Animated Views Timeline

AV is fifteen! Looking back over the years, there were a lot of people, events, and stories that brought us to where we are today. Take a scroll through time with us as we recall some of the milestones and highlights in the website's history and revisit key posts and images from our past.

2000

Olivier Mouroux starts an animation website called Animated Movies, featuring a daily news feed and a database of past and future films.

   the Animated Movies logo

Ben Simon discovers the website, befriends Olivier, and begins to occasionally send news items his way.

2001

2002

James R Whitson volunteers to help Olivier with website hosting.

Ben writes animation reviews and feature articles for another website, where he eventually meets Randall Cyrenne. The oldest of these stories now stored at AV is from this date.

   Ben's earliest article archived at AV

2003

Olivier tells friends he is planning on leaving Animated Movies after being offered a job in the industry.

Ben, James, and several other people brought together by Olivier launch Animated News as a successor to the Animated Movies news site.

   the first post made on Animated News

   the Animated News logo

2004

Animated News hits the road for the first time to cover an event. James heads to Philadelphia for Roy Disney's "Save Disney" meeting as well as Disney's annual shareholder meeting.

   event coverage of both meetings

Future staff writer Dacey Booker makes his first contribution to the site.

   Dacey's first appearance on AN

After using a donated message board ran by a third-party for the first year of our existence, AN builds its own dedicated forum.

   the Animated Views forum

2005

Animated News holds its first Oscar Event – a prediction contest and a live chat during the show. It's been held every year since. We've given away over $1,000 in cash and discs. Forum member "DarrenBest" is our first winner.

   archive of contest forum threads

   archive of chat discussions and transcripts

2006

Animated Views launches, focusing on reviews, commentary, and opinion. Ben recruits several writers from his other site, including Randall. Animated News continues to operate as a sister site, handling news exclusively.

   the Animated Views launch announcement

   Randall's first review for AV

   the original Animated Views logo

2007

Animated Views spends the year branching out into new content categories. Ben starts things off with a major scoop – an exclusive tour of the Disney Artistic Sources exhibition in Paris.

   Ben's event coverage of the exhibition

Animated News makes a major blogging software change without anyone noticing. After using Greymatter since launch, we recreate the site exactly the same in Wordpress. (No one is ready to start another major project after having just launched AV!)

Continuing the plan to widen our range, James posts AV's first theatrical review.

   James' first film review

Jérémie Noyer allows AV to reprint translated articles from his French language interview site, Media Magic. A few months later, he joins the site "full-time".

   introducing Jérémie to AV readers

   Jérémie's first interview at AV

2008

While we had previewed some high-def animation previously, on this date we formally jumped in with reviews – first with an HD-DVD title and, two weeks later, a Blu-ray disc.

   the first HD disc review

   the first Blu-ray disc review

In the site's fifth anniversary year, Ben, Randall, and James meet for the first time at Comic-Con in San Diego and Disneyland in Anaheim.

   the Comic-Con announcement

   the Comic-Con recap article

   James and Ben at Disneyland

   Randall and Ben at California Adventure

2009

Animated News is merged with Animated Views to form a single consolidated site.

   the merged Animated Views announcement

A long time member of the forums, Dacey officially joins the AV staff as a news writer.

   Dacey's first post as a full-timer

2010

Animated Views posts its 10,000th story.

   the 10,000th story announcement

2011

In the only major design change to the site between 2009 and 2018, the Animated Views logo is simplified.

   the second Animated Views logo

2012

Animated Views introduces a movie release calendar and iPhone app.

   the calendar and app announcement

   the upcoming animated films calendar

We ask fans to tell us their opinion on the year in animated films, with our first Readers' Choice Poll. Wreck-It Ralph is the inaugural pick.

   the first poll ballot

   archive of poll discussions

2013

We partner with another group of animation fans on the internet, the Rotoscopers, reposting their podcasts for three years.

   welcoming the Rotoscopers

Animated Views celebrates its tenth anniversary with a week's worth of articles on the history of the site.

   the anniversary slate of articles

2014

After almost eleven years of writing blurbs for every news story we post, Animated Views switches to a headlines only format for most stories in order to get news out faster.

   the news format change announcement

Future staff writer Dan Short makes his first contribution to the site.

   Dan's first appearance on AV

Dacey ramps up his workload. After taking over social media administration earlier in the year, he also begins writing reviews for the site.

   Dacey's first review

2015

2016

Another long time member of the forums, Dan officially joins the AV staff full-time.

   Dan's first post as a full-timer

2017

2018

Animated Views launches its first revamp of the site in almost a decade.

   introducing the new design

   the third Animated Views logo

To celebrate the 15th anniversary of the site, AV posts an archived version of Olivier's animation database as it appeared at Animated Movies in 2003.

   archived Animated Movies database