Lithographic films were short loops of film designed for toy magic lantern projectors for home or family use. They emerged not long after the first attempts to project moving images, such as Émile Reynaud’s “Théâtre optique” (1894) and the Cinématographe by the Lumière brothers (1895). These short film loops were, at the time, called either Cinematographs or Kinematographs and were sold in toy catalogues at the end of the nineteenth century. They were a cross between magic lanterns and cinematographs, but were intended for home use instead of theatrical projection.

These toy lanterns were first manufactured by the French August Lapierre in 1843. At that time, Nuremberg in Germany was already the world center of toy manufacturing. This city soon became a hub for the manufacture of toy lanterns as well. The Ignaz and Adolf Bing company (trademark GBN) started the production of toy lanterns, including hybrid models where slides and film could be projected on a single lantern. In Germany, Ernst Plank also became a major producer of magic lanterns, as did Georges Carette in France – whose lanterns were copied from the Lapierre models. These manufacturers invented models of hybrid magic lanterns, able to screen both slides and films by superimposition during projection. The slide could be used as a background for the moving image and a panoramic image could be moved horizontally while the film was projected.

The earliest hybrid lanterns dealt quite often with short sequences of movement that were repeated (cavalry, sport, dance, animal motion). But quickly the big “hits” of the theaters, such as magicians, serpentine dancers, trick films and scenes featuring children and famous acrobats started to appear in these films.

Many films for toy lanterns were precise replicas of existing live-action silent films. We don’t know how copyrights were cleared by the lithographic film manufacturers, but it seems the films were likely pirated. Scenes originally made by Méliès, Lumière, Pathé and Gaumont appear in modified form for the toy projector versions. We find different kinds of scenes, generally 30 or 60 frames long, but they can also be 120 frames or longer. Some of the loops were sold in both versions – long or short – at different prices. For the films distributed as loops, the first frame of a short film was spliced to its last frame to create a continuous loop of the film in projection. When the loop was mounted in the toy lantern, a crank helped to animate movement and repeat the loop as often as wanted by the lanternist. It was also possible to move the film backward.

These lantern films were among the first animated films. Not all of them were copies of existing films – many were newly produced. For instance, in the mid-1910s and 1920s, the famous illustrator Marius O'Galop designed a dozen so-called “chromo-comic” films for Lapierre (Vignaux, 2009). The “chromo-comic” films of Marius O'Galop illustrate everyday life, but also utilize strange visual effects, such as in a loop where a barber straddles the shoulder of his customer and his foot and the razor change scale and appear disproportionate. He also made two films where a boy draws figures that come to life, evoking Émile Cohl's Fantoche series. Companies such as Bing, also manufactured films for theaters until 1927–28. These latter films were called “Single Strip for non-rotation” (rotation implied the loop movement of the lanterns). In the late 1930s the advent of amateur projectors for the 9.5mm and 8mm formats, limited the use of such toys.