Animation Fun Facts for Oct. 2, 2012

Birthdays: King Richard III, Nat Turner, Mahatma Ghandi, Spanky MacFarland, Julius Marx known as Groucho Marx, Bud Abbott, Moses Gunn, Graham Greene, LeRoy Shield (composer of the music in the Hal Roach comedies), Donna Karan, Gordon Sumner known as Sting is 62, Lorraine Bracco, Tiffany, Kelly Ripa 1933- Library of Congress musicologist John Lomax met with an Arkansas chaingang convict named Hudlan Ledbetter, who everyone called Leadbelly. He recorded a cotton picking work song of his called "the Rock Island Line'. Leadbelly became famous and recorded his own version 3 years later. Lomax died in 2002. 1937 - Ronald Reagan, just 26 years old, made his acting debut this day with Warner Brothers release of "Love is in the Air". 1950- Charles Schulz's "Peanuts" comic strip debuts. Good ol' Charlie Brown was the name of a fellow post office worker all the guy's liked to play jokes on. Schulz's idea 'little folks' was initially rejected by all the major comic syndicates. Three months before the strip was accepted his girlfriend broke off their engagement. He had left his job at the post office and she was convinced he would never amount to anything. At the time of his death Charles Schulz had mountains on the moon named for his characters, and he was arguably the richest visual artist on earth. 1955 - "Good Eeeeeeevening." The master of mystery movies, Alfred Hitchcock, presented his brand of suspense to millions of viewers on CBS on this night. 1957- Raintree County, the first film in Panavision. 1958- The Huckleberry Hound show. 1959- The television show the Twilight Zone debuts. Producer/writer Rod Serling had fought network execs for months that a mystery-suspense show could compete with all the Doctor and Cowboy shows on TV. He originally wanted Orson Welles to be the host of the show but when Welles asked for too much money, Serling decided to do it himself. He wrote 90 episodes. He said he got the name Twilight Zone from a term airline pilots used for the area when both the clouds and ground are invisible from view and you lose your bearings. 1982- Godfrey Reggio’s haunting documentary Koyaanisqatsi premiered at Radio City Music Hall. Music by Phillip Glass. 1985- Actor Rock Hudson died of AIDS. The first major celebrity to die of the disease.