The Humpty Dumpty Circus

The Humpty Dumpty Circus was an animated short film made by director and producer J. Stuart Blackton and Albert E. Smith, the Anglo-American founders of Vitagraph Studios. The short has been thought to have been the first film to use the stop-motion technique, based on an estimated release date of 1897 or 1898. The film featured a circus with acrobats and animals in motion. According to Smith, they used his daughter's set of small circus dolls, which had jointed limbs so they could be balanced in place.This toy set was most likely the popular Humty Dumpty Circus produced by Schoenhut Piano Company between 1903 and 1930. The film is lost. Images that have been thought to be stills from the film may be pictures of the popular toy set.