tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17630975280110812382024-03-19T01:48:07.833-07:00Animation Educator's Forum BlogAnimation Educator's Forumhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12341440002824174240noreply@blogger.comBlogger4246125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1763097528011081238.post-67047604595183581902024-03-19T00:00:00.000-07:002024-03-19T00:48:11.747-07:00Tom Sito's animation almanac for March 19, 2024<p><br /></p><p>Birthdays: George De La Tour, Wyatt Earp, Dr. David Livingston, William Jennings Bryan, Sir Richard Burton (The African explorer), Charles M. Russell, Jacky Moms Mabley, Adolf Eichmann, Phillip Roth, Adolf Galland, Ursula Andress, Patrick McGoohan, Ornette Coleman, Holly Hunter, animator Richard Williams, Bruce Willis is 69, Glenn Close is 77</p><p><br /></p><p>1799- Franz Josef Haydn’s oratorio The Creation premiered. Haydn was inspired when he heard Handel’s The Messiah in London.</p><p><br /></p><p>1853- Charles Dicken’s novel Bleak House first appeared in magazine installments. It is the first novel to ever mention dinosaurs-" It would be wonderful to meet a Megalosaurus, forty feet long, waddling like an elephantine lizard up Holborn Hill…"</p><p><br /></p><p>1859- Charles Gounod's opera 'Faust" premiered. It was so popular that after a while in New York wags nicknamed the Metropolitan Opera the "Faustspeilhaus" ( it's a pun on Wagner's theater in Bayreuth being called a Festspeilhaus, so Faustspeilhaus..heh-heh,.get it ?....look, don't blame me...its a Gilded Age opera joke....)</p><p><br /></p><p>1874- Mexican-Californio bandido Tirbucio Vasquez was hanged. His last words were “Pronto!” The wild hills north of Newhall California where he hid out are today named in his honor-Vasquez Rocks. They are the site of numerous film shoots like original Star Trek episodes.</p><p><br /></p><p>1875- Mark Twain admitted in a letter to a friend that he now likes to use a typewriter, a new technology accused of ruining the art of writing.</p><p><br /></p><p>1895- The Lumiere Brothers filmed their first movie, employees leaving their dad’s factory.</p><p><br /></p><p>1914- A fire in the negative vaults of the Eclair Studios in New Jersey destroyed forever all the American work of pioneer French animator Emile Cohl. He had come to the U.S. to animate the first cartoon series, George McManus’ "The Newlyweds" later to be renamed in comic strip form "Life With Father".</p><p><br /></p><p>1918- As a wartime measure, the Congress created Daylight Savings Time separate from Standard Time.</p><p><br /></p><p>1928- the Amos & Andy radio show debuted. NBC Blue Network, WMAQ in Chicago.</p><p><br /></p><p>1931- Nevada legalized gambling.</p><p><br /></p><p>1935- Harlem riots. When the rumor spread that a young shoplifter had been beaten to death by police in the basement of a Kress department store, 10,000 Harlem residents rioted in the streets and burned shops. Two people were killed. The child made an appearance and in fact had never been harmed.</p><p><br /></p><p>1942- On St. Josephs Day, St. Joseph’s Hospital in Burbank, across the street from the Disney Studio, was dedicated. Walt Disney owned the land and gave it to the Archdiocese of Los Angeles and the Sisters of Providence. It would be the place where Walt, Roy, Roy Jr. and many other Disney employees would end their life’s journey.</p><p><br /></p><p>1950- Writer Edgar Rice-Burroughs died at his LA ranch Tarzana. Today the town of Tarzana. He was 74. He had always hoped Walt Disney would have made a movie of his character Tarzan. Disney did produce an animated Tarzan in 1999. </p><p><br /></p><p>1953- First T.V. broadcast of the Oscar ceremony broadcast simultaneously from LA and NY. The circus film "The Greatest Show on Earth" won best picture, beating out High Noon, Moulin Rouge, The Quiet Man and Ivanhoe. It was Cecil B. DeMille’s only Oscar of his career. Gary Cooper won best actor and Shirley Booth best actress. Before TV, the Oscars ceremony included a dinner and an hour of dancing before the awards were presented. </p><p><br /></p><p>1954- On a freeway outside rural San Bernadino, singer Sammy Davis Jr. lost an eye in an auto accident. He was left lying bleeding unattended in a hallway in Riverside County Hospital. This was because he was black and it was a segregated facility. Finally, actor and friend Jeff Chandler found him and forced the doctors to treat him. Friend Frank Sinatra urged Davis out of his depression and got him out on stage again. That first night at Ciro’s nightclub the entire Ratpack- Sinatra, Dean Martin and Peter Lawford each preformed on stage wearing a black eye patch similar to Davis’.</p><p><br /></p><p>1957- Elvis Presley purchased an estate outside Memphis Tennessee called Graceland from Ruth Moore for $100,000.</p><p><br /></p><p>1957- Skiing aficionado Pete Seibert was wounded in both legs during World War II, and it was feared he would never walk again. He not only walked, but he got back on skis and by 1950 made the US Olympic skiing team. This day, he hiked with a friend up to an isolated Valley in Colorado named Vail. He exclaimed:" My God Earl, we’ve climbed all the way to Heaven!” Pete Seibert built Vail into a world-class ski resort and town. </p><p><br /></p><p>1959- North Vietnamese nationalist leader Ho Chi Minh declared a war of unification against the Republic of South Vietnam.</p><p><br /></p><p>1959- Disney released The Shaggy Dog, their first low budget live action comedy hit.</p><p><br /></p><p>1962- Vasily Stalin, near-do-well son of Soviet dictator Josef Stalin, died of acute alcoholism at age 40. After his father died, he was imprisoned in Siberia, but in 1958 he was allowed to retire to obscurity with a small pension.</p><p><br /></p><p>1</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRx3RKLvGD39B8uUsO4_-cPCS4gcpMZtXIoJD3BKzxkVI_Yu4beVDClYl3sNpMklBmRClZLdhfEVWNdaJeVUwPiRiYaM_qFpohyphenhyphen8k8xS6oMdPPzhLiU4xcYy7ga1xQfNaxIwQK-YugvtL_yUgtXCgZ560RzsydtXl7Cl3_qRkL5BFyg2RnVS4RinL0XzaY/s509/bd713f2e61e56b0f8b9219cc71152b28.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="341" data-original-width="509" height="214" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRx3RKLvGD39B8uUsO4_-cPCS4gcpMZtXIoJD3BKzxkVI_Yu4beVDClYl3sNpMklBmRClZLdhfEVWNdaJeVUwPiRiYaM_qFpohyphenhyphen8k8xS6oMdPPzhLiU4xcYy7ga1xQfNaxIwQK-YugvtL_yUgtXCgZ560RzsydtXl7Cl3_qRkL5BFyg2RnVS4RinL0XzaY/s320/bd713f2e61e56b0f8b9219cc71152b28.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />962- The first Pillsbury Doughboy commercial.<p></p><p><br /></p><p>1964- IBM gave the green light to plans for the 360 series. The first compatible computers.</p><p><br /></p><p>1964- First day shooting on the James Bond film Goldfinger. </p><p><br /></p><p>1974- The band Jefferson Airplane changed its name to Jefferson Starship.</p><p><br /></p><p>1979- C-Span cable channel started broadcasting live from the floor of Congress. The first Congressman to speak on camera was Al Gore.</p><p><br /></p><p>1982- Randy Rhoads, the lead guitarist for Ozzy Ozbourne died when he playfully flew his plane buzzing the bands traveling bus and smacked into a farmhouse. </p><p><br /></p><p>1984- I’LL BE BACK- James Cameron began shooting the film the Terminator. He first considered casting O.J. Simpson for the cyborg killer before settling on Austrian weightlifter Arnold Schwarzenegger.</p><p><br /></p><p>1993- Monkey-cam debuted on the David Letterman Show.</p><p><br /></p><p>2004- Brian Maxwell, the inventor of the Power Bar nutrition snack, died of a heart attack at age 51.</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>Animation Educator's Forumhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12341440002824174240noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1763097528011081238.post-17538470581025707072024-03-18T00:25:00.000-07:002024-03-18T00:25:55.948-07:00Tom Sito's Animation Fun Facts for March 18, 2024<p><br /></p><p>Birthdays: Amerigo Vespucci, John Calhoun, Nicholai Rimsky-Korsakov, Neville Chamberlain, Wilson Picket, Edgar Cayce, John Updike, Grover Cleveland, Edward Everett Horton, Vanessa Williams, F. W. DeKlerk, George Plympton, Peter Graves, Irene Cara, Luc Besson, Drew Struzan, Queen Latifah (born Dana Elaine Owens) is 54</p><p><br /></p><p>1852- New York City steamboat skipper Henry Wells and mailman William Fargo form the Wells Fargo Company. In 1873 they went into a joint venture with several other freight shipping companies they called American Express.</p><p><br /></p><p>1902- BIRTHDAY OF THE RECORDING INDUSTRY. The RCA Victrola company sent its engineers to Milan to record ten discs of the young singer Enrico Caruso. He became a world celebrity and the phonograph went from being a scientific curiosity to something every home had to have.</p><p><br /></p><p>1910- Rosie O’Neill invented the Kewpie Doll.</p><p><br /></p><p>100th Anniversary 1924-The film “The Thief of Baghdad” starring Douglas Fairbanks released. Directed by Raoul Walsh and designs by William Cameron Menzies. It is considered one of the first great special effects blockbuster.</p><p><br /></p><p>1931- Schick, Inc. introduced the electric razor.</p><p><br /></p><p>1942- Paramount’s “The Lost Dream” Little Audrey cartoon. The short was directed by Bill Tytla for Famous Studios. He designed Little Audrey based on his own daughter Tammy.</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>1962- President DeGaulle of France and Algerian FLN sign an accord giving Independence to Algeria.</p><p><br /></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivpPGvbeIRU0PUfRsUfoDnSLsRKCKEFqZ5rykQyajBXBktmmOWTV_8Gu0JfAUOMliybfhWyX0994loS05gjF8WPEUKHlt44lsraUw6JKkkxq3URP7WPAZDjS4Awz8qQbxUpktpGh_gCgVzffcO4vItp01ld1EurNvdGKJKZ6ZvymqYazWC8YaCHuydxb6r/s500/s-l500.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="401" data-original-width="500" height="257" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivpPGvbeIRU0PUfRsUfoDnSLsRKCKEFqZ5rykQyajBXBktmmOWTV_8Gu0JfAUOMliybfhWyX0994loS05gjF8WPEUKHlt44lsraUw6JKkkxq3URP7WPAZDjS4Awz8qQbxUpktpGh_gCgVzffcO4vItp01ld1EurNvdGKJKZ6ZvymqYazWC8YaCHuydxb6r/s320/s-l500.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />1964- The Seven Faces of Dr. Lao, the final direction of George Pal. With Tony Randall and Barbara Eden. <p></p><p><br /></p><p>1965- Cosmonaut Sergei Leonov became the first human to walk in space.</p><p><br /></p><p>1965- The Rolling Stones were fined 5 English pence for urinating on a wall in Stratford at ABC recording studio Romford.</p><p><br /></p><p>1967- The Pirates of the Caribbean ride opened at Disneyland, designed by master artists Marc Davis, Alice Davis, Rolly Crump and Claude Coates. </p><p><br /></p><p>1986- The New York Times reported that a 17-year-old student in New Jersey had tracked the launch of the new Soviet space station, Mir, before the Soviet government formally announced it. Using a shortwave scanner attached to his home computer, Phillip Naranjo tracked transmissions between space vessels and control centers on Earth. Just before the Russians announced Mir on February 20, the teen had picked up their Cyrillic code.</p><p><br /></p><p>2011- The first space probe went into orbit around Mercury.</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>Animation Educator's Forumhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12341440002824174240noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1763097528011081238.post-61888607767142904202024-03-17T00:52:00.000-07:002024-03-17T00:52:53.616-07:00Tom Sito's Animation Almanac for March 17, 2024<p><br /></p><p>Birthdays: Jim Bridger the mountain man, Nat King Cole, film composer Alfred Newman, Mercedes McCambridge, Leslie Ann Down, Patrick Duffy, Rudolph Nureyev, Gary Sinise, Kate Greenaway, John Sebastian, Ben Washam (Warner Bros. animator), Ken Anderson (Disney animator), Stormy Daniels (porn star), John Wayne Gacy, Kurt Russell is 74, Rob Lowe is 61</p><p><br /></p><p>461AD- HAPPY ST. PATRICKS DAY - St. Patrick was a Romanized Gaul named Patricius Magonus Sucatus who as a boy was taken as a slave to Ireland by raiders, then escaped and became a Christian Bishop at Auxerre. He returned to Ireland in 432. Patrick converted the daughters of Irish King Laoghaire and cast down the great pagan idol of Crom Cruach in Letrim. As far as snakes go, some say that was a metaphor for the pagans. He died on this day in Ireland 461AD. </p><p> The holiday was a religious festival in Ireland but in America the feast day of Ireland's patron saint became a chance to show ethnic pride and political strength in the face of anti-Irish prejudice. </p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiX5TYRP4EunqKClVVUL0sIm8BqNgAzYjgucFG1d6C6lhMhO82Lqr6jyjTRjlD_J_ajDTgRAJY9hMdkkbyOIUeDqjuT4olcFjwddLkFNAeGUh5NU_rrwjjItDXkEbD1liiWvckEyj5uP779FNUXycqp4kOBJEFb0XUKewaHaDw9WnQe_tJIMKOxFsvsDg4x/s540/54255306_10216603964510546_5428997532984279040_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="540" data-original-width="390" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiX5TYRP4EunqKClVVUL0sIm8BqNgAzYjgucFG1d6C6lhMhO82Lqr6jyjTRjlD_J_ajDTgRAJY9hMdkkbyOIUeDqjuT4olcFjwddLkFNAeGUh5NU_rrwjjItDXkEbD1liiWvckEyj5uP779FNUXycqp4kOBJEFb0XUKewaHaDw9WnQe_tJIMKOxFsvsDg4x/s320/54255306_10216603964510546_5428997532984279040_n.jpg" width="231" /></a></div><br />1394- FREE LANCERS - Sir John Hawkwood died. During a time-out in the Hundred Years War in France Hawkwood formed a company of unemployed English knights and went to Italy to become “condottierie”-mercenaries, fighting for money in the feuds between all the little Italian city-states. Their distinctive brightly polished silver armor gave them the name “The White Company”. Sir Arthur Conan-Doyle wrote a novel by that name about them. <p></p><p>This is around the time the term 'free lance' had been coined, meaning a knight who was free of any Shield-Oath to a noble lord.</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>1811- The first sidewheel Mississippi riverboat The New Orleans was launched.</p><p><br /></p><p>1845- Rubber Bands invented.</p><p><br /></p><p>1879- New Mexico Territorial Governor Lew Wallace stopped work on his novel Ben Hur long enough to meet face-to-face outlaw Billy the Kid to discuss an amnesty.</p><p><br /></p><p>1884- To quiet the fears of New Yorkers that the Brooklyn Bridge was too dangerous to cross, circus-master P.T. Barnum led a herd of his circus elephants led by Jumbo the Elephant across the bridge safely.</p><p><br /></p><p>1901- At a grand exhibition of his paintings at Bernheim-Jeune Palace in Paris, the world discovered the brilliance of a poor Dutch lunatic who had shot himself a few years back- Vincent Van Gogh.</p><p><br /></p><p>1906- Teddy Roosevelt in a speech to the Gridiron Club coins the term "Muckraker".</p><p><br /></p><p>1912- The Camp Fire Girls created.</p><p><br /></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCWu2EZbKLJ4IYeZa0IPXWYh8Dmoc0B_xLb5-3pwUAyUyn19yCo0F4iEumkECyUixFkecuOVzgMGMUQtQmYLq2KXK5DI9rfLCtR-EowLtfsZxsDruHF34eRhZeLU5g_irVnRXi1sFB9v1KUs1w1iopHnhmo2uBY-Cu3JcUyKM_WusBoYBWUUEeqgGgXtFF/s780/1180w-600h_TDID-goofy-and-wilbur-780x440.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="440" data-original-width="780" height="181" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCWu2EZbKLJ4IYeZa0IPXWYh8Dmoc0B_xLb5-3pwUAyUyn19yCo0F4iEumkECyUixFkecuOVzgMGMUQtQmYLq2KXK5DI9rfLCtR-EowLtfsZxsDruHF34eRhZeLU5g_irVnRXi1sFB9v1KUs1w1iopHnhmo2uBY-Cu3JcUyKM_WusBoYBWUUEeqgGgXtFF/s320/1180w-600h_TDID-goofy-and-wilbur-780x440.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />1939- The Walt Disney short cartoon “Goofy and Wilbur” released. The character Goofy had been in Mickey shorts since 1932, but this was his first as a solo star.<p></p><p><br /></p><p>1941- The National Gallery of Art opens in Washington D.C.</p><p><br /></p><p>1944- As if Naples wasn’t already having a tough year with WW2 fighting all around it, this day Mt. Vesuvius erupted as well.</p><p><br /></p><p>1949- The first car show for Porsche sportscars.</p><p><br /></p><p>1965- Chicago began the Saint Patrick’s Day tradition of dyeing the Chicago River green.</p><p><br /></p><p>1982- Politically conservative Hollywood actors led by Charlton Heston broke with the Screen Actor’s Guild and form a rival group called AWAG (American Working Actor’s Guild). They were angered by SAG president Ed Asner’s taking their union into national politics by publically condemning Pres. Ronald Reagan’s policies in Central America, capped by the SAG board refusing Reagan (their former president) the Guild lifetime achievement award. As a result Ed Asner’s hit TV show “Lou Grant” lost sponsors and was cancelled, and Heston’s career cooled as well, beyond speaking at NRA events, and writing cranky letters to the L.A. Times that Ben Hur wasn’t gay.</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>Animation Educator's Forumhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12341440002824174240noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1763097528011081238.post-58771521855590455552024-03-16T01:27:00.000-07:002024-03-16T01:27:48.944-07:00Tom Sito's Animation ALmanac for March 16, 2024<p><br /></p><p>Birthdays: James Madison, Conrad Nagel, Dr. Josef Mengele the Nazi Angel of Death, Teresa Berganza, Christa Ludwig, Pat Nixon, Alice Bonheur, Harper Goff, Gore Verbinsky, Jerry Lewis, Bernardo Bertolucci, Eric Estrada, Kate Nelligan, Isabelle Huppert is 71, Lauren Graham is 57, Flava-Flav born William Drayton Jr.</p><p><br /></p><p>1850- Nathaniel Hawthorne's novel The Scarlet Letter published.</p><p><br /></p><p>1898- Artist Aubrey Beardsley died of tuberculosis at 25. Having a religious conversion at the end of his life, but still the stickler for detail, his last words were:" Destroy all my erotic drawings...all the bad ones too...." Luckily for history his friends did neither.</p><p><br /></p><p>1926 -Robert Goddard launches the first liquid fueled rocket in Auburn Massachusetts. In later years he was invited to join Cal Tech and the Galcit group in forming the embryonic Jet Propulsion Lab. Goddard refused because at such a government facility he would no longer be the center of attention but just another scientist. Goddard also set up the first testing grounds in Rosswell New Mexico.</p><p><br /></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJuMkSRmAnSyeop0XRKelIC800DOc8jU-_FZX2mTGI3GqnS6Gk-rmBt94_ZfED5y0uYn-YP3OTXLRDGsm7c7p-ZV5TnecdGFk4KlX5sWyzhsGAlIx6ppbLtNbPe0gvdyXJenf3Lpj_chMNKK75aEtBXTMIfyLXFHSTGKKm9CHqGp6EM1fia0TZ5oCu2I5x/s791/161374749_10222848046768700_8836217734799884298_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="791" data-original-width="692" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJuMkSRmAnSyeop0XRKelIC800DOc8jU-_FZX2mTGI3GqnS6Gk-rmBt94_ZfED5y0uYn-YP3OTXLRDGsm7c7p-ZV5TnecdGFk4KlX5sWyzhsGAlIx6ppbLtNbPe0gvdyXJenf3Lpj_chMNKK75aEtBXTMIfyLXFHSTGKKm9CHqGp6EM1fia0TZ5oCu2I5x/s320/161374749_10222848046768700_8836217734799884298_n.jpg" width="280" /></a></div><br />1934- Disney’s short The Three Little Pigs won an Oscar for best animated short.<p></p><p><br /></p><p>1961- Walt Disney comedy The Absent Minded Professor with Fred MacMurray premiered. </p><p><br /></p><p>1994- Olympic figure skater Tonya Harding was arrested for obstructing the prosecution of the case of the attack on her rival Nancy Kerrigan.</p><p><br /></p><p>2007- Author Michael Crichton was the author of classics like The Andromeda Strain and Jurassic Park. He had been called the H.G. Wells of modern times. But today he shocked the scientific community by denouncing the theory of Global Warming.</p><p><br /></p><p>2005- Actor Robert Blake was acquitted of the murder of his wife Bonnie Lee Blakeley. She was shot in the head while in their car after having dinner together. Blake claimed he had returned to the restaurant to retrieve his gun. (?) Another suspect has never been found. Robert Blake died of old age in March 2023.</p><p><br /></p><p>2020- Los Angeles, including Hollywood, ordered all theaters closed due to the coronavirus pandemic. Broadway and Walt Disneyworld closed down as well.</p><p><br /></p><p>2020- Agatha Christies play The Mousetrap, the longest running play in history, running continuously since 1952, was closed due to the Covid pandemic.</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>Animation Educator's Forumhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12341440002824174240noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1763097528011081238.post-21267990482953379752024-03-15T01:50:00.000-07:002024-03-15T01:50:07.428-07:00Tom Sito's Animation Almanac for March 15, 2024<p><br /></p><p>Birthdays: Andrew Jackson, Lee Schubert-one of Broadways Shubert Brothers, Ry Cooder, Sly Stone, Harry James, Lightnin' Hopkins, Rev. Jimmy Swaggart, Judd Hirsch, Norm Van Brocklin, Sabu, Fabio, Reni Harlin, David Cronenburg is 82, Eva Longoria is 49, animator David Silverman is 67</p><p><br /></p><p>1915- Universal Studios formed. Carl Laemmele bought a huge track of Burbank farmland and set up his studio. Laemmele had wooden bleachers built next to the movie sets where he charged people a nickel to come watch the filming. Universal actually had been operating as a film company since 1912 but the company counts today as its birthday.</p><p><br /></p><p>1933- Young animator Chuck Jones first hired at Leon Schlesinger’s Looney Tunes cartoon studio. He was made a director in 1938. </p><p><br /></p><p>1956- Lerner & Lowe’s stage musical "My Fair Lady" premiered. </p><p><br /></p><p>1956- The film Forbidden Planet premiered in theaters. Considered the granddaddy of Sci-Fiction blockbusters</p><p><br /></p><p>1962- The discovery of anti-matter.</p><p><br /></p><p>1964- Elizabeth Taylor married Richard Burton, for the first time.</p><p><br /></p><p>1964- The book The Feminine Mystique by Betty Freidan first published. The first major book to point out women were unhappy with their second class roles. And it coined the term Feminist. </p><p><br /></p><p>1969- Two young heirs to the Polydent false Teeth Company and two hippy promoters announced a rock festival would be held that summer in the farm community of Woodstock New York.</p><p><br /></p><p>1977- Television sitcom Threes Company debuted.</p><p><br /></p><p>1979- Strange lights danced in the night skies over Phoenix Arizona from 8:30 pm until 11:00 pm. The military dismissed them as experimental flares but the duration and patterns seemed unusually long for mere flares. Was it a UFO light show? </p><p><br /></p><p>1985- Symbolic.com is assigned the first registered private domain site on the Internet. </p><p><br /></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYlo-CQfUUka1SiRA7gPfNd_YPKBDvcp8psvnFEP52KzVDse1G9hyphenhyphenl_xAAtp5xd61xqsUteLWJBgkydOGb3LTmB88u1QhsRZszX7lFZpOIXIC734T708pkfwZMZf5Tuy8MdZYxzLwutY3G0aKn8IQ7xxK4yKK9AEj85or4oyLODgDSyvEqG2Sj7I9WtBE3/s492/161060947_10222838141161066_8827517121408584934_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="492" data-original-width="338" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYlo-CQfUUka1SiRA7gPfNd_YPKBDvcp8psvnFEP52KzVDse1G9hyphenhyphenl_xAAtp5xd61xqsUteLWJBgkydOGb3LTmB88u1QhsRZszX7lFZpOIXIC734T708pkfwZMZf5Tuy8MdZYxzLwutY3G0aKn8IQ7xxK4yKK9AEj85or4oyLODgDSyvEqG2Sj7I9WtBE3/s320/161060947_10222838141161066_8827517121408584934_n.jpg" width="220" /></a></div><br />2002- Blue Sky’s hit animated film Ice Age premiered. The studio was being scaled down to be actioned off when the film was a massive hit. Out doing the Best Picture Oscar winner A Beautiful Mind. <p></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>Animation Educator's Forumhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12341440002824174240noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1763097528011081238.post-71210469008738209912024-03-14T01:27:00.000-07:002024-03-14T01:27:29.881-07:00Tom Sito's Animation Almanac for March 14, 2024<p><br /></p><p>Birthdays: Georg Phillip Telemann, Johann Strauss Sr., Albert Einstein, Casey Jones, astronaut Frank Borman, Les Brown, Hank Ketcham, Wolfgang Petersen, Diane Arbus, Chris Klein, Michael Cain born Maurice Mickelwhite is 91, Billy Crystal is 76, Olympic gymnast Simone Biles, Quincy Jones is 91</p><p><br /></p><p>1885- Gilbert and Sullivan’s operetta The Mikado premiered in London.</p><p><br /></p><p>1903- President Teddy Roosevelt established Pelican Island as the first Federal Wildlife Preserve. </p><p><br /></p><p>1923- President Warren Harding became the first President to file an Income Tax Return.</p><p><br /></p><p>1930- Mickey’s Barn Dance premiered.</p><p><br /></p><p>1932- Inventor GEORGE EASTMAN shot himself- The inventor of the Roll-film camera, who named his celluloid strips 'film' and founded Eastman/Kodak. He had been suffering from a long painful spinal illness and left the note: " To my friends: The End is near. My work is done. Why wait? " He was 77.</p><p><br /></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiryS6TntzlIqbWJNMMbRaqNTzILoRnMeGebdHv_DAUnrOHIRhlMiLauIZnkPi-8IM8RYMvPttuHSQDSXlEC-ZRi8tSyKjeHs0h5AuVxcniC_bsqb8exoetSaTvz6bs8C64nDxBZUuwT6vOTDJh0b_I_8WOWgQJDWkDdl26WLiwEHigwQt8qQzjDG5Hanvs/s358/Baba_Looey.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="358" data-original-width="238" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiryS6TntzlIqbWJNMMbRaqNTzILoRnMeGebdHv_DAUnrOHIRhlMiLauIZnkPi-8IM8RYMvPttuHSQDSXlEC-ZRi8tSyKjeHs0h5AuVxcniC_bsqb8exoetSaTvz6bs8C64nDxBZUuwT6vOTDJh0b_I_8WOWgQJDWkDdl26WLiwEHigwQt8qQzjDG5Hanvs/s320/Baba_Looey.png" width="213" /></a></div><br />1941- Xavier Cugat and his orchestra first recorded "Babalu". It later became popular in the U.S when sung by a young man from Cuba named Desi Arnez. In the Quick Draw McGraw cartoon, Quick Draw’s sidekick is a Mexican donkey named Baba Looey.<p></p><p><br /></p><p>1943- Aaron Copland's "Fanfare for the Common Man" premiered. George Szell conducting. </p><p><br /></p><p>1967- Julie Newmar first appeared as Catwoman on the Batman TV show.</p><p><br /></p><p>1991- Lyricist Howard Ashman (Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast) died of HIV/AIDS. He was 40. </p><p><br /></p><p>1992- The official Soviet newspaper Pravda- Truth, ceased publication. </p><p><br /></p><p>1998- The epic disaster movie Titanic surpassed Star Wars and Jurassic Park as the greatest money earning film (until Avatar). It cost over $200 million to make but it earned at least $1 billion in box office alone. Quote director James Cameron: I’m King of the World!!</p><p><br /></p>Animation Educator's Forumhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12341440002824174240noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1763097528011081238.post-70286692178367033062024-03-13T01:36:00.000-07:002024-03-13T01:36:49.879-07:00Tom Sito's Animation ALmanac for March 13, 2024<p><br /></p><p>Birthdays: Hugh Walpole, Charles 2nd Earl Grey 1764- English Prime Minister whom the tea blend 'Earl Grey Tea " is named for, Pope Innocent XII (1615), Abigail Powers Filmore- First Lady of Millard Filmore, Hugo Wolf, Ted Sears, Sammy Kaye, Danny Kaye, Neil Sedaka, L. Ron Hubbard, Dick Katz, Annabell Gish, Joe Ranft, Al Jaffee, William Macy is 73 .</p><p><br /></p><p>1639- Richard Burbage died. Burbage was the famed Elizabethan actor and friend of William Shakespeare. On his tombstone was a simple epitaph- EXIT BURBAGE.</p><p><br /></p><p>1781- The discovery of the planet Uranus by British astronomer William Herschel. The first planet discovered since prehistoric times. Galileo and Kepler used their early telescopes to spot the rings and Saturn and moons of Jupiter, but no other planets. Herschel wanted to call his discovery Georgium Sidus after King George III, but other astronomers convinced him to keep to the pattern of naming planets after Roman gods. Hershel emigrated from Germany and played violin in several symphony orchestras before becoming interested in astronomy. He brought his sister over, and she became an opera singer, as well as observing and naming 5 comets.</p><p><br /></p><p>1884- Chester Greenwood of Maine invented ear-muffs.</p><p><br /></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijowh9g5CHsdZLT4AiR4e9Z9x2PVzEOcQsFLSF9HrZRKoXGqo4wPYPtKJL1jDrAu6gs9mpwxAgTXyfJMUmCqiOe3Ggd4vBWBGN4NJOvqmBkqCU0S1-g-7_x8RfpxAkfZasjl3e8VqExij89nM2zI4ZuFu52uey1e0xGgxQAn-O7FdUFbPpZMDL9-tevTTi/s220/275783523_10224978110018950_8481693959716333334_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="185" data-original-width="220" height="185" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijowh9g5CHsdZLT4AiR4e9Z9x2PVzEOcQsFLSF9HrZRKoXGqo4wPYPtKJL1jDrAu6gs9mpwxAgTXyfJMUmCqiOe3Ggd4vBWBGN4NJOvqmBkqCU0S1-g-7_x8RfpxAkfZasjl3e8VqExij89nM2zI4ZuFu52uey1e0xGgxQAn-O7FdUFbPpZMDL9-tevTTi/s1600/275783523_10224978110018950_8481693959716333334_n.jpg" width="220" /></a></div><br />1928- In New York City, Walt Disney sent a telegram to his brother Roy back in California, informing him of his disastrous meeting with producer Charles Mintz. That Mintz had exercised a clause in their contract to take the rights to Oswald the Lucky Rabbit away from them. He cabled “ Leaving Tonight, stopping over KC. Arrive Sunday Morning. Don’t Worry. All Will be Well.” Later on the train home, Walt with Ub Iwerks and his wife Lillian came up with a new character named Mickey Mouse.<p></p><p><br /></p><p>1939- Hollywood recognized the Screen Director’s Guild, later called he DGA. After a nasty battle lasting several years Guild President Frank Capra signed the contracts representing 80% of movie directors. They also contractually ensured the custom of the director’s credit being the last one seen at the opening title sequence of a film. </p><p><br /></p><p>1943- Radio station WNYC goes on the air.</p><p><br /></p><p>1944- Abbot & Costello copyrighted their baseball routine ‘Who’s on First?"</p><p><br /></p><p>1947- MGM Tom & Jerry’s Cat Concerto won the Oscar for Best Animated Short.</p><p><br /></p><p>1969- Disney’s comedy about a Volkswagen beetle, "The Love Bug" premiered. The reason the Volkswagen has the race car number 53 painted on it was because producer Bill Walsh was a big fan of LA Dodger hitter Don Drysdale. His player number was 53.</p><p><br /></p><p>1983- The Larry King Show debuted on HBO, later moving to CNN. King retired that show in 2010, but kept doing cable shows until his death from covid in 2020.</p><p><br /></p><p>1986- Microsoft made its first public stock offering. A share went for $21.</p><p><br /></p><p>1987- Raising Arizona, directed by the Cohen Bros opened.</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>Animation Educator's Forumhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12341440002824174240noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1763097528011081238.post-73100475499492123472024-03-12T00:00:00.000-07:002024-03-12T00:00:00.151-07:00Tom Sito's Animation Almanac for March 12, 2024<p>Birthdays: Jack Kerouac, Billy "Buckwheat "Thomas, Darryl Strawberry, Edward Albee, Andrew Young, Joan Kennedy, Eugene Ormandy, Gordon McCrae, Liza Minelli is 80, Courtenay Vance, James Taylor, Frank Welker, Al Jareau, Maurice Evans, Barbara Feldon- agent 99 in Get Smart is 91, Frank Welker, DeWitt Bodeen- writer of the 1942 film Cat People. Aaron Eckart is 56</p><p><br /></p><p>1877-In Philadelphia, Sam Wanamaker was unsure just what kind of retail he wanted to go into, he just wanted his business to be big. So he opened a large building with different types of goods sold in separate departments. Wanamakers became the first true Department Store.</p><p><br /></p><p>1912-The Girl Scouts was founded in Savannah, Georgia, by Juliet Low, a friend of Sir Anthony Baden-Powell, English founder of the Boy Scouts.</p><p><br /></p><p>1932- Disney short "Mickey’s Revue" featuring Dippy Dog, now turned into a new character named "the Goof" or Goofy.</p><p><br /></p><p>1933-THE FIRESIDE CHATS- Just 8 days after taking office President Franklin Roosevelt began a series of national radio broadcasts detailing his plans to fight the economic problems of the country, called by newsman Robert Trout his Fireside Chats. FDR amazed the American public by speaking quietly and candidly, instead of using the bombastic political oratory of the day.</p><p><br /></p><p>1945-THE WAR OF HOLLYWOOD BEGAN-Throughout the 1930’s and 40’s several national unions battled studios and each other to represent Hollywood film workers. The Teamsters, the FWPC, the Brotherhood of Electricians. By 1945 only two remained, the IATSE and the CSU.(International Alliance of Theater and Screen Engineers and the Conference of Studio Unions) IATSE had a reputation of gangsterism and making cozy deals with the studio heads. The CSU, a much more militant group with past ties to communist organizations, was headed by a charismatic scenery painter named Herb Sorrell who had helped win the Disney strike for the cartoonists in 1941. Sorrel called several citywide strikes that paralyzed Hollywood in 1945, 46 and 47. President Richard Walsh of IATSE fought them and rioting in front of the studios was commonplace. </p><p><br /></p><p>1951- Former Disney assistant animator Hank Ketcham was trying his hand as a print cartoonist. He had some success selling gags to the New Yorker Magazine. His baby son Dennis was a precocious infant. Once after she caught the child smearing the contents of his diaper around the house, his mother exclaimed to Hank-“ Your son is a Menace!” That gave Ketcham an idea. Today the first Dennis the Menace comic strip was published.</p><p><br /></p><p>1955- BIRD DIED- Innovative Jazz great Charlie "Bird" Parker had a chemical addiction since getting out of the army. After the death of his infant daughter earlier that year, his drug use spiraled out of control. He was sleeping on the couch in the NY apartment of the Baroness du Rothschild-Konigswarter, a jazz supporter. He awoke to watch TV. While laughing at a juggler on the Dorsey Brothers Variety Show, he died. The coroner said death was by heart failure, cirrhosis and pneumonia. He estimated Parker’s age at 65. He was really 34. When his band heard of his death they paused between sets to shoot up with heroin in his honor. "Seems silly now, come to think of it." Said one musician later.</p><p><br /></p><p>1969- Here’s to you, Mrs. Robinson –a song written by two young folk singers named Simon & Garfunkel, won a Grammy award.</p><p><br /></p><p>1969- Paul and Linda McCartney married.</p><p><br /></p><p>1978- Meryl Streep and John Cazale were tops in the acting world and madly in love for two years. Cazale had Oscar nominations for The Godfather and Dog Day Afternoon. Just as they were completing Michael Cimino’s The Deer Hunter, John Cazale was taken down by an aggressive cancer. This day he died. Meryl sobbed and pounded on his chest. He revived long enough to say to her, “ Its alright, Meryl.” Then died. Meryl Streep’s career was breaking out as the top in her field, just as she lost the love of her life.</p><p><br /></p><p>1989- Tim Berners-Lee flicked a switch and the World Wide Web became operational, connecting several regional web systems into a global network.</p><p><br /></p><p>1992- Warren Beatty married Annette Benning.</p><p>” </p><p>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>Animation Educator's Forumhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12341440002824174240noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1763097528011081238.post-52841178550059885462024-03-11T01:19:00.000-07:002024-03-11T01:19:30.433-07:00Tom Sito's Animation Almanac for March 11, 2024<p><br /></p><p>Birthdays: Torquato Tasso, Marius Pretipa, Raoul Walsh, Charlie Ruggles, Lawrence Welk, Samuel “Shemp” Howard, British PM Harold Wilson, Rev. Ralph Abernathy, Bobby McFerrin, Sam Donaldson, Antonin Scalia, Jerry Zucker, Vannevar Bush- MIT scientist who in 1945 predicted the personal computer. Joey Buttafuco, Jules Engel, Douglas Adams, Rupert Murdoch is 93, Rob Paulsen is 68, Terence Howard is 55</p><p><br /></p><p>1851-Guisseppi Verdi's grand opera" Rigoletto "debuts. Considered Verdi's first mature work, it made him an international star. Based on Victor Hugo's "L'roi's amuse", originally about the lustful abominations of King Francois I of France, Verdi changed it to the Duke of Mantua and steered away from the class politics to a family melodrama. Victor Hugo didn't like it. </p><p><br /></p><p>1889- The California Legislature split Orange County from LA County.</p><p><br /></p><p>1918- THE GREAT SPANISH FLU PANDEMIC- This day the first noticeable rise in a strange new flu occurred at Camp Funston Kansas. It was called the Spanish flu because even though it broke out all around the world, Spain did not have wartime press censorship, so they reported it first. </p><p>In only one year this new flu virus killed 21 million people around the Earth, 640,000 in the U.S. alone- everyone from Kaiser Wilhelm to young Walt Disney got sick. In places like China, India and Russia thousands died. The epidemic killed as many people as the just concluding World War I. Then it disappeared as rapidly as it appeared. Experts believed it mutated into less lethal versions. Covid-19 which emerged in 2020 has killed 6 million, in the USA is close to 2 million. </p><p><br /></p><p>1927- The first Roxy Theater opens at 50th st. & Seventh Ave. in New York. Roxy was a nickname of theater owner Samuel L. Rothafel who pioneered the movie palace and is called the father of De-Luxe presentation. There were soon Roxy theaters in cities from Hollywood to Sydney Australia.</p><p><br /></p><p>1943- The Broadway musical team of Richard Rogers and Oscar Hammerstein opened their first collaboration “Away We Go!”</p><p><br /></p><p>1971- Philo Farnsworth died of pneumonia at 64. The young Utah native in 1922 had invented the television set, but by the 1960’s he was forgotten, broke and addicted to painkillers. The only recognition he got in his lifetime was as a contestant on the quiz show I Got a Secret. He won a check for $80 and a carton of Winston cigarettes. Today Farnsworth is considered the father of television, along with John Logie-Baird.</p><p><br /></p><p>1971- THX 1138- Frances Ford Coppola convinced Warner Bros to release a fleshed-out feature version of a USC college thesis film by a young guy named George Lucas.</p><p><br /></p><p>1977- Film director Roman Polanski (Rosemary’s Baby, Chinatown) was arrested for having sex with a 13 year old girl in Jack Nicholson’s home after he got her stoned on quaaludes. Polanski was charged with statutory rape. He jumped bail and fled Hollywood for exile in Paris. LA courts have been trying unsuccessfully to get him extradited ever since.</p><p><br /></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiC4IbufbLPkFasl0dohq7jBNknrjpE8mmVKaFpWx_SrAGQIDNAFkdFnyk1QHZZrwYKsJgFB3qUW58msRsfRvPpbPlOw08K2jnVNN4k_QsbGIME3b0ZzLkSQtXz4D5zIyLFGkK2WPWacbdyBVEWrUGmv8Bd1Pdq-iOnw-Sjm1BLjLUF9kCIQEkpH6hQUqv2/s840/Nausicaa-of-the-Valley-of-the-Winds-Vintage-Movie-Poster-Original-Japanese-1-Panel-20x29_7bc3fd63-45d6-4d30-bea4-c68461e27129_300x@2x.webp" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="840" data-original-width="600" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiC4IbufbLPkFasl0dohq7jBNknrjpE8mmVKaFpWx_SrAGQIDNAFkdFnyk1QHZZrwYKsJgFB3qUW58msRsfRvPpbPlOw08K2jnVNN4k_QsbGIME3b0ZzLkSQtXz4D5zIyLFGkK2WPWacbdyBVEWrUGmv8Bd1Pdq-iOnw-Sjm1BLjLUF9kCIQEkpH6hQUqv2/s320/Nausicaa-of-the-Valley-of-the-Winds-Vintage-Movie-Poster-Original-Japanese-1-Panel-20x29_7bc3fd63-45d6-4d30-bea4-c68461e27129_300x@2x.webp" width="229" /></a></div><br />1984 - NAUSICAÄ OF THE VALLEY OF THE WIND, adapted and directed by Hayao Miyazaki, was released in Japan. When the Walt Disney company agreed to distribute the film, they released it in Europe with time cuts, about ten minutes. Miyazaki sent the studio a beautiful antique samurai sword. On the blade he engraved, “ No Cuts”.<p></p>Animation Educator's Forumhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12341440002824174240noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1763097528011081238.post-56352321950179966702024-03-10T01:18:00.000-08:002024-03-10T01:18:30.385-08:00Tom Sito's Animation Almanac or March 10, 2024<p><br /></p><p>Birthdays: Lorenzo da Ponte -librettist of Mozart's operas, Barry Fitzgerald, Claire Booth Luce, Heywoud Hale Broun, James Herriot, Pablo de Sarrasate, Osama Bin Laden, Robert Abel, Chuck Norris is 84, Shannon Tweed, Sharon Stone is 66, John Hamm is 53</p><p><br /></p><p>1926- The First Book of the Month Club – The Lovely Willows by Sylvia Townshend Warner.</p><p><br /></p><p>1933- The LONG BEACH EARTHQUAKE. There had not been a serious quake in LA since 1857, so everyone thought it a thing of the past. Today the buildings swayed and brick walls collapsed. It was the last big shift in the San Andreas Fault. 200 people were killed, and if the schools had not been empty for Easter break, the casualties could have been much worse.</p><p>Actors convening early SAG union meetings in the El Capitan Theater had to move out to the parking lot because of the aftershocks. The quake sparked the first serious earthquake building codes.</p><p><br /></p><p>1935- The First Smokey Stover comic strip (notary sojac).</p><p><br /></p><p>1947- Ronald Reagan becomes President of the Screen Actor's Guild after President George Montgomery and V.P. Franchot Tone resigned to become independent producers. In the violent gangster-ridden atmosphere of Hollywood unions Reagan took to wearing a .32 Smith & Wesson in a shoulder holster under his coat.</p><p><br /></p><p>1948- Zelda Fitzgerald, the socialite wife of writer F. Scott Fitzgerald, died in a fire at the mental hospital where she had been committed for more than a decade. </p><p><br /></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlca9-O1z4KUCN1DndONhpAkMaDd4bERSjJGIoPBx2taMAhYYVBTE5uc9R8ae8TalRXnF23R-8yRp8XYxWx09QXPnLG54LsRcstUGGgZ-QlKjbweb6YUFXzd0OlCBw84Z65-2VOr_69vgJ_PGwSRd12Pd16VRw7yvHr01aAYIqgqCmbxNdMduSFV2qo3Dc/s800/159028648_10222798961901609_6850536286310373766_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="665" data-original-width="800" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlca9-O1z4KUCN1DndONhpAkMaDd4bERSjJGIoPBx2taMAhYYVBTE5uc9R8ae8TalRXnF23R-8yRp8XYxWx09QXPnLG54LsRcstUGGgZ-QlKjbweb6YUFXzd0OlCBw84Z65-2VOr_69vgJ_PGwSRd12Pd16VRw7yvHr01aAYIqgqCmbxNdMduSFV2qo3Dc/s320/159028648_10222798961901609_6850536286310373766_n.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />1953- PANCHO AND THE GENERAL- Florence Lowe "Pancho" Barnes was the granddaughter of Thaddeus Lowe, inventor of the U.S. Army balloon corps in the Civil War. She became an aviatrix and in 1930 broke an air speed record set by Amelia Earhart.<p></p><p>In the late 1940s she moved to Muroc California in the desert and opened up a saloon, "The Happy Bottom Riding Club' where the test pilots flying dangerous experimental craft trying to break the sound barrier came to blow off steam. Chuck Yeager and the future astronauts were frequent guests. She once told famed General Jimmy Doolittle "Jimmy, you know I can out fly and out f**k you any day of the Week!!" The bar was famous for wild parties with lots of booze and rough housing. </p><p> In 1952 a General Holtoner took over command of Maroc, now renamed Edwards Air Force Base. He tried to have Pancho evicted so the Air Force could expand its supersonic runway. When she objected to the General's lack of respect, he implied that she ran a house of prostitution. On this day Pancho sued the US Air Force for 1 1/2 million dollars. General Holtoner was replaced, the Happy Bottom Riding Club was destroyed in a fire, and Pancho Barnes moved away. The bar was immortalized in the movie 'The Right Stuff'.</p><p><br /></p><p>1954- In a letter to studio heads director Elias Kazan worried that young actor James Dean was “too odd” and unpredictable to star in his movie “Rebel Without a Cause”.</p><p><br /></p><p>1954- First day of shooting on Stage 3 of the Giant Squid battle on Walt Disney’s production of Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea. The director was Richard Fleischer, the son of Walt Disney’s onetime competitor Max Fleischer.</p><p><br /></p><p>1956- Chuck Jones’ “Rocket Squad”, when Porky and Daffy do a satire of the TV show Dragnet, except set in the future.</p><p><br /></p><p>1963- Pete Rose first took the field in a Cincinnati Reds uniform. During an exhibition baseball game with the Yankees Mickey Mantle hit one of his monster 400-ft home runs and young Rose was the only outfielder scrambling and jumping hopelessly to catch it. Mantle laughed and said:” Hey, look at Charlie Hustle over there.” The nickname stuck. Charlie Hustle would go on to break Ty Cobb’s all time hitting record and managed winning teams. But after his retirement he was banned from baseball for betting on sports. Which everybody does now today, anyway.</p><p><br /></p><p>1969- The Godfather, a novel by Mario Puzo was first published. The book about a NY mafia family was a huge hit and spawned three successful movies.</p><p><br /></p><p>1972- Silent Running, starring Bruce Dern and directed by Douglas Trumble opened.</p><p><br /></p><p>1980- This year one of the most popular diets in the country was the Scarsdale Diet by Dr. Herman Tarnower. This day a woman named Jean Harris entered his Purchase NY home and shot Dr. Tarnower to death. Her trial was a cause-celeb in the NY press. </p><p><br /></p><p>1988- Andy Gibb of the BeeGees died at age 30. It was reported he died of a drug overdose, but he actually died of heart failure brought on by years of heavy drug abuse.. </p><p><br /></p><p>2008- BANG THE GOV SLOWLY- Elliot Spitzer was the hard-driving NY State Attorney General who rocketed to the governorship and was touted as a potential future presidential candidate. His specialty was catching hi-tech Wall Street white collar crooks. Today his Icarus-like ascent came crashing down. He admitted to soliciting high price prostitutes. At $4,300 an hour. Spitzer was known to them as Client #9. The ladies said he liked to leave his socks on. When the news of his resignation came over the ticker on the NY Stock Exchange trading floor, day-traders stopped to cheer.</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>Animation Educator's Forumhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12341440002824174240noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1763097528011081238.post-78128073459266665302024-03-09T00:00:00.000-08:002024-03-09T00:00:00.158-08:00Tom Sito's Animation ALmanac for March 9, 2024<p><br /></p><p>Birthdays: Amerigo Vespucci, Eddie Foy, Yuri Gargarin, John Lounsberry, Samuel Barber, chess master Bobby Fischer, Mickey Spillane, Vita Sackville-West, Raul Julia, Vacheslav Molotov, Juliet Binoche is 50, Linda Fiorentino is 66, Lil’ Bow-Wow is 37</p><p><br /></p><p>1599- “The Nine Days of Wonder”. William Kemp, famous stage clown in Shakespeare plays completed his vow to Morris Dance from London to Norwich. About 110 miles. This day he completed his trek to the cheers of the crowd, and nailed his buskers to the door of the Norwich town hall.</p><p><br /></p><p>1888- While strolling through his garden, writer Jules Verne was shot by an emotional deranged nephew Gaston. He recovered, but walked with a limp for the rest of his life.</p><p><br /></p><p>1907- Former Edison animator J. Stuart Blackton started "Moving Picture World" an early movie fanzine.</p><p><br /></p><p>1913- Virginia Woolf completed her first novel The Voyage Out.</p><p><br /></p><p>1954- Edgar R. Murrow does his "See It Now" television broadcast detailing the life of Sen. Joseph McCarthy, the commie-chaser. The obvious contradictions and gross opportunism in McCarthy's record when laid out before a nationwide audience, destroyed his career and took the steam out of the "Red Scare" of the 50's. It is probably television journalism's finest moment. For the lowest? Well, what's on tonight? </p><p><br /></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcQkUqULPT5mKQqGYqvbWvHUMhNCsg-1ZX0tlTcBloauNSFidk1fCU6E3HwRMjKqH0eZ57RDMrVDmxsOHdjN6WA_QMrpMXJ9JwA8FIAanKgentMa2yvKMRFO9ehdj-gR7mW2PcnWKm0z2qRUY2CEMwV92hdJL66nKuKF_CG_8Ig9oksrbTJQ3amo0vfo3j/s1200/scale.webp" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="675" data-original-width="1200" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcQkUqULPT5mKQqGYqvbWvHUMhNCsg-1ZX0tlTcBloauNSFidk1fCU6E3HwRMjKqH0eZ57RDMrVDmxsOHdjN6WA_QMrpMXJ9JwA8FIAanKgentMa2yvKMRFO9ehdj-gR7mW2PcnWKm0z2qRUY2CEMwV92hdJL66nKuKF_CG_8Ig9oksrbTJQ3amo0vfo3j/s320/scale.webp" width="320" /></a></div><br />1955- “Man In Space” First of a three part series premiered on Walt Disney’s TV show Disneyland. Walt Kimball with NASA German scientists Werner Von Braun and Hans Hauber featured. Walt created this in cooperation with the US Government to help generate enthusiasm for the Space Program. <p></p><p><br /></p><p>1955- Actor James Dean’s last film, East of Eden, premiered today,</p><p><br /></p><p>1959-The first "Clutch Cargo" show. Clark Haas of Cambria Studios tried to do animation cheaply using their Synchro-Vox Technique. Matching live action mouths over animated character. </p><p><br /></p><p>1984- Roy E. Disney Jr., Walt’s nephew, resigned from the central board of the Walt Disney Company, setting in motion a series of takeover bids and maneuvering that by August would wrest control of the company from Ron Miller, Walt’s son-in-law.</p><p><br /></p><p>1984- Touchstone pictures Splash premiered, featuring Tom Hanks, John Candy and a tastefully topless Daryl Hannah.</p><p><br /></p><p>1989- Artist-photographer Robert Maplethorpe died of AIDS. He was 42.</p><p><br /></p><p>1997- Gangsta-rap singer Christopher Wallace, who was known as the Notorious B.I.G. and also called Biggie Smalls, was shot and killed by a gangsta-style drive by. His last album was entitled Life After Death. Notorious BIG could never shake the accusation that he was involved in the similar murder of singer Tupac Shakur.</p><p><br /></p><p>2007- Zack Snyder’s film “300” opened. This is Sparta!</p><p><br /></p><p>2012-John Carter premiered. Directed by Andrew Stanton (Finding Nemo), Based on the original story by Edgar Rice Burroughs. It became one of Disney’s biggest flops. Costing over $275 million, and earning $70 million. </p><p><br /></p>Animation Educator's Forumhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12341440002824174240noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1763097528011081238.post-54907674337657567522024-03-08T01:25:00.000-08:002024-03-08T01:25:44.408-08:00Tom Sito's Animation Almanac for March 8, 2024<p><br /></p><p>Birthdays: Sophocles, Carl Phillip Emmanuel Bach, Hannah Hoes Van Beuren- the First Lady for Martin Van Beuren, Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr., Alan Hovhannes, Kenneth Grahame the author of the Wind in the Willows, Cyd Charisse, Charlie Pride, Mickey Dolenz, Alan Hale Jr., Jim Rice, Aiden Quinn is 66, Freddy Prinze Jr is 50, Jim Bouton- baseball player, author, inventor of Big League Chew bubble gum, animator Don Hall</p><p><br /></p><p>1886- A Scottish doctor in Portsmouth England named Arthur Conan-Doyle had been trying his hand at writing fiction. He sold a few stories to magazines and tried to publish a historical novel about an insurance company, “The Firm of Girdlestone”, with lackluster results. </p><p>This day he began a new novel “A Tangled Skein” which had a new character modeled after the famous French detective Jules Vinquoc. At firs, he named him Sheridan Hope, then Sheringford Holmes. By the time he finished his story, month later, he had changed the title to “A Study in Scarlet” and the main protagonist name had become SHERLOCK HOLMES. </p><p>Arthur Conan Doyle was an admirer of the American writer Oliver Wendel Holmes who was touring Britain that year. Like him, Holmes was a doctor who turned author. No one is sure where he got the name Sherlock. It may have been a neighbor. Conan Doyle’s professor in Edinburgh college Dr Joseph Bell excelled at deductive reasoning and had an assistant named Dr. Watson.</p><p><br /></p><p>1928- While contact negotiations between Walt Disney and distributor Charles Mintz were breaking down, his animators completed their final Oswald the Rabbit short Sky Scrappers.</p><p><br /></p><p>1933- As a result of President Roosevelt's Nationwide Bank shutdown, Hollywood Studios go into a cash panic. MGM, RKO and the others ask for 30-50% salary cuts from their stars and artists. At one point they announced the salary cuts at the Oscar banquet ( betchya that made for a real fun party!)</p><p> Louis B. Mayer, tearful and unshaven pleaded his case to his contract-stars, who reluctantly accepted the cuts. Lionel Barrymore called out "We're with ya. L.B. !" Afterwards Mayer winked to his secretary and giggled:” So how’d I do?” A week later Mayer hired his new son-in-law David Selznick as a producer at $4,5000 a week. Production chief Darryl Zanuck quit Warner Bros. over the employee salary cuts and went on to build Twentieth Century Fox. </p><p><br /></p><p>1941- Writer and playwright Sherwood Anderson dies from periarteritis- internal bleeding- after swallowing a toothpick at a cocktail party.</p><p><br /></p><p>1941- The National Television System Committee set up by the FCC to standardize television technology recommended an industry standard of 525 scan lines at 30 frames a second- what we now call after their name- NTSC. England later adopted the PAL (Phase Alternation Line) of 625 lines, 25 frames per second and France the SECAM System (Systeme Electronique Couleur Avec Memoire), which is also a 625 line, 25fps system. This is why British TV shows like The Prisoner always looked so grainy on American sets and American shows look so garish on British sets. By garish I mean the color, not the content. </p><p>It also speeds up the film during video from 24 frames to 25fps (i.e. 4%)...which is why in England and the rest of Europe, all Hollywood movies are 4% shorter and the voices of the actors all sound a little squeaky. The way to remember NTSC is "Never-The-Same-Color'. DVD and BluRay went to a thousand- scan lines. The invention of digital screens made most of this irrelevant.</p><p><br /></p><p>1950- The Volkswagen bus introduced.</p><p><br /></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMzmPyg1Khyphenhyphen6LKKAmgZWblmvN9aGCIu-T56w-s8h_gTLzEHKSNWxNGflyC_rPx1rKduYjvhR-1zK7ORj9uP4epRBjoV7TERDf74dolvtAL2f5yhcfPt6PWCGZp0lWT0mk4VUY6XEkVQsZ6HjGMa4Fj32tU8oiZ8OXgQTrHK28OI-8ggDZZH8wQLlVJzvp5/s892/Screen-Shot-2023-02-15-at-1.57.44-PM.png.webp" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="648" data-original-width="892" height="232" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMzmPyg1Khyphenhyphen6LKKAmgZWblmvN9aGCIu-T56w-s8h_gTLzEHKSNWxNGflyC_rPx1rKduYjvhR-1zK7ORj9uP4epRBjoV7TERDf74dolvtAL2f5yhcfPt6PWCGZp0lWT0mk4VUY6XEkVQsZ6HjGMa4Fj32tU8oiZ8OXgQTrHK28OI-8ggDZZH8wQLlVJzvp5/s320/Screen-Shot-2023-02-15-at-1.57.44-PM.png.webp" width="320" /></a></div><br />1958- Chuck Jones’ short Robin Hood Daffy premiered. “ Yoiks and Awaay!”<p></p><p><br /></p><p>1961-The Frito Company merges with potato chip makers H.L. Lay to form Frito-Lay. The recipe for Fritos corn chips was bought by milkshake salesman Elmer Doolin from a Mexican fry cook in South Texas.</p><p><br /></p><p>1973- Paul McCartney was fined 100 pounds for growing marijuana on his farm Mull of Kintyre.</p><p><br /></p><p>1977- Ralph Bakshi’s film Wizards premiered.</p><p><br /></p><p>1994- Don Ku invented the ubiquitous little rolling wheeled black suitcase with collapsible handle that bumps into your legs at airports today.</p><p><br /></p><div><br /></div>Animation Educator's Forumhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12341440002824174240noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1763097528011081238.post-47088573751744051632024-03-07T01:01:00.000-08:002024-03-07T01:01:25.599-08:00Tom Sito's Animation ALmanac for March 7, 2024<p><br /></p><p>Birthdays: Maurice Ravel, Piet Mondrian, Roman Emperor Geta, Luther Burbank, Tammy Fae Baker, Willard Scott, Lynn Swann, Franco Harris, Daniel D. Travanti, Rachel Weisz is 54, Michael Eisner is 82, Wanda Sykes is 60, Peter Saarsgard is 53, Bryan Cranston is 68.</p><p><br /></p><p>1877- Bill Reed, a Union Pacific Railroad worker discovered a vast field of dinosaur fossils at Como Bluff Wyoming. "The bones extend for seven miles and are by the ton!"</p><p><br /></p><p>1945- Tom & Jerry short Quiet Please won the Oscar for Best Animated Short.</p><p><br /></p><p>1955- The 7th Emmy Awards, the first to be nationally televised. Steve Allen hosted. Held at the Moulin Rouge nightclub.</p><p><br /></p><p>1985- Lionel Ritchie and Michael Jackson released “ We Are The World” a song recorded by many of the top names in pop music at the time, all proceeds going to help starving children in Africa. Bruce, Springsteen, Madonna, Paul McCartney, Mick Jagger, and more. It became the 8th most popular single of all time.</p><p><br /></p><p><br />1988- 300 pound female impersonator Harris Milstead, better known as Divine in the John Waters films, died of sleep apnea. He was 42.</p><p><br /></p><p>1999- Film director Stanley Kubrick died of a heart attack in his sleep, just five days after screening his final film Eyes Wide Shut. He was 71.</p><p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiN6gXTB2mVIDV7n9NxjcVxoig0qpmrD7OKFlYvym-DXK5kEo_Br-kruGrtkWp5tSQW4i0n4HexkSztZLs4TOH4BY1-F0F0_A3UKTK2vK9GUoyN2DfM6wIEr2WEiTC11YBwynhhi2WNETzNnvofowY88Z6tWpQl_JNf3uAz-V3GtYJgs3s_vYaBiDptw5uq/s660/ghows-WL-47f425ac-606d-4f38-958d-f802a2b977cc-6facf6b9.webp" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="371" data-original-width="660" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiN6gXTB2mVIDV7n9NxjcVxoig0qpmrD7OKFlYvym-DXK5kEo_Br-kruGrtkWp5tSQW4i0n4HexkSztZLs4TOH4BY1-F0F0_A3UKTK2vK9GUoyN2DfM6wIEr2WEiTC11YBwynhhi2WNETzNnvofowY88Z6tWpQl_JNf3uAz-V3GtYJgs3s_vYaBiDptw5uq/s320/ghows-WL-47f425ac-606d-4f38-958d-f802a2b977cc-6facf6b9.webp" width="320" /></a></div><p></p><p>2010- The Pixar film UP won the Oscar for Best Animated Feature. It was also nominated for Best Picture, the only other animated film besides Beauty and the Beast and Toy Story 3.</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>Animation Educator's Forumhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12341440002824174240noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1763097528011081238.post-74934664207471991462024-03-06T00:00:00.000-08:002024-03-06T00:00:00.152-08:00Tom Sito's Animation Almanac for March 6, 2024<p><br /></p><p>Birthdays: Michelangelo Buonarotti, Cyrano De Bergerac, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Phil Sheridan, Lou Costello, Ivan Boesky, Ring Lardner, Gabriele Garcia-Marquez, Valentina Tereschkova the first woman in space, Tom Arnold, Kiri Te Kanawa, Rob Reiner is 76, Alan Greenspan, DC Mayor Marion Barry, Stephen Schwartz is 76, Ed McMahon, Shaquille O’Neal “Shaq” is 52</p><p><br /></p><p>1853- Giusseppi Verdi’s classic opera La Traviata premiered at Teatro alla Fenice in Venice. It was based on Dumas novel Le Dame Aux Camelias. Verdi wrote in his diary about the premiere:" The evening was a disaster! Was it my fault or the fault of the singers? Only time will tell..."</p><p><br /></p><p>1856- Mr. Simon met Mr. Schuster while buying a piano in New York City and discovered they had a common love of books. They formed Simon & Schuster, one of the most famous publishers in the U.S.A.</p><p><br /></p><p>1912- Happy National Oreo Cookie Day! The Oreo cookie debuted on store shelves.</p><p><br /></p><p>1921- The film Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse premiered. The first Hollywood film to earn over one million dollars, and it made a major star out of Rudolf Valentino.</p><p><br /></p><p>1936- Mr. Clarence Birdseye introduced frozen vegetables.</p><p><br /></p><p>1978- Hustler Magazine publisher Larry Flynt was shot and crippled by a lunatic. </p><p><br /></p><p>1979- The film The China Syndrome premiered. It was about an accident at an American nuclear power plant. Three weeks later the real Three Mile Island accident occurred, boosting the box office. " It's spooky, it's enough to make you religious" said star Michael Douglas.</p><p><br /></p><p>1981- CBS News anchor Walter Cronkite retired. Dan Rather succeeded him after CBS learned ABC was offering Rather big bux to jump networks. Roger Mudd, who was thought to be the real successor to Cronkite, left the network to anchor the History Channel. Dan Rather was the CBS anchor until 2004.</p><p><br /></p><p>1989- Time Inc. merged with Warner Communications to become Time Warner, the largest media conglomerate in the world. They were bought by AOL in 2000 but AOL proved to be dead weight and they resumed control as TimeWarner in 2003. Recently they merged with Discovery to become Warner Discovery.</p><p><br /></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-tCDzOosU1qnnq7RiOVIM1lt3WvNpcV7O6jelTmkyTYCTaq-fkl1y7t84j5qRAx-B74xU4uuo3mjKUnIiIH50kmg3Vvk1g3W_R686W1F3ByHDe7N6g5j1TShQm_11tvVweINtuRcSCq3FEaY3kd8vRe6mIn8ecRHIOGuPvMi2NGP15gfpr5Bv8ZJZQURH/s838/webpc-passthru.webp" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="464" data-original-width="838" height="177" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-tCDzOosU1qnnq7RiOVIM1lt3WvNpcV7O6jelTmkyTYCTaq-fkl1y7t84j5qRAx-B74xU4uuo3mjKUnIiIH50kmg3Vvk1g3W_R686W1F3ByHDe7N6g5j1TShQm_11tvVweINtuRcSCq3FEaY3kd8vRe6mIn8ecRHIOGuPvMi2NGP15gfpr5Bv8ZJZQURH/s320/webpc-passthru.webp" width="320" /></a></div><br />1992- The film The Lawnmower Man premiered. It featured early motion-capture CGI imagery, and claimed to have the first virtual reality love scene. <p></p><p><br /></p><p>1998- The Big Lebowski opened in theaters. The Dude Abides…</p><p><br /></p><p>2020- Walt Disney’s Onward opened in theaters. Written and directed by Dan Scanlon</p><p><br /></p>Animation Educator's Forumhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12341440002824174240noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1763097528011081238.post-90182464407774028512024-03-05T00:00:00.000-08:002024-03-05T00:00:00.172-08:00Tom Sito's Animation Almanac for March 5, 2024<p><br /></p><p>Birthdays: Henry III of England, Giovanni Batista Tiepolo, Explorer Le Sieur de Cadillac the founder of Detroit, Hector Villa-Lobos, Howard Pyle, William Oughtred 1574- inventor of the Slide Rule, Red Rosa Luxemburg, Rex Harrison, Dean Stockwell, Paolo Pasolini, Andy Gibb, Samantha Eggar, Andrej Wajda, Fred Williamson, Penn Gillette is 68, Eva Mendes is 49</p><p><br /></p><p>1717- On his birthday Giovanni Tiepolo joined the Guild of Saint Lawrence, the artists union in Rome.</p><p><br /></p><p>1759- Francois Voltaire’s most famous satire on religion and hypocrisy- Candide- was published. It was immediately ordered publicly burned by the regional parliaments of Geneva and Paris. This only increased its popularity. To stay out of trouble Voltaire first refused to admit he was the author:" People must have lost their senses to attribute to me that pack of nonsense! I have, Thanks God, better occupations."</p><p><br /></p><p>1853- Harry Steinway & Sons began their piano making company.</p><p><br /></p><p>1868- Englishman C.H. Gould patented the first stapler.</p><p><br /></p><p>1936- Disney’s Three Orphaned Kittens won the best short Oscar at the 8th Academy Awards.</p><p><br /></p><p>1954- The Creature From the Black Lagoon opened. Directed by Jack Arnold. The Gill-Man designed by Disney animator Millicent Patrick.</p><p><br /></p><p>1963- Country star Patsy Cline died in plane crash near Camden Tenn. Also killed were singers Cowboy Copas and Hawkshaw Hawkins.</p><p><br /></p><p>1963- The hula-hoop was patented.</p><p><br /></p><p>1966- As America was still getting used to the idea of fighting in Vietnam, and anti-war sentiment was beginning, a Sgt. Barry Sadler wrote a pro-war song titled Ballad of the Green Berets, that today hit #1. “Put silver wings, on my son’s chest. Make him one of America’s Best.”</p><p><br /></p><p>1973- New York Yankee pitchers Mike Kekich and Fritz Peterson make a stunning declaration. The left-handers announce that they have traded each others’ wives, children, houses, even their family dogs. </p><p><br /></p><p>1982 – comedian John Belushi died of a drug overdose at The Chateau Marmont hotel on Sunset Strip. He had done 20 heroin-cocaine speedballs in just 24 hours. A woman named Cathy Smith was charged with administering to him the fatal dose. Robin Williams was with him that night partying but left early. Belushi was 31. Someone scrawled on Belushi’s tombstone:" You could have given us more laughs.....But NNNOOOO! (one of his signature comedy lines)</p><p><br /></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBs9GdRjpRzjDRXxe5vctYCMW1I6b8xu5GEaAzc45e9xaSWROLaNvzrdxy-3ABri9bSBew91uvC-LOupf7ycDFXaVFMTHc9dVZVkeSCqoyg3C724wpxqENVqmqAP6Up9F-CcuLkC7OHe4f1t1Y0v8TRjo3B7kaAaKraGzH1trLx3Cz6dKRc3sYQEYkH8qL/s765/10duckman-1-.webp" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="765" data-original-width="672" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBs9GdRjpRzjDRXxe5vctYCMW1I6b8xu5GEaAzc45e9xaSWROLaNvzrdxy-3ABri9bSBew91uvC-LOupf7ycDFXaVFMTHc9dVZVkeSCqoyg3C724wpxqENVqmqAP6Up9F-CcuLkC7OHe4f1t1Y0v8TRjo3B7kaAaKraGzH1trLx3Cz6dKRc3sYQEYkH8qL/s320/10duckman-1-.webp" width="281" /></a></div><br />1994- The TV show Duckman premiered. <p></p><p><br /></p><p>1995- Vivian Stanstall, lead singer for the Bonzo Dog Band, died in a fire in his London flat. He had been smoking in bed.</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>Animation Educator's Forumhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12341440002824174240noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1763097528011081238.post-59043046131849849782024-03-04T00:00:00.000-08:002024-03-04T00:00:00.344-08:00Tom Sito's Animation Almanac for March 4, 2024<p><br /></p><p>Birthdays: King Henry II Plantagenet, Antonio Vivaldi, Prince Henry the Navigator of Portugal, Count Pulaski, Miriam Makeba, Nancy Wilson, Bernard Haittink, John Garfield, Knute Rockne, Chastity Bono, Ray “Boom-Boom” Mancini, Patsy Kensit, Katherine O’Hara is 71, James Ellroy, Mykleti Williamson. Ward Kimball, Vicky Jenson, Ken Duncan</p><p><br /></p><p>1922- F.W. Murnau’s classic film Nosferatu, the Vampire, opened in Berlin.</p><p><br /></p><p>1924- The song “Happy Birthday to You” copyrighted by Claydon Sunny.</p><p><br /></p><p>1933- Franklin Roosevelt gave his famous speech“ The only thing we have to fear is, Fear itself.” at his first inauguration.</p><p><br /></p><p>1936- Screenwriter Dudley Nichols publicly refused the Best Screenplay Oscar for John Ford’s “The Informer” as a protest in support of the struggling Writer’s Guild.</p><p><br /></p><p>1946- Alex Raymond's comic strip 'Rip Kirby" premiered.</p><p><br /></p><p>1952- Ronald Reagan married Nancy Davis at the Little Red Church on Coldwater Canyon Blvd. in L.A. William Holden was their best man.</p><p><br /></p><p>1952- Ernest Hemingway wrote a letter to his publisher:" I've completed a new novel. I think it's my best one to date." The Old Man and the Sea.</p><p><br /></p><p>1956- Burger King introduced their signature hamburger the Whopper.</p><p><br /></p><p>1960- American opera baritone Leonard Warren dropped dead on the stage of the Metropolitan Opera in the 2nd act of Verdi's La Forza Del Destino.</p><p><br /></p><p>1961- In the early stages of filming Cleopatra in London, actress Elizabeth Taylor developed pneumonia and slipped into a coma. She would have died, had not doctors at a convention at London’s Dorchester Hotel performed and emergency tracheotomy. When you seen the film today you can still see the tracheotomy scar at the base of her throat.</p><p><br /></p><p>1982- The Abrahams/Zucker Bros TV comedy Police Squad! premiered. </p><p><br /></p><p>1994- Basketball legend Michael Jordan went to bat for the first time in a Chicago White Sox Baseball uniform. Jordan gave up baseball after one season and returned to the NBA. </p><p><br /></p><p>1994- 375 pound comedian John Candy died of sleep apnea. He was 43.</p><p><br /></p><p>2000- The Japanese launch of Sony Playstation 2. It was designed to compete with Segas Dreamcast and Nintendo’s Cube. The Playstation 2 was the most anticipated videogame launch in history. 600,000 units were sold. One store in Tokyo’s Ginza had 4,000 people lined up at their door. It remained hot for 13 years.</p><p><br /></p><p>2004- A New York court convicted interior decorating guru Martha Stewart of four counts of stock fraud. This was for dumping her stock in a pharmaceutical firm called InClone after getting an inside tip that their cancer cure didn’t actually work.</p><p><br /></p><p>2008- The first Simon’s Cat short cartoon appeared on YouTube. English commercial animator Simon Tofield wanted to teach himself Adobe Flash, a 2D computer animation program. He decided to make a cartoon of his cat, and his quirky behavior. He took the results and posted it on YouTube for a laugh. It got thousands of views and made him famous. Now he has a staff, sells merchandise and is working on longer films.</p><p><br /></p><p>2016- Disney’s Zootopia, directed by Byron Howard, Rich Moore and Jared Bush.</p><p><br /></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiY0Cbzw1zRXYKEWZ9aNMHvuOrH1mOefpIJ_3AQ9zRW7fZhsZht472pDr2W0R9tntbt2izgPdFQLzUgQCUbhvVgu4s86vbDTXJR7DT4DrBxtcWlI3BPIR3GkNt0szxLMvgMK0_9LSpI4Fj_9fkD0ikYgwRnjah1gH6kArHw6x9tcUBza_aUz99JO3gsjWPA/s1800/5386cf7f-bf8f-4882-b7af-c292c6ec6ceb.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1800" data-original-width="1200" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiY0Cbzw1zRXYKEWZ9aNMHvuOrH1mOefpIJ_3AQ9zRW7fZhsZht472pDr2W0R9tntbt2izgPdFQLzUgQCUbhvVgu4s86vbDTXJR7DT4DrBxtcWlI3BPIR3GkNt0szxLMvgMK0_9LSpI4Fj_9fkD0ikYgwRnjah1gH6kArHw6x9tcUBza_aUz99JO3gsjWPA/s320/5386cf7f-bf8f-4882-b7af-c292c6ec6ceb.jpg" width="213" /></a></div><br />2018- Pixar’s Coco won the Academy Award for Best Animated Film.<p></p><p><br /></p>Animation Educator's Forumhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12341440002824174240noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1763097528011081238.post-42058209881218379552024-03-03T01:47:00.000-08:002024-03-03T01:47:55.897-08:00Tom Sito's ANimation Almanac for March 3, 2024<p><br /></p><p>B-Dayz: George Pullman of Pullman Railroad cars, General Matthew Ridgeway, Jean Harlow, Diana Barrymore, Akira Ifukube the composer of the music scores to movies like Godzilla, Tone Loc, Jacky Joyner-Kersee, James Doohan, Ronald Searle, animator Bruno Bozzetto, Bobby Driscoll, Herschel Walker, George Miller, Miranda Richardson </p><p><br /></p><p>1783- Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart first performed his Symphony #35 the Hafner in Vienna with the Austrian Emperor Joseph II in attendance. </p><p><br /></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPjQE42KOuSe-lG5V4_jmx4LmQgWaQEYThrSq0zs4HF5hljPjT8EdP96VcS-0ZSIKQGWpZMIedXAzycggTJXN18KXdhDEtxfeqPacN4d25qDvDI15vKquFioui_KBS8TjX2hm5cQ4uphZHgx2E6y0gddicHKlPpHU20zmOKSME1T_pWCDthUbH7uq-SOiF/s314/426182936_687839196853935_7090112302343493002_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="241" data-original-width="314" height="241" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPjQE42KOuSe-lG5V4_jmx4LmQgWaQEYThrSq0zs4HF5hljPjT8EdP96VcS-0ZSIKQGWpZMIedXAzycggTJXN18KXdhDEtxfeqPacN4d25qDvDI15vKquFioui_KBS8TjX2hm5cQ4uphZHgx2E6y0gddicHKlPpHU20zmOKSME1T_pWCDthUbH7uq-SOiF/s1600/426182936_687839196853935_7090112302343493002_n.jpg" width="314" /></a></div><br />1938- The skies over Los Angeles finally clear after two huge Pacific storms ravaged the region, causing massive flooding from Long Beach to Glendale. The destruction and flooding caused Los Angeles to cover the Los Angeles River and Burbank Creek in concrete, creating the distinctive flood basin the Terminator raced motorcycles and trucks through.<p></p><p><br /></p><p>1950- Paramount's "Quack-a-Doodle-Doo" The first Baby Huey cartoon.</p><p><br /></p><p>1950- Don Herbert began teaching millions of kids about science as TV’s Mr. Wizard.</p><p><br /></p><p>1959- Lou Costello, the loveable pudgy comedian of the team Abbott & Costello, died of a heart attack three days before his 53 birthday. A recurrence of childhood rheumatic fever and the death of his infant son darkened his last years. The team of Abbott and Costello broke up in 1957. His last words were to a hospital nurse,” That was the best strawberry soda I ever had…”</p><p><br /></p><p>1966- William Frawley, the bald, gravel-voiced neighbor Fred Murtz on I Love Lucy, had just seen the movie Inside Daisy Clover on Hollywood Blvd. He was outside the Knickerbocker Hotel when he lit a cigar, then dropped dead of a heart attack. He was 79. When his TV partner Vivian Vance heard the news, she said “Champagne for everyone!” They never liked each other much. Frawley once referred to her as a “miserable c*nt...” Vivian died in 1979.</p><p><br /></p><p>1973- THE BAR CODE. An ad-hoc committee of scientists from Proctor & Gamble and Nabisco and such announced the invention of the Universal Product’s Code- The Bar Code, that annoying little set of bars and numbers on everything you own or buy. No longer would stores have to close their doors periodically for inventory counting. </p><p><br /></p><p>1975- First meeting of the Homebrew Computer Club in a garage in Menlo Park Ca., Bill Gates, Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak were members.</p><p><br /></p><p>1980- Aetna Insurance reported in a newsletter having to pay damages for a man at a delicatessen who had a carp he was ordering jump off the counter and bit him in the leg.</p><p><br /></p><p>1985- The TV show “Moonlighting” premiered. Cybil Shepherd and Bruce Willis.</p><p><br /></p><p>2004- At the Walt Disney Company’s annual meeting of shareholders in Philadelphia, Roy E. Disney laid out the case against CEO Michael Eisner. Shortly after the meeting the board announced Michael Eisner would be replaced as Disney CEO. </p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>Animation Educator's Forumhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12341440002824174240noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1763097528011081238.post-7257472194778260372024-03-02T00:38:00.000-08:002024-03-02T00:38:34.155-08:00Tom Sito's Animation Almanac for March 2, 2024<p><br /></p><p>Birthdays: Sam Houston, Alexander Graham Bell, Kurt Weill, Desi Arnaz (Desiderio Alberto Arnaz y de Acha III), Ted Geisel aka Dr. Suess, Mikhail Gorbachov, Willis O'Brian, Moe Berg, Karen Carpenter, Lou Reed, Jennifer Jones, John Cullum, John Irving, Tom Wolfe, animator Bob Givens, Jon Bon Jovi is 62, Daniel Craig is 56, animator Stephen Chiodo</p><p><br /></p><p>1933- "KING KONG"s exclusive premiere at the new Radio City Music Hall in New York. It opened in the rest of the country in April. “Twas Beauty killed the Beast.”</p><p><br /></p><p>1935- The Looney Tune Cartoon "I haven’t Got a Hat" premiered. This cartoon gave birth to the first permanent Warner Bros. cartoon star- Porky Pig. </p><p><br /></p><p>1940- SEABISCUIT. The small ungainly racehorse Seabiscuit had lost the Santa Anita Handicap Stakes twice before. Now at 7 years old, with ligament tears, he was considered all washed up. But he was entered one more time to try to win this race. The jockey Red Pollard was an alcoholic who had broken his leg and collarbone and was told he couldn’t walk, much less ever ride again. </p><p>Today this unlikely duo raced one more time against odds more like a Hollywood movie than a stakes race. The Biscuit not only won his last race, but set a track record, the second fastest time ever, and the richest win for that time. It’s called one of the greatest comeback stories in sports history.</p><p>When discussing the Sports Legends of the Twentieth Century- Seabiscuit and Secretariat are the only non-humans.</p><p><br /></p><p>1940- Chuck Jones’ Elmer’s Candid Camera, where Elmer Fudd meets an early prototype of Bugs Bunny.</p><p><br /></p><p>1961- Pablo Picasso married his second wife Jacqueline. He was 80, she was 35. Jacqueline cared for the increasingly reclusive artist and kept even his family at a distance. When Picasso died in 1973, she turned away many family members from the funeral. Jacqueline committed suicide in 1986.</p><p><br /></p><p>1962- The classic Twilight Zone episode To Serve Man premiered. It’s a Cookbook!</p><p><br /></p><p>1965- The movie The Sound of Music opened at the Rivoli theater in Manhattan. </p><p><br /></p><p>1971- Charles Engelhard died, a venture capitalist whose wild investments and grand lifestyle made him the inspiration for Ian Fleming’s villain Auric Goldfinger.</p><p><br /></p><p>1973- The Women in Film organization founded.</p><p><br /></p><p>1976- Francis Ford Coppola began shooting his epic film “Apocalypse Now” in the Philippines. </p><p><br /></p><p>1979- The Anglo-French Concord supersonic airliner service introduced. It was discontinued because of bad economics in 2003.</p><p><br /></p><p>1982- Science Fiction writer Philip K. Dick died of a stroke in Santa Ana, California. He was 53. The author of stories the movies Blade Runner, Minority Report, Total Recall and the series The Man in the High Castle were based. Dick said he was at times possessed by a superalien who appeared in his mind in a beam of pink light. His autobiography was entitled “I am alive, and you are dead.”</p><p><br /></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzhuKdau4mmAR2OoMMNsKly_sIwLFO0pMxQ4MTXoUzqkg84DPybehSZgDC7hWZqGZaJXm28kW1toJ9Q6fqSl0uNqD3-LZajpzi4EQcV_exz_8LNd37Dmee8qao6Y6X1VgNuLHQcsA9nauHv1RjQ64IkoTbeDcxuLMFrnbkPN2zk6tLnPf2ai9u1NBeqoPc/s1440/frozen-elsa-let-it-go.jpg.webp" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="1440" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzhuKdau4mmAR2OoMMNsKly_sIwLFO0pMxQ4MTXoUzqkg84DPybehSZgDC7hWZqGZaJXm28kW1toJ9Q6fqSl0uNqD3-LZajpzi4EQcV_exz_8LNd37Dmee8qao6Y6X1VgNuLHQcsA9nauHv1RjQ64IkoTbeDcxuLMFrnbkPN2zk6tLnPf2ai9u1NBeqoPc/s320/frozen-elsa-let-it-go.jpg.webp" width="320" /></a></div><br />2014- Walt Disney’s Frozen won the best animated feature Oscar.<p></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>Animation Educator's Forumhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12341440002824174240noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1763097528011081238.post-2134451013579940062024-03-01T00:00:00.000-08:002024-03-01T01:35:18.215-08:00Tom Sito's Animation Almanac for March 1, 2024<p><br /></p><p>Birthdays: Frederic Chopin, Augustus Saint Gaudens, Glen Miller, David Niven, Oskar Kokoschka, Roger Daltry, Robert Conrad, Deke Slayton, Yitschak Rabin. Catherine Bach, Timothy Daly, Harry Belafonte, Lupita Nyongo, Ron Howard is 70, Javier Bardem is 55, Zack Snyder is 58</p><p><br /></p><p>1872- Congress okayed the creation of Yellowstone National Park. In 1878 during the military campaign against the Nez Perce Indians, Chief Joseph took his warriors through the park territory frightening some early tourists.</p><p><br /></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhC3mZ005Wj-ZF3vwrxRrgTn-AvYHzbNlXPArOzSaiveOAygrhxSeWm43aeEEjmm9lAgzUz_1vROSjsuQSYuypCrj7-UXjBk0sanzQjNM1_729KhE1WtEQhnI6mV2idzc80p4X86Qk1HAdEzXigcApc2T0bLldya_QgiPqEZf6OXaVsjXG8XUXVp6RfAQgv/s1002/MV5BNGI5OWU5M2QtZjI0OC00MTdlLTg1YjAtYTRiYWYzOWRkM2VhXkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyMjI1OTQ2MjU@._V1_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1002" data-original-width="655" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhC3mZ005Wj-ZF3vwrxRrgTn-AvYHzbNlXPArOzSaiveOAygrhxSeWm43aeEEjmm9lAgzUz_1vROSjsuQSYuypCrj7-UXjBk0sanzQjNM1_729KhE1WtEQhnI6mV2idzc80p4X86Qk1HAdEzXigcApc2T0bLldya_QgiPqEZf6OXaVsjXG8XUXVp6RfAQgv/s320/MV5BNGI5OWU5M2QtZjI0OC00MTdlLTg1YjAtYTRiYWYzOWRkM2VhXkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyMjI1OTQ2MjU@._V1_.jpg" width="209" /></a></div><br />100th Anniversary 1924- The first Alice in Cartoonland short, “Alice’s Day at Sea” from the new Disney Brothers Studio, premiered in several theaters.<p></p><p><br /></p><p>1930- Disney animator Ub Iwerks, the animator/designer of Mickey Mouse, quit the studio to set up his own place. Iwerks partner was Pat Powers, who’s Powers Cinephone was the process used to put sound on “Steamboat Willie”. Powers engineered the break between Ub and Walt when Disney refused to let Powers buy into a co-partnership in Disney Studio. Walt was stunned by the loss of one of his first employees and closest friends. Iwerks studio produced Flip the Frog Cartoons, but it eventually failed, and he'll return to Disney to invent the xerox process. </p><p><br /></p><p> 1932- Museum of Modern Art in New York held first major retrospective of the style of architecture called "THE INTERNATIONAL STYLE" Steel girder frames with large windows for walls and no ornamentation. This style pioneered by Mies Van Der Rohe, Le Corbusier and Phillip Johnson. Called by critics "vertical ice cube trays" they now dominate the skylines around the world, making Moscow and Shanghai equally unrecognizable from Pretoria, or Newark, New Jersey.</p><p><br /></p><p>1941- The first Captain America comic book by Marvel Comics published. </p><p><br /></p><p>1946- The National Cartoonists Society formed.</p><p><br /></p><p>1961-The Ken Doll introduced as a mate to Barbie. </p><p><br /></p><p>1966- The Russian probe Venera 3 landed on Venus. Although the Venera crash landed it was the first unmanned probe to land on the surface of another world.</p><p><br /></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOlQAUM6wz_VPW5-5DwgnSUwpSGsvNjse046hB_pBccZ9_HSG6b4SpoEOxOSbFe9rS9aPL1zyT2p9wHI7PjPu6kFVV8-PIaMXtZIK6hedt0Q988vpuoYWWKtL98CvwdmZxOMVwDsKTAe3Mx32o26z6whhmC9z50lmog5ItlOlqQ3qNsLS9iX3Bs90BPt6P/s1280/maxresdefault.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1280" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOlQAUM6wz_VPW5-5DwgnSUwpSGsvNjse046hB_pBccZ9_HSG6b4SpoEOxOSbFe9rS9aPL1zyT2p9wHI7PjPu6kFVV8-PIaMXtZIK6hedt0Q988vpuoYWWKtL98CvwdmZxOMVwDsKTAe3Mx32o26z6whhmC9z50lmog5ItlOlqQ3qNsLS9iX3Bs90BPt6P/s320/maxresdefault.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />1973- Hanna-Barbera’s feature film Charlotte’s Web premiered in theaters. Directed by Charles Nichols and Iwao Takamoto.<p></p><p><br /></p><p>1978- Unemployed auto mechanics Gatchko Ganas and Roman Wardas broke into the tomb of Charlie Chaplin in Vevey Switzerland and stole his remains. They tried to hold it for ransom. The body was recovered and the two losers were soon arrested. They were trying to make enough money to open a car repair garage in France.</p><p><br /></p><p>1988- Apple introduced the first commercially available CD-ROM drive for your personal computer.</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>Animation Educator's Forumhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12341440002824174240noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1763097528011081238.post-17618846018853739312024-02-29T00:00:00.000-08:002024-02-29T00:00:00.135-08:00Tom Sito's Animation Almanac for Feb 29, 2024<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0Kkc7de1bh8Y3L5Z3CVvvX6zgTtV5wbYx4pAeo8EH85tYmjshzxFaY4zvV7Il2L6B4QKH7EEbJZgmBjUh4j5Vwqibjs-eNlwMzVE7tuo8pRYQgU1E4zKh2SJaLf7mGnnnN6UawsnGQRk9Ebz9yDF2au4N0nMfysGfFmVtgrwv95CsrQEpYxl7L66IPrJZ/s600/kalend.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="584" data-original-width="600" height="311" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0Kkc7de1bh8Y3L5Z3CVvvX6zgTtV5wbYx4pAeo8EH85tYmjshzxFaY4zvV7Il2L6B4QKH7EEbJZgmBjUh4j5Vwqibjs-eNlwMzVE7tuo8pRYQgU1E4zKh2SJaLf7mGnnnN6UawsnGQRk9Ebz9yDF2au4N0nMfysGfFmVtgrwv95CsrQEpYxl7L66IPrJZ/s320/kalend.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><p> 46 BC-We have a Greek thinker named Sosigenes to thank for today. He was commissioned by Julius Caesar to reform the calendar. The Roman Calendar was a system of ten months made of three weeks each consisting of ten days each. The system was so rickety that the Roman curia (government) actually had a department who’s only purpose was to tell you what day it was! </p><p> January and February didn’t exist, but when they were created they were originally between March and April, until moved to their present location. February in the original plan had 30 days but Augustus’ family was angry that August only had 30 days while July had 31, so they borrowed a day from February. One extra day was added every four years to keep the calendar up with the solar year. This Julian calendar was changed again by Pope Gregory in 1582 to the modern western calendar.</p><p><br /></p><p>Birthdays: Giacomo Rossini -Who liked to joke he was 16 years old when he was actually 67, Balthus, Jimmy Dorsey, William “ Wild Bill” Wellman, Alex Rocco, Arthur Franz, Phyllis French, Mother Ann Lee the founder of the Shakers, Dinah Shore, author Tim Powers (1952); his surreal stories often have characters with unusual birthdays.</p><p><br /></p><p>1692- The first indictments of the notorious Salem Witch trials. Tituba, a black-Caribe servant cook of the town’s preacher, who liked to entertain his children with ghost stories of the Caribbean was arrested for witchcraft with Sarah Osbourne, an elderly deaf woman who, well... just looked like an old and spooky witch. In all 22 people were executed. Salem kept up the hysteria until the Governor of Massachusetts stopped it after his own daughter was accused.</p><p><br /></p><p>1776- French writer and spy Pierre D’ Beaumarchais wrote a letter to King Louis XVI advising France should support the American colonies revolution against England. Beaumarchais, who later wrote the Barber of Seville, set up spy operations and under the name of a Rodrique Hortalez & Company, to ship guns, gunpowder and uniforms to George Washington’s beleaguered army.</p><p><br /></p><p>1908- Former Sheriff Pat Garrett, the killer of Billy the Kid, was himself gunned down while stepping off a buckboard to urinate. The assailant was in a lawsuit with Garret over a promise to remove some goats from his property.</p><p><br /></p><p>1960- Hugh Hefner opened the first Playboy Club, this one in Chicago. The restaurant –nightclub succeeded on a gimmick of members-only keys and the famous Playboy Bunny waitresses. One Bunny said of her job,“I served London Broil in a bathing suit and heels and made more money than anyone in my family!” </p><p><br /></p><p>1968- Dr. Jocelyn Burnell of Cambridge announced the discovery of the pulsar star.</p><p><br /></p><p>1968- The Beatles win four Grammy awards for their Sgt. Pepper album.</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>Animation Educator's Forumhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12341440002824174240noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1763097528011081238.post-88475600308631319722024-02-28T00:00:00.000-08:002024-02-28T00:00:00.148-08:00Tom Sito's Animation Almanac for <p><br /></p><p>Birthdays: Michel de Montaigne, The Marquis de Montcalm, Zero Mostel, Vasclav Nijinsky, Molly Picon, Gavin MacCleod, Bernadette Peters, Bubba Smith, Mario Andretti, Milton Caniff- the creator of Terry and the Pirates", Ben 'Bugsy' Siegel, Tommy Tune, Vincente Minelli, Linus Pauling, Dorothy Stratton, Frank Gehry, Sir John Tenniel, John Tarturro, Gilbert Gottfried, Bernadette Peters is 76.</p><p><br /></p><p>1820- The birthday of Sir John Tenniel (1820-1916). The original illustrator for Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” and “Through the Looking Glass.” He was also a leading political cartoonist for Punch and the first cartoonist to ever be knighted.</p><p><br /></p><p>1835- Dr. Elias Lohnnrot published the Finnish national epic poem Kalevala. It’s about the first man Vanjiamoimmen, who was born old and searched for the magical machine called The Samo, kept in a mountain with seven locks, guarded by seven wizards chanting Samo, Samo! Modern scholars cannot agree just what the samo was, or what it did.</p><p><br /></p><p>1882- The first college store opened, the COOP, this one attached to Harvard & MIT. The COOP means Harvard Cooperative Society.</p><p><br /></p><p>1896- Robert Paul demonstrates a kinetograph to the Royal Institute. The British Cinema industry is born.</p><p><br /></p><p>1920 Maurice Ravel’s Le Tombeau de Couperin debuted.</p><p><br /></p><p>1938- Russian composer Sergei Prokofiev toured the Walt Disney Studio, and performed his piece Peter and the Wolf for Walt and his music director Leigh Harline.</p><p> </p><p>1940- At the Oscars ceremony Hattie McDaniel became the first black actress to win an Oscar for her supporting role in Gone With The Wind. When some criticized her for portraying a stereotype black mammy, McDaniel snapped:” I’d rather make $5000 a week playing a maid than $5 a week being a maid!”</p><p><br /></p><p>1940- Richard Wright’s novel Native Son, about growing up black in America, first published.</p><p><br /></p><p>1949- Bob Clampett’s live puppet show Time for Beanie premiered. Bill Scott was a writer and puppeteer. Albert Einstein was a fan. Ten years later it was revived as the popular animated series Beanie and Cecil.</p><p><br /></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_B-2gdNAsUCLMk58ccxnF3V8iwwYsJRdN6nOfbUZ5Bnc4ZvjcQz_JLrhSXSvZcFjgWAXcoXwyPwR29xBRernCO7R1URgbacTBLwct_yhWdqw-VZypvF68PRmdBDjssuViHfU072iQsEi8SXoiuCLU_Ck8i6_BmIXxE4s5t1sjY4JrPY3iigUNhVtZJdGr/s1200/MV5BNmMxODE5ZTItYWYwMy00ZTVhLWE5YzYtNmQ0YjYxZGMwMmM5XkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyODg5MTk3NjM@._V1_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="675" data-original-width="1200" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_B-2gdNAsUCLMk58ccxnF3V8iwwYsJRdN6nOfbUZ5Bnc4ZvjcQz_JLrhSXSvZcFjgWAXcoXwyPwR29xBRernCO7R1URgbacTBLwct_yhWdqw-VZypvF68PRmdBDjssuViHfU072iQsEi8SXoiuCLU_Ck8i6_BmIXxE4s5t1sjY4JrPY3iigUNhVtZJdGr/s320/MV5BNmMxODE5ZTItYWYwMy00ZTVhLWE5YzYtNmQ0YjYxZGMwMmM5XkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyODg5MTk3NjM@._V1_.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />1953- Chuck Jones “Duck Amuck” premiered. <p></p><p><br /></p><p>1983-The last episode of the television series M*A*S*H. It was the single most watched TV episode in history.</p><p><br /></p><p>1986- Disney animator Eric Larsen retired. Larsen had stayed on to train the next generation of animators who created the 2D Renaissance of the 1990s.</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>Animation Educator's Forumhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12341440002824174240noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1763097528011081238.post-76459413825266132372024-02-27T01:45:00.000-08:002024-02-27T01:45:45.461-08:00Tom Sito's Animation Almanac for Feb 27, 2024<p>Birthdays: Roman Emperor Constantine 280AD, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, John Steinbeck, Ralph Nader, Marion Anderson, Chelsea Clinton, Franchot Tone, William Demarest, James Worthy, Mirella Freni, Judge Hugo Black, David Sarnoff the founder of the NBC network, Elizabeth Taylor, Jeff Smith-creator of comic Bone, Disney animator Roland "Rolly" Crump, Joanne Woodward is 94.</p><p><br /></p><p>1814- Beethoven’s 8th Symphony premiered.</p><p><br /></p><p>1827- The first Mardi Gras celebration was held in New Orleans. Mardi Gras parties were first held by the French colonists of Mobile Alabama in 1709. From there the custom spread to the Big Easy. </p><p><br /></p><p>1883- Musical impresario Oscar Hammerstein patented the first practical cigar rolling machine.</p><p><br /></p><p>1888- Prof. Edweard Muybridge traveled to Menlo Park NJ for a private meeting with inventor Thomas Edison. There they discussed the possibilities of combining his zoopraxiniscope with Edison’s sound recording machine to create sound movies. It came to naught. Muybridge left, then Edison had his staff immediately try to copy their own version of Muybridge’s device. Edison concluded, “ I doubt Motion Pictures will have any commercial application beyond the science laboratory. “</p><p> </p><p>1919- Gustav Holst’s orchestral suite The Planets first premiered in London.</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdxaGHIV0EBShN98-s51fJrsb6B9S_v67Ncfy_s7F1t5SIYYjHozU4Xu10mGE83RJWrMA_U00AUaBCpBP0YmBzOuT2TuHW9ZNbxTOzOcXDnV9HpsXWlHYWu2fpQmRiGpVlGSsCR1LDyyidBjFoR__fr53s-3TRG8Eo0tvcr8v07GlF1_e5aX76hPDBQz5K/s512/unnamed.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="512" data-original-width="341" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdxaGHIV0EBShN98-s51fJrsb6B9S_v67Ncfy_s7F1t5SIYYjHozU4Xu10mGE83RJWrMA_U00AUaBCpBP0YmBzOuT2TuHW9ZNbxTOzOcXDnV9HpsXWlHYWu2fpQmRiGpVlGSsCR1LDyyidBjFoR__fr53s-3TRG8Eo0tvcr8v07GlF1_e5aX76hPDBQz5K/s320/unnamed.jpg" width="213" /></a></div><br />1941-At the 13th Academy Awards, for the first time a Walt Disney cartoon did NOT win Best Animated Short. MGM’s The Milky Way won.<p></p><p><br /></p><p>1956- Elvis Presley released song Heartbreak Hotel.</p><p><br /></p><p>1958- Columbia Pictures mogul Harry Cohn died of a heart attack at age 66. His ruthlessness was legend in Hollywood. He once said " I don't get ulcers, I give them!" Hedda Hopper said:' You have to get in line to hate him." The entire Columbia staff was ordered, not requested, to attend a memorial service. Looking at the large crowd around the coffin, Red Skelton quipped: "You see, like Harry always said, give the people what they want, and they'll show up."</p><p><br /></p><p>1973- 200 members of the American Indian Movement led by Russell Means and Dennis Banks take over the Wounded Knee historical site. The hold it and attract world attention to the plight of the Native American before surrendering to the F.B.I. and Army in May.</p><p><br /></p><p>1977- In Toronto, the Canadian Mounties busted Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones, and his girlfriend Anita Pallenberg for heroin possession. The Stones agree to do two benefit concerts as punishment.</p><p><br /></p><p>1991- The Mitchell Brothers were tops in the pornography business, producing blockbusters like Behind the Green Door and running the O’ Farrell Theater in San Francisco. This day, after doing a lot of drugs, Jim Mitchell shot his brother Arnie to death with a rifle. The Mitchell Brothers Court case marked the first use of 3D computer animation as a crime scenario tool. Jim served three years in prison, and died at home in 2007. He was buried next to his brother. </p><p><br /></p><p>1994- Figure skater Nancy Kerrigan skipped the closing ceremonies of the Winter Olympics in Lillehammer so she could begin her multi-million dollar endorsements with DisneyWorld. She blows it all later when she’s caught by a hot mike during a Disney parade saying: “This is all so corny. I can’t believe I’m doing this!”</p><p><br /></p><p>2005- Brad Bird’s The Incredibles won then Academy Award for best animated feature.</p><p>Chris Landreth’s Ryan beat out Disney’s Lorenzo for best animated short.</p><p><br /></p><p>2013- Disney/Pixar’s Toy Story III won best animated feature.</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>Animation Educator's Forumhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12341440002824174240noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1763097528011081238.post-55393221300392527742024-02-26T00:59:00.000-08:002024-02-26T00:59:16.765-08:00Tom Sito's Animation Almanac for Feb 26, 2024<p><br /></p><p>Birthday: King Wenceslas of Bohemia-1361, Frances Marion, Victor Hugo, Buffalo Bill Cody, Emma Destin, Levi Strauss, Jackie Gleason, Fats Domino, Betty Hutton, Johnny Cash, William Frawley, Robert Alda, Tony Randall- born Arthur Rosenberg, Erhyke Bahdu, Fred “Tex” Avery</p><p><br /></p><p>1929- Congress declared the Grand Tetons a national park.</p><p><br /></p><p>1942- Walt Disney received the Irving Thalberg Award at the Academy Awards. Leopold Stokowski got a special Oscar for his work on Fantasia, Frank Churchill and Oliver Wallace won Best Score for Dumbo.</p><p><br /></p><p>1962- First day shooting on the first James Bond film Dr. No. The scene was in M's office and featured Bernard Lee, Peter Burton and their new discovery, Sean Connery.</p><p><br /></p><p>1965- First day of shooting on the Beatle's second film 'Help!"</p><p><br /></p><p>1983- Michael Jackson’s album Thriller went to #1 in the pop charts and stayed for weeks. Twenty-six year later, after Jackson’s death in 2009, Thriller again went to #1 around the world.</p><p><br /></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyM0-2u4uZgyyhGo7PfJaq-fbwnMz26VnI-iEABIu71SNaMSOqemzd5IC09sljpnCORqR8RYGu9o0TnQ3CFxFRHo2VxvEv5xgLNZ8z-WheCTKK_W9RHDxo7kpaQhNKNPxtvfLRu03R6XL6stvinXOuWXXn4EC0BPzWkt2V2DzR13PcjQJ16IMcMj1XpRnE/s640/DW8nhoyU8AEkeYY.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="640" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyM0-2u4uZgyyhGo7PfJaq-fbwnMz26VnI-iEABIu71SNaMSOqemzd5IC09sljpnCORqR8RYGu9o0TnQ3CFxFRHo2VxvEv5xgLNZ8z-WheCTKK_W9RHDxo7kpaQhNKNPxtvfLRu03R6XL6stvinXOuWXXn4EC0BPzWkt2V2DzR13PcjQJ16IMcMj1XpRnE/s320/DW8nhoyU8AEkeYY.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />1986- Dragon Ball Z premiered in Japan<p></p><p><br /></p><p>1990- Cornell Gunther, lead singer for the DooWop group the Coasters, was shot dead at a Las Vegas intersection."Yakkety-Yak, Don't Talk Back!"</p><p><br /></p><p>1991- At a meeting in Switzerland, Tim Berners-Lee introduced the first Web Browser.</p><p><br /></p><p>1996- Silicon Graphics Corp (SGI) bought Cray Research. </p><p><br /></p><p>2002- Terminal 1 of Sacramento Airport was evacuated because of a suspicious package that might be a bomb. Turns out it contained a Mickey Mouse snow globe.</p><p><br /></p><p>2017- Disney's Zootopia won best animated feature Oscar, and Pixar's Piper won best animated short.</p><p><br /></p>Animation Educator's Forumhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12341440002824174240noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1763097528011081238.post-38193407959239674812024-02-24T00:32:00.000-08:002024-02-24T00:32:22.752-08:00Tom Sito's Animation Almanac for Feb 24, 2024<p><br /></p><p>B-Dazes: Roman Emperor Hadrian, Winslow Homer, Arrigo Boito, Wilhelm Grimm (of the brothers Grimm), Honus Wagner- early 1900’s baseball player called the Flying Dutchman, Admiral Chester Nimitz, Edward James Olmos, Barry Bostwick, Michel Legrand, James Farentino, illustrator Zdzislaw Beskinski, Michael Radford, Billy Zane, Steve Jobs, Abe Vigoda, Bob Kinoshita who designed the robot from Lost in Space. </p><p><br /></p><p>1711- Handel’s opera Rinaldo premiered in London.</p><p><br /></p><p>1937- MGM studio announced it acquired the rights to L. Frank Baum’s book The Wizard of Oz, to be made into a movie for their new star Judy Garland. They won out over Walt Disney and Hal Roach.</p><p><br /></p><p>1942- The radio service The Voice of America first went on the air.</p><p><br /></p><p>1943- Fed up with the bad climate in the studio because of the Strike, master animator Bill Tytla resigned from the Walt Disney Studio.</p><p><br /></p><p>1987- US Robotics sold the first 56k modems.</p><p><br /></p><p>1988- PARODY LAWS- The US Supreme Court upheld the right of public figures to be satirized, by throwing out a lawsuit Rev Jerry Falwell brought against Hustler Magazine owner Larry Flynt. Flynt published a gag about Rev Falwell having sex with his mother in an outhouse. Falwell tried to sue for libel. The Court ruled a public figure can be lampooned, so long as it is not presented as factual.</p><p><br /></p><p>1989- According to the David Lynch television series Twin Peaks this is the day Laura Palmer’s body was found and F.B.I. agent Dale Cooper came to town to investigate.</p><p><br /></p><p>1996- Los Angeles Angel Flight reopened.</p><p><br /></p><p>2008- Pixar’s Ratatouille won the Oscar for best animated feature.</p><p><br /></p><p>2013- Pixar’s Brave won the Oscar for Best Animated Feature.</p><p><br /></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCcsNYP4G93drKOVmlOkzJLta_iwtgz0yELP4UtpYCYF9fooAGCuHA2yCPlURVvmqjyZsgSwHLo3ObVBqmQCmXdSCwULL_AXPcXFArwAtGujxBN19qsIs6YjvusowTpKrFg2ivRn9kbq0TZc-SRx1cpk6wEI3CtSc0IS2vlCIwe2pfYzDFrwpMMo9_mkHb/s744/spiderverse.jpg.webp" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="495" data-original-width="744" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCcsNYP4G93drKOVmlOkzJLta_iwtgz0yELP4UtpYCYF9fooAGCuHA2yCPlURVvmqjyZsgSwHLo3ObVBqmQCmXdSCwULL_AXPcXFArwAtGujxBN19qsIs6YjvusowTpKrFg2ivRn9kbq0TZc-SRx1cpk6wEI3CtSc0IS2vlCIwe2pfYzDFrwpMMo9_mkHb/s320/spiderverse.jpg.webp" width="320" /></a></div><br />2019- Spiderman into the Spiderverse won the Oscar for best animated feature.<p></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>Animation Educator's Forumhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12341440002824174240noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1763097528011081238.post-33372440770835188352024-02-23T00:54:00.000-08:002024-02-23T00:54:20.930-08:00Tom Sito's ANimation ALmanac for Feb 22, 2024<p><br /></p><p>Birthdays: George Fredrich Handel, Samuel Pepys (pronounced 'peeps'), Mayer Amschel Rothschild-1743- founder of the Rothschild banking dynasty, Victor Fleming, W.E.B. DuBois, Retta Scott- the first female animator at Disney, Casimir Funk (who invented vitamins), Johnny Winter, Peter Fonda, William Shirer, Allan MacLeod Cormack-inventor of the CAT Scan, Kelly MacDonald, Tom Bodet, Neal McDonough, Kristin Davis is 59, Emily Blunt is 41, Dakota Fanning is 30.</p><p><br /></p><p>1927- Animator Les Clark began work at the Walt Disney Studio. He was the first of Walt’s Nine Old Men. </p><p><br /></p><p>1935- Walt Disney cartoon "The Band Concert." The first color Mickey Mouse cartoon.</p><p><br /></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOEGc3n1vTOZaCVbozIKlnZ1v-G28zfRQAeSl_Gm2AHbIrI66n0XfVUAfN42Jc5bHfytu9qaL-Rgzb5zJ1Cy78cTm43efOEamRaVgLfdTcWjR-8rtAsaE98CQQnGCw82UvDyPvTN6IMv8z4Bla_2aMA_m20qFFsp8pTDcv_LMZP_guSq23PoDx53nc6NxQ/s225/download.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="225" data-original-width="225" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOEGc3n1vTOZaCVbozIKlnZ1v-G28zfRQAeSl_Gm2AHbIrI66n0XfVUAfN42Jc5bHfytu9qaL-Rgzb5zJ1Cy78cTm43efOEamRaVgLfdTcWjR-8rtAsaE98CQQnGCw82UvDyPvTN6IMv8z4Bla_2aMA_m20qFFsp8pTDcv_LMZP_guSq23PoDx53nc6NxQ/s1600/download.jpg" width="225" /></a></div><br />1939 - Walt Disney received a special Oscar for his classic 83-minute animated film Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, at the 11th Academy Awards held at the Biltmore Hotel in Los Angeles, California.<p></p><p>Eleven-year-old child star Shirley Temple presented Walt with one statuette and seven miniature statuettes for "a significant screen innovation which has charmed millions and pioneered a great new entertainment field for the motion picture cartoon." (Film director Frank Capra came up with the idea of a full-sized Oscar statuette with seven smaller ones descending in a row.) A regular category for best animated feature would not exist until 2001.</p><p><br /></p><p>1940- Walt Disney’s second animated feature Pinocchio went into general release in theaters. It had a limited run since December.</p><p><br /></p><p>1994- The Russian Mir space station had been in space since 1986 but was starting to show it’s age. A booster ship sent with supplies collided with Mir during a bad-docking maneuver. This day an oxygen fire filled the Mir Space Station with smoke. The fire is put out but it’s just the beginning of 6 months of privation, accidents and hair-raising close-calls for the joint Russian-German crew, and lone American astronaut Jerry Leninger. Mir was retired in 2002 and burned up on re-entry.</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>Animation Educator's Forumhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12341440002824174240noreply@blogger.com0