How a Mosquito Operates (1912)
- Directed by
- Winsor McCay
- Genre
- animated film, silent film
- Country
- United States
- Runtime
- 6 min
- Rating
- 6.3 of 10 from 64 voters
- Elsewhere
- IMDb
The catalogue in 3D
The film shelves have a room of their own that you can walk around in. The cat behind the counter is the AI Catbot, and they pick real films from the same catalogue when you tell them what you feel like watching. Nothing is for sale, here or in there. Go in from here and this film is already out on the counter, with more like it waiting on the shelf next to it.
How it feels
A giant mosquito bothers a sleeping man and drinks his blood. The short highlights the annoying persistence of the insect.
playfulwhimsicalold-timeymischievoussurrealcharminginventive
What happens
How a Mosquito Operates is a 1912 silent animated short film by the American cartoonist Winsor McCay. The six-minute short depicts a giant mosquito tormenting a sleeping man. The film is one of the earliest works of animation, and its technical quality is considered far ahead of its time. It is also known under the titles The Story of a Mosquito and Winsor McCay and his Jersey Skeeters. McCay had a reputation for his proficient drawing skills, best remembered in the elaborate cartooning of the children's comic strip Little Nemo in Slumberland he began in 1905. He delved into the emerging art of animation with the film Little Nemo (1911), and followed its success by adapting an episode of his comic strip Dream of the Rarebit Fiend into How a Mosquito Operates. McCay gave the film a more coherent story and more developed characterization than in the Nemo film, with naturalistic timing, motion, and weight in the animation. How a Mosquito Operates had an enthusiastic reception when McCay first showed it as part of his vaudeville act. He further developed the character animation he introduced in Mosquito with his best-known animated work, Gertie the Dinosaur (1914). The film is also the first animation known to incorporate smear frames. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)
More like this
It's Murder She Says (1945)
The War on the Mosquito (1912)
Swat the Fly (1911)
Le Moustique récalcitrant (1895)
Of Thee I Sting (1946)
A Close Call (1912)
Bugs in Love (1932)
The Tantalizing Fly (1919)- More like this film, on a shelf you can walk up to.It's the lit case on the top shelf.