Animation Fun Facts for New Years Eve Dec. 31,2011

Pixar Storyboard Artist Ronnie Del Carmen born.

1995- The final Calvin & Hobbs comic strip published.

FROM ALL OF US WHO TEACH ANIMATION, HAVE A HEALTHY AND PROSPEROUS NEW YEAR!

Animation Fun Facts for Friday Dec. 30, 2011

Birthdays- Rudyad Kipling, the author of The Jungle Book, and Douglas Engelbart the inventor of the computer mouse.


1988 the Pixar short Tin Toy released. The first CG short to win an Oscar.

Animation Fun Facts for Thursday Dec. 29, 2011

1913- Cecil B.DeMille telegraphed his partners back in New York:” Flagstaff no good for our purpose. Have proceeded to California. Want authority to rent a barn in a place called Hollywood for $75 a month.” His partner Sam Goldwyn cabled back: “ Rent barn on month to month basis. Do not make long commitment.” DeMille began shooting the Squaw Man, the first Hollywood Film.

1941- Disney animator Bill Tytla tells Time Magazine in an interview about creating "Dumbo": "I don't know a damn thing about elephants!"

Animation Fun Facts for Weds Dec 28,2011

birthdays: Stan “The Man” Lee is 89, Martin Branner the creator of Winnie Winkle, Disney animator Rick Farmiloe

1895- THE BIRTHDAY OF CINEMA- In Paris at the Grande Cafe des Capuchines the Lumiere brothers combined Edison's kinetoscope using George Eastman’s roll film with a magic lantern projector and showed a motion picture to an audience in a theater. Back in the U.S. Thomas Edison thought the idea of projecting film in a theater was foolish and would never catch on. They called their device a Cinematograph, hence the word Cinema is born. The screening included dancers and people leaving a factory but the biggest reaction out of the audience was from shots of waves crashing on a rocky beach. The audience jumped for fear of getting wet.

1914- THE FIRST TRUE CHARACTER ANIMATION- Windsor McCay's "Gertie the Dinosaur" premieres as part of a vaudeville act. Up to then most U.S. animations were attempts to bring popular newspaper comic characters to life, but Gertie was a new character never before seen. Some critics had wondered if animated characters weren’t some kind of man in a special suit, so McCay drew a dinosaur, a character that couldn’t possibly be impersonated by a living thing. The brilliant draftsmanship and timing of this film would inspire the generation of Animation artists of the Golden Age of the 1930's-40s.

Animation Fun Facts for Tuesday Dec.27,2011

1904- PETER PAN, OR, THE BOY WHO WOULDN’T GROW UP, a play by James Barrie, opened at the Duke of York Theatre in London. Barrie reserved seats in the opening night performance for orphaned children who laughed and cheered all night. Peter llewlyn Davies, the little boy Barrie befriended who was the basis for Pan, used to say:” I am not Peter Pan. Mr Barrie is.”, He committed suicide in 1960. James Barrie once said to H.G. Wells:” It’s all right and good to write books, but can you wiggle your ears?”

1947- The "Howdy-Doody Show” debuted on NBC. Buffalo Bob, Howdy and Clarabell the Clown, also known as the Puppet Playhouse.

1954- The" Disneyland" television show premieres. Up until then the major Hollywood Studios were all boycotting the new upstart medium of television, then mostly done in New York by blacklisted stage actors and writers. Walt Disney is the first to break ranks with the major film studios and get into television production and even films the show in Technicolor, figuring television will develop color broadcasting eventually.

Animation Fun Facts for Sunday Dec. 25,2011 Xmas

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Birthdays: Cab Calloway, cartoonist teacher Burne Hogarth, Animator and teacher Howard Beckerman,


1955- Chuck Jone's 'One Froggy Evening' premiered. Director Steven Spielberg called it the "Citizen Kane of Cartoons." If you wonder why you never heard the old time ditty 'The Michigan Rag' anywhere else but here, was because Chuck Jones & Mike Maltese wrote it specifically for the cartoon.

1963- Walt Disney’s The Sword in the Stone released. First animated feature directed by Wolfgang,” Woolie” Reitherman.

Animation Fun Facts for Friday Dec. 23,2011

Birthdays; Otto Soglow -cartoonist of 'the Little King', Frank Morgan (the Wizard of Oz actor), Simpsons voice actor Harry Shearer is 68

1893- Humperdinck's opera "Hansel und Gretel" debuts in Weimar Germany.

1935- Walt Disney sent a detailed memo to art teacher Don Graham outlining his plans for retraining his animators to do realistic feature films.

Animation Fun Facts for Weds Dec. 21,2011

Birthdays: Animator Phil Roman, voice actor Paul Winchell, Keifer Samuel L. Jackson is 63, Ray Romano is 54, Jeffrey Katzenberg is 63

1937-Walt Disney's " Snow White and the Seven Dwarves" had it’s grand premiere. The first feature length American cartoon, it becomes the box office champ of 1938-earning 4 times more than any other film that year.

1971- Richard William's animated TV special "A Christmas Carol" with Alastair Sim reprising his scrooge.

Animation Fun Facts for Tuesday Dec. 20,2011

Birthdays: Amby Paliwoda, voice actor Charlie Callas,

1937- Nazis Josef Goebbels noted in his diary that this day he sent his boss Adolph Hitler a Christmas present of a dozen Mickey Mouse Cartoons from America. Officially der Fuehrer called Mickey ‘vermin’ but privately enjoyed his animated antics.

1968- Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day premiered.

Animation Fun Facts for Monday Dec. 19,2011

1914- Earl Hurd patented animation 'cels' (celluloids) and backgrounds. Before this cartoonists tried drawing the background settings over and over again hundreds of times or slashed the paper around the character and tried not to have it walk in front of anything. By the late 1990’s, most cels & cel paint had been replaced by digital imaging.

1974- The first personal computer went on sale. The Altair 8800, named for the planet in the 1955 sci-fi movie classic Forbidden Planet. The computer came in a kit that you had to build and it cost $397. The next year, two kids at Harvard named Bill Gates and Paul Allen created a programming language for it called BASIC.


2001- Peter Jackson’s film ‘The Lord of the Rings, the Fellowship of the Ring’ first opened.

Animation Fun Facts for Sunday Dec. 18, 2011

Birthdays: Diane Disney-Miller,Paul Klee, Leonard Maltin, Steven Spielberg is 65

1939-Max Fleischer's animated classic “Gulliver's Travels”.

1961-" In the Jungle, the mighty jungle, the lion sleeps to-night…a winoweh, etc. " this song by the Tokens goes to #1 in pop charts. Later used in Disney's The Lion King.

1964- DePatie-Freleng’s The Pink Phink, the first Pink Panther cartoon short.

1966- Chuck Jone's 'How the Grinch Stole Christmas' premiered.

1997- Saturday Night Live Comedian Chris Farley was found dead in his Chicago apartment in the John Hancock Tower, surrounded by empty food containers and porn magazines. The chubby 31-year-old had been partying for 17 straight hours doing cocaine, heroin, vodka and crystal-meth. he was working on the animated film Shrek as the voice of Shrek. He was replaced by Mike Myers.

1998- Dreamworks feature cartoon the “Prince of Egypt”, or, as it was known in Hollywood,"The Zion King".

Animation Fun Facts for Saturday Dec. 17,2011

1843- Charles Dickens "A Christmas Carol: A Ghost Story for Christmas" first published. In the 18th century and earlier the Christmas celebration was a more rowdy affair with public drinking, marching around in costumes “mummery” and mayhem more like today’s Mardi Gras. This is why the Pilgrims tried to ban it. The popularity of Dickens story of Scrooge, Marley and Tiny Tim did much to help Victorians change the nature of the Christmas celebration to a more intimate and pious observance among centered on the family. Dickens said he wrote the story to make some money capitalizing on the new fashions for family Christmas celebrations around the tree. American business tycoon J.P. Morgan had a family custom every Christmas Eve of reading A Christmas Carol to his kids, from the original manuscript.

1989- The Simpsons, first debuted.

1999- The film Stuart Little premiered.

Animation Fun Facts for Saturday Dec. 17,2011

1843- Charles Dickens "A Christmas Carol: A Ghost Story for Christmas" first published. In the 18th century and earlier the Christmas celebration was a more rowdy affair with public drinking, marching around in costumes “mummery” and mayhem more like today’s Mardi Gras. This is why the Pilgrims tried to ban it. The popularity of Dickens story of Scrooge, Marley and Tiny Tim did much to help Victorians change the nature of the Christmas celebration to a more intimate and pious observance among centered on the family. Dickens said he wrote the story to make some money capitalizing on the new fashions for family Christmas celebrations around the tree. American business tycoon J.P. Morgan had a family custom every Christmas Eve of reading A Christmas Carol to his kids, from the original manuscript.

1989- The Simpsons, first debuted.

1999- The film Stuart Little premiered.

Animation Fun Facts for Friday Dec. 16,2011

Arthur C. Clarke born

1871- BOSS TWEED INDICTED- William Marcy Tweed as New York City Commissioner of Public Works was behind one of the most corrupt city governments in U.S. history. Tweed mobilized poor and immigrant voters into political power and bought and sold Mayoral building projects. The cost overruns to build a simple courthouse cost more than the total cost to build the British Parliament in London- $13 million dollars. For example He billed the city $14,000 for 11 thermometers.

The press tried to expose him, but it was really Thomas Nast’s cartoons in Harper’s Weekly who helped bring the Tweed Ring down. Boss Tweed said: "I don’t mind the newspaper articles since most of my voters can’t read, but those damn pictures!" Tweed once offered Nast half a million dollars to go to Europe and "study art". Nast refused. Boss Tweed ended his life in the Ludlow Street Jail, which he himself built.

1900 -EARLY ANIMATED FILM "ENCHANTED DRAWINGS', James Stuart Blackton was a New York World cartoonist who used to do a vaudeville act in drag. He came to do an article on Thomas Edison then Edison put him on the payroll. He created this and several other trickfilms. It doesn’t move much more than his vaudeville lightning drawing act, His 1906 film Humorous Phases of Funny Faces is considered the first animated cartoon.

Animation Fun Facts for Thursday Dec. 15,2011

Birthdays: Ernie Pintoff, the director of the Violinist, and the Critic.

1815- Giacomo Rossini received the commission to write a new opera based on Beaumarchais the Marriage of Figaro- The Barber of Seville. Bugs Bunny to come.

1966-Walt Disney died at age 65. He was alone in the room at Saint Joseph's when he died. A heavy cigarette smoker- his favorites were Malboro and French Gitanes- he suffered from lung cancer and respiratory failure. Contrary to the legend that he's cryogenically frozen in a room in the Sleeping Beauty Castle at Disneyland, he was cremated and interred at Forest Lawn. Or maybe that’s what he WANTS us to think?!

Animation Fun Facts for Weds Dec 14,2011

1913- Cartoonist Johnny Gruelle entertained his dying daughter by making up stories involving her rag dollies. After her passing friends urged Gruelle to publish them. The RAGGEDY ANN & ANDY stories are born.

1957- Hanna Barbera's first TV cartoon "Ruff and Ready" premieres.

Animation Fun Facts for Tuesday Dec.13,2011

1940- Fleischer Popeye cartoon "Eugene the Jeep" .The Thimble Theater character would give its name to the new army General Purpose vehicle- G.P. or "Jeep".

Animation Fun Facts for Sunday Dec. 11,2011

1970- Walt Disney's The Aristocats opened.

Animation Fun Facts for Friday Dec. 9,2011

Birthdays: Elzie Segar the creator of Popeye

1965- Bill Melendez's "A Charlie Brown Christmas" the first half hour
animated t.v. special featuring the music of Vince Guaraldi. Producer Lee Mendelson
had heard Guaraldi's jazz combo perform in San Francisco. He never scored a
film before:" How many yards of music do you want?" A Charlie Brown Christmas has run every year for 46 years.

1994- Disney Animators in California move into their new Animation building designed
by Robert Stern.

Animation Fun Facts for Weds Dec 7, 2011

Clarence Nash born, the creator of the voice of Donald Duck.

Animation Fun Facts for Tuesday Dec. 6,2011

Birthdays: British Aardmann animation director Nick Park.

1877- First edition of the Washington Post.

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


1964- Rankin Bass' t.v. special 'Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer' first broadcast.
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Animation Fun Facts for Mon Dec 5th ,2011

Walt Disney born 1901

Animation Fun Facts for Sun Dec. 4,2011

Birthdays: Jeff Bridges from TRON is 62, Fred Armisen is 45

1875- William Marcy “Boss Tweed” escaped Ludlow Street jail and fled to Cuba. He had been the corrupt boss of New York City politics throughout the 1860s and 70s. He was rearrested in Spain by a Spanish policeman who spoke no English. When asked by American diplomats the Spaniard said he saw newspaper cartoons by Thomas Nast of Tweed in prison garb with his hands on two young boys, so he thought he was a kidnapper! Tweed was brought to justice by the one crime he probably never did.

1941- film "Mr. Bug Goes to Town"-opened. Max Fleischer's last gamble to keep up with Disney and keep his studio alive. However the events of Pearl Harbor three days later not only sink the American Navy, but also Hoppity's box office and puts Max out of business.

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

Animation Fun Facts for Sat Dec. 3,2011

Andrew Stanton is 46, Pixar Director of Finding Nemo and Wall-E.

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

Animation Fun Facts for Friday Dec. 2,2011

Lucy Liu is 43, she did a voice in Dreamworks Kung Fu Panda 1 and II.

1935- Animator Marc Davis first day at Walt Disney Studios. He animated Cruella Da Ville, Malificent and designed Pirates of the Caribbean. He retired in 1978.

Animation Fun Facts for Thurs Dec. 1,2011

1835- Hans Christian Andersen published his first book of stories.

1887- The first Sherlock Holmes story " A Study in Scarlett" first published.

Animation Fun Facts for Weds Nov. 30,2011

Birthdays: Samuel Clemens aka Mark Twain, Jonathan Swift, Joan Ganz Cooney the creator of Sesame Street

2003- Roy Disney Jr, the last serving member of the Disney family, was forced to resign from the Walt Disney Company. It was claimed to be the mandatory retirement policy, but more likely he was forced out by the exec he hired to run the company in 1984- Michael Eisner. So Roy built a successful grass roots stockholders campaign SaveDisney.com. In 2005 Eisner was compelled to retire. Roy Disney kept an emeritus board position until his death in 2009.

Animation Fun Facts for Tuesday Nov. 29,2011

1915- In the first years of animated films, one artist like Winsor McCay drew everything. This day John Randolph Bray's "Colonel Heeza Liar in Africa" cartoon debuted. Bray adapted Henry Ford's assembly line system to making animation, creating positions of layout, background painters, inkers, cel painters, checkers and camera. After 1919 Bray shifted his studio’s focus from entertainment to technical and training films. Paul Terry, Walter Lantz, Max & Dave Fleischer and Shamus Culhane all got their start at Bray's.

Bray's production line model remained unchanged for the rest of the XX century, until the new digital categories.

Animation Fun Facts for Mon Nov. 28, 2011

Pixar composer Randy Newman born.

1947- Disney's first Chip & Dale cartoon.

Animation Fun Facts for Sun Nov. 27,2011

1933- Former Terrytoons animator Art Babbitt, now at Disney's, writes to fellow animator Bill Tytla encouraging him to move to California. "Terry owes you a lot and Disney has plans for a full length color cartoon!"

1936- Max Fleischer's cartoon featurette, "Popeye meets Sinbad the Sailor".

2002- Disney's Treasure Planet premiered.

Animation Fun Facts for Sat Nov. 26,2011

Charles Schulz born, the cartoonist creator of Peanuts.


1865- Lewis Carroll sent a copy of the completed manuscript of his fantasy Alice in Wonderland to his12 year old friend and inspiration Alice Liddell. Carroll later published the book with his own money. This is one of the first books written solely to amuse children, and not to educate or discipline them.

Animation Fun Facts for Fri Nov. 25,2011

Animator Bill Kroyer born

1992 Disney's Aladdin released

2009 Disney's Princess and the Frog released.

Animation Fun Facts for Thanksgiving Nov. 24,2011

Billy Connolly born, Scottish comedian who did voices on Disney's Pocahontas and Little Nessie.

2010 Disney's Tangled released.

Animation Fun Facts for Weds Nov. 23,2011

Boris Karloff born, the narrator of Chuck Jones' The Grinch who Stole Christmas.


1952- Animator Fred Moore, who drew Mickey Mouse in Fantasia and the Brave Little Tailor, died from injuries incurred in an auto accident in the Big Tujunga Canyon area of Los Angeles.

Animation Fun Facts for Tues Nov. 22, 2011

Geraldine Page born, the voice of Madame Medusa in Disney's The Rescuers 1977

Animator/Director Terry Gilliam is 71.

1952 Animator Fred Moore fatally injured in a car crash in Big Tujunga Canyon

1995- Pixar’s Toy Story opened, the first all CG animated movie, and the first CG hit.

Animation Fun Facts for Mon Nov. 21,2011

1942- Warner's "A Tale of Two Kitties" the first Tweety Pie. I tawt I taw a puddy cat !

Animation Fun Facts for Sunday Nov 20, 2011

Birthdays: Sam Wright,the voice of Sebastian in The Little Mermaid and Ming Na, the voice of Muhlan.

1998- Pixar's A Bug's Life is released.

Animation Fun Facts for Saturday Nov 19, 2011

1959- the Rocky and Bullwinkle Show debuted!

See you all at the CTN Educators roundtable at 10 in the Exec Board Room!

Animation Fun Facts for Friday Nov 18,2011

See you at the CTN Expo in Burbank California this weekend!

Owen Wilson, the voice of Rocket McQueen in Cars and Cars II, is 43,

1928- HAPPY BIRTHDAY MICKEY MOUSE- At the Colony Theater in New York Walt Disney’s cartoon "Steamboat Willie" debuted- The first major sound cartoon success and the official birth of Mickey Mouse. Two earlier silent Mickey's had been done, but they were held back when the sound experiment went ahead.

1970- At the Lakeside School in Seattle, a young kid named Bill Gates got his start in computer programming.

1985- Bill Watterson’s comic strip Calvin & Hobbs debuted.

1988- Disney’s Oliver & Company released.
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Animation Fun Facts for Thursday Nov 17,2011

Birthdays: Disney Nine Old Man animator Les Clark, Martin Scorcese is 69


1989- Don Bluth's animated film "All Dogs Go to Heaven." premiered.
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Animation Fun Facts for Weds Nov. 16,2011

1990- Disney’s feature film the Rescuers Down Under premiered. The first traditionally animated film to be painted digitally on computer instead of acetate cels and paints.

Animation Fun Facts for Tuesday Nov. 15,2011

Birthdays Bill Melendez- director of A Charlie Brown Xmas, Beverly D'Angelo- actress who began as a cell painter on Scooby Doo. Ed Asner the voice of Karl Fredrichs in Pixar's UP is 82,

1907- The comic strip Mutt & Jeff debuted. The strip was so popular that it’s creator Harry “Bud “ Fisher became a celebrity and negotiated the first large backend deals.

1934- Animator Bill Tytla starts at Disney's on a trial basis for $150 a week. He would create Grumpy the Dwarf, The Devil in Fantasia and Dumbo.

1965- Walt Disney announced he planned to build a second Disneyland, this time in Orlando Florida.

1989- Disney's The Little Mermaid debuted. When it opened in Copenhagen, director John Musker and Ron Clements attended a gala and sat next to the Queen of Denmark. They agonized over what would be her reaction to the reworking of the unhappy ending in this great Danish work, but the Queen's reaction was "It's beautiful! Hans Christian Andersen never could write a decent ending..."

Animation Fun Facts for Sunday Nov 13, 2011

1940- Walt Disney's 'Fantasia' opened. as Walt put it, "this'll make Beethoven!"
Frank Lloyd Wright's opinion was 'I love the visuals, but why did you use all that old music?"

1978- Mickey Mouse got his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

1991- Disney's animated film Beauty and the Beast opened, the first animated film ever nominated for a Best Picture Oscar.

Animation Fun Facts for Saturday Nov 12, 2011

Animator James "Shamus" Culhane born.

1946- Disney's "Song of the South" with William Baskett as Uncle Remus. Premiered. Zippity-Doo Dah, Zippty Yeay!

Animation Fun Facts for Friday Nov 11,2011

1940- The F.B.I. enlisted Walt Disney as an informant. His mission was to inform on lefties like Union Leaders and Pinko actors in Hollywood. Most of the other studio heads were likewise cooperating with the Feds.

Animation Fun Facts for Thursday Nov 10,2011

Looney Tunes composer Carl Stalling born

Lion King lyricist Tim Rice born

1950- Paramount's "Mice Meeting You" The first Herman and Katnip cartoon.

1953- Disney’s short “ Toot Whistle, Plunk and Boom” released.

1969- The children’s education show SESAME STREET premiered on PBS TV. The world is introduced to Bert & Ernie, Cookie Monster, Grover, Big Bird and Mr Hooper.

Animation Fun Facts for Thurs. Nov 3, 2011

The Birthday of Osamu Tezuka, 1928-1989. Called " The God of Manga" Tezuka, the first internationally known anime animator created AstroBoy, Speed Racer and Gigantor.

Disney Designer Gustav Tennegren born.

Voice actor Jim Cummings born.

1977- Disney's Pete's Dragon premiered.

Animation Fun Facts for Tuesday Nov. 1,2011

Retta Davidson born in 1921, one of the first women to become a Disney Animator.

2003 Disney's feature Brother Bear opened.

Animation Fun Facts for Monday Oct 31,2011

Famed Disney animator Ollie Johnston born 99 years ago.

Animation Fun Facts for Saturday Oct 29 ,2011

Ralph Bakshi born.

Animation Fun Facts for Thurs. Oct 27,2011

Cartoonist Berni Wrightson born.

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

Animation Fun Facts for Weds. Oct 26,2011

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

1971- The First Doonesbury Comic Strip.

Animation Fun Facts for Monday Oct 24,2011

1908- animator Preston Blair born

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

1994- TV series Gargoyles premiered.

Animation Fun Facts for Sunday Oct 23 ,2011

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

1941 Walt Disney's Dumbo premiered.

1971 Walt Disney World in Orlando Florida opened.

Animation Fun Facts for Friday Oct 21,2011

100th Anniversary of the birth of Disney art director Mary Blair. 1911-1976.

Animation Fun Facts for Weds Oct 19,2011

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

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

Animation Fun Facts for Tuesday Oct 18,2011

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

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

Animation Fun Facts for Monday Oct 17,2011

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

Animation Fun Facts for Sunday Oct 16 ,2011

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

Abstract animation filmmaker David Ehrlich born.


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

Animation Fun Facts for Saturday Oct 15 ,2011

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

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

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

Animation Fun Facts for Friday Oct 14,2011

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

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

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


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

Animation Fun Facts for Weds. Oct 12,2011

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

Hugh Jackman is 43

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

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

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

Animation Fun Facts for Monday Oct 10,2011

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


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

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

Animation Fun Facts for Friday Oct 7,2011

1971- Disney's film Bedknobs and Broomsticks premiered.


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

Cornelius Cole Life Celebration

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

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

Animation Fun Facts for Tuesday Oct 4,2011

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

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

Animation Fun Facts for Saturday Oct 01,2011

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

Animation Fun Facts for Thursday Sept 29,2011

Birthdays: cartoonist Russ Heath

1959-Hanna Barbera's "Quick Draw McGraw" tv show. Ba ba Louie and El Kabong!

1976- At his birthday party musician Jerry Lee Lewis accidentally shot his bass player Norman Owens in the chest with s 357 magnum. He said he was using the gun to try and open a soft drink bottle and it accidentally went off. Owens survived and sued Lewis.

1996- The first Nintendo Game system, NES the first 64 bit game system, debuted in the US. It sold 500,000 the first day.

Animation Fun Facts for Tuesday Sept 27,2011

Birthdays: Thomas Nast, XIX centuy cartoonist who defined the image of Santa Claus, and created the Democratic Donkey and Republican Elephant.

1771-Young artist Francisco Goya enters a scholarship competition sponsored by the Academy of Parma. He loses to some obscure artist named Bettino. Judges say about his work: "Crude and ugly colors".

1961- Hanna Barbera's "Top Cat" show premiered. Do you remember the words to the theme song..? "Top Cat, the most effectual- Top Cat, who's intellectual: Close friends get to call him T.C., Providing it's with dignity. Top Cat, the indisputable leader of the gang... He's the Boss he's a pip, he's the championship, He's the most tip-top, Top Cat !"

1977- Bob McKimson, Warner director of countless Foghorn Leghorn shorts, falls dead of heart failure in front of Friz Freleng and Yosemite Sam animator Gerry Chiniquy while having lunch. Fellow artist Art Leonardi had asked Bob for a souvenir drawing that morning, Bob did him a Bugs Bunny but as he was leaving Art reminded him that he neglected to sign it. Bob said as he walked out "Oh, I'll get to it after lunch..."

Animation Fun Facts for Monday Sept 26,2011

Birthdays: Winsor McKay-1869, Theodore Gericault -1791,


1941- Max Fleischer's "Superman" cartoon debuts. They were much more expensive that the usual short cartoons- $90,000 to the usual $40,000, but Paramount wanted them.

1983- Filmation's "He-Man and the Masters of the Universe".

1987- A market research group called Q-5 tried to use a bank of computers to design the ultimate safe, wholesome, politically-correct children's show. They came up with "The Little Clowns of Happytown"-. Of the 26 children's series in syndication it remained dead last in ratings, He-Man, Jem and G.I. Joe on top. The people have spoken.

1990- The Motion Picture Association changed the rating for the naughtiest movies from X to NC-17.

Animation Fun Facts for Sunday Sept 25th

Will Smith is 43 ( he did a voice in the cartoon Sharktale)

1965- The Beatles cartoon show premiered.

Animation Fun Facts for Saturday Sept 24,2011

Birthdays, Pedro Almodovar, Jim Henson, Brad Bird is 54.


1934- Frank Thomas’s first day as a Walt Disney Animator.

1938- Bob Clampett's cartoon "Porky in Wackyland" ( Foo!)

1953-UPA's "Unicorn in the Garden" directed by Bill Hurtz, based on the cartoon style and story by James Thurber.

Animation Fun Facts for Friday Sept 23,2011

1962- H& B's show The Jetsons' premiered. It was the first ABC show to be presented in color. Jane! Stop this Crazy Thing! Jane!

1984-Michael Eisner, Jeffrey Katzenberg and Frank Wells met the Disney Animation Dept. and are pitched storyboards for the film Basil of Baker Street, later called the Great Mouse Detective. Eisner dictates memos to start the television animation division. Up to now their thinking had been to dismantle the animation department and earn income from the licensees of the existing library. Roy Disney was instrumental in insisting the animation division remain.

Animation Fun Facts for Weds Sept 21,2011

Chuck Jones was born.


Sept 21st, 1945, Hockey Homicide, directed by Jack Kinney. The first of the Sport-Goofy Disney shorts.

Animation Fun Facts for Monday Sept 19,2011

Looney Tunes director Frank Tashlin born.

Actor Jeremy Irons The voice of Scar in The Lion King , is 63.


2005- British independent animated feature Valiant released under the Disney logo.

Animation Fun Facts for Sunday Sept 18,2011

Famed voice actress June Foray is 93

1572-the painter El Greco first appeared in history in a document paying his union dues to the Guild of St. Lawrence, the artists guild of Rome. His real name was Domenico Theotocopoulos. People just called him 'the Greek Guy" -El Greco.

Animation Fun Facts for Saturday Sept 17,2011

Cartoonist Jeff MacNelly born,

1932- Mickey Mouse short The Whoopee Party, premiered.

1972- Filmation's The Groovie Ghoulies" debuts. Character designs by Don Bluth.

Animation Fun Facts for Friday Sept 16,2011

1949-Chuck Jones "Fast and Furrious" the First Road Runner-Coyote cartoon.

1964- The Peter Potamus Show debuted.

Animation Fun Facts for Thursday Sept 15,2011

Famed Russian animator Yuri Noorstein born.

1930- The first Blondie comic strip.

1973- Star Trek animated series by Filmation premiered. This was the first time Kirk, Spock, Sulu and Uhura were untied again with a Roddenberry script since the original series was canceled in 1967.

Animation Fun Facts for weds Sept 15, 2011

Earl Hurd born, early cartoonist who invented cells.


1968-Filmation's "the Archies" Show "Sugar...ah, honey honey...."


1985- TV series The GummiBears.

Animation Fun Facts for Sunday 9-11

Pinto Colvig born, the originator of the voice of Goofy and Pluto


1960- Terrytoon's Deputy Dawg TV show.

1966- "Kimba the White Lion" debuts in the U.S.

1971- The “Jackson Five” Saturday morning cartoon show.

2001- By a fluke of luck, Seth McFarlane ( Family Guy, the Cleveland Show, American Dad) missed his morning flight out of Boston's Logan Airport to Los Angeles. It was United Flt 11, the first plane to hit the World Trade Center.

Animation Fun Facts for Saturday Sept 10th. 2011

Music composer Raymond Scott born. His music was used by Carl Stalling in a lot of Warner Bros cartoons.


1966- H& B's Frankenstein Jr. and the Impossible's debut.

1968- Hanna Barbera's Space Ghost and Dino Boy' debut.

Animation Fun Facts for Friday Sept 9,2011

1967- Jay Ward’s show George of the Jungle premiered, with SuperChicken and Tom Slick sequences.

Animation Fun Facts for Wednesday Sept 7th 2011

Happy 100th Anniv of the birth of Disney animator Fred Moore.

Julie Kavner, the voice of Marge Simpson born.

1963- Mushi productions cartoon series."Tetsuan Atomo" debuts in the U.S as AstroBoy.

1984-The Walt Disney Board formally fired Walt’s son-in-law CEO Ron Miller.

Animation Fun Facts for Tuesday Sept 6th 2011

Mad Cartoonist Sergio Aragones born,

1958- The Spunky and Tadpole show debuts! .

1969- Depatie-Freleng's the Pink Panther TV Show premiered.

Animation Fun Facts for Monday Sept 5th 2011

1943- Young British cartoonist Ronald Searle is captured by the Japanese in Burma. He spent his time as a P.O.W. working on the infamous Bridge on the River Kwai and making sketches of the nightmarish conditions of his fellow prisoners.

1994-Patrick McDonnell started drawing the comic strip MUTTS.

Animation Fun Facts for Saturday Sept 03rd

Mort Walker, the creator of Beetle Bailey comic stripp.'

1939- British Prime Minister Chamberlain's war announcement interrupts a Disney Cartoon "Mickey's Gala Premiere" showing on the nascent BBC television service. Television shuts down for the duration.

1946- After the War, the BBC television service resumes and an announcer says:" Well now, where were we?" They continue the Mickey cartoon from where it was interrupted in 1939. World War Two probably held back for a decade the development of television.

1950- Mort Walker's "Beetle Bailey" comic strip first appeared.

1960- The Hanna-Barbera show 'Lippy the Lion and Hardy-Harr-Harr" premiered.

Animation Fun Facts for Thur, 9/01/2011

1919- Pat Sullivan's 'Feline Follies" cartoon staring Felix the Cat. Felix is the first true animated star, not depended on a previous newspaper comic strip. His body prototype, a black peanut shape with four fingers, will be the standard for years to come and copied for characters like Oswald and Mickey Mouse. By 1926 he was the most popular star in Hollywood after Chaplin and Valentino. Lindbergh had a Felix doll in his plane and it has been speculated that Groucho Marx copied his famous strut. The first television image broadcast by scientists in 1926 was of a Felix doll.


1928- Paul Terry premiered his sound cartoon RCA Photophone system for a short called "Dinner Time". Young studio head Walt Disney came by train out from Los Angeles to see it. He telephoned his studio back in L.A." My Gosh, Terrible! A Lot of Racket and Nothing Else!" He said they could continue to complete their first sound cartoon "Steamboat Willie".

Animation Fun Facts for Weds 8/31/2011

1946- Looney Toon short 'Walky Talky Hawky' the first Foghorn Leghorn. The character was based on a Fred Allen radio character Senator Clayton Langhorn that poked fun at bombastic Southern conservative politicians.

1948- Disney's 'Melody Time' premiered, featuring Willie the Operatic Whale.

Animation Fun Facts for Tues, 8/30/2011

Cartoonist R. Crumb is 67

Cameron Diaz, the voice of Princess Fiona in Shrek is 38


1975- Ralph Bakshi's film "Coonskin". Bad boy Bakshi's portrayal of African-American urban violence was deemed so offensive that it caused the first riot ever at the Museum of Modern Art, and died at the boxoffice. The film was retitled on video "Streetfight".
When Ralph resurfaced he turned his attention to Sword & Fantasy films.

Animation Fun Facts for Monday Aug 29, 2011

1953-Warner's "Cat Tails for Two" introduces Speedy Gonzales. Warners had a drawing quota for assistants and Frank Gonzales was always first done and out of his chair to go flirt with the ink & paint girls. The other guys would say:" There goes "Speedy" Gonzales again. When Chuck Jones & designer Hawley Pratt were thinking of new characters, the rest as they say, was history.

1989- Walt Disney company announced it was acquiring Jim Henson's Muppets.

Animation Fun Facts for Sunday Aug 28th

Animation writer/historian Charles Solomon born.

1928-Walt Disney's Gallopin' Gauchos, one of two silent Mickey Mouse cartoons completed before Steamboat Willie.

Animation Fun Facts for Saturday Aug 27, 2011

1910- The first Tarzan the Ape Man by Edgar Rice Burroughs published.


1968- Former master animator Bill Tytla's request to return to Disney was turned down. The artist who animated Grumpy the Dwarf, Dumbo and the Devil on Bald Mountain even offered to do a free "trial animation test" to show he still had it. Disney exec W.H. Anderson wrote him:" We really have only enough animation for our present staff."
Tytla died later that year.

Animation Fun Facts for Wednesday Aug 24, 2011

Actor Steven Fry born.

1942- Walt Disney's Saludos Amigos premiered in Rio Di Janiero.

Animation Fun Facts for Tuesday Aug 23, 2011

Birthdays for animators Oscar Grillo, Lenord Robinson and Nik Ranieri.

1912- Ed Benedict born, the designer of Yogi Bear, Fred Flintstone and George Jetson.

1994- Jeffrey Katzenberg announced he was leaving Disney.

Animation Fun Facts for Sunday Aug 21, 2011

Isadore Friz Freleng born.

1921-On his first birthday, Christopher Robin Milne, the sone of a.a. milne, was given a teddy bear from Harrods. He later called it Winnie the Pooh.

Animation Fun Facts for Friday Aug 19, 2011

The British animated feature Valiant opened in the US in 2005.

Animation Fun Facts for Aug 17th, 2011

1984- The Walt Disney Company informed it’s chairman Ron Miller that they wanted his resignation. Disney had fallen to 14th in film box office by then. Miller had been Walt’s son-in-law and he was he was once a tight end for the LA Rams. Within two years of Roy Disney, Michael Eisner and Jeffrey Katzenberg taking power, Disney was number one.

1986- John Lasseter’s award wining short Luxo Jr, premiered at Siggraph’86 Dallas.

Animation Fun Facts for Aug 16th, 2011

Birthdays: Otto Mesmer the creator of Felix the Cat, Myron Grim Natwick the creator of Betty Boop, Hal Foster the creator of Prince Valiant, Alex Raymond the creator of Flash Gordon


1942- Happy Birthday Mighty Mouse. Terrytoon's short: "The Mouse of Tomorrow".

Animation Fun Facts for Sunday Aug 14th

Disney animator Dick Lundy born

2005 Top Hollywood Agent Michael Ovitz was named president of Walt Disney Studio, to replace Jeffrey Katzenberg. Ovitz contract was for 5 years, but after 14 months of wrangling fruitlessly for power, he quit.


2011 We just heard the great NY based experimental filmmaker and animator ROBERT BREER passed away 1926-2011.

Animation Fun Facts for Aug 13th, 2011

1942 Disney's Bambi opened in theaters nationwide. Today the film looks quaint but in its time artists felt it was as realistic as artists could attain.


1946- MGM cartoon Northwest Hounded Police, the short in which Tex Avery perfected the 'Tex Avery Take" - used since in films like Mask, Roger Rabbit and Casper.

Animation Fun Facts for Aug 12th, 2011

1951- Bob McKimson’s Warner Bros short Hillbilly Hare. The short includes the long routine animated by Emery Hawkins when Bugs Bunny takes over calling a square dance and uses it to torture the two twin brother Hillbillies who are after him.

Animation Fun Facts for Aug 11th, 2011

1991- Ren & Stimpy, the outrageous show by John Krickfalusi premiered on MTV.

Animation Fun Facts for Weds Aug 10th, 2011

2001- Warner Bros Osmosis Jones premiered.

Animation Fun Facts for Tuesday Aug 9th

Pamela Lyndon Travers born –the creator of Mary Poppins


1930- Max Fleischer's cartoon "Dizzy Dishes" introduces Betty Boop. A singing star named Helen Kane sued Fleischer claiming that they stole her distinctive Boop-Ooop-a-Doop from her, but the case was thrown out when it was revealed Kane had stolen it herself from another singer. Betty was supposed to be a dog character to match her male couterpart Bimbo. But Animator Grim Natwick had done a lot of drawing of girls in Paris and New York and turned the character into a saucy little flapper.

1942- Walt Disney's "Bambi" premiered.

Animation Fun Facts for Monday Aug 8th, 2011

Japanese anime director Mamoru Oshi is 60 ( Ghost in the Shell)






HEY GANG, IF YOU PLAN TO ATTEND SIGGRAPH IN VANCOUVER, DROP IN AT THE AEF BIRDS OF A FEATHER DISCUSSION ON TUES Aug 9th . Last year was a great exchange of ideas, with our colleagues from around the world. 9:00 AM – 10:30 AM
Room Name: 116 (West Building) See you there!

Animation Fun Facts for Sunday Aug 7th, 2011

Animator Rudy Ising born.

animation and radio star Stan Freeberg is 85

1979- THE RUNAWAY WARS.-Hollywood Cartoonist’s Union went on strike against studios sending animation work overseas.



HEY GANG, IF YOU PLAN TO ATTEND SIGGRAPH IN VANCOUVER, DROP IN AT THE AEF BIRDS OF A FEATHER DISCUSSION ON TUES Aug 9th . Last year was a great exchange of ideas, with our colleagues from around the world. 9:00 AM – 10:30 AM
Room Name: 116 (West Building) See you there!

Animation Fun Facts for Saturday Aug 6th 2011

1999- Brad Bird’s classic animated film the Iron Giant premiered.

Animation Fun Facts for Friday Aug 5, 2011

1986 - It's revealed painter Andrew Wyeth had secretly created 240 drawings & paintings of his neighbor Helga Testorf, in Chadds Ford, Pa

Animation Fun Facts for Tuesday Aug 2nd 2011

1920- Bill Scott born. Scott was best known as the voice of Bullwinkle in Rocky & Bullwinkle, but he was also a very funny show writer, co-founder of ASIFA/Hollywood and passionate organizer for the rights of animation people through the Animators Guild.

Animation Fun Facts for Monday Aug 1st, 2011

1950-Jay Ward's "Crusader Rabbit" the first animated cartoon show made for television.

Animation Fun Facts for Sunday July 21st. 2011

1995- The Walt Disney Company bought the ABC Network, the Discovery Channel and ESPN. New competitor Dreamworks had been negotiating with ABC for a string of animated TV series. Now by this one move, they were outmaneuvered by Disney.

Animation Fun Facts for Saturday July 30th

Lawrence Fishburne born. He did the voice of Thrax in the animated film Osmosis Jones.


1932-Walt Disney’s “Flowers and Trees” the first Technicolor Cartoon. Disney had worked out a deal with Technicolor creator Herbert Kalmus to use his technique exclusively for two years to show larger Hollywood studios its quality.

Animation Fun Facts for Weds July 27th, 2011

David Swift born. Former Disney assistant animator, turned director of the Haley Mills Disney films like The Parent Trap

1940- HAPPY BIRTHDAY BUGS BUNNY. Warners short-"A Wild Hare”-There were several earlier prototypes of the famous rabbit, white with a different voice, but this is the short that launched his career. Bugs says “Whats Up Doc?” for the first time, co-opting a line uttered by Clark Gable while chewing a carrot in the Frank Capra film “It Happened One Night”.

Animation Fun Facts for Sunday July 24th

1948-HAPPY BIRTHDAY MARVIN THE MARTIAN- Warner's "Haredevil Hare" featuring the first Marvin the Martian.

1980- In London’s Dorchester Hotel, comedian and actor Peter Sellers died of a heart attack. He was 46.

1985-Walt Disney's "The Black Cauldron" premiered.

Animation Fun Facts for Weds July 20th

Harrison Ellenshaw born- Effects artist and Art Director.

1946-Bob Clampett's Looney Tune short The Great Piggybank Robbery premiered.

Animation Fun Facts for Tuesday July 19th

Max Fleischer born (1883-1974)

Animation Fun Facts for Sunday July 17th

Phyllis Diller is 94! She did a voice in Pixars A Bugs Life.

1841 - British humor and cartoon magazine "Punch" 1st published.

1955 DISNEYLAND OPENED- Walt Disney's dream of a perfect family amusement park, called 'The Happiest Place on Earth" was declared open with movie celebrities like Ronald Reagan, Art Linkletter and the Mouseketeers in attendance. Walt Disney expected to get 10,000 visitors that first day. They got 100,000. Facilities broke down from the huge crowds and the haste with which the park was built. Concrete pavement which was poured the night before was still soft under people's feet, there were no working water fountains and the car parking was a nightmare. To the Disneyland workers opening day was nicknamed 'Black Sunday". Despite all, Disneyland became a huge success.

1968- The Beatles musical cartoon feature The Yellow Submarine premiered in London’s Piccadilly Circus. Look Out ! It’s the Blue Meanies!!

Animation Fun Facts for Saturday July 16th

Andrea Del Sarto, Sir Joshua Reynolds born.


1954- Groundbreaking for the construction of Disneyland."I first saw the site for Disneyland back in 1953, In those days it was all flat land - no rivers, no mountains, no castles or rocket ships - just orange groves, and a few acres of walnut trees." -Walt Disney


1964 Warner Brothers "A False Hare", the last Bugs Bunny theatrical short until 1985.

Birthdays: Rembrandt van Rijn, Inigo Jones


1938- Popeye cartoon "With the Jeep" introduced Eugene the Jeep. The funny little character later gave it’s name to the army’s new General Purpose Vehicle, the G.P. or Jeep.

1941- President Franklin Roosevelt sent federal mediator Stanley White to try and solve the labor strike between Walt Disney and his cartoonists.

1971- Producer Steve Krantz, husband of novelist Judith Krantz, announced the production of the first X-rated cartoon, Fritz the Cat, to be directed by newcomer Ralph Bakshi.

1982-Coca-Cola introduced Diet Coke. Coke officials are proud of the fact that within a year it's sales top that of Tab, but Tab was owned by Coke as well. ( duh..?)

Animation Fun Facts for Thurs July 14th

Actor Terry Thomas born, who did voices in several Disney films like Robin Hood

Joel Silver, who produced Animatrix for the Matrix series, and did a voice on the WB film Osmosis Jones


1933- "Well Blow Me Down"- Max Fleischer's first "Popeye the Sailor" cartoon debuted. Vaudvillian Red Pepper Sam provided his salty mumbles throughout the post-sync track. When Sam asked for more money than Max Fleischer thought he was worth, he replaced him with assistant animator Jack Mercer, who was the voice ever after.

Animation Fun Facts for Weds July 13th

Cheech Marin born.He did voices on The Lion King, Cars and Cars 2 and Oliver and Company.

Film special effects artist Jim Danforth.

Dr. Erno Rubik inventor of the Rubik’s Cube.

Patrick Stewart is 70,who has done voices in Dreamworks The Prince of Egypt

Tom Kenny the voice of Spongebob Squarepants is 49
---------------------------------------------------

1925- Walt Disney and Lillian Bounds marry. Lillian was one of the first female animation ink & paint artists.

1953- Chuck Jones began a four month stint working at Walt Disney Studios. Walt showed him around the studio and asked him what job he'd like. Chuck replied:" Honestly Walt, the only job I'd want here is yours!"

Animation Fun Facts for Monday July 11th

1991- Disney announced it would enter into a distribution deal with a Bay area digital offshoot of Lucasfilm named PIXAR. Hit films including Toy Story, Monsters Inc. Finding Nemo and UP! are the result.

Animation Fun Facts for Saturday July 9th

Tom Hanks is 55, the voice of Woody in Toy Story.


1981 - Walt Disney's the "Fox & The Hound," released. The first film Walt Disney had no influence on. Although the film has brief screen credits, it marks the torch being passed from the Nine Old Men golden age generation to the modern generation of animators. A complete personnel roster would include Frank Thomas, Ollie Johnston,Woolie Reitherman, Tim Burton, John Lasseter, Bill Kroyer, Don Bluth, Lorna Cook, Henry Sellick, Brad, Bird, Steve Hulett, John Musker, Jerry Reese, Glen Keane and many more.

1993- Industrial Light & Magic completes it’s transition to digital technology by shutting down it’s Anderson Optical Printer. The Optical Printer system of mattes had been the way Motion Picture visual effects had been done since Melies in 1909, but the Digital Revolution had changed everything.

Animation Fun Facts for Weds. July 6th

Sebastian Cabot born- the voice of Bageera in Junhgle Book

Sylvester Stallone is born, who did a voice in Dreamworks ANTZ.

Ned Beatty was born, who did the voice of the evil bear in Toy Story III.


1957-Chuck Jones short "What’s Opera, Doc?" debuts. “Kill da wa-bitt, kill da wa-bitt..."

Animation Fun Facts for Sunday July 3rd

George Sanders born, the voice of Shere Khan in Disney's Jungle Book.

Animation Fun Facts for Saturday July 2nd

UPA animator Abe Levitow. Director of Mr Magoo's Xmas Carol (1961)

1935- Nine Old Man John Lounseberry's first day at the Walt Disney Studio.

1986- Walt Disney's The Great Mouse Detective premiered in theaters.

Animation Fun Facts for Friday July 1st.

1941- Animation director Tex Avery stormed out of the Looney Tunes Studio when Jack Warner ordered cuts in the first Bugs Bunny cartoon, A Wild Hare. Boss Leon Schlesinger put him on a four week suspension without pay, but Avery had already lined up a gig at MGM

1945- Bill Mauldin's wartime comic strip "Willie and Joe' ends it's run along with the European front line edition of Stars and Stripes magazine. Mauldin was once chewed out by General Blood & Guts Patton for making his GIs so slovenly and cynical. He felt it was a negative image of the American Fighting Man. Bill Mauldin's worked inspired the next generation of cartoonists like Walt Kelly, Charles Schulz and Pat Oliphant. Charles Schulz of Peanuts fame said no one could draw mud like Bill Maudlin.

1970- Hanna & Barbera’s attempt at a primetime animated series "Where’s Huddles?"

1970 The Xerox Company of Connecticut are convinced to open a new computer science lab on the west coast near Stanford University, It’s called Palo Alto Research Center, or Xerox PARC. In 9 years PARC will develop laser-printing, color graphics, Graphics User interface, windows, cursor point and click and the Ethernet.

Animation Fun Facts for Wednesday June 29th

Disney Animator John Hench was born

Stop Motion animation master Ray Harryhausen is 91

2007 Pixar's Ratatouille premiered.

Animation Fun Facts for Monday June 27th

1935 Walt Disney's Silly Symphony cartoon Who Killed Cock Robin? premiered at Radio City Music Hall in New York City. Disney artists were very proud of their animated impersonations of Mae West and other Hollywood stars. It is considered by them the beginning of their development of quality personality animation.


1973- Senior White House Counsel John Dean testified to the Watergate committee that President Richard Nixon maintained an Enemies List. The list ran from Senator Ted Kennedy to journalists like Daniel Shore to June Foray who did the cartoon voice of Rocky the Flying Squirrel, and Bill Scott, voice of Bullwinkle.

1984- Hollywood introduced the PG-13 rating to indicate graphic violence, invented for the film Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.

2007- British Prime Minister Tony Blair stepped down after ten years. His nickname in office was Bambi.

Animation Fun Facts for Sunday June 26th

Wolfgang "Woolie" Reitherman born (1909-1985) One of Disney's Nine Old Men, he animated Monstro the Whale in Pinocchio, and after Walt's death became principle director of Disney animated films like Jungle Book, Aristocats and The Rescuers.

1959- Donald in MathaMagicLand released in theaters as a short with Darby O'Gill and the Little People.

Animation Fun Facts for Saturday June 25th

Mike Myers born, the voice of Shrek

1997 Disney's feature film Hercules premiered.

Animation Fun Facts for Friday June 24th

Actor Phil Harris born, the voice of Baloo in Disney's The Jungle Book.


2011 Pixar film Cars II released.

Animation Fun Facts for Wednesday June 22th

Oskar Fischinger born (1900-1966)Great German abstract animator who designed the Toccata & Fugue for Disney

Floyd Norman born, First African American animator at the Walt Disney Studios.

Animation Fun Facts for Tuesday June 21th

Cartoonist Al Hirschfield born.

1988 The Disney/Amblin film Who Framed Roger Rabbit? premiered. So far the only time Mickey, Donald and Goofy met Bug, Daffy and Porky.

2002 Disney's Lilo & Stitch premiered.

Animation Fun Facts for Monday June 20th

1941-Walt Disney's "the Reluctant Dragon" premiered, with cartoonist's pickets around the Pantages Theater in Hollywood and at the Imperial Theater in Times Sq, NY. Police actually have to close part of Hollywood Blvd. out of concern for what the rampaging animators might do. Future UPA producer Steve Bosustow drove up in a limo and picketed in tuxedo and top hat. His chauffeur was Maurice Noble, the designer of the RoadRunner cartoons. Ironically the movie was part documentary about how wonderful life was working at the Disney studio.

Animation Fun Facts for Sunday June 19th

Kathleen Turner born, the voice of Jessica Rabbit and Bob Abels Brilliance Robot.

1923 - "Moon Mullins," a Comic Strip, debuts.

1978 – Garfield the Cat, created by Jim Davis, 1st appears as a comic strip

1987 - Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream & Grateful Dead's Jerry Garcia announce new Ice Cream flavor, Cherry Garcia.

Animation Fun Facts for Saturday June 18th

Great American cartoonist Wally Wood born

1919 - "Barney Google" cartoon strip, by Billy De Beck, premiered.

1964- The first Universal Studios tram car tour. Carl Laemmle had been inviting tourists in for a nickel to watch movies be filmed as early as 1915.

Animation Fun Facts for Tuesday June 14th

Cliff Edwards born, the voice of Jiminy Crickett in Walt Disney's Pinocchio

Burl Ives born, the voice of the snowman in Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer.

Happy Flag Day -in 1777 The Continental Congress orders the Stars and Stripes flag to be the official U.S. flag. It replaced the Cambridge Flag (The Tree and Stripes) and the Snake and Stripes and all those other things silly things and stripes.

1816- Writers Shelley, Lord Byron and Mary Shelley were spending the summer at the Villa Deodati on Lake Geneva. This day among the revels, drinking, and opium taking, Byron suggested they all write a ghost story. They all failed except for 19 year old Mary who invented the tale of a Swiss scientist who created an artificial man. She called it Frankenstein.

2001- The Oxford English Dictionary admitted the slang expletive of Homer Simpson "DOH!" into its august pages.

Animation Fun Facts for Monday June 13th

Tim Allen born, the voice of Buzz Lightyear in the Toy Story films.

2010- Toy Story III premiered.

Animation Fun Facts for Saturday June 11th

1993 –Steven Spielberg’s "Jurassic Park" opened. The film set a box office record of $931 million. It was begun with modelers and puppeteers about to do the dinosaurs with clay and beeswax. But after seeing tests using the new 3D CGI –computer graphic imaging software, Steven ordered all of ILM to do it digitally. Jurassic Park clinched the digital takeover of Hollywood and set the standard for future special effects.

Animation Fun Facts for Friday June 10th

1910- The first Krazy Kat comic strip- Cartoonist George Herriman was doing a strip for Hearst called "The Family Upstairs". He was amused at the idea of a friendship between a cat and a mouse. So Herriman put them in the corner playing marbles while the family quarreled. First an office boy and later editor Arthur Brisbane suggested they have their own strip. The immortality of the denizens of Coconino County follows, loved by the likes of H.L.Mencken, e.e.cummings and Jacques Kerouac. Krazy herself explains:"It's wot's behind me that I am."

1939 - Barney Bear, cartoon character by MGM, debuts.

1957- “Tom Terrific and Manfred the Wonder Dog” cartoon debuts on the Captain Kangaroo show.

1995-110,000 people jam Central Park in New York to see Disney's Pocahontas, the largest audience ever to attend a single movie premiere.

Animation Fun Facts for Thursday June 9th

June 9, 1934 Happy Birthday Donald Duck! Disney short The Little Wise Hen premiered.

Animation Fun Facts for Weds June 8th

THE ANNECY INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL IS OCCURRING IN FRANCE RIGHT NOW.

THE E3 INTERACTIVE GAMES CONVENTION IS IN LOS ANGELES THIS WEEKEND.
------------------------------------------------
Scott Adams the creater of Dilbert born

Garry Trousedale, the director of Beauty and the Beast, was born

1946- Bob Clampett's Looney Tune 'Kitty Kornered', the first appearance of Sylvester the Cat.

1984-Ivan Reitmans’ film "Ghostbusters" premiered.

1984- Donald Duck officially became a member of the Screen Actors Guild- SAG.

Animation Fun Facts for Tuesday June 7th

1954 British scientist Alan Turing, one of the fathers of the modern computer, committed suicide after he was exposed as being gay. A fan of the film Snow White, so this day he laced an apple with cyanide and bit into it. He was 42.

2002 TV show Kim Possible premiered.

Animation Fun Facts for Sunday June 5th

Composer Igor Stravinsky born. Besides his Rite of Spring ballet being used in Walt Disney's Fantasia, in 1956 John Wilson directed an animated version of Petroushka. It became the first animated TV special.

1998- Disney's Muhlan premiered. Originally titled mor eproperly Fa Muhlan, one story artist joked it was ancient Chinese for " Over Budget".

Animation Fun Facts for Saturday June 4th

Angelina Jolie born, the voice of Tiger in the Kung Fu Panda movies

Keith David born, the voice of Dr Facilier in Princes and the Frog, and in Disney's TV series Gargoyles.

1938- Walt Disney held a huge party to celebrate the success of Snow White. He sent all his crew up to The Grand Hotel Norconian a resort on Lake Norco, 50 miles north of Los Angeles. What Disney historians don't like to add was the party devolved into a drunken debauch, with lots of exhausted young artists free to celebrate and raise some hell. Walt, Roy and their wives soon fled the scene to avoid the negative publicity. There were no artists screen credits on the movie, so no one in media knew who these crazy kids were.

Animation Fun Facts for Friday June 3rd

1888-The poem: "Casey at the Bat" by Edward Lawrence Thayer published in the San Francisco Examiner.

1924- Writer Franz Kafka died in Keirling Austria. He left instructions to
Friends to burn all his unfinished manuscripts including the Trial, but
fortunately his friends did not.

1946- A consumer study finds there are only 10,000 television sets in America.
A follow up study five years later finds the number at 12 million.

1980- President Jimmy Carter announced the United States would boycott the 1980 summer Olympic Games in Moscow because of the Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan. This messed up the release of the NBC animated special Animalympics, produced by Steve Lisberger (Tron).

2001- Walt Disney's Atlantis premiered.

Animation Fun Facts for Thursday June 2nd

Disney animation story artist Dick Heumer born

Lotte Reinniger born, German animation filmmaker who created the first animated feature, The Adventures of Prince Achmed (1927)
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1940-Will Eisner's "The Spirit" comic first appears.

1973- London animator Richard Williams closed down his Soho studio for a month so his staff could be lectured by Disney legend Art Babbitt.

2008- A Buzz Lightyear doll was taken into space by the Space Shuttle Endeavor.

Animation Fun Facts for Wednesday June 1st.

Marylin Monroe born. She would be 85 today.

1931- Swiss artist Albert Hurter joined the Disney staff, giving the look of cartoons like Snow White a more Germanic storybook look. He was the first inspirational artist, later called Visual Development artist in animation.

1933 - Eric Larson hired by the Disney Studio. He will rise to become one of the Nine Old Men.

1939- HAPPY BIRTHDAY SUPERMAN- Joe Seigel and Jerry Shuster, two aspiring cartoonists in High School create a character called “Superman”. Jewish kids, they had read about the Nazis racial concept of the Aryan Superman. They wanted to show a Superman could be on the American side. On this day they sell all the rights to their characters to Detective Comics (D.C.) for $130.

Animation Fun Facts for Tuesday May 31th.

1985- John Sculley was a former exec from Pepsi brought in by Apple Computer founders Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak to help run the company. This day his solution to help the company run better was to fire Steve Jobs. Wozniak retired and Sculley eventually moved on. Steve Jobs eventually returned to Apple, but in the interval he bought George Lucas computer division, now called Pixar.

1989- "Skinhead Day at the Magic Kingdom" Disneyland refused to admit a rally of skinheads, Nazis and Klansmen.

Animation Fun Facts for Monday May 30th.

U.S. Memorial Day

Mel Blanc born

1936 Walt Disney Short Mickey Through the Looking glass premiered.

2003 Pixar's Finding Nemo released.

Animation Fun Facts for Sunday May 29th.

Danny Elfman born

70 years ago- 1941 The first picketlines appear in front of the Waqlt Disney Studios. Striking cartoonists demanding recognition of their guild, and the rehiring of Art Babbitt fired by Walt in defiance of the Wagner Act.


2009 Pixars UP released.

Animation Fun Facts for Saturday May 28th.

1941- 70 Years Ago- THE WALT DISNEY STRIKE- Labor pressures had been building in the Magic Kingdom since promises made to artists over the success of Snow White were reneged on, and Walt Disney’s lawyer Gunther Lessing encouraged a hard line with his employees. On this day, in defiance of federal laws, Walt Disney fired animator Art Babbitt, the creator of Goofy, and thirteen other cartoonists for demanding a union. Babbitt had emerged as the union movements’ leader. Studio security officers escorted Babbitt off the lot.


That night in an emergency meeting of the Cartoonists Guild, Art’s assistant on Fantasia, Bill Hurtz, made a motion to strike and it is unanimously accepted. Bill Hurtz will later go on to direct award winning cartoons like UPA’s "Unicorn in the Garden" and the Rocky and Bullwinkle Show. Picket lines go up next day in cartoon animation’s own version of the Civil War. Chuck Jones, Friz Freleng, Walt Kelly, Bill Melendez and more joined their brother and sister artists on the picketline.


Walt Disney almost had a nervous breakdown over the strike and was bundled off to Latin America so Roy could work out a deal. A federal mediator was sent by Washington to arbitrate. In later years, Uncle Walt blamed the studio’s labor ills on Communists. The studio unionized but hard feelings remained for decades after. For more details- Read AEF member Tom Sito's Book Drawing the Line.

1977- " MAY THE FORCE BE WITH YOU." George Lucas' space fantasy film STAR WARS opened. This blockbuster was the first film where the filmmaker retained the licensing rights for merchandise instead of the distributor, known in Hollywood as the 'backend deal'. Several studios including Universal passed on the film because the prevailing wisdom was sci-fi films didn't make money. Twentieth Century Fox picked up the distribution but let the backend go to Lucas, because they didn't think the film would do any serious business. Even George Lucas didn’t think the film would break even. Fox's market research department told studio head Alan Ladd, Jr.” a) don't make this movie; no one will go see a science fiction movie; and b) change the title; no one will go see a movie with "War" in the title. Fox executives had predicted the studios monster hit for that summer would be "Dirty Mary and Crazy Larry" with Peter Fonda and Susan George.
Star Wars was a monster hit. It was like there were no other movies playing that summer. George Lucas became a seriously rich man and developed THX Dolby sound, digital animation and Industrial Light and Magic special effects. The film’s popularity ran so ahead of expectations, that at Christmas when you purchased a Star Wars Game you got a box with a pink IOU note in it pledging to get you the game when they printed more.

Animation Fun Facts for Friday May 27th.

Vincent Price Born

Christopher Lee is 89.

1933- Walt Disney’s cartoon“The Three Little Pigs” premieres, whose song “Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf” becomes a national anthem of recovery from the Depression.

1948 Walt Disney's Melody Time, another anthology film like Fantasia but with pop tunes of the time.

Animation Fun Facts for Thurday May 26th.

Peggy Lee born- who sang He's a Tramp in Lady & the Tramp

Bobcat Goldthwaite born, voice of Pain in Disney's Hercules

Matt Stone born, the co creator of South Park

1995- Looney Tunes director Isadore Friz Freleng died at age 89.

Animation Fun Facts for Sunday May 22st.

Painter Mary Cassatt born.

1925- First day of shooting on Fritz Lang’s film Metropolis.

1967- Mr Rogers Neighborhood premiered.

1985- Disney director Wolfgang"Woolie" Reitherman ( THe Jungle Book)died of a heart attack after a car accident while driving home from a lunch at the Smoke House in Burbank. He was 75.

Animation Fun Facts for Saturday May 21st.

Animator John Hubley born.

Animator Wolfgang "Woolie" Reitherman born.

1935 Bob Clampett promoted to director at Looney Tunes Studio.

1954 Disney short Pigs is Pigs, directed by Jack Kinney.

Animation Fun Facts for Friday May 20th.

Painter Henri Roussau born

1916- Artist Norman Rockwell sold his first painting for a Saturday Evening Post cover.

1926 - Thomas Edison says Americans prefer silent movies over talking pictures.

1975- In a small warehouse in Van Nuys California, George Lucas assembled an effects crew to create the film Star Wars. It is the birth of Industrial Light & Magic, or ILM.

1984- Hanna Barbera’s “The Smurfic Games”.

1994- Walt Disney released their first sequel feature Aladdin II, the Return of Jafar. They were done by the studios TV unit and outsourced labor. The studios main feature artists disdained these low-budget sequels, and labeled them "cheapquels" but they were very successful with audiences.

Animation Fun Facts for Thursday May 19th.

Frank Capra,Hollywood film director born

Tom Sito, animator, teacher, born.

1927- Sid Grauman's Chinese Theater in Hollywood opened. Ushers and doorman were dressed in imported Mandarin silk robes and wall hangings were painted by young artist/actor Key Luke. Sid Grauman was the showman who also invented the Hollywood premiere with spotlights and limo's pulling up to red carpets, etc.

1998- George Lucas much anticipated film Star Wars Episode One the Phantom Menace premiered, the first Star Wars sequel in 20 years. It featured Jarr Jarr Binks.

2006- Dreamworks animated film ‘Over the Hedge’ premiered.

Animation Fun Facts for Wednesday May 18th.

2001- Dreamworks animated SHREK opened. The voice of Shrek was originally planned to be Chris Farley but the obese comedian died of a drug overdose and was replaced by Mike Myers. Also starring Cameron Diaz, and Eddie Murphy-I’m serving Waffles!

2001 Animation design legend Maurice J. Noble, co-director of the Academy Award winning animated short subject Dot and the Line and many other cartoon classics, passes at the age of 91. His work ranged from Disney's Snow White and Dumbo to Dr. Seuss' Horton Hears a Who and many of the classic Bugs Bunny television cartoons.

2003 Disney/Pixar' Finding Nemo premiered.

Animation Fun Facts for Tuesday May 17th.

Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast lyricist Howard Ashman is born

Ralph Wright, Disney gag man and the voice of Eeyore in Winnie the Pooh, was born

1941- The Looney Toon Lockout. Producer Leon Schlesinger tries to forestall the unionization of his Bugs Bunny cartoonists by locking them out. After a week he relents and recognizes the cartoonist guild. Chuck Jones called it “our own little six-day war.”

1965- Stanley Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke shake hands and agree to write a sci-fi movie, with accompanying novel. First called How the Solar System was Won, then Journey Beyond the Stars, the title was finally- 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Animation Fun Facts for Monday May 16th.

1990- Muppet creator Jim Henson died at a NYC Hospital at age 53.

2009- Disney-Pixar's UP premiered.

Animation Fun Facts for Sunday May 15th.

L. Frank Baum born, creator of the Oz stories

Joe Grant born, Walt Disney character designer and story artist

1703 Charles Perrault died. Former state minister under French King Louis XIV. After retiring Perrault wrote stories under the name Mother Goose. His stories include Red Riding Hood, Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty.

1928- Walt Disney's short Plane Crazy premiered, a still silent Mickey & Minnie Mouse cartoon short. Mickey tries to emulate hero aviator Charles Lindbergh.

Animation Fun Facts for May 14th

George Lucas is 67.

Robert Zemeckis, the director of 1988’s Who Framed Roger Rabbitt?, Beowulf and Polar Express is 60 years old.

1923- Kansas City cartoonist Walt Disney wrote NY producer Margaret Winkler for help to get a series of cartoon shorts distributed. Margaret Winkler “ The Live Wire Saleslady of Warner Bros” helped Disney Studios get his start, as well as Max Fleischer and Paul Terry.

1942- Disney composer Frank Churchill, who wrote "Who’s afraid of the Big Bad Wolf", shot himself at the piano. Another version of the story had him shooting himself in an onion field in Valencia that would one day be the site of Cal Arts.

1944- In the comic strip Dick Tracy, the longtime Tracy nemesis the gangster Flattop was killed.

1951 - Ernie Kovacs Show, TV Variety debut on NBC. Kovacs was a great pioneer in the video medium who loved creating surreal images and pantomime blackout skits.

Animation Fun Facts for Monday May 9th.

James Barrie the creator of Peter Pan, born
James L. Brooks born, the producer and chief writer of The Simpsons.

1754- THE FIRST U.S. NEWSPAPER CARTOON- Ben Franklin in his Pennsylvania Gazette prints a drawing of a segmented snake with each piece named for a colony with the inscription: Join or Die. ( Okay, it's not Calvin and Hobbs but it's a start).

1955- Washington D.C. station puts on a young Univ of Maryland grad named Jim Henson as filler before the TODAY Show. He antics with his handpuppet, a green frog called Kermit, fashioned from fabric from one of his mothers old green coats. The Muppets are born.

1961- John F. Kennedy's newly appointed head of the FCC, Newton Minow, did his first major address to a luncheon of top television executives. In his speech he blasted them for TV’s mindless content and violence. He called television: " A Vast Wasteland."

Animation Fun Facts for Sunday May 8th.

Don Rickles the voice of Mr Potato head in Toy Story born

French cartoonist Jean Giraud, aka Moebius, born.

1943- MGM's Tex Avery cartoon Red Hot Riding Hood premiered.

Happy Mother's Day All!

Animation Fun Facts for Sunday May 7th.

1937-Nobel Prize winning writer William Faulkner hired by MGM Studios, earning $500 a week. He celebrated by going on a two week long drinking binge. When MGM's Head of Writing Sam Marx had him tracked down to an Oakie migrant camp in the Imperial Valley, he was dragged off boozily whining: " Ah wanna write for Mickey Mouse !!"

1942- Battle of the Coral Sea-The U.S. Navy, suffering only defeats up till then, stops a Japanese task force. Veterans commented that one of the sadder losses was when the aircraft carrier USS Lexington went down, she took the fleet's supply of 6 Bugs Bunny cartoons with her. War is Hell.

2010- The Walt Disney Feature Animation Building in Burbank , known as The Hat, was dedicated in the name of the late Roy Disney Jr.

May 6th Anim Educators Trivia

Andreana Casselotti born, the voice of Disney's Snow White.

1919- Wizard of Oz creator L.Frank Baum died of heart disease at 62. He was trying at the time to buy real estate in Los Angeles for an Oz- theme amusement park.

1937- THE FLEISCHER STRIKE-Cartoonists vote to strike Max Fleischers Studio after Max fires 13 animators for union activity and complaining about the 6 day work week.

The strike was settled several weeks later when parent company Paramount forced Max to concede. Strikers sang "We're Popeye the Union Man! We're Popeye the Union Man! We'll Fight to the Finish, Cause We Can't Live on Spinach ! We're Popeye...etc."

2005- Animation designer and story artist Joe Grant died just days shy of his 97th birthday. He started at Walt Disney Studio in 1934, left in 1949, returned in 1990 and worked until his death. He touched every Disney feature from Snow White to The Incredibles. He named Monsters, Inc, and his dog Lady was the inspiration for Lady and the Tramp. He died at home, at his desk while drawing. He was found with a pencil in his hand.

Fun Facts for May 3rd

Animator Nina Paley Born

1888- Poem "Casey at the Bat" published. Later made into a successful short cartoon by Walt Disney, with Jerry Colonna narrating.

1948-THE PARAMOUNT DECISION- In 1938 the independent theater chains had brought suit in Federal court against the major Hollywood Studios over their monopolistic practices. Ten years later the Supreme Court ruled the Motion Picture Studios did constitute a monopoly and under the Sherman AntiTrust Act ordered them to sell their theater chains. One casualty of this rule was the short cartoon. Because theater managers no longer were forced to run a cartoon, newsreel and short with a feature (block-booking), they opted for the time to run more showings of the main feature.

1969- Groundbreaking in Valencia for The California Institute of the Arts. The Walt Disney studio paid for the school that merged the Chouinard Art Institute and the LA Conservatory of Music and created a major program for character animation.

May 1st, Trivia

Russian Animator Fyodor Khytruk born
Maurice Noble born.
Eric Goldberg born.

1902- Richard Outcault's comic strip Buster Brown and Tige first appeared. Outcault, the creator of the first hit cartoon the Yellow Kid was so famous that as part of his deal to do this strip he negotiated the first back-end deal for a percentage of the merchandise sales.

1939- The first Batman comics created by Bob Kane appear on newsstands.

1989 Walt Disney Animation Studio in Orlando Florida opened.

1993 The Florida Animation Union Local 843 chartered.

Fun Facts for April 30th

Animator Bill Plympton born

1952 - Mr Potato Head is 1st toy advertised on television

Animation History on April 29th

Michelle Pfeiffer born, who did a voice in Dreamworks animated feature The Prince of Egypt.

Jerry Seinfeld born, writer/director of The Bee Movie.

1989- Who Framed Roger Rabbitt won for Oscars at the Academy Awards.

Fun Facts for April 26th

Walter Lantz born

Eyvind Earle born.

1993- NBC announced former Simpsons writer Conan O’Brien would take David Letterman’s old Late Show spot.

2004 Disney CEO Michael Eisner made the list of Forbes Magazine's 100 Worst CEO's in Corporate America.

Fun Facts for April 25th

Disney animator, writer director Ron Clements born ( Little Mermaid, Princess and the Frog).

Voice actor Hank Azaria born ( The Simpsons, HOP)
1972- Witty, urbane actor George Sanders ( All About Eve, Samson & Delilah, Shere Khan in Jungle Book) had turned age 65.

He complained he had been famous and rich and was not looking forward to old age and having a nurse wipe his bottom.
So he committed suicide and left a witty, urbane note.
"Dear World: I am leaving because I am bored. Adieu, I leave you with your worries in this sweet cesspool."

Fun Facts for April 24th

Happy Easter!

Happy Birthday Steve Lisberger, the creator of TRON (1982)

1933-Ub Iwerk's "Fiddlesticks" the first Flip the Frog cartoon, done in a simple two-color process. Iwerks was the first designer and animator of Mickey Mouse, who had left Walt Disney to open his own studio.

Fun Facts for April 23

Animation director Michael Sporn born.

1867- William Lincoln patents the zoetrope, an optical toy predating motion pictures..

1896-THE FIRST PROJECTED MOVIES IN THE U.S.- The first projection of Thomas Edison’s kinetoscope film by means of Thomas Armat’s Vitascope at Koster & Bials Music Hall on 28th street and Broadway in New York City.. The movie show featured the sultry Annabella the Dancer and a boxing match, but the real hit of the evening was footage of Waves Hitting the Rocks on Shore, which made people instinctively duck to keep from getting wet.

Fun Facts for April 21st

1918- Baron Manfred von Richtofen ( the Red Baron) was shot down. No, it wasn't Snoopy who did it.

1938- Disney animator Bill Tytla (Dumbo, Chernobog) married artists model Adrienne LeClerc.

FUN FACTS FOR APRIL 20TH

Animator Bob Kurtz of Kurtz & Friends Studio born.

1925- Warner Bros Studio merged with Vitagraph, the company once owned by early animator James Stuart Blackton. Blackton became rich, then lost it all in the Stock Market Crash of 1929.

1939- When NBC President David Sarnoff dedicated the RCA pavilion at the Worlds Fair in NYC, he announced the event was being covered on something called Television. Sarnoff predicted that one day there would be a television set in every home!


1977- Woody Allen's masterpiece Annie Hall premiered. It featured an animated clip of Woody Allen and Diane Keaton as characters in Walt Disney's Snow White. The animation was done by former Disney animator Chris Ishii.

Fun Facts for April 19th

1925- Iwao Takamoto born. Iwao came out of a WWII Japanese internment camp to get a job at the Walt Disney Studios. He quickly rose to be the lead assistant for the Nine Old Men refining the animation for Princess Aurora in Sleeping Beauty. He later moved to Hanna & Barbera where he became the most important artist there after Bill & Joe.  Iwao designed Scooby Doo, Penelope Pitstop, Hong Kong Phooey and Jabberjaw.

1987 Master Disney animator Milt Kahl passed away.

FUN FACTS FOR APRIL 18TH

1882- Leopold Stokowski born. Classical orchestra conductor was the co-star with Mickey Mouse in the film Fantasia.

1947- James Woods born, the voice of Hades in Walt Disney's Hercules and Reggie Belmonte in Sony's Surf's Up.

1983- The Disney Channel started up.