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.
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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.