6399e)
The finale is the image people still remember. Nemo draws the Princess of Slumberland into existence himself, hands her a rose, and the two of them seat themselves in the open mouth of a dragon, which turns into a throne and carries them off into the distance before the drawings dissolve back into McCay's pad.[20](https://drgrobsanimationreview.com/2010/06/19/little-nemo/) Contemporaries called it the most breathtaking image animation had yet produced.[21](http://filmabinitio.blogspot.com/2010/11/animation-comes-alive-1911-little-nemo.html) In the closing live-action scene McCay presents the finished reel to the men who bet against him, closing the loop: the wager is won, in public, exactly as promised.[22](https://thehorseshead.blog/2020/08/28/489-little-nemo-1911/)
### Characters
Winsor McCay (Winsor McCay) plays himself, the celebrated Herald cartoonist and vaudeville speed-drawer. He hams for the camera, wins the bet, and lets his drawings take the final bow.
John Bunny (John Bunny) is the best-known of McCay's card-playing companions, one of Vitagraph's most popular early screen comedians, and he reacts to the boast with the broad skepticism the wager needs.
George McManus (George McManus) appears as himself, a rival cartoonist, and one of the friends McCay must prove wrong. Maurice Costello, a matinee idol of the day, rounds out the card table.[17](https://www.filmpatrol.com/2016/04/nfr-project-little-nemo-1911.html)
The animated cast is McCay's strip: Little Nemo, the boy hero; Flip, the cigar-smoking Irish rascal; the Imp; and the Princess of Slumberland, drawn into being for a triumphant conclusion.[12](https://moviessilently.com/2018/01/14/little-nemo-1911-a-silent-film-review/)
### Interpretations and controversies
The film's Imp and Flip are racist and ethnic caricatures, and modern viewers flag Little Nemo as one of the earliest examples of such stereotypes in American animation, an unfortunate milestone alongside its artistic ones.[23](https://letterboxd.com/film/little-nemo/) The film is also read as a piece of self-promotion: by dramatizing the four thousand drawings, McCay taught audiences how much labor an animated film took, establishing an understanding of the work behind the art that persists in making-of features to this day.[18](https://trettleman.medium.com/little-nemos-metanarrative-highlights-the-magic-of-its-animation-b16f67f6399e)
### Sequels, prequels, and universe
McCay reused the bet framing three years later in [Gertie the Dinosaur](https://www.edgepedia.org/gertie-the-dinosaur) (1914), where he wagers the same friends that he can make a dinosaur perform on command, and this time interacts with her directly. Gertie is the better-known film, but Little Nemo came first and set the template.[23](https://letterboxd.com/film/little-nemo/)
## Background
McCay's comic strip *Little Nemo in Slumberland*, first published in the *New York Herald* in October 1905, followed a small boy who traveled in his dreams each night to Slumberland. The strip was notable for its delicate drawings, fantastic architecture, and brilliant use of color, and it featured recurring characters including Nemo, who dressed like [Little Lord Fauntleroy](https://www.edgepedia.org/little-lord-fauntleroy); the Princess; Impie, a jungle savage; and Flip, a green-faced, cigar-smoking clown who began as Nemo's enemy and later became his friend.[8](https://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2003675426/) • [3](https://www.loc.gov/static/programs/national-film-preservation-board/documents/little_nemo.pdf)
Around 1909 McCay began developing the strip for the film screen. He was likely inspired by J. Stuart Blackton, whose films combined lightning-sketching with trick photography, and he likely saw some of Émile Cohl's first animated films from the French Gaumont studio, which had reached the United States by 1909. In his own motion-picture work McCay borrowed Blackton's practice of placing the artist before the camera and Cohl's rapidly moving lines, adding his own complexity of detail and fine-tuned fluidity of movement.[9](https://central.bac-lac.gc.ca/.item?app=Library&id=TC-OOCC-17371&oclc_number=1033009552&op=pdf)
## Structure and content
The film combines live-action sequences with animation. The first half is a live-action prologue in which McCay wagers his skeptical friends that he can make his drawings move, then sets about producing several thousand pictures to be photographed in sequence. Onlookers include the comedian John Bunny, perhaps Vitagraph's biggest star at the time, and the cartoonist George McManus, creator of *Bringing Up Father*. The prologue transitions into animation when a drawing of Nemo's friend Flip is inserted into a stabilizing frame to be photographed; the camera moves in, the drawing fills the screen, and lettering announces his ability to move.[2](https://recherche-collection-search.bac-lac.gc.ca/eng/Home/Record?IdNumber=15789&app=filvidandsou) • [9](https://central.bac-lac.gc.ca/.item?app=Library&id=TC-OOCC-17371&oclc_number=1033009552&op=pdf)
The animated section has no plot. McCay first features three of his strip characters, Nemo, Impie, and Flip, who stand in a row and tumble, gyrate, somersault, and stretch with lifelike precision. Nemo later "draws" the Princess, who comes to life, and the characters depart in the mouth of a dragon. The animation historian John Canemaker noted the work's "naturalistic movements, realistic timing, and a feeling of weight in the line drawings."[3](https://www.loc.gov/static/programs/national-film-preservation-board/documents/little_nemo.pdf)
The film's opening title card claims McCay was "the first artist to attempt drawing pictures that will move." The Cinémathèque Québécoise record notes plainly that this claim is false; Blackton and the French animator Émile Cohl had made animated films before McCay. What McCay showed with *Little Nemo* was, in Daniel Eagan's Registry essay, the form's artistic and narrative possibilities.[2](https://recherche-collection-search.bac-lac.gc.ca/eng/Home/Record?IdNumber=15789&app=filvidandsou) • [3](https://www.loc.gov/static/programs/national-film-preservation-board/documents/little_nemo.pdf)
## Production and release
The Vitagraph Company of America produced the film, and the live-action scenes were filmed by J. Stuart Blackton. McCay drew the animation himself, working on rice paper, and timed the movements with a stopwatch. Vitagraph released the film on April 8, 1911, and by April 12 McCay was screening it in his vaudeville act; one account places its New York premiere at the Colonial Theatre on that date as part of his act. Reviews were favorable: *Motion Picture World* called it "an admirable piece of work" that "should be popular everywhere." The film opened in Paris in June 1911 under the title *Le Dernier Cri des dessins animés*.[3](https://www.loc.gov/static/programs/national-film-preservation-board/documents/little_nemo.pdf) • [10](https://journal.animationstudies.org/article/id/44/) • [11](https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/1382007/1/391559.pdf) • [2](https://recherche-collection-search.bac-lac.gc.ca/eng/Home/Record?IdNumber=15789&app=filvidandsou)
The film was hand-colored. A common claim that McCay hand-colored all 4,000 drawings himself reflects a misunderstanding of how movie color worked in 1911; coloring was typically done by stenciling. The Milestone DVD release is the only home video edition of the film with the original hand-tinted stenciling.[12](https://moviessilently.com/2018/01/14/little-nemo-1911-a-silent-film-review/) • [13](https://filmregistry.net/little-nemo-1911-2009/)
## Significance and legacy
Animation in *Little Nemo* occupies only about four minutes of the eleven-minute running time, but it showed a depth and vigor that contemporaries had not seen on the screen; the characters move on more than one plane rather than flatly against a single background. McCay also discovered in this film that work could be saved by reusing the same animation drawings in loops, a practice that became standard in the industry.[3](https://www.loc.gov/static/programs/national-film-preservation-board/documents/little_nemo.pdf) • [14](https://www.imagesjournal.com/2004/reviews/winsormccay/text.htm)
Contemporary reaction was not uniformly admiring. Some press reports of the time criticized McCay's exaggerated movement and deformation of the characters as so extreme that they disrupted viewers' engagement with the story, an early instance of debate over how much distortion an animated figure can carry before believability breaks down.[15](https://irep.ntu.ac.uk/id/eprint/310/1/220423_Baris_Isikguner_September2014_excl.3rdpartymaterial.pdf)
McCay followed the film with *How a Mosquito Operates* (1912) and *Gertie the Dinosaur* (1914), producing ten animated films between 1911 and 1921. *Little Nemo* entered the Library of Congress National Film Registry in 2009, which selects 25 films each year to showcase the range of American film heritage. The film is in the public domain in the United States, and prints survive in more than one version, with a nitrate master at the Cinémathèque Québécoise showing maximum shrinkage of 1.7 percent.[16](https://museum.okstate.edu/site-files/art/past-exhibitions/little-nemo-brochure.pdf) • [6](https://blogs.loc.gov/now-see-hear/2018/12/reading-the-film-registry-little-nemo-1911/) • [5](https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Little_Nemo_%28film%29) • [4](https://www.co.silentera.com/PSFL/data/W/WinsorMcCayTheFamousCa1911.html) • [1](https://recherche-collection-search.bac-lac.gc.ca/eng/home/record?app=filvidandsou&idnumber=424000&resource=folderlist)
## References
1. [Winsor McCay: The Famous Cartoonist of the N.Y. Herald and His Moving Comics = Little Nemo, Library and Archives Canada, ISN 424000](https://recherche-collection-search.bac-lac.gc.ca/eng/home/record?app=filvidandsou&idnumber=424000&resource=folderlist)
2. [Winsor McCay the Famous Cartoonist of The N. Y. Herald and His Moving Comics = Little Nemo = Le Dernier Cri des dessins animés, Library and Archives Canada, ISN 15789](https://recherche-collection-search.bac-lac.gc.ca/eng/Home/Record?IdNumber=15789&app=filvidandsou)
3. [Daniel Eagan, "Little Nemo," National Film Preservation Board film essay](https://www.loc.gov/static/programs/national-film-preservation-board/documents/little_nemo.pdf)
4. [Silent Era: Progressive Silent Film List, Winsor McCay the Famous Cartoonist of the N.Y. Herald and His Moving Comics (1911)](https://www.co.silentera.com/PSFL/data/W/WinsorMcCayTheFamousCa1911.html)
5. [Little Nemo (film), Wikisource transcription](https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Little_Nemo_%28film%29)
6. [Cary O'Dell, "'Little Nemo': National Film Registry #21," Now See Hear!, Library of Congress, December 3, 2018](https://blogs.loc.gov/now-see-hear/2018/12/reading-the-film-registry-little-nemo-1911/)
7. [Winsor McCay: The Master Edition, Milestone Films](https://milestonefilms.com/collections/clip-and-footage-rights-available-for-licensing/products/winsor-mccay-the-masters-edition)
8. [Little Nemo in Slumberland, Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division](https://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2003675426/)
9. [Screen, Simulation, Situation: An Archaeology of Early Film, Library and Archives Canada](https://central.bac-lac.gc.ca/.item?app=Library&id=TC-OOCC-17371&oclc_number=1033009552&op=pdf)
10. [Hernández, "Through the Looking Glass," Animation Studies Journal](https://journal.animationstudies.org/article/id/44/)
11. [Early cinematic animation chapter, UCL Discovery](https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/1382007/1/391559.pdf)
12. [Little Nemo (1911) A Silent Film Review, Movies Silently](https://moviessilently.com/2018/01/14/little-nemo-1911-a-silent-film-review/)
13. [Little Nemo (1911/2009), Film Registry](https://filmregistry.net/little-nemo-1911-2009/)
14. [Review of Winsor McCay: The Master Edition, Images Journal](https://www.imagesjournal.com/2004/reviews/winsormccay/text.htm)
15. [Isikguner, thesis on animation and character believability, Nottingham Trent University](https://irep.ntu.ac.uk/id/eprint/310/1/220423_Baris_Isikguner_September2014_excl.3rdpartymaterial.pdf)
16. [Little Nemo exhibition brochure, Oklahoma State University Museum of Art](https://museum.okstate.edu/site-files/art/past-exhibitions/little-nemo-brochure.pdf)
17. [https://www.filmpatrol.com/2016/04/nfr-project-little-nemo-1911.html](https://www.filmpatrol.com/2016/04/nfr-project-little-nemo-1911.html)
18. [https://trettleman.medium.com/little-nemos-metanarrative-highlights-the-magic-of-its-animation-b16f67f6399e](https://trettleman.medium.com/little-nemos-metanarrative-highlights-the-magic-of-its-animation-b16f67f6399e)
19. [https://cartoonwiki.toonsmag.org/wiki/Little_Nemo_(1911_film)](https://cartoonwiki.toonsmag.org/wiki/Little_Nemo_(1911_film))
20. [https://drgrobsanimationreview.com/2010/06/19/little-nemo/](https://drgrobsanimationreview.com/2010/06/19/little-nemo/)
21. [http://filmabinitio.blogspot.com/2010/11/animation-comes-alive-1911-little-nemo.html](http://filmabinitio.blogspot.com/2010/11/animation-comes-alive-1911-little-nemo.html)
22. [https://thehorseshead.blog/2020/08/28/489-little-nemo-1911/](https://thehorseshead.blog/2020/08/28/489-little-nemo-1911/)
23. [https://letterboxd.com/film/little-nemo/](https://letterboxd.com/film/little-nemo/)
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*Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Films by genre, form, and subject › Animated and short films › Individual short films*
*Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 21, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026*
*Copyright 2026 EdgeChat AI, a subsidiary of Biostate AI.*
License: Edgepedia Community License 1.0, https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license