Actually, that might not be true if you count the Mutt & Jeff plays on Broadway based on the incredible popularity of *that* strip, but still...
"Where Were We Before YouTube?" Dept.:
Hand colored with inks on the film itself, by the artist *himself*, Winsor McCay's LITTLE NEMO characters show themselves in a short animated film that he used to present live to packed houses in Vaudeville "chalk talks":
Winsor McCay in a short 1911 silent feature describing his technique - all animation was done by McCay, himself, by hand. The last two minutes at the end repeats the sequence shown above:
