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.