Tom Sito's Animation Almanac for Oct. 17, 2024

Birthdays: Arthur Miller, Rita Hayworth, Jean Arthur, Montgomery Clift, Jimmy Breslin, Tom Poston, Gary Puckett, Margot Kidder, Evil Knievel, Jerry Siegel (Superman co-creator), Virgil 'Vip' Partch, Charles Kraft the sliced cheese king, Beverly Garland- star of Attack of the Alligator People, George Wendt, Cameron Mackintosh, Mike Judge is 62, Eminem is 52

 

 

1814- In London a large beer vat burst and drowned nine people.

 

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

The murderer was the famous Photographer and Motion Picture Pioneer Edweard Muybridge. Muybridges’ young wife Flora had been having an affair while he was working on his Motion Studies Series in Palo Alto. Muybridge discovered the son she bore him was not his. They were even calling him Little Harry behind his back. 

The jury that convened in Napa did not hang the artist-inventor. In the Code of the Old West, proven adultery was considered a justifiable homicide. Plus, Governor Leyland Stanford was paying for Muybridge’s experiments. So, he was acquitted. 

 

 

1919- The Radio Corporation of America (RCA) founded, the parent company of the NBC Network. 

 

1928- Duke Ellington recorded The Mouche, the Fly.

 

1937- Donald Duck’s nephews, Huey, Dewey and Louie, first appear in the Disney Sunday comic strip. Created by Al Taliaferro. The following year they first appeared in the short, Donald’s Nephews.

 

1938- The radio show Captain Midnight premiered on WGN Chicago. In 1940, sponsor Ovaltine dropped its decade old show Little Orphan Annie in favor of making Captain Midnight a nationwide broadcast.

 

1943- The Burma Railway was completed by occupying Japanese forces using British prisoners of war as laborers, the infamous Bridge on the River Kwai. Cartoonist Ronald Searle was there to document events in drawings. Contrary to the David Lean movie, the bridge was never blown up, and is still in use today.

 

1965- After a two-year run, the New York World’s Fair in Flushing Queens officially closed.

 

1967- The Hippy musical “Hair” opened at the Anspacher Theatre on Broadway. 

 

 

1989- In the late afternoon, the BAY AREA EARTHQUAKE- called the Loma Prieta Quake, shook San Francisco and vicinity. For the first time since 1906, fires were seen in the Mission District. The epicenter was a little town called Watsonville. 67 people were killed. 

  There was a World Series baseball game under way in Candlestick Park, but miraculously no one was hurt. National TV audiences amazed that local fans laughed at the danger. They chanted to the TV cameras: "Welcome to California!".

 

1990- William Stieg published his children’s book Shrek.

 

1990- IMDB.com, the Internet Movie Data Base started up. 

 

Tom Sito's animation almanac for Oct. 16, 2024

Birthdays: Lord Cardigan, Eugene O'Neill, Noah Webster, Dave DeBusschere, David Ben-Gurion, Disney animator Ham Luske, Angela Lansbury, Gunter Grass, Linda Darnell, Charles Colson, Susanne Somers, David Zucker, Flea of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Tim Robbins is 66.

 

 

1834- The British House of Parliament caught fire and burnt to the ground in a horrific conflagration. Luckily artists William Turner and John Constable were around watching the blaze from the south bank of the Thames, so at least we got a few neat paintings out of it...

 

1847- Jane Eyre, an Autobiography first published. Writer Charlotte Bronte’ did it under the pen-name Currier Bell.  

 

1860- Olivia Bedel, a little girl from NY, wrote a fan letter to presidential candidate Abraham Lincoln, where she suggested that he grow a beard. Abe took her advice.

 

 

101923- The Walt Disney Studios Born. 22 year old Walt and his older brother Roy signed a deal with Margaret M.J. Winkler for six "Alice in Cartoonland" short cartoons. Budget-$1,500 each.  

 

1929- New York City skyscraper the Chrysler Building completed. It won a race with the Bank of Manhattan Company to become the world’s tallest building. But it only held the title for a few months because the Empire State Building was going up.

 

1929- The frosted light bulb patented.

 

1943- Chicago Mayor Ed Kelly dedicated the new subway system.

 

1950- C.S. Lewis’ book “The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe” published. First book of the Chronicles of Narnia series.

 

1952- Charlie Chaplin’s film "Limelight" premiered in London. Chaplin had shot the film in Hollywood but released it in Europe because he had been driven into exile by McCarthyite Red Baiters.

 

1955- Ann Landers published her first column.

 

1969- The Miracle Mets. The New York Mets, then possessing some of the worst records in baseball history, defied all 100-1 odds and won the World Series, defeating the Baltimore Orioles in 5 games. 

 

1976- Disco Duck by Rick Dees became #1 on the pop charts.

 

1997- According to the writers of the 1965 television show 'Lost in Space', this was the date the Jupiter-2 with Will, Penny, Dr. Smith and the Robot took off to colonize deep space. "Danger! Danger! Spare me your insolence, you mechanical ninny..."

 

Tom Sito's. Animation Almanac for Oct. 15, 2024

Birthdays: Quintus Virgilius-Virgil 70 BC, Mughal Emperor Akbar the Great 1542, Oscar Wilde, Fredrich Nietszche, Mikail Lermontov, John L. Sullivan, Jane Darnell, Burt Gillett, John Kenneth Galbraith, Robert Trout, Klaus Barbie the Butcher of Lyon, P.G. Wodehouse, Penny Marshall, Mario Puzo, Sarah Ferguson-Fergie' the former Duchess of York, Chef Emeril LeGasse, Chuck Berry 

 

 

1905- First Little Nemo comic strip by Winsor McCay premiered in the NY Herald. McCay modeled the child on his own son Robert, and name Nemo came from a Latin root meaning no one.

 

1905- Premiere of Claude Debussy’s tone poem La Mer- the Sea.

 

 

1929- The Canadian Parliament passed a resolution declaring women to be people, too.

 

1930- Duke Ellington first recorded Mood Indigo.

 

 

1937- The Disney short Clock Cleaners premiered. “Loudly the Bell, in the Old Town rings….”

 

1940- Charlie Chaplin’s film The Great Dictator premiered.

 

 

1951- THE FIRST I LOVE LUCY SHOW- The successful family sitcom began its pilot episode this night. CBS and sponsor Phillip Morris had wanted Lucille Ball to transfer her popular radio show-“My Favorite Husband” to television. The story of the family life of Ricky Ricardo, a Cuban immigrant nightclub bandleader, his daffy wife Lucy, and their landlord friends Fred and Ethel Murtz became an overnight sensation. 

 

Oct 15, 1959- 20th Century Fox signed Elizabeth Taylor to star in their new movie Cleopatra. Legend has it when the studio called, Husband Eddie Fisher answered the phone. He called out to Taylor in the next room " Its Hal Wallis (producer). They want you to star in Cleopatra!" Taylor responded, " Tell him I'll do it for a million dollars!" After Fisher relayed the message, a pause, then Fisher said " He said yes!" The first time an actor was paid a million dollars for one role.

 

 

1969- The film musical Paint Your Wagon opened. Lerner & Lowe, Paddy Chayevsky, Andre Previn, Lee Marvin, Jean Seberg, Nelson Riddle, Josh Logan, with Clint Eastwood singing!

 

 

1976- What’s Love got to do with it? Ike and Tina Turner break up.

 

1988- Bottom of the 9^th, old, injured, Kirk Gibson came off the bench and hit the game winning home run to give the LA Dodgers victory over the Oakland A’s.

 

1989- Wayne Gretsky surpassed Gordie Howe’s all time record of scored points in hockey-1,850. The Great One went on to set a new record of 2,837 points before his retirement.

 

 

     

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tom Sito's animation almanac for Oct. 14, 2024

B-Days: William Penn-1644, King James II Stuart, Joseph Plateau, Sword master Masoaka Shiki 1867, Dwight Eisenhower, Lillian Gish, Ralph Lauren, Eamon De Valera, e.e. cummings, Mobutu Sese Seko, C. Everett Koop, John Dean III, Cliff Richards, Jack Arnold the director of the Creature from the Black Lagoon, Ralph Lauren- real name Ralph Lifshitz, Roger Moore. 

 

 

1492- Columbus and his men left San Salvador to continue west and look for Cipango- their name for Japan.

1529- WESTERN EUROPE DISCOVERED COFFEE- The first Turkish Siege of Vienna ended. Despite Sultan Sulieman the Magnificent telling his troops that if they didn't win, he would fill the Danube with their genitals, the Turkish army gave up the siege and fell back into Hungary.  As the Viennese went through the Turkish camp, they found large quantities of black beans that tasted awful. A Polish mercenary named Adam Kolschitsky had lived in Turkey and knew what to do with them. He opened the first Viennese coffeehouse, the KolschitskyDom. He is also credited with inventing the coffee filter, which made the strong Turkish java palatable to Europeans. The Viennese commemorated their victory with a pastry shaped like the Turkish battle ensign, the crescent, or the croissant.  

 

1670-At a performance at the Chateau of Chambord before King Louis XIV Moliere’s satire “Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme” premiered. Lully wrote the music.

1908- The Chicago Cubs defeated the Detroit Tigers for their first World Series championship. The next time they won a World Series was 2016.

 

1912- While going to give a political speech in Milwaukee, a lunatic named William Shrenck shot Teddy Roosevelt in the chest. The bullet was slowed down tearing through his clothes, speech notes and tin eyeglasses case, and missed any important organs. Bleeding from his side Teddy spat in his hand to see if there was blood in his spittle, which would mean internal damage. Seeing there was none, he went ahead and gave his 90 minute speech before going to a hospital. -Bully!

 

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

 

1934- The Lux Radio Theater premiered.

 

 

1950- The LAPD raided a house party of gay men, which was illegal back then. One of the men arrested was future movie star Tab Hunter. This was kept secret until in 1955, when an angry agent leaked the story to Confidential Magazine. “Tab Hunter Busted at Limp-Wristed Pajama Party!” It soon blew over and Tab Hunter went on to have a full movie career.

 

1954- First day of shooting on Cecil B. DeMille’s remake of the Ten Commandments staring Charlton Heston out in the Egyptian desert. It was so brutally hot that Anne Baxter joked to Vincent Price “ Vin, who do I have to sleep with to get OFF this movie?”

 

1955- Actor Zero Mostel testified before the House Un-American Activities Committee. .

 

1959- Errol Flynn died of a heart attack in Vancouver. Exhausted by overindulgence in his many vices, doctors said the 50 year old movie star had the body of a 70 year old. A descendant of one of the Bounty mutineers, the Tasmanian born actor's last film was ' Cuban Rebel Girls'.

1964- Dr. Martin Luther King Jr won the Nobel Peace Prize.

 

 

1972 - KUNG FU, starring David Carradine, premiered on ABC TV.

In her memoirs, Bruce Lee's widow, Linda Lee Cadwell, asserts that Lee created the concept for the series. There is circumstantial evidence for this in a December 8, 1971 television interview that Bruce Lee gave on The Pierre Berton Show. In the interview, Lee stated that he had developed a concept for a television series called THE WARRIOR, meant to star himself, about a martial artist in the American Old West (the same concept as KUNG FU, which aired the following year), but that he was having trouble pitching it to Warner Brothers and Paramount. Show creator and producer Ed Spielman denied taking Bruce Lees idea. He claimed he had been working on it on the East Coast long before. The show’s star David Carradine was a “gweilo”-Cantonese for white foreigner, pretending to be Chinese.

 

1972- Joe Cocker and his backup band were busted in Australia for drug possession.

 

 

1978- Lover Scott Thorsten “outs” pianist Liberace by filing a palimony suit.

 

1979- Wayne Gretsky scored his first goal.

 

2014- Actress Elizabeth Peña, the voice of Mirage (Syndrome's sexy right-hand woman and accomplice) in the Pixar’s The Incredibles, passed away at age 55 from cirrhosis of the liver.

 

Tom Sito's animation almanac for Oct. 13, 2024

Birthdays: Revolutionary War hero Mary Ludwig nicknamed Molly Pitcher, Lily Langtry-the Jersey Lilly, Lenny Bruce, Larraine Day, Nipsy Russell, Cornel Wilde, Margaret Thatcher, Herblock, Yves Montand, Nancy Kerrigan, Sammy Hagar, Marie Osmond, Kelly Preston, Chris Carter, Paul Simon is 83, Sascha Baron-Cohen is 52

 

 

1903- Victor Herbert’s operetta Babes in Toyland premiered.

 

1904- Sigmund Freud's book 'The Interpretation of Dreams" first published.

  

 

1938- E.C. Segar, the creator of Popeye the Sailor and the Thumble Theater, died of leukemia at age 44.

 

1938- RKO Pictures was having a salary dispute with their singing cowboy Gene Autry. So, they cast around for another handsome cowpoke. Today they signed a Cincinnati born dentist from a vocal group called the Sons of the Pioneers named Leonard Slye. He became a star with the film “Under Western Skies” under his new name- Roy Rogers. 

 

 

1947- Kukla, Fran & Ollie debuted on television. Burt Tillstrom was the creator and puppeteer, and Fran was his wife.

 

 

1978- Mickey Mouse gets his star on Hollywood Blvd Walk of Fame.

 

1982- The computer spreadsheet program Lotus 1-2-3 introduced.

 

1993- The Nightmare Before Christmas premiered. Directed by Henry Selick. Based on a three-page poem Tim Burton wrote in the 80s while a bored Disney staff animator. 

 

2002- Tod Rosendahl and John Carmack declared their revolutionary graphic software Blender would be Open Source. Free to all to use.

 

2016 – Bob Dylan was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature.

Tom Sito's Animation Almanac for Oct. 12, 2024

Birthdays: King Edward VI- only son of Henry VIII called God’s Imp”, Emperor Pedro I of Brazil 1798, Helena Modjeska, Ralph Vaughn-Williams, Alastair Crowley, Luciano Pavarrotti, animator Izzy Klein, animator Corny Cole, Gumby creator Art Klokey, Joan Rivers, Dick Gregory, Tony Kubek, Susan Anton, Kirk Cameron, Hugh Jackman is 56. 

 

1762- Czarina Catherine the Great got vaccinated for smallpox in front of her entire court, to prove to them there was nothing to be afraid of. 

1886- Beginning of Sherlock Holmes story:” Adventure of the Second Stain”.

 

1920- Champion racehorse Man O’ War won his last race.

 

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

1937- Under pressure from parent Paramount Studio, Max Fleischer signed the first animation union contract and settled the cartoonist strike begun May 8th. A year later Fleischer tried to escape unions by moving his studio to Right-To-Work State Florida, where the governor bragged “ All the union organizers here are hanging from trees.” The additional expense and poor box office helped sink his studio.

1940- Retired movie star Tom Mix “The King of the Cowboys” died in auto crash outside of Florence, Arizona. The 60 year old actor ignored signs that a bridge was out and drove into a dry gulley. A large overpacked suitcase popped out of his back seat, hit him in the back and broke his neck. “The Suitcase of Death” is preserved along with Tony the Wonder Horse at the Tom Mix Museum in Oklahoma.

 

1942- Louis Armstrong married his second wife, singer Lucille Watson. She made a home for him in a suburban neighborhood in Queens New York that Satchmo always returned to after traveling the world.

 

1966- Sammy Davis Jr. appeared on the Batman TV Show. Sock-it-to-me!

 

 

1971-Weber & Rice’s musical Jesus Christ Superstar opened on Broadway at the Mark Hellinger theater. 

 

1977- Script completed for the classic film comedy Animal House.

30^th Anniv. 1994- Steven Spielberg, David Geffen and Jeffrey Katzenberg announce their new partnership would be named Dreamworks SKG. 

 

1997- 53 year old singer John Denver died when he crashed his ultra-light Long E-Z plane into the ocean near Monterrey California. Later reports showed he was flying inebriated.  An open sixpack of beer was found next to him. The impact was so great his body had to be identified by fingerprints.

 

2005- Chinese archaeologists near the Yellow River discovered the world’s oldest bowl of noodles. Someone’s fossilized noodle lunch from a bowl that tipped over in 2,000 BC, and remained that way for 4,000 years.

Tom Sito's Animation Almanac for Oct. 11, 2024

Birthdays: Eleanor Roosevelt, Henry Heinz the Ketchup king, Jerome Robbins, Carl Hubbard, Ron Leibman, John Candy, Omar Shariff, Ben Vereen, Art Blakey, Luke Perry, Joan Cusak, Jane Krakowski, Sig Ruman– the fat actor with the goatee and the over-the-top German accent in the Marx Brothers comedies.

 

 

1944-“ To Have and to Have Not,” written by Ernest Hemingway premiered. The movie paired Humphrey Bogart with a sultry Harpers model turned actress Betty-Lou Persky, now renamed Lauren Bacall. Bacall originally had a higher voice, but director Howard Hawks told her every day to go behind the soundstage and scream for an hour, to bring her voice down to a dusky, sexy alto. It worked on Bogart, who fell in love and married her despite his being 44 and she 20 years old. They called each other Slim and Steve after the characters in the film. “If you want me, just whistle. You know how to whistle, don’t you? Just put your lips together and blow.”

 

1956- The Muppets first appeared on national TV, on the Steve Allen Show.

 

1960- The Bugs Bunny Show premiered on TV. “Overture, Curtain, lights! This is it, we’ll hit the heights, and oh what heights we’ll hit…..etc..”

 

 

1962- McHales Navy TV show premiered. Starring Ernest Borgnine, Tim Conway and Joe Flynn.

 

1967- The NY Times printed an image of a nude by Bell Lab artists-in-residence Leon Harmon and Ken Knowlton.  Titled Study in Perception I, It was done on a computer as a digital mosaic of thousands of numbers. It was an early breakthrough in digital imaging or CGI.

 

1968- Apollo 7 blasted off. The first of the Apollo Program, replacing the Gemini program.

1975- NBC needed a Saturday replacement for the Best Of Carson reruns, so Lorne Michaels’ TV show SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE premiered. Featuring the Not-Yet-Ready-For-Prime-Time Players: John Belushi, Dan Ackroyd, Gilda Radner, Garrett Morris, Chevy Chase, Lorraine Newman, Gilda Radner, Jane Curtin and Michael O’Donaghue. First guest host George Carlin did his opening monologue while stoned.

Albert Brooks did a short film and Andy Kaufman did his Mighty Mouse lip sync bit. 

Paul Shaefer conducted the music and the show was held in NBC’s Studio 8H, which was built originally for Maestro Arturo Toscanini and The NBC Symphony of the Air. At the last moment a sketch by young Billy Crystal was cut from the show. 

The show also revived the career of announcer Don Pardo, who had trouble finding work since the original Jeopardy quiz show was canceled. He was the announcer for the show until his death in 2014 at age 96. 

 

1978- Sex Pistols bass player Sid Vicious murdered his girlfriend Nancy Spungen at the Chelsea Hotel in New York. Sid was too stoned to explain why he had killed her. It’s assumed they had a suicide pact. Sid Vicious died of an overdose before his trial.

 

1987- The AIDS Quilt was first displayed on the National Mall in Washington.

 

1991- Comedian Redd Foxx was famous for doing bits like faking a heart attack. This day on the set of his new TV series The Royal Family, while joking with Della Reese, he clutched his chest and fell over. Everyone thought he was faking and laughed.  But this time he wasn’t. He died at the hospital an hour later.

 

2001- V.S. Naipul won the Nobel Prize for literature.