Animation Fun Facts for Sept. 9,2012

Birthdays: Antonio Frescobaldi, Captain William Bligh,Cliff Robertson, Angela Cartwright, Alf Landon, Dee Dee Sharpe who sang the 60's R&B hit the Mashed Potato, Michael Keaton, Otis Redding, Anita Ekberg, Hugh Grant is 52, Topol, Colonel Lyman Sanders the founder of Kentucky Fried Chicken, James Hilton-writer who created the name for paradise- Shangri-La, in his novel Lost Horizons. Adam Sandler is 46 1908- THE PATENTS TRUST- Thomas Edison, Charles Pathe and Leon Gaumont form the Motion Picture Patents Group. Called the "Trust", their attempt to monopolize movie production and strangle off the independents had a lot to do with the early filmmakers exodus to Los Angeles. Otherwise the film capitol of the world would have been Ft. Lee, New Jersey. The only positive result of the trust was they enforced a regular industry standard for film stock of 35 mm running at 24 frames per second. It seems the Mitchell Camera Company was developing a motorized motion picture camera to replace the hand crank variety but they needed an official speed to set it at. In a contentious meeting of the Trust held at the Waldorf Astoria no one could settle on a single speed. Finally the compromise was made to make it the number of delegates in the room- 24. 1926 – The National Broadcasting Company or NBC created by Radio Corporation of America RCA. Under the direction of David Sarnoff it became the powerhouse network of broadcasting, recording and later television. 1939- The first Andy Panda cartoon. 1939- The first day of shooting on Charlie Chaplin’s film the Great Dictator. The first day was the Ghetto street scene. One of his distributors grumbled “ By the time Chaplin finishes his movie, people won’t even remember who Hitler ever was.” 1945 - 1st bug in a computer program discovered by Naval Commander Grace Hopper. A moth was removed with tweezers from a relay & taped into the log. Since then any computer glitch was nicknamed "a bug". 1950 - 1st use of TV laugh track invented by Hank McCune. 1951 - 1st broadcast of the soap opera" Love of Life " on CBS-TV 1956- Elvis Presley appeared on nationwide television on the Ed Sullivan Show. Sullivan himself had vowed never to have the kid on his show but caved in to network pressure. He stayed home that first time, and actor Charles Laughton was the substitute host. CBS Network censors thought the gyrations of Elvis' pelvis so obscene that in many markets they blacked out the lower portion of the screen so he was covered the waist down. 1967- Jay Ward’s show George of the Jungle premiered, with Super Chicken and Tom Slick sequences.