Thursday, October 27, 2011

Animation Fun Facts for Thurs. Oct 27,2011

Cartoonist Berni Wrightson born.

1966 TV Special "It's the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown!" debuted. Last score by jazzman Vince Guaraldi.

Wednesday, October 26, 2011

Animation Fun Facts for Weds. Oct 26,2011

Bill Tytla born, Seth McFarlane is 38, and Bob Hoskins, Eddie Valiant in Roger Rabbit, is 69.

1971- The First Doonesbury Comic Strip.

Monday, October 24, 2011

Animation Fun Facts for Monday Oct 24,2011

1908- animator Preston Blair born

1947 Walt Disney testified to the HUAC Congressional Committee. He named the leaders of the 1941 labor strike against his studio as "probably" communists.

1994- TV series Gargoyles premiered.

Sunday, October 23, 2011

Animation Fun Facts for Sunday Oct 23 ,2011

1928- A financial consortium led by banker-bootlegger Joseph Kennedy Sr. buys the Keith Albee theater circuit and merged it with the Radio Company and the Orpheum theaters to form Radio-Keith-Orpheum or RKO pictures. Kennedy made a quick killing then got out of the picture business in 1930, just before the Depression dropped his studios stock value. RKO made films like King Kong, Fort Apache and Citizen Kane before merging into Desilu in 1957

1941 Walt Disney's Dumbo premiered.

1971 Walt Disney World in Orlando Florida opened.

Friday, October 21, 2011

Wednesday, October 19, 2011

Animation Fun Facts for Weds Oct 19,2011

Trey Parker, one of the creators of SouthPark is 41.

1999 The stage version of Disney's The Lion King premiered in London.

Tuesday, October 18, 2011

Animation Fun Facts for Tuesday Oct 18,2011

1896- Joseph Pulitzer's N.Y. Journal American created the first Sunday Color Comics supplement.

1967- Walt Disney's last cartoon done under his supervision "the Jungle Book." premiered. Disney had died the previous December. If you remember the film the end sequence Mowgli meets four vultures who talk like the Beatles but sing barbershop quartet. That’s because the characters were supposed to sing a Beatles parody song but the directors felt the group would soon be forgotten so they didn't want to date the film.

Monday, October 17, 2011

Animation Fun Facts for Monday Oct 17,2011

Birthdays: Jerry Seigel (Superman co-creator), Disney animator Virgil 'Vip' Partch, Mike Judge the creator of Beavis & Butthead and King of the Hill,

Sunday, October 16, 2011

Animation Fun Facts for Sunday Oct 16 ,2011

Early Disney director Hamilton Ham Luske born and Angela Landsbury, the voice of Mrs Potts in Beauty & The Beast.

Abstract animation filmmaker David Ehrlich born.


1923- Walt Disney Studios Born. 22 year old Walt and his older brother Roy sign a deal with M.J.Winkler for six "Alice in Cartoonland" short cartoons. Budget-$1,500 each.

Saturday, October 15, 2011

Animation Fun Facts for Saturday Oct 15 ,2011

Burt Gillett was born, the director of Walt Disney's short 1934 The Three Little Pigs

1905- First Little Nemo comic strip by Winsor McCay premiered.

1946- Walt Disney's feature Make Mine Music premiered, featuring Willie the Operatic Whale.

Friday, October 14, 2011

Animation Fun Facts for Friday Oct 14,2011

1873-MY NAME IS MUYBRIDGE. One night a carriage drove up from San Francisco to the Yellow Jacket Mine near Calistoga in the north Napa Valley. A man asked for the foreman Major Harry Larkyns. When Larkyns answered the door the man quietly said to him: ”Good Evening, Major. My name is Muybridge. Here is the answer to the message you sent my wife earlier. “ He pulled out a pistol and shot Larkyns through the heart, killing him instantly.

The killer was the famous Photographer and Motion Picture Pioneer Edweard Muybridge. Muybridges’ young wife Flora had been having an affair with Larkyns while he was working on his Motion Studies Series in Palo Alto. Muybridge discovered the son she bore him was not his. They were even calling him Little Harry behind his back. The jury that convened in Napa did not hang the artist-inventor. In the Code of the Old West proven adultery was considered a justifiable homicide. Cal Govenor Leyland Stanford paid his lawyer bills. He still wanted to win his bet with Joseph Pullman about a horses legs leaving the ground during a gallop.

Muybridge was acquitted. Flora Muybridge divorced him in 1875 and after her early death two years later, he gave Little Harry to a San Francisco Orphans Asylum and refused to pay for his upkeep.


1926- Happy Birthday Winnie the Pooh! A.A. Milne’s first book of Pooh, Eeyore, Piglet and Christopher Robin debuted this day.

Wednesday, October 12, 2011

Animation Fun Facts for Weds. Oct 12,2011

animator Izzy Klein born, 1930s animator who's grandniece Naomi Klein wrote The Shock Doctrine

Hugh Jackman is 43

1928- The Winnie the Pooh stories featuring Tigger are first published.

1937- Under pressure from parent Paramount Studio, Max Fleischer signed the first animation union contract and settled the Cartoonist strike begun May 8th. The following year Fleischer tried to escape unions by moving his studio to Right-To-Work State Florida, but the additional expenses and poor box office ruined his studio.

1994-Steven Spielberg, David Geffen and Jeffrey Katzenberg announce the partnership that would be named Dreamworks SKG.

Monday, October 10, 2011

Animation Fun Facts for Monday Oct 10,2011

Bithdays- Mary Blair, Louis Lumiere, animator Rod Scribner, early female Hollywood animator LaVerne Harding, Jodi Benson the voice of Disney's Little Mermaid


1469- Renaissance master artist Fra Filippo Lippi died, probably poisoned by the family of a girl he seduced. The great painter was a major influence on Leonardo daVinci and Massaccio, but for a Carmalite monk he had an immoderate lust for women. He left one son, the artist Fillipino Lippi, by his wife Lucrezia Buti, a nun he had carried off from the convent of Santa Margherita promising to use her as a model for the Madonna.

1953- "Winky Dink and You" show. Children were invited to place a piece of celluloid acetate on their t.v. screens from a kit and help Winky Dink through numerous adventures by drawing on their t.v. screens. Of course many kids didn’t wait for the acetate but just drew on their family TVs with indelible markers. The birth of Interactive T.V. -?

Friday, October 7, 2011

Animation Fun Facts for Friday Oct 7,2011

1971- Disney's film Bedknobs and Broomsticks premiered.


1990 After a huge party in august celebrating his 100th birthday, animator Myron "Grim" Natwick died. Grim illustrated W.C. Handys St Louis Blues songsheet, created Betty Boop, lead animator of Disney's Snow White and Nellie Bly for UPA's Rooty Toot-Toot. When his protege Dwayne Crowther wept at his bedside, Grim responded" Well, what do you want? TWO hundred?!"

Wednesday, October 5, 2011

Cornelius Cole Life Celebration


Plans are complete for the Corny Cole Celebration. Cornelius Cole III (1930-2011) was an animation artist who taught drawing extensively throughout the Los Angeles Area. Trained at Chiounard Art Institute, for three decades he taught at Cal Arts, UCLA, USC, LMU and the American Animation Institute.

The Gallery Show of his work opens this Friday, and the Life Celebration will commence at noon that Sunday Oct 9th, and go all day to 6:00pm. Come and reminisce, share pictures and videos. The Animation Guild, 4729 Hollywood Way, North Hollywood. for more info 818-845-7500.

Tuesday, October 4, 2011

Animation Fun Facts for Tuesday Oct 4,2011

Actress Susan Sarandon born- she did the voice of the spider in James and the Giant Peach, and Queen Narissa in the comedy Enchanted.

1950- Snoopy first appears in a Charlie Brown comic strip.

Saturday, October 1, 2011

Animation Fun Facts for Saturday Oct 01,2011

1945- Looney Tunes director Frank Tashlin left the cartoon business to work full time at Paramount doing live action movies. He wrote for the Marx Brothers and later directed the Dean Martin Jerry Lewis comedies.