 Inspired by the flip books his son brought home , McCay " came to see the possibility of making moving pictures " of his cartoons . He claimed to be " the first man in the world to make animated cartoons " , though he was preceded by others such as James Stuart Blackton and Émile Cohl . McCay made four thousand drawings on rice paper for his first animated short , which starred his Little Nemo characters . They were shot at Vitagraph Studios under Blackton 's supervision . Live @-@ action sequences were added to the beginning and end of the film , in which McCay bets his newspaper colleagues that in one month he can make four thousand drawings that move . Among those featured in these sequences were cartoonist George McManus and actor John Bunny . Little Nemo debuted in movie theatres on April 8 , 1911 , and four days later McCay began using it as part of his vaudeville act . Its good reception motivated him to hand @-@ color each of the frames of the originally black @-@ and @-@ white animation . 
