Dinosaur Gertie's at MGM

Another funky place to eat, a refreshing dinosaur.   This is all dessert fare and will satisfy the biggest sweet tooth.   Here you'll find "Ice Cream of Extinction", so claims Gertie.   Ever had a frozen banana?   This is the place!

Like everything else at Walt Disney World, Gertie isn't just a plaster place to purchase pistachio.   Gertie is very significant to MGM, Walt Disney Company and the entire film industry, because the seamless fluidity of the animation made people in the business stand up and take notice.   That and the fact that Winsor McCay gave her tons of personality, created an unforgettable experience for audiences.

McCay was a New York Times cartoonist when he started hand-drawing every one of 10,000 cells that made this landmark animation.   Not the first cartoon, McCay's efforts gave the animated film very lifelike movements and through his innovations, Winsor McCay became generally regarded as the father of the animated cartoon.

Initially shown as part of McCay's vaudeville act, Gertie was projected on a screen on stage and McCay, onstage with her, made it appear she was following his instructions.   These apparent interactions fascinated audiences. To see

That fuzzy white line outlining Gertie's neck is a fountain in Echo Lake, part of the hub at the end of Hollywood Boulevard .   The lake and fountain near Gertie is probably deliberate as well, because one of her tricks was to drink an entire lake and then spit it all out.   Perhaps no novelty today, all McCay had to do to astound the audience was to reverse the film after she drank the lake.

To view some of Gertie in action, go to Gertie's page at American Memory in the historical collections of the National Digital Library.