Prior to version 1.1 of Matplotlib, animations were often done hackishly. The implementations were usually GUI-specific and were often brittle. Things improved in version 1.0 with the introduction of a cross-platform Timer class, but the code examples in the gallery were an unsightly eyesore, completely in contrast to the typical easy reading of most Python code. On top of all that, there still wasn't any way to save the animations to movie formats, except to save each frame individually and use an external renderer to compose the movie.
Shortly after the release of version 1.0, Matplotlib contributor Ryan May created the animation module in order to complete a graduate course assignment without using MATLAB. This author collaborated with (recently) Dr. May in design reviews and shaking out the usual bugs that come with such fundamental additions to any library. He even used it for the same exact graduate course assignment the following year, finding additional room for improvements...
