A skeleton comes to life in this animated short from 1898 by the Lumière Brothers

Popkin

The Merry Skeleton is an animated short from 1898 by the Lumière brothers , featuring a dancing marionette puppet of a human skeleton. The film is only 45 seconds long, but it's pretty amazing to think about the fact that it was made 120 years ago. Many people believe this is a stop motion film due to the way the skeleton falls apart and comes back together, but it's actually a special kind of puppet that gives this illusion. The puppet's strings can be pulled in a way that detaches it's bones from one another, and then rejoins them as a whole again. My favorite thing about this skeleton is it's simplified, straight-across ribs.