" Cutout animation is a technique for producing animations using flat characters, props and backgrounds cut
from materials such as paper, card, stiff fabric or even photographs. The world's earliest known animated feature films were cutout animations (made in Argentina by Quirino Cristiani); as is the world's earliest surviving animated feature.
Today, cutout-style animation is frequently produced using computers, with scanned images or vector graphics taking the place of physically cut materials. South Park is a notable example of this transition since its first episode was made with paper cutouts before switching to computer animation.
Other notable examples include Angela Anaconda, and—more recently—Charlie and Lola. One of the most famous animators still using traditional cutout animation today is Yuriy Norshteyn. "
Wikipedia
Learn with Terry Gilliam how to make a cutout animation
" A blast from the past! The youthful Terry
Gilliam explaining the methods behind his cutout animations.This has
been circulating the interwebs for a bit, and we thought we’d share it
with you all. Should be a treat for all you Monty Python fans out there. "