Although not the first feature-length animated film, as is sometimes thought, it was the first cartoon to feature a character with an appealing personality. The appearance of a true character distinguished it from earlier animated "trick films", such as those of Blackton and Cohl, and makes it the predecessor to later popular cartoons such as those by Walt Disney. The film was also the first to be created using keyframe animation.
Cartoon figures announce, via comic strip balloons, that they will move - and move they do, in a wildly exaggerated style. Also known as "Winsor McCay, the Famous Cartoonist of the N.Y. Herald and His Moving Comics".
Part two of Blackton's "The Life of Napoleon". After Waterloo, Napoleon reminisces. His triumphs are seen in flashback. The film ends with the exiled Napoleon overlooking the beach of St. Helena.
A hungry mosquito spots and follows a man on his way home. The mosquito slips into the room where the man is sleeping, and gets ready for a meal. His first attempts startle the man and wake him up, but the mosquito is very persistent.
Jack Howard, through hard work, has at last placed himself in a comfortable position and finds himself with his dear little wife, Mabel, located in a little apartment with all the comforts of home. He is now ready to enjoy married life; the strain has been too great, however, and he is almost on the verge of nervous prostration, sick and irritable. Mabel tries to cheer and comfort him; she waits on him and is a truly good and faithful wife, very much concerned about her hubby. She insists he must take a vacation.
A cartoonist draws faces and figures on a blackboard - and they come to life.
A widower becomes infatuated with his daughter's governess, to the displeasure of the child and her nurse.
Larry falls afoul of wanted criminal Gentleman Joe, who runs a saloon full of tough guys and gunslingers.
A traveler stays the night at a rural inn, but gets no rest as he is tormented by various spectres and mysterious happenings.
A repairman falls in love with a blacksmith's daughter, who's having trouble with their greedy landlord, and helps them get one over on him.
Virginia Jameson, a girl of lovely disposition, is wooed by a man much older than herself whom she very much dislikes, but who stands very high in the favor of her parents. She might have married another man had not fate decreed otherwise. She meets and accidentally escapes the man she could have loved and would have married; she stooped to tie her shoe-strings, diverting her attention from him. Had their eyes met, both their lives would have been different. Leroy Farley, the man favored by her parents, prevails and she marries him. Her life is unhappy, notwithstanding his great riches and social prominence.
Tommy and Jimmy are very much in love with Dolly. Their appetites however, very much overbalance their affections. Joe, who is not over blessed with this world's wealth, but who is bountifully blessed with chivalry, is favored by Dolly. Tom and Jim decide to get her a valentine.
Beware the ire of the sacred God Ammett, or any other of those Egyptian Gods for that matter. As a bellhop in a hotel, Hughey managed to get possession of a wonderful ruby, the eye of Ammet, and with its aid obtained an introduction to a millionaire and his beautiful daughter. But Hughey failed to remember that for every ruby or other gem stolen from an Egyptian shrine, there is a bearded sheik who has taken a vow never to eat, drink or sleep until the talisman has been returned to the irate God from whom it was stolen, and vengeance has been wrought on the guilty one. Just when Hughey is enjoying himself immensely at a fine little dinner with the fair damsel, his nemesis, the sheik, discovers him and a lively chase takes place. The sheik gets the ruby in his possession but Hughey regains it in jig time and the prospects are that the poor sheik will have some wait before he can look a square meal in the face again.
Ferdie's wife is fox-trot crazy, wanting to go dancing all the time. To get out of it, Ferdie fakes an ankle injury. When his wife spies him walking without his crutch, she writes a letter to her stern mother, inviting her to stay with them while Ferdie heals. Rather than face his mother-in-law, Ferdie admits he was faking his injury, and tears up the letter.
A bumbling sawmill employee tries to win the hand of the owner's daughter while staying out of the clutches of the mill's bullying foreman.
A smoker falls asleep, and two mischievious fairies play with his pipe. He discovers this, and imprisons them in a cigar box. He removes a flower from the box, which contains a fairy smoking a cigarette. Next, he leaves briefly while his smoking paraphenalia clears itself from the table and the flower reassembles itself into a cigar. He lights the cigar, then breaks a bottle containing the fairy, who interacts with him in various ways reeling from his cigar smoke, building a bonfire that he extinguishes, etc.
In India, Leslie Adams dreams of a priestess who is turned into a snake by Karma, the high priest. While touring a ruined temple, he finds the snake, who is said to resume human form every 100 years. Assuming her human form, Qunitreea give Leslie's fiancée an amulet, causing her to fall into a permanent sleep. Leslie realizes he is the high priest Karma reincarnated, and that Qunitreea has had her revenge.
Enemy agents under the leadership of "Emanon" conspire with pacifists to keep the American defense appropriations down at a time when forces of the enemy are preparing to invade. The invasion comes, and New York, Washington, and other American cities are devastated.
A mother is waiting or her son, a railroad engineer, to return home. The night becomes stormy and she discovers that a broken railroad trestle lies atop the track. She must try to get word to him before his train reaches the trestle.
Secret Service officer Richard Paget receives a letter from his twin brother John imploring him to take over his identity after he commits suicide, so that Richard can subvert the plans made by the airplane company which John had financed, to make defective planes for the United States to use in the war.
