A clown-figure bursts out of the woman’s head, causing it to inflate into a giant circle.
It is one of the earliest examples of traditional (hand-drawn) animation, and considered by film historians to be the first animated cartoon. Despite appearances the animation is not created on a blackboard but rather on paper, the blackboard effect achieved by shooting each of the 700 drawings onto negative film. The title is a reference to the “fantasmograph”, a mid-19th century variant of the magic lantern that projected ghostly images on to surrounding walls.