Saturday, September 9, 2017

Animation Fun Facts for Sept 9, 2017


Birthdays: Antonio Frescobaldi, Captain William Bligh, Jimmy the Greek Snyder, Joe Theismann, Cliff Robertson, Angela Cartwright, Alf Landon, Dee Dee Sharpe who sang the 60's R&B hit the Mashed Potato, Michael Keaton, Don Mattingly, Otis Redding, Anita Ekberg, Hugh Grant is 58, Topol, Colonel Lyman Sanders the creator of  Kentucky Fried Chicken, James Hilton-writer who created the name for paradise- Shangri-La, in his novel Lost Horizons. Adam Sandler is 51, Michelle Williams is 37

1908- THE PATENTS TRUST- Thomas Edison, Charles Pathe and Leon Gaumont form the Motion Picture Patents Group. Called the "Trust". Their attempt to monopolize movie production and strangle off the independents had a lot to do with the early filmmakers exodus to Los Angeles. Otherwise the film capitol of the world would have been Ft. Lee, New Jersey.  The only positive result of the trust was they enforced a regular industry standard for film stock of 35 mm running at 24 frames per second. It seems the Mitchell Camera Company was developing a motorized motion picture camera to replace the hand crank variety but they needed an official speed to set it at. In a contentious meeting of the Trust held at the Waldorf Astoria no one could settle on a single speed. Finally the compromise was made to make it the number of delegates in the room- 24.



1920- Silent movie star Olive Thomas, nicknamed America's Kid Sister, partied a little too hard at the Dead Rat Cafe in Paris. It was said the 26 year old died of an overdose of cocaine and alcohol. Another theory was she accidentally overdosed on mercury bicholoride tablets. Her nude body was discovered wrapped in a full-length ermine fur left on her couch in the Ritz Hotel.  The scandal started the first investigation of drugs in Hollywood. It netted an army captain named Spaulding who admitted that film stars like Thomas, Mabel Normand and Ramon Navarro were regular clients for morphine, heroin and cocaine.  Shortly after Groucho Marx put in his vaudeville show Animal Crackers the song Hooray for Captain Spaulding.

1926 – The National Broadcasting Company or NBC created by the Radio Corporation of America RCA. Under the direction of David Sarnoff it became the powerhouse network of broadcasting, recording and later television.

1939- The first Andy Panda cartoon.

1939- The first day of shooting on Charlie Chaplin’s film the Great Dictator. The first day was the Ghetto street scene. One of his distributors grumbled “By the time Chaplin finishes his movie, people won’t even remember who Hitler ever was.”

1950 - 1st use of TV laugh track invented by Hank McCune.

1951 - 1st broadcast of the soap opera" Love of Life " on CBS-TV

1956- Elvis Presley appeared on nationwide television on the Ed Sullivan Show. 

50th Anniv 1967- Jay Ward’s show George of the Jungle premiered, with Super Chicken and Tom Slick sequences.


1982- Princess Grace of Monaco, the former movie actress Grace Kelly, died in a car accident on the mountainous hill roads of Monaco. Twenty years earlier in the film To Catch a Thief, Alfred Hitchcock had her drive her car at dangerous speeds over the exact same hairpin turns.

1985- She-Ra the Princess of Power premiered on TV.



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