Animation Fun Facts for July 31, 2012

Birthdays: Liberace, Sherry Lansing, Geraldine Chaplin, Dean Cain, Ted Cassidy who played Lurch in the Adams Family, Wesley Snipes is 50, and according to J.K. Rowling, this is the birthday of Harry Potter 1930- Radio mystery show “The Shadow” premiered. “Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? The Shadow knows…heh, heh, heh.” Orson Welles did the voice of the crime fighting Shadow for a year in 1937 for $185 a week. 1992- Robin Harris' animated Feature Bebe's Kids premiered. 1995- The Walt Disney Company bought the ABC Network, the Discovery Channel and ESPN.

Animation Fun Facts for July 30, 2012 mon

Birthdays: Georgio Vasari, Henry Ford, Emily Bronte',Vladimir Zworykin who invented the television picture tube, Arnold Schwarzenegger aka the Governator is 65,Lawrence Fishburne is 51, Jean Reno is 64, Hilary Swank is 38, Christopher Nolan, Lisa Kudrow is 50 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. 1936- Producer David O. Selznick buys the movie rights to the best selling book “Gone With The Wind” from an ailing Irving Thallberg. The "boy genius" Thallberg was hoping that Selznick would ruin himself in the process of making this film. Thalberg was convinced that GWTW would prove to be a massive flop because "Costume dramas are box office poison." Doh!

Animation Fun Facts for July 29, 2012 sun

Birthdays: Alex de Tocqueville, Benito Mussolini, Clara Bow, Natalie Wood, Paul Taylor, Sig Romberg, Peter Jennings, Ken Burns is 59, Booth Tarkington, David Warner, the villain in TRON is 71, Steven Dorff is 39, 1890- Near the Chateau de Auvers Vincent Van Gogh went behind a hay bale and shot himself. He managed to miss any thing important but died of infection. 1936 - RCA shows 1st real TV program: dancing, a film on locomotives, a Bonwit Teller fashion show & monologue from the Tobacco Road radio comedy show. In 1948, Shamus Culhane did some of the first animated TV commercials. 1942- Orson Welles leaves Rio De Janiero after RKO fires him and stops production of "It's All True". They also have “the Magnificent Ambersons” re-cut to a more acceptable 90 minutes. One of those let go with Welles Mercury Theatre troupe was animator Oskar Fischinger, who had left Walt Disney and been hired by Welles to create moving graphics for his film. 1948- Former Disney animation assistant Hank Ketcham’s comic strip "Dennis the Menace," 1st appeared. 1962- The film “Dr No” premiered, introducing the world to the suave spy James Bond 007. They considered Cary Grant, David Niven and Patrick McGoohan, James Mason turned them down. So the producers picked young Scots actor Sean Connery. 1987- Ice cream makers Ben & Jerry announce the flavor Cherry Garcia, named for rock singer Jerry Garcia of the Grateful Dead.

Animation Fun Facts for July 28, 2012 sat

Birthdays: Jacqueline Kennedy, Richard Rogers, Marcel Duchamp, Rudy Vallee. Sally Struthers Peter Duchin, Joe E. Brown, Jim Davis the creator of Garfield, Elizabeth Berkley, Earl Tupper the inventor of Tupperware 1788- Master British portrait painter Sir Joshua Reynolds visited the other master British portrait painter Sir Thomas Gainsborough, who was dying or cancer. They had been enemies for years but now at the end they made up. When Reynolds left him Gainsborough said "Goodbye until we meet in the Hereafter, Van Dyck in our company." 1841- The body of Mary Cecilia Rogers was pulled out of New York Harbor. The sensational murder of the “Beautiful Cigar Girl” inspired Edgar Allen Poe to write “ The Mystery of Marie Roget.” 1858- The French photographer Nadar went up in a balloon and took the first aerial photograph. 1948- In honor of the death of D.W. Griffith, all Hollywood studios observed three minutes of silence. 1948- The Premiere of that utterly memorable film " ABBOTT & COSTELLO MEET FRANKENSTEIN." For you hardcore film trivia fans this film is the only other time than the original Tod Browning movie that Bela Lugosi played Count Dracula on film.

Animation Fun Facts for July 27, 2012 Fri.

Birthdays: Confucius, Alexander Dumas fils,Norman Lear, Maureen McGovern, Keenan Wynn, Vincent Canby, Betty Thomas, Jonathan Rhys-Meyers, Ilya Salkind, David Swift former animator turned–director of the Haley Mills Disney films like The Parent Trap. 1921- SHAKESPEARE & CO. opens in Paris. The English language bookshop on the Seine owned by Sylvia Beach was the most famous hangout for the U.S. expatriate intellectuals. Shakespeare & Co. championed writers like James Joyce, F. Scott Fitzgerald, John Dos Passos, Carlos Santayanna, Gertrude Stein, Sherwood Anderson and more. After the Nazi occupation the shop was liberated personally by Ernest Hemingway who shot snipers off it's roof. After paying his respects to Sylvia, Hemingway and his G.I.buddies went on to liberate the Ritz hotel and it's famous wine celler. 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”. 1977- John Lennon got his green card. Richard Nixon considered him a dangerous radical. Several times in 1972 he was under 60 day notice to leave the country. 2007- The Simpson’s Movie debuted.

Animation Fun Facts for July 26, 2012 thurs

Birthdays: George Bernard Shaw, Gracie Allen,Stanley Kubrick, Blake Edwards, George Grosz,Jason Robards Jr, Aldous Huxley, Jean Shepard, Vivian Vance, Emil Jannings, Sandra Bullock is 48, Kevin Spacey is 51, Kate Beckinsdale, Mick Jagger is 69 1656– Rembrandt van Rijn declared bankruptcy. 1951- Charlie Chaplin driven into exile by red-baiters. He was on a holiday to Britain when he learned his visa had been revoked by the U.S. government. He didn't return until 1972. Despite his immense achievements in Hollywood History, when the Hollywood Walk of Fame was dedicated later that year, Chaplin’s name was deliberately excluded. 1951- Walt Disney's animated Alice in Wonderland had it's world premiere in London. 1984- Edward Gein died peacefully in a prison for the criminally insane. Gein was arrested in 1957 and sentenced to life for mass murder. Police found his farm in Wisconsin decorated with human body parts and heads in the freezer and in the stove, and the dried cadaver of his mother. His story inspired "Psycho, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and Silence of the Lambs". 1991 – Children’s comic Paul Reubens aka Pee Wee Herman was arrested in Florida for masturbating in an adult movie theater. The film was Naughty Nurse Nancy.

Animation Fun Facts for July 25, 2012

Birthdays: Thomas Eakins, Maxfield Parrish,Walter Brennan, David Belasco, Jack Gilford, Illeana Douglas, Estelle Getty, Matt LeBlanc is 45 1897- Young writer Jack London went to the Klondike to look for gold. He didn’t find much but did get material for a lot of good stories. Hi poem The Shooting of Dan McGoo was made into several popular short cartoons, including one by Tex Avery at MGM. 1940- In Nazi occupied Paris a Gestapo agent walks into the French offices of MGM studios and confiscates the release prints of "Gone With The Wind." They are taken to Berlin for a screening for top Nazis officials. Gone with the Wind was one of Hitler’s favorite movies. 1951- CBS conducts the first broadcast of color television. NBC made color tv popular in the mid 1960's. 1953-Chuck Jone's "Duck Dodgers in the 24 and 1/2 Century".

Animation Fun Facts for July 24, 2012 Tues.

Birthdays: Amelia Earhart, cartoonist Pat Oliphant, Lynda Carter, Chief Dan George, Robert Hays, Gus Van Sant, Anna Paquin, J-Lo Jennifer Lopez is 43 1934- Cecil B. DeMille’s epic film Cleopatra premiered. It starred Claudette Colbert wearing skimpy metal lingerie that Lady Gaga could envy. 1948- Warner Bros "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 54. 1985-Walt Disney's "The Black Cauldron" premiered.

Animation Fun Facts for July 23, 2012

Birthdays: Ethiopian Emperor Rastafari Halie Selassie, Raymond Chandler, Raymond Booth, Marlon Wayans, Monica Lewinsky, Woody Harrelson is 51, Phillip Seymour Hoffman is 45, Daniel Radcliffe the Harry Potter star is 23 1599- Michel Caravaggio received his first commission for a painting. 1886- This was the day Bowery saloonkeeper Steve Brodie claimed he jumped off the Brooklyn Bridge and lived to tell about it. In 1953 Chuck Jones put him in a Bugs Bunny cartoon. 1966- The comedy song "They're Coming to Take Me Away, Ha, Ha!" released. The singer was Napoleon XIV. 1982- Actor Vic Morrow and two children are killed by a stunt helicopter while filming "Twilight Zone, the movie". The last scripted line before his death was "I’ll Keep you safe kids, I swear to God!" The children were being worked into the early morning hours without a caretaker supervisor in defiance of the Coogan Laws. Director John Landis was investigated but exonerated. The only filmworker to dare to testify against Landis, the wardrobe supervisor, was blacklisted and never worked in Hollywood again. 2004- Two armed men enter the Munch Museum in Norway and steal Edvard Munch’s masterpiece The Scream at gunpoint. It was recovered with some water damage in 2007.

July 22, 2012 sun.

Birthdays: Emma Lazarus, Eduard Hopper, Alexander Calder, James Whale, Oscar De La Renta, David Spade is 48, Terence Stamp is 74, Danny Glover is 66, Alex Trebek, Bobby Sherman, Don Henley, Alan Mencken, Irene Bedard, William Dafoe is 57, John Leguizamo, Albert Brooks is 65- real name Albert Einstein, a nice name but already taken 1921- Artist Man Ray arrived in Paris determined to go Dada! 1977- Walt Disney’s film "The Rescuers" featuring the last work of Disney master animator Milt Kahl. 1989- Nintendo released in America the Gameboy.

Animation Fun Facts for July 21, 2012.

Birthdays: Ernest Hemingway, Marshal McCluhan, Norman Jewison is 85, Don Knotts, Gary Trudeau the creator of Doonesbury, Ernst Shuftan- inventor of the "Shuftan Effect", a cheap way of combining actors with miniatures by shooting through mirrors. All those "Lost World" Cesar Romero fighting the giant Iguanas were done that way. Edward Herman, Robin Williams is 60, Josh Harnett is 34 1954- The Fellowship of the Rings, first book of J.R.R. Tolkein’s The Lord of the Rings, first published. C.S. Lewis said the book “came forth like thunder on a summers day..”

Animation Fun Facts for July 20, 2012

Birthdays: Petrarch, Sir Edmund Hilary, Natalie Wood, Theda Bara the Vamp, Carlos Santana, Giselle Bunchen is 32, Sandra Oh is 41,Disney artist Harrison Ellenshaw, Diana Rigg is 74 1879- Joel Chandler Harris published in the Atlanta Constitution "The Story of Mr. Rabbit and Mr. Fox as Told by Uncle Remus". The first Uncle Remus stories. Harris collected most of the stories from African American storytellers. 1941-Bob Clampett's cartoon"the Great Piggy Bank Robbery" with Daffy Duck as Duck Tracy. "i' m gonna rrrrrrrrrrrubbb ya out, see !" 1973- Bruce Lee died of cerebral edema one month before his last film Enter the Dragon premiered. The handsome martial arts movie star single-handedly made Kung Fu a national craze and the Chop-Socky genre film a regular in world movie theaters. He was buried in his Enter The Dragon costume. Bruce Lee was 33.

Animation Fun Facts for July 19, 2012

Birthdays: Edgar Degas, Max Fleischer, Lizzie Borden, Ille Nastase, Campbell Scott, Benedict Cumberbatch ( the BBC's Sherlock) is 36. 1950- Argh Mateys! Walt Disney’s Treasure Island premiered, with Robert Newton as the archetypical Long John Silver. 1957- That great movie I WAS A TEENAGE WEREWOLF starring Michael Landon premiered. 1966- 50 year old Frank Sinatra married 21 year old Mia Farrow. Frankie’s ex Ava Gardner commented:” Hah! I always knew Frank would one day wind up in bed with a little boy. “ Two years later when Mia Farrow was offered the lead role in Roman Polanski’s film “Rosemary’s Baby” Frank gave her an ultimatum "Baby, it's either me or your career”. She took the part and he sent her a divorce notice on the set. Mia got an Oscar nomination and Frank recorded “Strangers in the Night”.

Animation Fun Facts for July 18, 2012 Weds

Birthdays: William Makepeace Thackeray, Chill Wills, Nelson Mandela is 94, James Brolin, Elizabeth McGovern, Screaming Jay Hawkins, Hume Cronyn, Red Skelton, Hunter H. Thompson, Clifford Odets, Paul Verhoeven, John Glenn is 91, Vin Diesel is 45. 1877- Thomas Edison recorded sound on tin foil cylinder `Mary Had a Little Lamb-' 1939-MGM tried a sneak preview of the film The Wizard of Oz. Afterwards they debated cutting the song Somewhere Over the Rainbow as slowing down the pace but finally decided to leave it in. The film debuted in August to wild success and acclaim. 1939- RKO pictures signed Orson Welles to direct movies in Hollywood. That Hollywood signed a 24 year old radio star who never directed a movie, and gave him complete freedom was an amazing deal. 1955- After the gala opening, today was the regular day people could go to Disneyland. Admission was $1.00. 1998- Pokemon the First movie released in Japan, stoking the Pokemon craze.

Animation Fun Facts for July 17, 2012 Tues.

Birthdays: James Cagney, Bernice Abbott, Chill Wills,Peter Schickele a.k.a. PDQ Bach, Earl Stanley Gardner the creator of Perry Mason, Art Linkletter, Diane Carroll is 77, David Hasslehoff is 60, Donald Sutherland is 77, Phyllis Diller is 95! 1841 - British humor magazine "Punch" 1st published. 1928- President of Mexico Alvaro Obregon was at a large banquet gathering of all former veterans of the Mexican Revolution. Part of the party was having an artist stroll about making caricatures of the guests of honor. Obregon said to cartoonist Leon Toral: "Make sure you make me look good." Toral responded "Oh, I will.." and pulled a gun and shot the President to death. Gotta watch them cartoonists…. 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.

Animation Fun Facts for July 16, 2012 Mon.

Birthdays: Ginger Rogers,Orville Redenbacher,Barbera Stanwyck, Reuben Blades, Will Farrell is 45 1932- Cecil B. DeMille shot the scene in his film Sign of the Cross where Claudette Colbert took a bath in asses milk. Legend has it that DeMille insisted on real milk in the bath and that by the second day the hot studio lights had curdled it to a smelly cheese. But production notes show the scene was all shot in one day. DeMille always got away with sexy semi-nude scenes by putting them in biblical settings. After all, who would criticize a moral tale from the Good Book? 1956 –The Last time Ringling Bros, Barnum & Bailey Circus performed under a canvas circus tent. 1964 Warner Brothers "A False Hare", the last Bugs Bunny theatrical short until 1985. 1969- Passed this day Title 14, Section 1211 of the Code of Federal Regulations, makes it illegal for U.S. citizens to have any contact with extraterrestrials or their spacecraft.

Animation Fun Facts for July 15, 2012 Sun.

Rembrandt van Rijn, Inigo Jones, Clemont Moore, Linda Rondstadt, Forrest Whitaker is 51 1938- Max Fleischer's 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 announced the production of the first X-rated cartoon, Fritz the Cat, to be directed by newcomer Ralph Bakshi. 2011- Disney’s Winnie the Pooh and the Ballad of Nessie opened in theaters.

Animation Fun Facts for July 14, 2012

Birthdays: Issac Bashevis Singer, Mr. Maytag, inventor of the electronic washing machine-1857, Emiline Pankhurst, Woody Guthrie, Gerald Ford, Ingmar Bergman, Jerry Rubin, Scott Rudin, Rosie Grier, Harry Dean Stanton is 85, Polly Bergen, Gustav Klimt, Terry Thomas, Jimmy Hoffa, Dave Fleischer, Bill Hanna, Disney artist Walt Stanchfield, Joel Silver producer of the Matrix movies. Vincent ( Big Pussy) Pastore 1789-BASTILLE DAY-THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. In France the anger of the common people over economic hardship and arrogant indifference of the King and nobility finally exploded in mass violence. The focus of the people’s hate was the Bastille, a huge fortress- prison that towered over Paris rooftops, her cannon aimed at the people in the streets. The Parisians got guns and stormed the prison. Ironically, the royal prefect was intending to phase out the prison anyway. When the gates were opened only a handful of petty thieves came out, including a lunatic who shouted:" I am God! " But the symbolism was what counted. Miles away at Versailles, King Louis XVI had just written in his diary- July 14th 1789-" Nothing" when he heard the commotion. He said:" What is that? A revolt?" The Duke de la Rochfoucauld said:" No Sire, a revolution!" 1908- The Adventures of Dollie premiered, the first movie of D.W. Griffith. 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 July 13, 2012

Birthdays: Cheech Marin, Cameron Crowe, Woye Solenka, Dave Garroway, Chef Paul Prudhomme, Film special effects artist Jim Danforth, Dr. Erno Rubik inventor of the Rubik’s Cube, Patrick Stewart is 71, Harrison Ford is 69, Tom Kenny the voice of Spongebob Squarepants is 50 1865- P.T. Barnum’s American Museum in New York City burned down in a spectacular fire. Barnum rebuilt but after that one burned as well, he got the idea of getting into the circus business. In his American Museum , more a sitting menagerie and sideshow than a museum as we know it, Barnum invented the idea of advanced hype and created kiddie matinees. 1925- Walt Disney and Lillian Bounds marry. Lillian was one of the first female animation ink & paint artists. 1949- Hollywood Studio exec David O. Selznick left his first wife Esther, the daughter of Louis B. Mayer, to marry actress Jennifer Jones. 1984- The film The Last Starfighter with Robert Preston opened. The first movie where all the spaceships and effects were done with computers instead of miniature models.

Animation Fun Facts for July 12, 2012

Birthdays: Gaius Julius Caesar is 2,112 years old, Henry David Thoreau, Impressionist painter Eugene Boudin, Oscar Hammerstein, Kirsten Flagstad, Andrew Wyeth, Pablo Neruda, George Eastman, Milton Berle, Cheryl Ladd, Van Cliburn, Buckminster Fuller, George Washington Carver, Josiah Wedgewood- of Wedgewood china and pottery, Michelle Rodriguez, Richard Simmons, Krysty Yamaguchi, Bill Cosby is 75, Ben Burtt- George Lucas’ sound effects guru who created the sounds of Darth Vader and R2D2, is 64. 1870- Celluloid film patented. The inventor had been trying to find a substitute for ivory billiard balls. Inventor George Eastman later perfected the sprocket and hole system of roll film for cameras, replacing the large glass plates. 1949- The Chairman of IBM, Thomas Watson Sr., predicted that one day all the moving parts of machines would be replaced by electronics. 1960: The Etch-a-Sketch goes on sale. Frenchman Arthur Granjean, invented it. (he called it L’Ecran Magique, or “The Magic Screen”). After failing to get some of the bigger toy companies to bite, he sold his invention to the Ohio Art Company. 1997- Hayao Miyazaki's film Princess Mononoke premiered in Japan.

Animation Fun Facts for July 11, 2012

Birthdays: Scottish King Robert the Bruce, John Quincy Adams, Sir Thomas Bowdler, E.B. White, Yul Brynner- born Tadjhe Khan, Blind Lemon Jefferson, Leon Spinks, Tab Hunter, Susan Vega, Giorgio Armani, Sela Ward, Kimberly “Little Kim’ Jones 1991- Disney announced it would enter into a deal with a Bay area digital offshoot of Lucasfilm named PIXAR. Ten hit films including Toy Story, Monsters Inc. Finding Nemo and UP! are the result.

Animation Fun Facts for July 10, 2012

Birthdays: Adolphus Busch the founder of Budweiser, George DiChirico, Jacky "Legs" Diamond, Arlo Guthrie, Jake LaMotta, Joe Shuster- one of the creators of Superman, Fred Gywnne, Camilla Parker Bowles, Jessica Simpson is 33 1987- The Brave Little Toaster released in theaters. 2007- Minushi, the first feature film done in FLASH.

San Diego Comicon

If any of you plan to visit the San Diego Comicon this week, check out the attractions sponsored by ASIFA/Hollywood. Thursday evening, July 12, join us from 6pm to 9pm along with Technicolor, One Plus Hub, The Producer’s Guild of America/New Media Council and the Summit Talent & Literary Agency in the Keg Room at the Yard House for our annual San Diego Comic-Con Beer Bust! For information and location of the Yard House in San Diego click here. The first 400 beers are FREE! Meet, connect, hang out, and enjoy the worldwide animation community that will come together for this fantastic event. There’s no need to RSVP for this event. Just show up! Friday * State of the Industry Room 32AB, July 13, 2:00pm – 3:00pm What do the professionals think of the animation scene today? Is 2D ever coming back? Is there a stop-motion renaissance? How do I get a job? Join Tom Sito (Beauty and the Beast, Shrek), Jamie Kezlarian Bolio (Lion King, The Illusionist), James Parris (Spider Man, Benjamin Button), Ramin Zahed (editor of Animation Magazine), Josh Scherr (Uncharted III: Drakes Deception, Jax & Daxter), and a stop-motion animator from Laika’s upcoming film ParaNorman. Come join us for the discussion! * Worst Cartoons Ever! Room 6BCF, July 13, 9:00pm – 10:00 pm Animation historian Jerry Beck returns with an all new program of some of the worst cartoons ever made, including the Phys Ed super-hero Mighty Mr. Titan, space cadet Johnny Cypher and some of those 1960s Marvel Super Heroes cartoons. Have a ball with the best/bad animation ever! Or Just drop by our booth and say Hi!

Animation Fun Facts for 7/9/2012

Birthdays: David Hockney,Kelly McGillis, Chris Cooper, O.J.Simpson, Courtenay Love is 52, Debbie Sludge is 58, Brian Dennehy is 74, Tom Hanks of Toy Story is 56 1980 - 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, 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 July 8,2012

Birthdays: Jean de LaFontaine the creator of Puss & Boots, Kathe Kollwitz, Kevin Bacon is 54, Billy Crudup, Angelica Huston, Raffi , Jeffrey Tambor is 68-voice in Disney's Tangled. 1907-The First Ziegfield Follies, staged on the roof of the New York Theater, now called the New Amsterdam Theater. 1911- Burbank incorporated as a city. 1932- Tod Brownings disturbing movie "Freaks" about a family of circus sideshow performers, premiered. One of Us, One of Us! 1982- Walt Disney's TRON- the first film featuring computer graphics premiered. It only was about 20 minutes of actual CGI, and the computer images were still printed onto traditional animation cells and painted, but it was still a significant achievement. Remember in 1981 there were no off the shelf graphics software. The big deal at the time was that MAGI had just solved the "hidden Line" problem.

Animation Fun Facts for July 7, 2012

Birthdays: Ringo Starr is 72, Robert Heinlein, Warner Bros animator Ken Harris, Shelley Duval is 63, Ted Cassidy-Lurch in the Adams Family, Michelle Kwan, David McCullough, Pierre Cardin, and according to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle this is the birthday of Sherlock Holmes’ sidekick Dr. John Watson 1895-THE FIRST SUNDAY COMICS - The first modern comic strip Hogan’s Alley featuring "The Yellow Kid" by Richard Felton Outcault, debuts in the Sunday edition of Pulitzer's New York World. The strip was so popular it gave the name "Yellow Journalism" to the sensationalist tabloid press. Comic strips at this time became the mass media of the day. For people who couldn’t afford a theater ticket and couldn’t yet speak English, the little characters in the penny papers were extremely popular and made celebrities out of cartoonists like Outcault, Bud Selig George McManus and Winsor McCay. Richard Outcault later inventing the backend deal when he asked for a percentage of all sales from his new comic strip "Buster Brown and his dog Tige" 1956- The first keyboard added to a computer. MIT's Whirlwind TX-2.

Animation Fun Facts for July 6, 2012

Birthdays: Sylvester Stallone is 66- voice in Dreamworks Antz , Sebastian Cabot-voice of Bageira in Jungle Book, Disney concept artist James Bordrero, Geoffrey Rush, Ned Beatty is 75, Jennifer Saunders is 54- who did a voice in Shrek II. 1957-Chuck Jones short "What’s Opera, Doc?" debuts. “Kill da wa-bitt, kill da wa-bitt..." 1964 - Beatles' film "Hard Day's Night" premieres in London. The bands iconoclastic, antics portrayed by Richard Lesters surreal free style direction set the style for the music videos of the future. 1998- French workers at Disneyland Paris theme park went on strike for better pay and not having to smile all the time like Americans do.

Birthdays,P.T. Barnum, Beatrix Potter creator of the Peter Cottontail Stories, Jean Cocteau, Len Lye, Eva Green is 32, Edie Falco is 49 1954- Tomoyuki Tanaka announced the beginning of production on the movie Godzilla. 1987- Rankin/Bass the Wind in the Willows.

Animation Fun Facts for July 4, 2012 US Independence Day

Great cartoonist Rube Goldberg Born. 1776- It took two months for the news to cross the Atlantic. In London, King George III wrote in his diary for July 4th, 1776:" Nothing important happened today..." 1862- Oxford mathematics professor Charles Dodgson rowed ten year old Alice Liddell and her sister up the Thames in a small punt. The little girls begged him for a story, so Dodgson made up fantastic tales of March Hares, Mad Hatters and the Queen of Hearts. Dodgson later wrote them down and published them in 1865 as Alice in Wonderland. He used the pen name Lewis Carroll, which was a joke on the fact that Renaissance scholars adopted big stuffy Latin names like Ludovicus Carolus Magnus. 1956- MIT's TX-1 Whirlwind computer added a keyboard to type in data and instructions faster than punchcards. First computer Keyboard.

Animation Fun Facts for July 3, 2012

Birthdays; George Sanders (Shere Khan in Jungle Book),John Singleton Copley, Ken Russell, Tom Stoppard, Tom Cruise is 50 1931- The Cab Calloway Orchestra recorded 'The St. James Infirmary Blues." 1969- Brian Jones, having been kicked out of the Rolling Stones just days before -- drowns in his swimming pool. His home was once the estate of Winnie the Pooh author A.A. Milne 2002- Powerpuff Girls the Movie, premiered.

Animation Fun Facts for July 2, 2012

UPA director Abe Levitow born. 1935 John Lounsberry's first day at Walt Disney. 1982- Don Bluth’s The Secret of Nimh premiered. 1986- Walt Disney’s The Great Mouse Detective released in theaters. Originally called Basil of Baker Street, the studio changed it's name after the high profile flop of Steven Speilberg's Young Sherlock Holmes. The clockworks sequence is one of the earliest uses of CGI in a Disney film.

Animation Fun Facts for July 1st, 2012

Birthdays:Olivia DeHavilland is 96, Estee Lauder, Debbie Harry (Blondie), Karen Black, Dan Ackroyd. Pamela Anderson is 45, Liv Tyler is 35 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. 1941- THE FIRST TV COMMERCIAL -During the live coverage of a Brooklyn Dodgers-Philadelphia Phillies baseball game the first FCC sanctioned television commercial aired. It was for the Bulova Watch Company. 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. Charles Schulz of Peanuts fame said no one could draw mud like Bill Maudlin. 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. Seesh...everybody’s a critic! 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 e-mail.