Animation Fun Facts for Jan 10, 2013

Birthdays: Ethan Allen, Marshal Michel Ney, Frank James -Jesse's brother, Francois Poulenc, Ray Bolger (the Scarecrow in the Wizard of Oz), Al Goldstein the publisher of Screw Magazine, Stephen Ambrose, Sherrill Milnes, Pat Benatar, Sal Mineo, Jim Croce, Frank Sinatra Jr., Rod Stewart, Walter Hill, George Foreman, Linda Lovelace, Jermaine Clement of Flight of the Concords is 39 1529- Michelangelo elected to design the military defenses of Florence. They failed to keep out the enemy, but they must have looked really cool! 1924- Columbia Pictures created, ruled by Harry Cohn, who's motto was "I don't get ulcers, I give them!" 1927- Fritz Lang’s masterpiece film Metropolis premiered. 1929- The comic character Tin Tin first appeared in a Belgian newspaper XXe Siecle. 1939- Science fiction writer Isaac Asimov sold his first story to Amazing Stories Magazine "Marooned off Vesta". 1941- The comedy play ARSENIC AND OLD LACE opened on Broadway. When buying the movie rights Warner Bros agreed to wait until the play ended it’s theatrical run. They thought plays usually are done in a few months. Arsenic and Old Lace ran until 1944. 1970- Masterpiece Theater debuted on US TV with Alastair Cooke. The first show was the BBC series the First Churchills. These shows were so popular that for awhile people thought PBS meant Preferably British Shows. 1992- The GREAT RUBBER DUCKY DISASTER- A North Pacific storm causes a ship to lose 29,000 bath toys overboard. They joined 61,000 Nike sneakers already bobbing in the water from a similar accident. Scientists used the rubber ducky migration to track Pacific Ocean currents around Alaska. 2000- AOL and Time Warner announced a $165 billion dollar merger that made it the world’s largest media company. The deal almost sank both companies, uprooted both chairmen and they detached finally in 2009.