Animation Fun Facts for June 30, 2012

1933- A group of actors meet in secret at Frank (the Wizard of Oz) Morgan and form the Screen Actors Guild. The secrecy was because studios threatened to blacklist anyone who so much as breathed the word union. Among the founding members that night are James Cagney, Groucho Marx, Joan Crawford, Franchot Tone, Frederic March, Robert Montgomery and Boris Karloff. 1940- Female Cartoonist Dale Messick takes over the Brenda Star comic strip and adds the trademark sparkles.

Animation Fun Facts for June 29, 2012

Birthdays: Bernard Hermann, Roscoe Fatty Arbuckle, Slim Pickens, Nelson Eddy, Gary Busey, John Hench, Little Eva, Antoine de Saint Exupery,Leroy Anderson, Robert Evans, Ray Harryhausen is 92! 1936- Pope Pius X published the encyclical warning of the evils of Motion Pictures. “They glorify Lust and Lascivious behavior.” 1940 – ROBIN THE BOY WONDER- According to Batman Comics, this day mobsters rubbed out a circus highwire team known as the Flying Graysons, leaving their son Dick an orphan. He was taken in by millionaire Bruce Wayne so Batman could have his Robin. As early as 1954 with the Kefhauver Committee on Comics and Juvenile Delinquency there were accusations that Batman and Robin were gay. The proof set out in the book The Seduction of the Innocent was that whenever Batman and Robin weren’t fighting crime there were always panels depicting Dick sitting up in bed with Bruce sitting at his bedside wearing a silk robe! 1940- First day shooting on the film Citizen Kane. 1950- The Hollywood Ten are given jail sentences for contempt of Congress. 1956- Marilyn Monroe married author Arthur Miller. 1978- Actor Bob Crane, best known as the star in the television series Hogan’s Heroes, was found beaten to death with an electric cord around his neck in a Scottsdale Arizona hotel room. Around his body were pornographic literature and a large library of home made porn tapes. 2007- Pixar’s Ratatouille premiered.

Animation Fun Facts for June 28, 2012 Thurs.

King Henry VIII, Luigi Pirandello, Jean Jacques Rousseau, John Dillinger, Richard Rogers, Gilda Radner, Cartoonist George Booth,Kathy Bates is 63, John Cusack is 45, Mel Brooks is 85 1868- Artist Claude Monet was broke and so depressed he jumped in the Seine River. After splashing around for a while, he decided its silly to drown himself so he swam to the riverbank and went for a drink. He outlived all the Impressionist painters of his generation, dying in 1926. 1975- Twilight Zone creator Rod Serling died during open heart surgery. He was 50. His last movie script was The Man, in which James Earl Jones played the first black president of the United States.

Animation Fun Facts for June 27, 2012 Wed

Birthdays: Bob" Captain Kangaroo" Keeshan, Kathryn Beaumont the voice of Alice in disney's Alice in Wonderland, J.J. Abrams, Tony Leung Chu Wai is 50, Toby McGuire is 37. 1542- Juan Cabrillo set sail from Mexico to explore the unknown California Coast. He was told he might find a magic kingdom of Califa, a land of brown amazons with golden swords. 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. 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 first nickname in office was Bambi.

Animation Fun Facts for June 26, 2012

Disney Nine Old Man and director Wolfgang "Woolie" Reitherman born. also Peter Lorre. 1926- From his London flat John Logie Baird invented television. The Boob Tube has no one single Tom Edison-like inventor but many claimants. The Englishman joined the ranks of others who claimed to have invented TV first, including Richard Farnsworth, Vladimir Zworkin, Dr. Lee DeForrest and Deutsches Kino. 1959- Donald in MathamagicLand premiered with Darby O'Gill and the Little People.

Animation Fun Facts for 6/25/2012

Cartoonist and Superfriends designer Alex Toth born. 1870- Toi Yo ta Hoooo! Richard Wagner's opera Die Walkure premiered in Munich. Chuck Jones Bugs Bunny short What's Opera Doc, came later. 1951- After losing a power struggle to Dory Schary, Louis B. Mayer announced he was stepping down as head of MGM. Mayer in his time was the most powerful man in Hollywood. He kept an all white office, modeled after Mussolini’s in Rome. 1951 - 1st color TV broadcast-CBS' Arthur Godfrey from NYC to 4 cities 1982- Ridley Scott’s sci-fi film Blade Runner opened. 1997- Disney's animated film Hercules released.

Animation Fun Facts for June 24, 2012

Birthdays- Roy Disney Sr, Phil Harris the voice of Baloo in Jungle Book. 1994 Disney's the Lion King opened in theaters.

Animation Fun Facts for June 23, 2012

Alan Turing, one of the fathers of the computer, would be 100 today. Josh Whedon born, who did some writing on Toy Story and Lion King II: Simbas Pride. 1990- Honey I Shrank the Kids debuted, featuring the Roger Rabbit short Tummy Trouble. 1995- Disney's Pocahontas opened in general release.

Animation Fun Facts for June 22, 2012

Birthdays: Voice actor Paul Frees, Disney Legend Floyd Norman, the first African-American Disney animator. 1977- Disney's The Rescuers premiered. The last work of master animator Milt Kahl.

Animation Fun Facts for June 21, 2012

1948- At the University of Manchester, John McCauley started up the first modern computer, the Manchester Mark I, that could store a program in it’s memory and reopen it. 1988- Who Framed Roger Rabbit premiered at Radio City Music Hall. 2002- Lilo & Stitch premiered.

Animation Fun Facts for June 20, 2012

Birthdays: John Goodman who did a voice in Monsters Inc., M John Mahoney is 72 who did a voice in The Iron Giant, Nicole Kidman is 45, who did a voice in Happy Feet. 1940- Artist Alberto Vargas signs a contract with Esquire Magazine to paint the ‘Vargas Girls’ pin ups that made the magazine famous. He replaced artist Richard Petty who was demanding $1500 a week. Vargas was paid $75 a week. Today an original Vargas goes for $200,000. 1941-Walt Disney's "the Reluctant Dragon" premiered, with cartoonist's pickets around the Pantages Theater in Hollywood. 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 June 19, 2012

Birthdays: Moe Howard, Kathleen Turner the voice of Jessica Rabbit and Bob Abel's Sexy Robot, Pat Buttram, Zoe Saldana, -Neytiri in Avatar is 34 1921- Distributor AmadeeVan Beuren announced production of a new series of "Aesop’s Fables" cartoons to be done by former Bray director Paul Terry. Terrytoons studio is born. 1923 - "Moon Mullins," a Comic Strip, debuts. 1934-The Federal Communications Commission, or FCC, created. 1952 - "I've Got A Secret" debuts on CBS-TV with Garry Moore as host. Young Disney animator Eric Goldberg once appeared as a guest. 1978 – Garfield the Cat, created by Jim Davis, 1st appears as a comic strip 1998 Disney’s Muhlan premiered.

Animation Fun Facts for June 18, 2012

The Brothers Quay born. Sammy Kahn born.( Tin Pan Alley songwriter wrote the songs for Mr. Magoo's Christmas Carol in 1964.) 1900- The Dowager Empress of China Zhou Zshi calls for the killing of all foreigners during the Boxer Rebellion. She commits the Chinese Imperial Army to the expulsion of all the European colonialist powers. Empress Zhou Chi was the first person westerners called the Dragon Lady, later used by Milt Caniff in his comic strip Terry & the Pirates. 2010- Pixars Toy Story III premiered. 2011- Pixars Cars 2 premiered.

Animation Fun Facts for June 17, 2012

Wally Wood born. 1919 - "Barney Google" cartoon strip, by Billy De Beck, premiered. 2005 Disney's released Howls Moving Castle in the U.S.

Animation Fun Facts for June 16, 2012

Birthdays, Stan Laurel, animator Pete Burness. 1902- A musical play of L Frank Baum’s fantasy story the Wizard of Oz premiered at Chicago’s Grand Opera House. When Baum was writing down the stories at point he was stuck for a name for the magical kingdom. He looked down at his desk files that were labeled A-N and O-Z. Eureka! 1955- Premiere of the Walt Disney film Lady and the Tramp. 1961 - Walt Disney bought the rights to Winnie the Pooh from the widow of A.A. Milne.

Animation Fun Facts for June 15, 2012

Jim Varney born, the voice of Slinky Dog in Toy Story.Neil Patrick Harris is 39, Courtenay Cox is 48, Helen Hunt is 49 2001- Walt Disney's feature Atlantis, premiered.

Animation Fun Facts for June 14, 2012

1816- Writers Percy Shelley, Lord Byron and Mary Shelley were spending the summer at the Villa Deodati on Lake Geneva. This day among the revels, drinking, partner swapping and opium taking Byron suggested they all write a ghost story. They all tried but failed except for 19 year old Mary who invented the tale of a Swiss scientist who created an artificial man. She called it Frankenstein. She published the book in 1818. 2001- The Oxford English Dictionary admitted the slang expletive of Homer Simpson "DOH!" into its august pages.

Animation Fun Facts for June 13, 2012

Birthdays: Paul Lynde, voice of many Hanna & Barbera characters. 1941-The American Federation of Labor called for a nationwide boycott of all Disney products and films. This was to support the Disney Cartoonists strike.

Animation Fun Facts for June 12, 2012

Disney Director Clyde " Jerry" Geronimi born, Richard Sherman of the Sherman Bros. ( Mary Poppins, Winnie the Pooh music.) Born. 1999 Walt Disney's Tarzan premiered.

Animation Fun FActs for June 11, 2012

Shia LaBoeuf and Peter Dinklage born. 1984- In the freewheeling economy of the 1980’s tycoons conducted hostile takeovers of companies by buying a majority of their stock on margin. When Wall Street corporate raider Saul Steinberg announced he intended to target the ailing Walt Disney Company for takeover CEO Ron Miller paid him $23 million just to make him go away. The Disney shareholders are outraged at this payment of "greenmail’ and demanded Miller’s resignation, which some say was exactly as Roy Disney had planned. 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 June 10, 2012

Birthdays: Judy Garland, Hattie McDaniel, Maurice Sendak 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." 1926- Artist Antonio Gaudi was run over by a streetcar while crossing in front of his famous cathedral in Barcelona. Begun in 1886 The Cathedral Sacreda Familia is still scheduled for completion- in the year 2035. 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 June 9, 2012

Birthdays: Cole Porter, Burl Ives, Michael J. Fox is 51, Johnny Depp is 49, Natalie Portman is 31 1934- Happy Birthday Donald Duck! Walt Disney's short cartoon "The Little Wise Hen". 1950- After all appeals fail the first of the Hollywood Ten, screenwriters Dalton Trumbo, Philip Dunne, Alvah Bessie, Waldo Salt, Edward Dymtytrk, David Ogden Stewart, Ring Lardner and John Howard Lawson are sentenced to prison. In the L.A. Municipal Jail one felon greeted the leftist writers with a smile and said: "Hi Ya, Hollywood Kids!” 1992- Congress passed the Internet Communications Act, opening up the Internet to the public. At this time, when only defense contractors used it, the Internet had 50 websites; by 2000, it had 77 million websites, now in the hundreds of millions.

Animation Fun Facts for June 8, 2012

Gary Trousedale born, co-director of Beauty and the Beast, and Atlantis. 1786- A New York newspaper advertised that a Mr. Hall was now selling the Italian confection called Iced Cream. First reference to Ice Cream in the United States. 1912- Carl Laemmele began Universal Pictures.

Animation Fun Facts for June 7, 2012

Birthdays Paul Gaugin, Liam Neeson, Prince. 2002 –Kim Possible premiered on TV.

Animation Fun Facts for June 6th, 2012

Paul Giammatti born. Aaron Sorkin born. 1944 D-Day, the Normandy Invasion. Animation artists present at the battle include Victor Haboush ( 101 Dalmatians), Disney Assistant Dale Oliver who piloted a glider in the 82nd Airborne, Fleischer animator Willie Bowsky was killed by German tankfire. Peanuts creator Charles Schulz went ashore with the second wave of infantry. 1982- The film Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, premiered. Besides Ricardo Montalban as the badguy with the great plastic pectorals, it features the Genesis Effect. This one minute sequence was a landmark of computer graphics effects. Done by the Lucas Graphics Group, who four years later would break off and become Pixar.

Animation Fun Facts for June 5, 2012

Igor Stravinsky born. The only composer from Disney's Fantasia who was alive at the time the film was made. Bill Hayes born- who won a gold record for singing the Ballad of Davey Crockett " Born on a Mountaintop in Tenn-a See.." 1998- Disney's feature Muhlan premiered at the Hollywood Bowl.

Animation Fun Facts for June 3, 2012

VFX artist John Dykstra born. 1888-The poem: "Casey at the Bat" by Edward Lawrence Thayer published in the San Francisco Examiner. 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 included canceling Steve Lisberger(TRON) 2d animated special Animalympics, featuring animation by Brad Bird, Bill Kroyer, Roger Allers (Lion King) and more.

Animation Fun Facts for June 2, 2012.

Disney story artist Dick Huemer born. 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 Hollywood animation legends Art Babbitt, Chuck Jones and Ken Harris.

Animation Fun Facts for June 1, 2012

1931- Swiss artist Albert Hurter joined the Disney staff, giving the look of cartoons like Snow White a more Germanic storybook look. 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. When the first megabudget Superman movie was being made in the 1976, the National Cartoonist's Society pointed out that Seigel and Schuster were now poverty stricken. They never shared a nickel of the multi-millions their creation had generated. Seigel was blind on disability, and Schuster delivered sandwiches from a local deli. The bad publicity forced Warner Bros and DC Comics to award them and their families pensions for life.