RTFA: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aEAObel8yIE&eurl=ht…

Émile Cohl created Fantasmagorie in 1908.

To make this film, Cohl placed each drawing on an illuminated glass plate and then traced the next drawing-with variations-on top of it until he had some 700 drawings. In 1908, chalkboard caricaturists were common vaudeville attractions and the characters in the film look as though they’ve been drawn on a chalkboard, but it’s an illusion. By filming black lines on paper and then printing in negative Cohl makes his animations appear to be chalk drawings.

COOL! This animated film – the first ever – turns 100 this year. Wikipedia has the dirt on the creator, Emile Cohl.