Fitting a column from a pandas dataframe to animated histogram

Question

I am attempting to produce an animated histogram that uses rows of data from a data frame I created. The code I am using to produce the histogram is below. The code works with data = np.random.randn(1000) but does not animate the histogram when I replace it with data = df['GDP'] instead it outputs a non-animated histogram. I am trying to fit a column from a data frame into this code:

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import matplotlib.patches as patches
import matplotlib.path as path
import matplotlib.animation as animation

fig, ax = plt.subplots()

# histogram our data with numpy
data = np.random.randn(1000)
n, bins = np.histogram(data, 100)

# get the corners of the rectangles for the histogram
left = np.array(bins[:-1])
right = np.array(bins[1:])
bottom = np.zeros(len(left))
top = bottom + n
nrects = len(left)

# here comes the tricky part -- we have to set up the vertex and path
# codes arrays using moveto, lineto and closepoly

# for each rect: 1 for the MOVETO, 3 for the LINETO, 1 for the
# CLOSEPOLY; the vert for the closepoly is ignored but we still need
# it to keep the codes aligned with the vertices
nverts = nrects*(1+3+1)
verts = np.zeros((nverts, 2))
codes = np.ones(nverts, int) * path.Path.LINETO
codes[0::5] = path.Path.MOVETO
codes[4::5] = path.Path.CLOSEPOLY
verts[0::5,0] = left
verts[0::5,1] = bottom
verts[1::5,0] = left
verts[1::5,1] = top
verts[2::5,0] = right
verts[2::5,1] = top
verts[3::5,0] = right
verts[3::5,1] = bottom

barpath = path.Path(verts, codes)
patch = patches.PathPatch(barpath, facecolor='green', edgecolor='yellow', alpha=0.5)
ax.add_patch(patch)

ax.set_xlim(left[0], right[-1])
ax.set_ylim(bottom.min(), top.max())

def animate(i):
    # simulate new data coming in
    data = np.random.randn(1000)
    n, bins = np.histogram(data, 100)
    top = bottom + n
    verts[1::5,1] = top
    verts[2::5,1] = top

ani = animation.FuncAnimation(fig, animate, 100, repeat=False)



from IPython.display import HTML
HTML(ani.to_jshtml())

To fit my own data I am replacing :

# histogram our data with numpy
data = np.random.randn(1000)

and:

 # simulate new data coming in
 data = np.random.randn(1000)

with a column in my data frame that has 247 rows:

data = df['GDP']

The output is a histogram with my own data however it is not animated as is with data = np.random.randn(1000)