Today’s Google Doodle celebrates the birth of Joseph Antoine Ferdinand Plateau, whom it credits with inventing a device that shows the earliest form of animation. That device is called a phénakistiscope. The true story of the first animation is more complicated than given there and involves several other inventors. Want to read more about the topic? Check out this thorough article by Richard J. Leskosky in Film History: Phenakiscope: 19th Century Science Turned to Animation. I only meant to read the first page, but got pulled in to reading more of the research article. Fascinating!
Thank Sean Hollister’s Verge article for enlightning us to the back story: Google Doodle Pays Tribute to Joseph Plateau, Who Paved the Way for Cinema with the Phenakistiscope.
