cmccann@fsu.edu, where are you envisioning placing these animated gifs? If you want them to appear in a page, or anywhere else where the RCE is available, you can use a cool, but unfortunately-named, little screen capture program called LICECap (and hardly a day goes by that I don't silently thank kenneth.larsen@usu.edu for calling it to my attention!). It's ideal for very short animations. After you create the screen capture, you would upload the finished product as an image into your page. It plays automatically--i.e., the user wouldn't click on it--and if I recall correctly it works well on a mobile browser. I haven't tested it in the app. It's both basic and streamlined, and no script is required.
(I provided the download link for a Mac, but a Windows version is available as well. I've used the program on both operating systems, and it works equally well on both.)
