In both the United States and Europe, the idea of children's films began to gain relative prominence in the 1930s. According to Bazalgette and Staples (1995), the term "family film" is essentially an American expression while "childrens film" is essentially a European expression.
However, the difference between the two expressions is also manifest in the approach towards casting that the two adopted. In American family films, the search for a child protagonist involved the search for children that met high standards or criteria for appearance or other specific features. In contrast, in European children's films, the approach was to cast children who looked ordinary.