Animation Fun Facts for Dec 9, 2019

Birthdays: Sappho, John Milton, Jean De Brunhoff, Emile Waldteufel the composer of the Skaters Waltz, Admiral Grace Hopper 1906 who wrote the earliest computer language, Hermoinie Gingold, Dalton Trumbo, John Cassavettes, Broderick Crawford, Dick Butkus, Red Foxx, Cesar Franck, John Malkovich is 66, Douglas Fairbanks Jr, Buck Henry is 89, Felicity Huffman, Mario Cantone, Judy Dench is 85, Kirk Douglas-born Issur Danielevitch is 103!

1854- Albert Tennyson's poem "The Charge of the Light Brigade" published.

1889- The Chicago Auditorium dedicated. The landmark building’s architect Louis 

Sullivan had hired a new assistant to help with the drawings-Frank Lloyd Wright.

1905- Richard Strauss’s opera Salome premiered in Dresden. The lead role demands

a soprano with big Wagnerian lungs but also a flat stomach to do the strip tease

the Dance of the Seven Veils. When the opera debuted in New York, old millionaires

like J.P. Morgan were shocked at its’ blatant sexuality. They threatened to cut 

off funding until Sal and her skimpy veils was banished from the schedule. 

1907- the first Christmas Seals go on sale to fight tuberculosis.

1931- Disney short Mickey’s Orphans debuted.

1936- The first cookery show appeared on British television.

1948- Actor Ossie Davis married actress Ruby Dee.

1960-  Coronation Street premiered on British ITV.

1964-John Coltrane recorded his landmark jazz album “A Love Supreme”. Late on 

foggy nights Trane liked to take his saxophone out onto the middle of San Francisco’s 

Golden Gate Bridge in the night fog, and practice by himself.  

1965- Bill Melendez's "A Charlie Brown Christmas" the first half hour animated TV special featuring the music of Vince Guaraldi.  Producer Lee Mendelson had heard Guaraldi's jazz combo perform in San Francisco. He never scored a film before:" How many yards of music do you want? At the preview screening for CBS executives, the show was met with deathly silence; when the show concluded, one executive said to the director Bill Melendez, "Well, you gave it a good try." Estimates are that 15,490,000 households and 36 million people watched Charlie Brown and his friends that night. A Charlie Brown Christmas has run every year for 54 years. 

1967- At a Doors concert lead singer Jim Morrison was sprayed with mace and arrested

by Miami police for “lewd behavior” on stage, but probably more for referring to

the cops as pigs.

1994- Disney Animators in California move into their new Animation building designed

by Robert Stern.

Animation Fun Facts for Dec 8, 2019

Birthdays: Horace (Quintus Horatius) 65BC, Mary Queen of Scots, Gustavus Adolphus, Queen Christina, Jean Sibelius, Camille Claudel, George Melies the father of Motion Picture Special Effects 1861, Elzie C. Segar (Popeye), Joel Chandler Harris (Uncle Remus), James Thurber, Richard Fleischer, Eli Whitney, Jim Morrison, Diego Rivera, Emile Reynaud, Sammy Davis Jr, Maximillian Schell, Flip Wilson, Sam Kinison, Teri Hatcher is 55, Sinead O’Connor is 53, Kim Basinger is 66

1913- Ground broken for the construction of San Francisco’s Palace of Fine Arts.

1923- Developer S.H. Woodruff flipped the switch to illuminate the completed Hollywood Sign. Originally Hollywoodland, the “land” fell off eventually, as did the light bulbs.

1891- George O'Brien invented the electric tattooing needle, making modern tattooing possible.

1940- Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo remarry. The two great Mexican artists had been married for ten years but divorced for a year because of their mutual infidelities. Diego also wanted to protect Frida from fallout from his political activities. But after a year apart that decided they couldn’t live without one another and remarried. 

1958- THIS IS JAZZ- Landmark live CBS television broadcast of jazz greats Billie Holiday, Count Basie, Lester Young , Coleman Hawkins and Thelonius Monk .

1961-"Surfin’" the first record by the Beach Boys started to climb the local LA pop charts.

1963- Frank Sinatra Jr was kidnapped in Lake Tahoe. After four tense days he was released unharmed.

1980- The Bravo Channel began. Remember when it played only classical concerts and ballets?

1980- JOHN LENNON MURDERED.  As he went in to his apartment building the Dakota in New York City, Beatle-composer John Lennon was stopped by a fan named Mark David Chapman for an autograph. A few hours later Lennon emerged from the building on another errand. Chapman was still there, except this time he pulled out a gun and shot Lennon 4 times in the back. John Lennon was 40. The area of Central Park across from the apartment was dedicated to him as Strawberry Fields. 

1991- Steven Spielberg’s Hook premiered. 

Animation Fun Facts for Dec 7, 2019

Birthdays: Willa Cather, Larry Bird, Piero Mascagni, Madame Tussaud-1761, Johnny Bench, Louis Prima, Ted Knight –real name Wladsyslaw Konopka, Victor Kiam II, Noam Chomsky, Ellen Burstyn-real name Edna Mae Gilhooley, Harry Chapin, Clarence Nash the original voice of Donald Duck, Eli Wallach, Tom Waits, Jeffrey Wright is 55 

  

1842- The New York Philharmonic, the oldest symphony orchestra in the U.S., gave its first concert, performing works of Beethoven under the baton of Ureli Corelli Hill.

1872- The Los Angeles Library Association formed.

1919- “Blind Husbands” premiered, the first film by Erich Von Stroheim. Originally a Viennese hat salesman, Stroheim cultivated his Germanic aristocratic image on the silver screen. The premiere issue of the New Yorker in 1923 glibly noted how “Mr. Stroheim has grown a very stylish “Von” in the Southern California Sun”.

1927- Olympic swimmer Johnny Weissmuller set a world record in the 150-meter freestyle, one minute 25 and 2/5^thseconds. He competed in two Olympics and was never beaten. He later went to Hollywood and was the star of the Tarzan movies.

1942- An RAF bomber pilot named Lumsden filed a report about seeing a UFO following his plane in the night skies over the English Channel. British pilots nicknamed the unexplained lights Foo Fighters, after a phrase in a comic strip.

1964- Height of student uprising at Berkeley College in California. Students won more liberalized curriculum and open teaching and created the first major student protest of the tumultuous 1960's and earned Berkeley the national reputation of the nations most radicalized school. The Oakland police were later nicknamed the Blue Meanies after the villains in the Beatles cartoon Yellow Submarine.

1974- The disco song “Kung Fu Fighting” by Carl Douglas hit #1 in the pop charts.

Animation Fun Facts for Dec 6, 2019

Question: What is an onomatopoeia? 

Yesterday’s Question Answered Below: What did you get when you asked a bartender to make you a Bromo?

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History for 12/6/2019

Birthdays: King Henry VI of England-1422, English Puritan General George Monck-1608, John Eberhard 1822, builder of the first large pencil factory in the US, John Singleton-Mosby the Grey Ghost, Henry Jarecki, Baby Face Nelson, William S. Hart, Ira Gershwin, Dave Brubeck, Agnes Moorehead, Tom Hulce is 66, Wally Cox, Lynn Fontaine, Steven Wright, JoBeth Williams, Judd Apatow is 51, Nick Park is 62

1877- First edition of the Washington Post.

1915- MAX FLEISCHER PATENTED THE ROTOSCOPE TECHNIQUE- This system enables you to film an actor then draw the cartoons over the still frames of the live action to achieve a realistic motion. (an early form of Motion Capture) Max would film his brother Dave in a clown suit then draw Koko the Clown over him. Dave had already owned the clown suit because he had been seriously considering a change in careers. The Fleischer's New York studio would be Disney's chief rival for most of the 1920's-30's.

1933- U.S. Federal Judge Woolsey decides James Joyce's "ULYSSES" is not a dirty book and can be published in the U.S by Viking Press. The book had been out in Europe since 1922. 

1941- WONDER WOMAN, Psychologist William Moulton Marston was an educational consultant for Detective Comics, Inc. (DC Comics). Marston saw that the DC line was filled with images of super men like Green Lantern, Batman, Superman.  On a suggestion of his wife Elizabeth, he wondered why there was not a female hero? DC head Max Gaines, was intrigued by the concept and told Marston that he should create a female hero - a "Wonder Woman." Marston's 'good and beautiful woman' made her debut in All Star Comics #8. 

1942- Val Lewton’s atmospheric movie The Cat People with Simon-Simon premiered.

1960- Baseball’s American League granted an expansion franchise team to old cowboy singer Gene Autry, the California Angels.

1964- The first concert at the Los Angeles Music Center.

1964- Rankin Bass' TV special 'Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer' first broadcast. And it has run every year since.

50 Years Ago 1969- The Rolling Stones do the last big rock festival of the 60s in Altamont California. The festival turned ugly when Hells Angels motorcyclists, hired to guard the stage, started fighting with fans. One man, Meredith Hunter, was killed. 

Animation Fun Facts for Dec 5, 2019

Birthdays: Pope Julius II, Martin Van Buren, Walt Disney, Fritz Lang, Eugene Debs,  George Armstrong Custer, Little Richard Penniman, Strom Thurmond, Otto Preminger, Lin Piao, Calvin Trillin, Joan Didion, Jim Plunkett, Jose Carrerras, Margaret Cho is 51

1837- Hector Berlioz chorale Requiem premiered.

1854- Aaron Allen of Boston patented the theater chair that folded up so you could exit.

1912- New York Hat directed by D.W. Griffith starring Mary Pickford and Lionel Barrymore premiered. The first movie script written by19 year old Anita Loos to be produced. She became one of the finest Hollywood screenwriters and Broadway playwright, who penned films like Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. She died in 1981 at age 92.

1938- The FCC concludes there was no malicious intent in Orson Welles Halloween broadcast of The War of the Worlds, and no fines would be imposed.

1952- The Abbott & Costello Television Show premiered. Where’s Hilary, Mr Fields and Stinky? “ Niagara Falls! Slooowwlly I turn! Step by Step! Step by Step!”

1953- Russian Composer Sergei Prokoviev died, but the news was overshadowed by the death of Stalin.

1974- The BBC aired the last Monty Python show.

Animation Fun Facts for Dec 4, 2019

Birthdays: Chief Crazy Horse, Samuel Butler, Thomas Carlyle, Lillian Russell, Vasilly Kandinsky, Buck Jones, Wink Martindale, Max Baer Jr., Robert Vesco, Charles Keating, Wally George, Deanna Durbin, Pappy Boyington, Horst Bucholtz, Rainer Maria Rilke,, Jeff Bridges is 70, Marisa Tomei is 55, Tyrah Banks is 46, Johnny Lyon of the band Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes, Jay-Z is 50, Fred Armisen is 53

1881- First issue of the Los Angeles Times.

1931- “ Its alive! Its alive!” James Whale’s macabre masterpiece film “Frankenstein” opened at the Mayfair theater in NY.  English actor William Henry Pratt renamed Boris Karloff played the monster.

1941- The animated film "Mr. Bug Goes to Town"-opened. Max Fleischer's last gamble to keep up with Walt Disney and keep his studio alive. Songs written by top pop song writer Hoagy Carmichael. However the events of Pearl Harbor three days later not only sink the American Navy, but also Hoppity's box office and put Max and Dave out of a job. 

1948- “Hey...Stella!!  A Streetcar Named Desire opened on Broadway with Marlon Brando and Jessica Tandy.

1955- French mime Marcel Marceau appeared on American TV for the first time.

1958- Cocoa Puffs cereal invented.

1961- Someone at the Museum of Modern Art in NY noticed that they had hung Henri Matisse’s painting Le Bateau upside down. It had been that way for two months, and until now nobody had noticed.

1965 - Jerry Garcia, Bob, Phil, Bill, and Pigpen first convened as the Grateful Dead to play as the house band for Ken Kesey and the Prankster's Acid Test in San Jose, California. The Dead went on to break records, bend minds, and build a community that continued on for many years.

1985- The first Cray X-MP Supercomputer booted up. 

1985- Steven Spielberg’s production Young Sherlock Holmes, directed by Barry Levinson premiered. It featured the CG breakthrough Stain Glass Knight animated by John Lasseter. Despite this, the film failed, and its failure made Disney change its movie title Basil of Baker Street to The Great Mouse Detective.  

1988- Actor Gary Busey almost died in a motorcycle accident on Olympic Blvd. In Los Angeles. He was not wearing a helmet and suffered massive head trauma. He later claimed to have an out-of-the-body experience at the scene. 

1993- Rocker Frank Zappa died of prostate cancer at age 52.

Animation fun facts for Dec 3, 2019

Birthdays:  French King Charles VI the Well-Loved 1380, Gilbert Stuart, Sven Nykvist, Joseph Conrad- real name Josef Korzeniowski, Jean Luc Godard, Nino Rota, Jim Backus, Maria Callas, Larry Parks, Charles Pillsbury, Mitsuo Fuchida the Japanese pilot who led the attack on Pearl Harbor, Darryl Hannah is 59, Katerina Witt, Brendan Fraser is 51, Julianne Moore is 59, Andrew Stanton, Amanda Seyfried is 34

1919- Impressionist painter Pierre August Renoir died at age 79 . Suffering from arthritis that left him unable to paint with his hands, Renoir used a bit that held the brush in his teeth.

1925- GEORGE GERSHWIN PLAYS CARNEGIE HALL. Gershwin always wanted to be taken seriously as a composer and not just a Tin Pan Alley pop-song writer. While in Paris he met Maurice Ravel, but instead of giving him advice Ravel said: "You make HOW much from your songs? Maybe I should learn from you!" When he asked to be Arnold Schoenberg's pupil, Schoenburg told him :" Why do you want to be a bad Schoenburg when you're already such a good Gershwin?"

1931- Happy Birthday Alka Seltzer! The fizzy tablet was invented by chemist Maurice Treener for the Dr. Miles Medicine Company of Indiana.

1934- Lee Blair, Disney artist and brother of Preston Blair, Disney artist, married Mary Browne Robinson, Disney artist. She became the most famous of them as Mary Blair.

1965- The Beatles release the album Rubber Soul.

1968- Elvis Presley opened in Las Vegas to rave reviews and packed houses. It marks the beginning of his comeback and his transition from thin, black leather-jacketed youth to fat, rhinestone jumpsuit, half tinted sunglasses, karate-swinging middle age. 

1976-A 40 foot long inflated pig broke away from its’ tether at a Pink Floyd photo shoot and became a hazard to civil aviation. The AeroPork was lost to radar at 8,000 feet.

1991- Hulk Hogan defeated Undertaker to become WWF champ for the 4th time.

1997 – 56 year old Darlene Gillespie, an original member of the Mickey Mouse Club, was busted in LA for a securities fraud scheme.