Inside the 'daunting,' 'expensive' process that brought vintage cartoons to Netflix

The opening shot of "The Cuphead Show!" is of a teapot-shaped cottage in the woods. Just outside the cottage are a goat and flowers dancing along to the upbeat background music. A couple of butterflies flutter by.

The brief scene-setter is notable because it involves 2D animation tracked over a 3D-sculpted miniature background, in what is known as the stereoscopic rotary process.

"It's something that's been dormant for decades, and to get to do things like that as somebody who works in animation [now], we savor every moment of it," said "The Cuphead Show!" art director Andrea Fernandez.

"It's painstaking and it's expensive; that's why it's not done anymore," explained executive producer Dave Wasson, who developed the Netflix animated series. "But it's such a signature of those 1930s cartoons. The Fleischers invented this process.