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Pokémon: The First Movie arrived in 1999 as Warner Bros. and Nintendo brought the franchise's television momentum into theaters, pairing "Mewtwo Strikes Back" with the short "Pikachu's Vacation." It became a cultural event of that era's Pokémon boom, drawing families and young fans in record numbers and cementing the franchise's place in American pop culture. Its box office success proved that a television-born property could command a genuine theatrical audience, and the film remains a touchstone for collectors of late-1990s animation and merchandising history.
This 35MM cell carries the name Snorlax, one of the franchise's most recognizable and beloved Pokémon, prized by collectors for its instant recognizability and enduring popularity across generations of fans. A cell bearing this name preserves a single frame from the physical film print, a tangible artifact of the animation process itself, connecting directly to the movie's theatrical run. For collectors, such a piece represents both a piece of cinema history and a piece of Pokémon's early cultural footprint, valued simply for what it names and where it came from.