The Adventures of Prince Achmed

That was the first famous animated character, but another notable cartoon character to mention from this time is Prince Achmed from 1926.

Released in 1926, The Adventures of Prince Achmed is a landmark German silent animated fairytale film written and directed by Charlotte, or just more typically just known as Lotte Reiniger.

Because two earlier animated features, one we mentioned a minute ago by Chiarino Cristiani, are lost, it holds the prestigious title of the oldest surviving animated feature film.

And the plot draws inspiration from several stories from One Thousand and One Nights, and most notably Aladdin and the Magic Lamp, Ahmed and Farid Banu and the Ebony Horse, Reiniger pioneered a silhouette animation technique inspired by Javanese wayang shadow puppets, where she meticulously manipulated intricate cardboard cutouts and thin sheets of lead beneath a camera frame by frame, which was quite the innovation at that time.

They've been lost to time, though.

But we also still have 1926's The Adventures of Prince Ahmed, a German director.

Oh,

that's a one.