Incidentally the first Meme (or we can say Gif, right) in the history of civilization came by way of George Melies, and in all likely-hood by accident.
This is a very bizarre and completely lovably deranged short by the great magician of the pioneer-cinema era, where what we get is a man's head blown up in proportion, then shrunken back, and then, blown up again until it explodes (which, somehow and someway, doesn't make the mad scientist who created this contraption very happy). Oh, and the Chemist who creates this is also the man who plays the man with his head blowing up like Violet Beauregard - Melies himself - and he does about the best Giant Blow-Up Head Man performance in a short amount of time as possible.
Though one can see today the lines where the film is split off into its section to create the effect - what is in essence a primitive version of what we might have seen in the films up until around thirty years ago, where an actor is in one place in the frame, and then inside of that frame is another image created with a separate set of film - it is still a glorious spectacle that does what it needs to within two minutes. It's like seeing a little comic strip come to life, and the marvel of that image outweighs a lack of, you know, story development or in-depth character. Melies wasn't about that anyway, he just wanted to wow people. And, above all else, it's really friggin' funny to see him do this to himself; I'd expect to see a similar effect in a 90's music video (incidentally, Smashing Pumpkins used Trip to the Moon for Tonight Tonight, but I digress).
This is a very bizarre and completely lovably deranged short by the great magician of the pioneer-cinema era, where what we get is a man's head blown up in proportion, then shrunken back, and then, blown up again until it explodes (which, somehow and someway, doesn't make the mad scientist who created this contraption very happy). Oh, and the Chemist who creates this is also the man who plays the man with his head blowing up like Violet Beauregard - Melies himself - and he does about the best Giant Blow-Up Head Man performance in a short amount of time as possible.
Though one can see today the lines where the film is split off into its section to create the effect - what is in essence a primitive version of what we might have seen in the films up until around thirty years ago, where an actor is in one place in the frame, and then inside of that frame is another image created with a separate set of film - it is still a glorious spectacle that does what it needs to within two minutes. It's like seeing a little comic strip come to life, and the marvel of that image outweighs a lack of, you know, story development or in-depth character. Melies wasn't about that anyway, he just wanted to wow people. And, above all else, it's really friggin' funny to see him do this to himself; I'd expect to see a similar effect in a 90's music video (incidentally, Smashing Pumpkins used Trip to the Moon for Tonight Tonight, but I digress).