I've been thinking about animation since our last class trying to think of something to write about, which was a bit daunting at first. My thought process was that animation seems to be very similar to TV and film, so it might just be a re-hash of something that's already been said. I began thinking, "What makes animation unique?" I then remembered someone very iconic in our culture. Mickey Mouse.

Mickey Mouse first appeared in the cartoon where he's on a steamboat, which happened to be one of the earlier animations of our time. His whimsical adventures led him to do many a humorous trick for the viewers, and this placed him in the heart of children everywhere. I began thinking to myself that this seems to show a difference in the media types: animation seems to be very silly for the most part.

Cartoons make up most of the animations nowadays, and even did originally. To me it just seems like this medium of story-telling has the most child-like qualities. I'm guessing that animation developed this way because animation appealed more to children than, say, Great Expectations or another novel. The reason for THAT I'm guessing is because of the ease of taking in animation as opposed to other mediums, but I may be wrong, as I don't know the general literacy/reading levels of the population back in the day.