Age Of History 2 Mod Bahasa Indonesia

Disney's Silly Symphonies in Technicolor

When the Silly Symphonies series, started in 1929, was less popular than Disney had hoped, he turned to new technological innovation to improve the impact of the series. In 1932 he worked with the Technicolor company to create the first full-color animation Flowers and Trees, debuting the three-strip technique (the first use in live-action movies came about two years later). The cartoon was successful and won an Academy Award for Short Subjects, Cartoons.[34] Disney temporarily had a deal for the exclusive use of Technicolor's full-color technique in animated films. He even waited before producing the ongoing Mickey Mouse series in color, so the Silly Symphonies would have their special appeal to audiences. After the exclusivity deal lapsed in September 1935, full-color animation soon became the industry standard.

Silly Symphonies inspired many cartoon series that boasted various other color systems until Technicolor was not exclusive to Disney anymore, including Ub Iwerks' ComiColor Cartoons (1933–1936), Van Beuren Studios' Rainbow Parade (1934–1936), Fleischer's Color Classics (1934–1941), Charles Mintz's Color Rhapsody (1936–1949), MGM's Happy Harmonies (1934–1938) George Pal's Puppetoons (1932–1948), and Walter Lantz's Swing Symphony (1941–1945).

–1909: Earliest animations on film

Charles-Émile Reynaud developed his projection praxinoscope into the Théâtre Optique with transparent hand-painted colorful pictures on a long perforated strip wound between two spools, which he patented in December 1888. From 28 October 1892 to March 1900, Reynaud gave over 12,800 shows to over 500,000 visitors at the Musée Grévin in Paris. His Pantomimes Lumineuses series of animated films each contained 300 to 700 frames manipulated back and forth to last 10 to 15 minutes per film. A background scene was projected separately. Piano music, song and some dialogue were performed live, while some sound effects were synchronized with an electromagnet. The first program included three cartoons: Pauvre Pierrot (created in 1892), Un bon bock (created in 1892, now lost), and Le Clown et ses chiens (created in 1892, now lost). Later, the titles Autour d'une cabine (created in 1894) and A rêve au coin du feu (created in 1894) would be part of the performances.

Rise of computer animation

Early experiments with computers to generate (abstract) moving images had been conducted since the 1940s but had not garnered much attention until commercial arcade video games started to get marketed in the early 1970s. Pong (1972) by Atari, Inc., with very simple two-dimensional black-and-white graphics, and Taito's Space Invaders became huge successes that paved the way for a medium that can be regarded as an interactive branch of computer animation. Since 1974, the annual SIGGRAPH convention has been organized to demonstrate developments and new research in the field of computer graphics (including CGI), but computer animation had seldom been seen on TV or in movie theaters (with notable exceptions of some demonstrations of 3D wire-frame models as futuristic technologies seen on screens in a few big Hollywood productions as Futureworld (1976) and Star Wars (1977)).

3D computer animation started to have a much wider cultural impact during the 1980s, demonstrated for instance in the 1982 movie Tron and the music video for Money for Nothing (1985) by the Dire Straits. The concept even spawned a popular faux 3D-animated AI character: Max Headroom (introduced in 1985).

During the 1980s, computer animation also became a relatively common means to create motion graphics for logos and text in TV-commercials and movies title sequences.

Animated TV series of the 1950s

Jay Ward produced the popular Crusader Rabbit (tested in 1948, original broadcasts in 1949–1952 and 1957–1959), with the successful use of a limited-animation style.

At the end of the 1950s, several studios dedicated to TV animation production started competing. While the focus for competition in theatrical animation had been on quality and innovation, it now shifted to delivering animation quickly and cheaply. Critics noted how the quality of many shows was often poor in comparison to classic cartoons, with rushed animation and run-of-the-mill stories. Network executives were satisfied as long as there were enough viewers,[45] and the huge amounts of young viewers were not bothered with the lack of quality that the critics perceived. Watching Saturday-morning cartoon programming, up to four hours long, became a favorite pastime of most American children in mid-1960s, and was a mainstay for decades.

Disney had entered into TV production relatively early, but for a long time refrained from creating new animated series. Instead, Disney had their anthology series on the air since 1954 in prime time three-hour slots, starting with the Walt Disney's Disneyland series (1954–1958), clearly promoting the Disneyland theme park that opened in 1955. Walt Disney personally hosted the series that –apart from older cartoons– featured segments with looks behind the scenes at film-making processes or with new live-action adventures among others.

William Hanna and Joseph Barbera (the creators of Tom and Jerry) continued as Hanna-Barbera after Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer closed their animation studio in 1957 when MGM considered their back catalog sufficient for further sales.[46] While Hanna-Barbera only made one theatrically released series with Loopy de Loop (1959–1965), they proved to be the most prolific and successful producers of animated television series for several decades. Starting with The Ruff and Reddy Show (1957–1960), they continued with successful series like The Huckleberry Hound Show (1958, the first half-hour television program to feature only animation) and The Quick Draw McGraw Show (1959–1961).

Other notable programs include UPA's Gerald McBoing Boing (1956–1957), Soundac's Colonel Bleep (1957–1960, the first animated TV series in color), Terrytoons's Tom Terrific (1958), and Jay Ward's The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle and Friends (1959–1964).

In contrast to the international film market (developed during the silent era when language problems were limited to title cards), TV-pioneering in most countries (often connected to radio broadcasting) focused on the domestic production of live programs. Rather than importing animated series that usually would have to be dubbed, children's programming could more easily and more cheaply be produced in other ways (for instance, featuring puppetry). One notable method was the real-time "animation" of cutout figures in Captain Pugwash (1957) on the BBC. One of the few early animated series for TV that was seen outside of the country of production was Belvision Studios' Les Aventures de Tintin, d'après Hergé (Hergé's Adventures of Tintin) (Belgium 1957–1964, directed by Ray Goossens), broadcast by the BBC in 1962 and syndicated in the United States from 1963 to 1971.

Snow White and the breakthrough of the animated feature

At least eight animated feature films were released before Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, while at least another two earlier animated feature projects remained unfinished. Most of these films (of which only four survive) were made using cutout, silhouette or stop-motion techniques. Among the lost animated features were three features by Quirino Cristiani, who premiered his third feature Peludópolis on 18 September 1931 in Buenos Aires[40] with a Vitaphone sound-on-disc synchronized soundtrack. It was received quite positively by critics, but did not become a hit and was an economic fiasco for the filmmaker. Cristiani soon realized that he could no longer make a career with animation in Argentina.[28] The only other feature film, Academy Award Review of Walt Disney Cartoons—also by Disney—was hand-drawn. It was released seven months before Snow White to promote that movie's upcoming release.[citation needed] Many do not consider the Review a genuine feature film, because it is a package film and lasts only 41 minutes. It does meet the official definitions of a feature film by the British Film Institute, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, and the American Film Institute, which require that the film has to be over 40 minutes long.

When it became known that Disney was working on a feature-length animation, critics regularly referred to the project as "Disney's folly", believing that audiences could not stand the expected bright colors and jokes for such a long time. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs premiered on 21 December 1937 and became a worldwide success. The film continued Disney's tradition appropriating old fairy tales and other stories, as would most of the Disney features that followed.

The Fleischer studios followed Disney's example with Gulliver's Travels in 1939, which was a minor success at the box office.

In April 1938, when about 50 television sets were connected, NBC aired the eight-minute low-budget cartoon Willie the Worm. It was specially made for this broadcast by former Disney employee Chad Grothkopf, mainly with cutouts and a bit of cel animation. About a year later, on 3 May 1939, Disney's Donald's Cousin Gus was premiered on NBC's experimental W2XBS channel, a few weeks before the short cartoon was released in movie theaters, as part of the first full-evening program.[41]

Feature animation in the 1940s

Disney's next two features (Pinocchio and the very ambitious concert film Fantasia, both released in 1940) and Fleischer Studios' second animated feature Mr. Bug Goes to Town (1941/1942) were all received favorably by critics, but failed at the box office during their initial theatrical runs. The primary cause was that World War II had cut off most foreign markets. These setbacks discouraged most companies that had plans for animated features.

Disney cut back on costs for the next features and first released The Reluctant Dragon, mostly consisting of a live-action tour of the new studio in Burbank, partly in black and white, with four short cartoons. It was a mild success at the worldwide box office and was followed only a few months later by Dumbo (1941), animated in a relatively simple style and only 64 minutes long. The limited length and economically efficient techniques helped the movie make a profit at the box office, and critics and audiences reacted positively. Disney's next feature Bambi (1942) returned to a larger budget and a lavish style, but the more dramatic story, darker mood, and lack of fantasy elements were not well-received during its initial run and the movie lost money at the box office.

Although all the other eight Disney features of the 1940s were package films, or combinations with live-action (for instance Saludos Amigos (1943) and The Three Caballeros (1944)), Disney kept faith in animated features. Only a few other American animation studios managed to release more than a handful of features before the 1990s.

American cel-animated films dominated the worldwide production and consumption of theatrical animated releases since the 1920s. Disney's work especially proved to be very popular and influential around the world. Studios from other countries could hardly compete with American productions so many animation producers outside the US chose to work with techniques than other cel animation, such as puppet animation or cut-out animation. However, several countries (most notably Russia, China, and Japan) developed their own relatively large "traditional" animation industries. Russia's Soyuzmultfilm animation studio, founded in 1936, employed up to 700 skilled workers and, during the Soviet period, produced 20 films per year on average. Some titles that were noticed outside their respective domestic markets include 铁扇公主 (Princess Iron Fan)[42] (China 1941, influential in Japan), Конёк-Горбуно́к (The Humpbacked Horse) (Russia 1947, winner special jury award in Cannes in 1950), I Fratelli Dynamite (The Dynamite Brothers) (Italy 1949) and La Rosa di Bagdad (The Rose of Baghdad) (Italy 1949, the 1952 English dub starred Julie Andrews).

s: The Disney Renaissance and the rise of computer animation

The 1990s saw Disney release numerous films that were both critically and commercially successful, returning to heights not seen since their heyday of the 1930s to 1960s. The period from 1989 to 1999 is now referred to as the Disney Renaissance or the Second Golden Age and began with the release of The Little Mermaid (1989). Their success led other major film studios to establish new animation divisions such as Amblimation, Fox Animation Studios or Warner Bros. Feature Animation to replicate Disney's success by turning their animated films into Disney-styled musicals. The 90s are sometimes referred to as the "Renaissance Age of Animation" for animation as a whole, including both theatrical animated films and cartoon TV series.

Disney's Beauty and the Beast (1991) (the first animated film to be nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture), Aladdin (1992) and The Lion King (1994) successively broke box-office records. Pocahontas (1995) opened to mixed reviews from critics but was a financial success, it received two Academy Awards and was well received by viewers. Mulan (1998) and Tarzan (1999) did not surpass The Lion King as the highest-grossing (traditionally) animated film of all time but the viewer and financial reception of both films were successful and each grossing over $300 million worldwide. The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996) was a financial success at the time but contained very dark and adult themes and has since become one of Disney's lesser-known films, although it has a cult following. Only the sequel The Rescuers Down Under (1990) and Hercules (1997) underperformed box-office expectations, but they were both well received amongst the viewers like the other Disney Renaissance films.

From The Return of Jafar in 1994 to Tinker Bell and the Legend of the NeverBeast in 2015, Disney continued to produce feature-length sequels to successful titles, but only as direct-to-video releases by Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment. In many ways, these direct-to-video films were similar to the live action Disney remakes from Alice in Wonderland (2010) onwards.

John Kricfalusi's influential The Ren & Stimpy Show (1991–1996) garnered widespread acclaim. Throughout its initial run, it was the most popular cable TV show in the United States. Although it was programmed as a children's cartoon, it was notoriously controversial for its dark humor, sexual innuendos, adult jokes, and shock value. The Ren & Stimpy Show was the third cartoon that premiered together with Doug (1991–1994, 1996–1999) and Rugrats (1991–1994, 1997–2004) on the paid Nickelodeon television channel. Klasky Csupo, the animation studio behind Rugrats, produced and animated era-defining shows for the children's network, in the 1990s and 2000s. Once the studio faded into obscurity in 2008, they were succeeded by Frederator Studios, the studio behind The Fairly OddParents (2001–2006, 2009–2017). Frederator remained active for most of the 2000s and the 2010s, before fading into obscurity by 2017.

Before 1991, Nickelodeon would import cartoons from other channels to their network, which is a practice that remains ongoing. Examples of cartoons imported to Nickelodeon are Angela Anaconda (1999–2001) from Fox Family Channel (with foreign releases), Wayside (2005, 2007–2008), from the Canadian channel of Teletoon and Growing Up Creepie (2006–2008) from Discovery Kids. The most successful imported cartoon to the channel is PAW Patrol (2013-present), from another Canadian network Spin Master, which is on Nickeoldeon's sub-channel Nick Jr., where programs on that station are aimed at toddlers rather than children or teenagers. The most successful cartoon native to Nick Jr. is Dora the Explorer (2000-2019). Years before Nick's heyday in the 90s, Nickelodeon launched the (unaired) pilot of Video Dream Theatre in 1979 or 1980, and it was soon to be followed by two more failed attempts of original animation, which were the aired pilots of Christmas in Tattertown in 1988 and Nick's Thanksgiving Fest in 1989.

These early shows paved the way for later Nicktoons, including Rocko's Modern Life (1993–1996, 2019), Hey Arnold! (1996–2004, 2017), The Angry Beavers (1997–2001), and CatDog (1998-2001/2005). Initially the long-running Nicktoon Rugrats was the flagship franchise of Nickelodeon before being surpassed by SpongeBob SquarePants (1999–present) in 2004 when the network rebranded itself with the release of the first SpongeBob film.

On September 13, 1993, Fox Kids aired the first episode of Animaniacs (1993–1998, 2020–2023) and in 1999 an Animaniacs film called Wakko's Wish was released. Similarly to The Ren & Stimpy Show, Animaniacs had adult humour and innuendos. The enormous success of The Simpsons (1989-present) and The Ren & Stimpy Show (1991-1996) prompted more original and relatively daring series, including South Park (1997-present), King of the Hill (1997–2010), Family Guy (1999-present), and Futurama (1999–2003, 2008–2013, 2023–present).

The use of animation on MTV increased as the channel started to make more shows that did not fit the "music television" moniker. Liquid Television (1991 to 1995) showcased contributions that were mostly created by independent animators specifically for the show and spawned the separate shows Æon Flux, Beavis and Butt-Head (1993–1997) as well as Daria (1997–2002). Other 1990s cartoon series on MTV included The Head (1994–1996) and The Maxx (1995), both under the MTV's Oddities banner. By 2001, MTV closed its animation department, began to outsource its animated series, and eventually imported shows from associated networks.

Warner Brothers' 24-hour cable channel Cartoon Network was launched in the United States on October 1, 1992, and was soon followed by its international versions. Originally the programming consisted of classic cartoons from the back catalogs of Warner Bros, MGM, Fleischer/Famous, and Hanna-Barbera. From 1996 to 2003, new original series ran as Cartoon Cartoons and included the popular titles Dexter's Laboratory (1996–2003), Johnny Bravo (1997–2004), Cow and Chicken (1997–1999), I Am Weasel (1997–2000), The Powerpuff Girls (1998–2005), Ed, Edd n Eddy (1999–2009), and Courage the Cowardly Dog (1999–2002).

Television animation for children also continued to flourish in the United States on other specialized cable channels like Disney Channel/Disney XD, PBS Kids, and in syndicated afternoon time slots. Examples of animated Disney cartoons in the 90s are TaleSpin (1990–1991), Darkwing Duck (1991–1992), Goof Troop (1992, 1995, 2000), Aladdin (1994–1995, 1996), Gargoyles (1994–1997), Timon & Pumbaa (1995–1999), 101 Dalmatians (1997–1998), Pepper Ann (1997–2000), and Disney's Recess (1997–2001, 2003).

The Disney Channel (owned by Disney Branded Television), Nickelodeon (owned by Viacom, now known as Paramount Global), and Cartoon Network (owned by Warner Bros. Animation) dominated the animated television industry. These three channels are considered to be the "Big Three" of children's entertainment even today, but especially in the 1990s.

During the 1990s, 3D animation became more and more mainstream, especially in video games, and eventually had a big breakthrough in 1995 with Pixar's feature film hit Toy Story.

More or less photo-realistic 3D animation has been used for special effects in some commercials and films since the 1980s before breakthrough effects were seen in Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991) and Jurassic Park (1993). Since then, techniques have developed to the stage that the difference between CGI and real-life cinematography is seldom obvious. Filmmakers can blend both types of images seamlessly with virtual cinematography. The Matrix (1999) and its two sequels are usually regarded as breakthrough films in this field.

The creation of virtual worlds allows real-time animation in virtual reality, a medium that has been experimented with since 1962 and started to see commercial entertainment applications in the 1990s.

The launch of the World Wide Web increased interest in motion graphics and computer animation, spawning many new applications, techniques, and markets for what became known as new media.

s: Absolute film, synchronized sound and the rise of Disney

A number of key events occurred in the 1920s, including the development of the first animations with synchronized sound, and the founding of the Walt Disney Studio. The decade also saw the first appearance of Mickey Mouse in Steamboat Willie (1928).

In the early 1920s, the absolute film movement with artists such as Walter Ruttmann, Hans Richter, Viking Eggeling and Oskar Fischinger made short abstract animations which proved influential. Although some later abstract animation works by, for instance, Len Lye and Norman McLaren would be widely appreciated, the genre largely remained a relatively obscure avant-garde art form, while direct influences or similar ideas would occasionally pop up in mainstream animation like in Disney's Toccata and Fugue in D Minor in Fantasia (1940), which Fischinger originally collaborated on until his work was scrapped, and which was partly inspired by the works of Lye or the later movie The Dot and the Line (1965) by Chuck Jones.

Standard picture film

Despite the success of Reynaud's films, it took some time before animation was adapted in the film industry that came about after the introduction of Lumiere's Cinematograph in 1895. Georges Méliès' early fantasy films and trick films (released between 1896 and 1913) occasionally contain elements that somewhat resemble animation, including painted props or painted creatures that were moved in front of painted backgrounds (mostly using wires), and film colorization by hand. Méliès also popularized the stop trick, with a single change made to the scene in between shots, that had already been used in Thomas Edison's The Execution of Mary Stuart in 1895 and probably led to the development of stop-motion animation some years later.[1] It was not until 1906 that proper animated films appeared in cinemas. The dating of some presumed earlier films with animation is contested, while other early films that might have used stop motion or other animation techniques are lost or unidentified.

By 1897, German toy manufacturer Gebrüder Bing had a first prototype of their toy kinematograph,[2] which they presented at a toy convention in Leipzig in November 1898. Soon after, other toy manufacturers in Germany and France, including Ernst Plank, Georges Carette, and Lapierre, started selling similar devices. The kinematographs were basically traditional toy magic lanterns, adapted with one or two small spools that used standard "Edison perforation" 35mm film, a crank, and a shutter. These projectors were intended for the same type of "home entertainment" toy market that most of the manufacturers already provided with praxinoscopes and magic lanterns. Apart from relatively expensive live-action films, the manufacturers produced many cheaper films by printing lithographed drawings. These animations were probably made in black-and-white starting in 1898 or 1899, but by 1902 at the latest they were produced in color. The pictures were often traced from live-action films (like the later rotoscoping technique). These very short films typically depicted a simple repetitive action and most were designed to be projected as a loop - playing endlessly with the ends of the put together. The lithograph process and the loop format follow the tradition that was set by the stroboscopic disc, zoetrope and praxinoscope.[3][4]

Katsudō Shashin (produced between 1907 and 1912), is speculated to be the oldest work of animation in Japan and it was probably made in imitation of similar Western printed film strips.

J. Stuart Blackton was a British-American filmmaker, co-founder of the Vitagraph Studios, and one of the first to use animation in his films. His The Enchanted Drawing (1900) can be regarded as the first theatrical film recorded on standard picture film that included animated elements, although this concerns just a few frames of changes in drawings. It shows Blackton doing "lightning sketches" of a face, cigars, a bottle of wine and a glass. The face changes expression when Blackton pours wine into the face's mouth and when Blackton takes his cigar. The technique used in this film was basically the stop trick: the single change to the scenes was the replacement of a drawing by a similar drawing with a different facial expression. In some scenes, a drawn bottle and glass were replaced by real objects. Blackton had possibly used the same technique in a lost 1896 lightning sketch film.[1]

Blackton's 1906 film Humorous Phases of Funny Faces is often regarded as the oldest known hand-drawn animation on standard film. It features a sequence made with blackboard drawings that are changed between frames to show two faces changing expressions and some billowing cigar smoke, as well as two sequences that feature cutout animation with a similar look for more fluid motion.

Alexander Shiryaev was a Russian ballet dancer, ballet master, and choreographer who served at the Mariinsky Theatre who is credited with the independent invention of stop motion animation. From 1906 to 1909, he created the earliest known animated films made in Russia, using puppet animation, hand-drawn animation, and mixed techniques. While some were made as experiments (for example, a 20-minute drawn animation showing the flight of birds in a continuous line), most of his films were made for the educational purpose of showing ballet dancers what their choreography should look like. The puppet animations ranged in length from just over a minute to 10 minutes long. Shiryaev's films were only screened within the Mariinsky Theatre for the performers, not publicly, and were generally unknown until 2003, when Russian documentarist and ballet historian Viktor Bocharov released a one-hour movie titled A Belated Premiere which included fragments of the various films.

Spanish filmmaker Segundo de Chomón made many trick films for French film company Pathé. By 1906, he had used stop motion in several short films, including La Maison ensorcelée[6] and Le théâtre de Bob[7] (both released in the US in April 1906). Blackton's The Haunted Hotel (23 February 1907)[8] contains stop motion elements that are very similar to those in La Maison ensorcelée. If the release dates are correct (and if translated titles have not been mixed up), Blackton must have been inspired by De Chomón's work rather than vice versa, but it has been believed that The Haunted Hotel was a big hit in France and other European countries, and would have been the film that inspired local filmmakers, including Émile Cohl, to start working with the innovative animation technique.[1] De Chomon also made the related short film Hôtel électrique (1908), which includes a short scene with pixilation.

In 1907, the French artist Émile Cohl started his filmmaking career with Japon de faintasie,[9] with imaginative use of stop motion techniques. His next short can be regarded as the first animated film using what would come to be known as traditional animation methods: the 1908 Fantasmagorie. The film largely consists of a stick figure moving about and encountering all manner of morphing objects, such as a wine bottle that transforms into a flower. There are also sections of live action where the animator's hands enters the scene. The film was created by drawing each frame on paper and then shooting each frame onto negative film, which gave the picture a blackboard look. Cohl later went to Fort Lee, New Jersey near New York City in 1912, where he worked for French studio Éclair and spread its animation technique to the US.

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What’s a game that’s easy to play? Loved by everyone? And popularized by a struggling NYC toy salesman? If you said “Bingo”…BINGO! What you probably didn’t know about this fun-to-play classic is that it owes its existence to a bag of beans and a good old dose of everyday magic.

Our brief Bingo lesson starts in 1530s Italy, where Bingo’s precursor, a game called Lo Giuoco del Lotto D’Italia—a weekly lottery that’s still played today—has taken the country by storm. By the 1770’s, the game has made its way to France where it takes on the abbreviated name, Le Lotto. By the 1800’s it’s being played in Germany, which gave us the root word for “lotto”: Lot, meaning “fate”, and hinting at the random chance of winning. By 1929, the game finally reaches North America, where the modern story begins.

That fateful year is where our bag of beans enters the picture. With America headed into the the Great Depression, a down-on-his-luck toy salesman, Edwin S. Lowe, stumbled upon a carnival game that would change his life forever. The game, a derivative of the old European Lotto, was called Beano. Players were given a card with a series of numbers on it, along with a bag of beans to use as play markers. A caller would pull numbered slips from an old cigar box, and when someone scored enough beans to make a line they’d yell “BEANO!” before collecting their prize. Sound familiar?

Taken with the game, Mr. Lowe brought the beans back to his home of New York City, where they’d have their magic moment. One night, Lowe gathered some friends to try out his newfound game. Libations flowed. As the evening progressed, the group fell deeper and deeper under the spell of the lively, easy-to-play game. Then, during a heated round of play, one of the guests scored a big win. Bursting with excitement, she accidentally yelled “B-B-B-BINGO!” instead of “BEANO!”, and the planets aligned. Bingo was born!

The toy salesman knew instantly that he had a hit on his hands. “I cannot describe the strange sense of elation which that girl’s cry brought to me,” Lowe said. “All I could think of was that I was going to come out with this game, and it was going to be called Bingo!1”

In an effort to build out the game and reduce duplicate wins, Lowe hired Carl Leffler, a math professor from Columbia University, to increase the number of bingo card combinations. As the game grew in demand, and Lowe’s need for unique cards increased, so too did the difficulty of figuring out additional combinations. Ultimately, Lowe found himself paying the professor $100 per card, roughly $1,548 in today’s money, a veritable fortune.

Today, Edwin S. Lowe and his bag of beans are long gone. The pure adrenalin-filled excitement of a Bingo win however, not only lives on but has grown in popularity. Around the world, crowds assemble in Bingo Halls and Charitable Gaming Centers hosted by energetic callers who shout out ball numbers and letters.

From its storied past, to ubiquitous present, the popularity of Bingo remains as strong as ever. And to think, we owe it all to a simple bag of beans. Let’s take a look at a few modern magical milestones in the history of this glorious game.

Ready for a little Bingo in your life?

Learn all about this fun-to-play classic now.

Whether you call it lotto, beano, keno, tombola, housey-housey or any of the other old names for bingo, this popular numbers game has been with us a long time. It is said bingo origins can be traced back to 1530 when a lottery known as ‘Lo Giuoco del Lotto D’Italia’ (Italian Lotto – the original name of bingo) was a popular pastime.

So if you’re wondering who invented bingo, the answer is, probably, the Italians. Nevertheless, similar versions of Italian Lotto were also being played in France and Germany. At first, players selected numbers in the hope of matching them with a winning number selection pulled from a drum. But it was the French who first introduced game cards with numbers placed in horizontal and vertical rows, and developed the idea of a line as a winning sequence.

Fast forward to the 1880s and German educationalists, having spotted the game’s learning potential, were busy devising classroom versions to foster spelling and number skills. The numbers were still taken from a tombola drum, and what we would term a ‘full house bingo card’ probably spelt out a word combination or number pattern for the winner.

By the 1920s, the idea of a bingo ‘house’ game was starting to take off in the USA. It was also the Americans who secured the copyright for the word ‘bingo’ and created 6,000 unique game card combinations to give the popular game its mass-market appeal. Then from the 1940s, through the Second World War and beyond, bingo in Britain also flourished. And once the digital age got underway, bingo was one of many popular games which could be played in the online versions available today: a familiar game which appeals because it is both simple to understand and easy to access.

In the Elizabethan era, lotteries were usually the preserve of the rich. But Tudor ale houses still provided a venue where the poorest could try their luck with wagers on simple games. And the early 1700s saw British women beginning to gather together to gamble for low stakes and (relatively) high prizes.

Another early influence was a tombola game legalised on Royal Navy ships from around 1880. Around twenty years later, at the turn of the century, bingo in a rudimentary form – by then known as ‘house’ – was being played by British Army soldiers. Not only was bingo enjoyed by the armed forces in the First World Wa, but it was also used by liberal-minded churches and charities to raise much-needed funds. However, in these contexts, it was more often described as tombola.

How to play bingo in the UK gradually changed through the 1940s and 1950s as the game continued to blossom. By 1960 it had become a game played by people from every walk of life. The Gaming Act of 1968 ushered in a golden age for bingo in the UK. This new legislation largely restricted gaming to public places, meaning clubs could host public bingo games with generous cash prizes. So almost overnight, there arose a great need to find large public spaces to accommodate large bingo-playing audiences.

Dedicated commercial bingo halls in UK towns were a response to the surge in the game’s popularity during the 1960s. Playing bingo in a large hall was an affordable night out with a chance to earn really big cash prizes – especially when larger entertainment companies began linking jackpots on a regional basis. Furthermore, the game had now become a spectacle with colourful and elaborate machines to draw the numbers and bingo callers who injected humour and personality into the job of announcing numbers. Alongside these developments, it was also possible for players to sit, drink and chat throughout the evening, which meant bingo halls added a strong social dimension to the bingo-playing experience.