How a Mosquito Operates (1912)

How a Mosquito Operates (1912), also known as The Story of a Mosquito, is a silent animated film by American cartoonist and animator Winsor McCay. The six-minute short, about a giant mosquito who torments a sleeping man, is one of the earliest animated films and is noted for the high technical quality of its naturalistic animation, considered far ahead of its contemporaries.

McCay had a reputation for the technical dexterity of his cartooning, such as in the children's comic strip Little Nemo in Slumberland (1905–1911). He delved into the infant art of animation in 1911 with a Little Nemo film, and followed its success with How a Mosquito Operates. McCay gives the animation naturalistic timing, motion, and weight, and displays a more coherent story and developed character than in Nemo.

How a Mosquito Operates was enthusiastically received when McCay first unveiled it as part of his "chalk talk" vaudeville act, and in a theatrical release that soon followed. In 1914 McCay further developed the character animation he introduced in Mosquito with his best-known animated work, Gertie the Dinosaur.

Synopsis

A man looks around apprehensively before entering his room to go to sleep. A giant mosquito (with top hat and briefcase) flies in through a transom after it finds itself too large to squeeze in through a keyhole. It repeatedly feeds on the sleeping man, who tries in vain to shoo away his assailant. Eventually, the mosquito drinks itself so full that it explodes.