An animated cartoon is a short, hand-drawn (or made with computers to look similar to something hand-drawn) film for the cinema, television or computer screen, featuring some kind of story or plot (even if it is a very short one). This is distinct from the term "animation" or "animated film", as not all follow the definition.
Although cartoons can use many different types of animation, they all fall under the traditional animation category.
Animation has been very popular in television commercials, both due to its graphic appeal, and the humor it can provide. Some animated characters in commercials have survived for decades, such as Snap, Crackle and Pop in advertisements for Kellogg's cereals.
The legendary animation director Tex Avery was the producer of the first Raid "Kills Bugs Dead" commercials in 1966, which were very successful for the company. The concept has been used in many countries since.
The advent of film technology opened opportunities to develop the art of animation. The basic animation process is described in the article Animation, and the classic, hand-drawn technology in Traditional animation.
At first, animated cartoons were black-and-white and silent. Felix the cat is a notable example.
The first cartoon with synchronized sound is often identified as Walt Disney's Steamboat Willie, starring Mickey Mouse in 1928, but Max Fleischer's 1926 My Old Kentucky Home is less popularly but more correctly credited with this innovation. Fleischer also patented rotoscoping, whereby animation could be traced from a live action film.
With the advent of sound film, musical themes were often used. Animated characters usually performed the action in "loops", i.e., drawings were repeated over and over, synchronized with the music.
Disney also produced the first full-color cartoon in Technicolor, "Flowers and Trees", in 1931, although other producers had earlier made films using inferior, 2-color processes instead of the 3-color process offered by Technicolor.
Later, other movie technologies were adapted for use in animation, such as multiplane cameras, stereophonic sound in Disney's Fantasia in 1941, and later, widescreen processes (e.g. CinemaScope), and even 3D.
Today, animation is commonly produced with computers, giving the animator new tools not available in hand-drawn traditional animation. See Computer animation for further information of the specific technologies. However, many types of animation cannot be called "cartoons", which implies something that resembles drawings. Most forms of 3D computer animation, as well as clay animation and other forms of stop motion filming, are not cartoons in the strict sense of the word.
An animated cartoon created using Adobe Flash is sometimes called a webtoon.
Early examples of attempts to capture the phenomenon of motion into a still drawing can be found in paleolithic cave paintings, where animals are depicted with multiple legs in superimposed positions, clearly attempting to convey the perception of motion.
The phenakistoscope, zoetrope and praxinoscope, as well as the common flip book, were early animation devices to produce movement from sequential drawings using technological means, but animation did not really develop much further until the advent of motion picture film.
The first animated cartoon (in the traditional sense, i.e. on film) was "Fantasmagorie" by the French director Émile Cohl. Released in 1908.
One of the very first successful animated cartoons was "Gertie the Dinosaur" by Winsor McCay. It is considered the first example of true character animation.
In the 1930s to 1960s, theatrical cartoons were produced in huge numbers, and usually shown before a feature film in a movie theater. MGM, Disney, Paramount and Warner Brothers were the largest studios producing these 5 to 10-minute "shorts".
Competition from television drew audiences away from movie theaters in the late 1950s, and the theatrical cartoon began its decline. Today, animated cartoons are produced mostly for television.
