''The Tramp and the Dog'' (1896) is believed to be the first commercial production of American film pioneer

William Selig William Nicholas Selig (March 14, 1864 – July 15, 1948) was a pioneer of the American motion picture industry. In 1896 he created one of the first film production companies, Selig Polyscope Company of Chicago. Selig produced a string of c ...

Selig Polyscope The Selig Polyscope Company was an American motion picture company that was founded in 1896 by William Selig in Chicago. The company produced hundreds of early, widely distributed commercial moving pictures, including the first films starring Tom ...

. It is also likely the first commercial

narrative film Narrative film, fictional film or fiction film is a motion picture that tells a fictional or fictionalized story, event or narrative. Commercial narrative films with running times of over an hour are often referred to as feature films, or feature ...

shot in

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

. Described as a "backyard comedy" (filmed in the

Rogers Park Rogers Park is the first of Chicago's 77 community areas. Located from the Loop, it is on the city's far north side on the shore of Lake Michigan. The neighborhood is commonly known for its cultural diversity, lush green public spaces, early ...

neighborhood), in the opening bit, a baker comes outdoors into her yard and leaves a pie on a chair to cool. A

tramp A tramp is a long-term homeless person who travels from place to place as a vagrant, traditionally walking all year round. Etymology Tramp is derived from a Middle English verb meaning to "walk with heavy footsteps" (''cf.'' modern English ''t ...

hops the fence into the backyard grabs the pie and seeks to hop back over the fence. A bulldog appears who catches the backside of the tramp as he tries to escape, leading to various pratfalls, and the woman reappearing with a broom. The film became very popular and was distributed throughout North America and Europe. It began a film trend known as "pants humor" where the loss or threatened loss of the character's trousers formed the gag, and it led to a number of filmmakers to feature tramps and hobos in short comedic situations. It was a

lost film A lost film is a feature or short film that no longer exists in any studio archive, private collection, public archive or the U.S. Library of Congress. Conditions During most of the 20th century, U.S. copyright law required at least one copy o ...

until 2021, when it was rediscovered in the film archives of the

National Library of Norway The National Library of Norway ( no, Nasjonalbiblioteket) was established in 1989. Its principal task is "to preserve the past for the future". The library is located both in Oslo and in Mo i Rana. The building in Oslo was restored and reopened i ...

, where it shared a film strip with a version of another previously lost Selig production, ''

Something Good – Negro Kiss ''Something Good – Negro Kiss'' is a short silent film from 1898 of a couple kissing and holding hands. It is believed to depict the earliest on-screen kiss involving African Americans and is known for departing from the prevalent and purely ste ...

''.

References

{{Reflist Selig Polyscope Company films Silent American comedy films 1896 films