Hesanut Builds a Skyscraper (1914) Online

A very strange-looking piece of animation from before the triumph of the Bray model of cartooning, this 1914 cartoon, to the modern eye, looks like quarter animation (in which only about a fourth of the movements are covered) and scratchboard work. Hesanut, the star of perhaps half a dozen cartoons from this period, is a top-hatted fellow who builds a skyscraper by placing the girders in place and then using a sort of brick cannon to put up the facade.

Although the techniques and attitudes are an interesting contrast to the now-standard attitudes of cartooning, this piece is not really that good. It does not use its techniques to say anything except to highlight the techniques themselves. Of little interest except for its small place in film evolution.