Animation Fun Facts for Dec 31, 2013 New Years Eve

Birthdays: Henri Matisse, General George C. Marshall, Odetta (real name Holmes Felicious Gordon), Simon Weisenthal, Virginia Davis, Pola Negri, Jules Styne, Sarah Miles, Donna Summer, Patti Smith, Elizabeth Arden, Tim Matheson, John Denver, Dianne Von Furstenberg, Ben Kingsley-born Khrishna Banji is 70, Anthony Hopkins is 76, Val Kilmer is 54, Gong Li is 48, Psy is 35

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1923-24-BBC overseas radio service first broadcast the Chimes of Big Ben around the world.

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1940-41- Avant Garde artists John Sloan and Marcel Duchamp break into the Washington Square Arch in and declare Greenwich Village the Republic of New Bohemia. Like coool, daddy.

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1941- A Warner Bros memo dated this day from producer Hal Wallis office announced that the movie to be made from a play by Murray Bennett called “Everybody Goes to Rick’s” has been renamed “Casablanca”. This was to capitalize on an already popular film title “Algiers” with Charles Boyer “come with me to ze Casbah” etc.. Humphrey Bogart got the lead after George raft first turned it down. Bogie told a friend about his new project: “It’s just some more sh*t like Algiers.”

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1943- Four hundred policemen are called out to control frenzied crowds of bobbysoxers as Frank Sinatra played the Paramount Theater in Times Square. OOHH FRANKIE !!

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1946- The first Pismo Beach Clam Festival.

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1947- Roy Rogers married Dale Evans.

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1962- Romanoffs closed. One of the premier hot spots on the Sunset Strip, it was the preferred hangout of Humphrey Bogart, who liked to play chess in the afternoon with Nick Romanoff when he was between films.

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1985- Singer Ricky Nelson died when his band's converted old DC-9 airplane crashed near DeKalb, Texas. Nelson it was said had been living on a steady diet of cheeseburgers and Snicker's bars.

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1995- The last Calvin and Hobbes comic strip by Bill Waterston

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1997- Will Smith and Jaeda Pinkett marry.

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 Happy New Year from AEF! 

Animation Fun Facts for Dec 30, 2013

Birthdays: Rudyard Kipling, Gen. Hideki Tojo, W. Eugene Smith, Luther Burbank, Anna Magnani, Bo Diddley, Sir Carol Reed, Sandy Koufax, Solomon Guggenheim, Jeanette Nolan, Jack Lord, Joseph Bologna, Fred Ward is 71, Tracey Ullman. Paul Stookey of Peter, Paul & Mary, Douglas Engelbart the inventor of the computer mouse

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1672- Violinist John Bannister and his orchestra held a concert at Whitefriars chapel in London. It’s the oldest known music concert given not to a royalty, but to the general paying public.

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1689- The opera Dido & Aeneas by Henry Purcell premiered in London.

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1816- Poet Percy Bysshe Shelley married Mary Wollenstonecraft. Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein two years later.

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1941- “I Vant to be Alone..” Film Star Greta Garbo announced she was retiring from motion pictures and all public appearances. She made her disappearing act complete and was only seen fleeting on the streets of New York until her death in the 1990s.

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1963- T.V. game show "Let's Make a Deal" with Monty Hall premieres.

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1988 the Pixar short Tin Toy released. The first CG short to win an Oscar. Until this win, Steve Jobs was resisting his animation team making films. He was focused on getting color graphics onto home computers.

Animation Fun Facts for Dec 29, 2013

Birthdays: Roman Emperor Flavius Titus, Pablo Casals, Madame de Pompadour, Andrew Johnson, Charles Goodyear, Gelsey Kirkland, Dina Merrill, Tom Bradley, Mary Tyler Moore is 77, Jon Voight is 75, Ray Nitschke, Viveca Lindfors, Ed Flanders, Ted Danson is 66, Marianne Faithful, Paula Poundstone, Jude Law is 41, Patricia Clarkson, Animator Duncan Marjoribanks

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1913- Cecil B.DeMille telegraphed his partners back in New York:” Flagstaff no good for our purpose. Have proceeded to California. Want authority to rent a barn in a place called Hollywood for $75 a month.” His partner Sam Goldwyn cabled back: “ Rent barn on month to month basis. Do not make long commitment.” DeMille began shooting the Squaw Man, the first Hollywood Film.

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1941- Disney animator Bill Tytla tells Time Magazine in an interview about creating "Dumbo": "I don't know a damn thing about elephants!"

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1964 – To create the first pilot of the TV series Star Trek, the original filming model of the U.S.S. Enterprise was delivered by model maker Rick Datin, Jr, based on the design created by Star Trek production artist Walter “Matt” Jefferies.  The “miniature” was 11 feet long!

1965- First day shooting on Stanley Kubrick’s film 2001: a Space Odyssey. It was an indoor set at Elstree Studios in England, and the first setup was the inspection of the excavation of the Monolith in the moon crater Tycho.

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1968- Animator Bill Tytla died at age 64, from complications of a stroke.

Animation Fun Facts for Dec 28, 2013

 birthdays: Woodrow Wilson, Robert Sessions, Earl "Fatha" Hines, Hildegarde Neff, Edgar Winter, Stan “The Man” Lee is 91,  Martin Branner the creator of Winnie Winkle, Johnny Otis, Martin Milner (1-Adam-12), Lew Ayres, Lou Jacobi, Terri Garber, Denzel Washington is 59, Maggie Smith is 79, Sienna Miller is 32, Disney animator Rick Farmiloe is 57

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1895- THE BIRTHDAY OF CINEMA- In Paris at the Grande Cafe des Capuchines the Lumiere brothers combined Edison's kinetoscope using George Eastman’s roll film with a magic lantern projector and showed a motion picture to an audience in a theater. Back in the U.S. Thomas Edison thought the idea of projecting film in a theater was foolish and would never catch on. They called their device a Cinematograph, hence the word Cinema is born. The screening included dancers and people leaving a factory but the biggest reaction out of the audience was from shots of waves crashing on a rocky beach. The audience in the front row jumped for fear of getting wet.

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1897- Edmond Rostands famous play CYRANO DE BERGERAC premiered in Paris. There really lived a poet-duelist in the 1640’s named Cyrano de Bergerac-Servigan but little was known about him. Rostand created the hopelessly big nosed hero who helps another man romance his true love.

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1914- THE FIRST TRUE CHARACTER ANIMATION- Windsor McCay's "Gertie the Dinosaur" premieres as part of a vaudeville act. Up to then most U.S. animations were attempts to bring popular newspaper comic characters to life, but Gertie was a new character never before seen. Some critics had wondered if animated characters weren’t some kind of man in a special suit, so McCay drew a dinosaur, a character that couldn’t possibly be impersonated by a living thing.  The brilliant draftsmanship and timing of this film would inspire the generation of Animation artists of the Golden Age of the 1930's-40s.

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1928- Last recording of Ma Rainey, The Mother of the Blues.

1928- Louis Armstrong recorded West End Blues.

1944- ON THE TOWN, a musical written by Betty Comden & Adolf Green and young composer Leonard Bernstein premiered in NY.

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1968- The Beatles White Album goes to number one on the pop charts.

Animation Fun Facts for Dec 27, 2013

Birthdays: Johannes Kepler, Linwood Dunn, Marlene Dietrich, Louis Pasteur, Oscar Levant, Sidney Greenstreet, Anna Russell, William Masters of Masters & Johnson, Leslie Maguire, John Amos, Tovah Feldshuh, Heather O’Rourke, Cokie Roberts, Bollywood star Salman Khan is 48, Gerard Depardieu is 65

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1887- Beginning of the Sherlock Holmes story the Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle.

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1904- PETER PAN, OR, THE BOY WHO WOULDN’T GROW UP, a play by James Barrie, opened at the Duke of York Theatre in London. Barrie reserved seats in the opening night performance for orphaned children who laughed and cheered all night. Peter llewlyn Davies, the little boy Barrie befriended who was the basis for Pan, used to say:” I am not Peter Pan. Mr Barrie is.”, He committed suicide in 1960 at age 75. James Barrie once said to H.G. Wells:” It’s all right and good to write books, but can you wiggle your ears?”

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1927- Broadway musical "ShowBoat" debuts at the Ziegfeld theater. Based on a story by Edna Ferber, the music was written by Jerome Kern & Oscar Hammerstein. The play made a star out of a tall black baritone named Paul Robeson.” Ol’ Man River..”

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1935- Radio City Music Hall opened. The Art Deco masterpiece was for many years the largest indoor theater in the world, seating over 6,000.

1940- Al Jolson and Ruby Keeler announced their separation.

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1943- The movie The Song of Bernadette premiered.

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1947- The "Howdy-Doody Show” debuted on NBC. Buffalo Bob, Howdy and Clarabell the Clown, also known as the Puppet Playhouse.

Animation Fun Facts for Dec 26, 2013 Kwanzaa

Birthdays: Emperor Frederick II Hohenstaufen, Mao Tse Tung, Charles Babbage, Admiral Dewey, Richard Widmark, Steve Allen, Henry Miller, Carlton Fisk, Chris Chambliss, Alan King, Phil Spector, Fred Schepsi, Jared Leto is 42

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1924- Baby Frances Gumm first appeared on a stage at 2 1/2 years old. Grown up she would change her name to Judy Garland.

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1926- Young artist Al Hirschfeld had made his first regular caricature for the Broadway Stage. A drawing of actor Sasha Guitry. A friend took it to The New York Tribune and sold it. He figured here's a nifty way to make a living, so soon he was selling to all the papers including the New York Times.

He will keep doing caricatures of Broadway greats into the millennium and became a legend himself. In the American Theater a Hirschfeld caricature of you meant you had arrived and were a real star. At age 94 he remarried and drew the cast of Ally McBeal for TV Guide. In 2003 he died just shy of age 100, drawing to the end.

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1939- Walt Disney Animation moves from Hyperion to the new Burbank Studio lot. The buildings are designed like hospital wards, so in case he hits economic trouble, Disney could sell them to the planned St. Joseph's Hospital across the street. Animator Ward Kimball said it was the first time he worked in a studio where all the furniture matched. The old Hyperion Studio was bulldozed in 1966, the year of Walt Disney’s death.

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1941- Goofy cartoon, the Art of Self Defense, premiered.

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1944- Tennessee Williams play the Glass Menagerie premiered in Chicago.

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1973- The horror film The Exorcist starring Linda Blair premiered. Merry Christmas! Have some pea soup!

Animation Fun Facts for Dec 25, 2013 Christmas Day

Birthdays: Clara Barton, Humphrey Bogart, Cab Calloway, Helena Rubinstein, Rod Serling, Charles Pathe, Jimmie Buffet, Quentin Crisp, Mike Mazurki, Conrad Hilton- Paris’ granddad, Anwar El Sadat.  Burne Hogarth,  Ishmail Merchant, Maurice Utrillo, Kid Ory, Barbara Mandrell, Dame Rebecca West,  Annie Lennox is 60, Howard Beckerman, Karl Rove, Sissie Spacek is 64, CCH Pounder is 61

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1836- According to the novel Moby Dick, today is the day the Pequod set sail from Natucket.

1929- The Fox Atlanta Theater opened on Peachtree St. An Arabian Nights-type fantasy in part financed by the Shriners so they could use it for their meetings.

1931-The first BBC World Service Network broadcast. An address by King George V called "Around the Empire".

1937-NBC Symphony Orchestra under the baton of the legendary Arturo Toscanini premieres with its first radio broadcast.

1946- Comedian W.C. Fields died of alcoholism at 67.  While in his hospital bed someone saw him reading a Bible. They said:" W.C. what are you doing with that? " Fields replied:" Looking for loopholes!"

1955- Chuck Jone's 'One Froggy Evening' premiered. Director Steven Spielberg called it the "Citizen Kane of Cartoons." If you wonder why you never heard the old time ditty 'The Michigan Rag' anywhere else but here, was because Chuck Jones & Mike Maltese wrote it specifically for the cartoon.

1957- Disney film Old Yeller premiered.

1963- Walt Disney’s The Sword in the Stone released. First animated feature directed by Wolfgang,” Woolie” Reitherman.

1977- Charlie Chaplin died quietly in his sleep at Vevey, Switzerland. He was 86.

1980- Documentary filmmaker Ken Burns finished reading Simon Schaara’s novel about the Battle of Gettysburg called The Killer Angels. He tells his father he is inspired to make a documentary about the Civil War. The Civil War took six years to make and ran in 1990, but it was one of the most popular documentary films in the US and redefined the medium of documentary filmmaking.

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Animation Fun Facts for Dec 24, 2013 Xmas Eve.

Birthdays:, Roman Emperor Servius Galba, English King John Lackland, Revolutionary Patriot Dr Benjamin Rush, Kit Carson, Howard Hughes, Ava Gardner, Michael Curtiz, I.F.Stone, Robert Joffrey of the Joffrey Ballet, Mean Joe Green, John Matusak, Susan Lucci, Nicholas Meyer, Ricky Martin, Glen McQueen, Ryan Seacrest

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1818-the song Silent Night first sung at the Church of Saint Nicholas in Obersdorf, Austria. It’s lyrics were written by the minister named Josef Mohr and music by a teacher named Franz Gruber. Their church could not afford an organ, so this first singing of Silent Night was accompanied on a guitar.

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1888- Vincent Van Gogh cuts off a piece of his left ear after an argument with fellow artist Paul Gaugin over the affections of a prostitute named Rachel. He sent his ear to the prostitute. She fainted. Recent scholarship theorizes his ear was sliced off by Gaugin waving an antique sword.

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1925- The London Evening News published a story “ In which we are introduced to Winnie the Pooh, and some Bees.” By A.A. Milne. The first book comes out the following year.

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1937- Disney short Lonesome Ghosts premiered.

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1951- Gina Carlo Menotti’s opera "Amal and the Night Visitors" premiered on NBC TV..

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1952- First draft script completed on the MGM film Terror Planet, changed to “ Forbidden Planet.”

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1964- First day shooting on the “Cage” a pilot for a new TV show called Star Trek. Jeffrey Hunter was the first captain, later replaced by William Shatner when Hunter’s wife advised him to skip the series. She was worried he’d be typecast.

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1966- Local New York City TV station WPIX premiered The Yule Log. They ran a loop of 6 minutes of a closeup of a log burning in a fireplace in Gracie Mansion. The loop ran from 11:00PM to 1:00AM with Christmas carols playing. It made the TV the metaphorical family hearth. New Yorkers loved their kitschy Yule Log tradition and when WPIX tried to replace it in 1989 hundreds of complaints forced them to put it back the following year. The log was taped once more in 1970, and that’s been the film ever since.

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1968- Twentieth Century Fox announced that legendary Japanese film director Akira Kurosawa had been fired from the production of TORA-TORA-TORA. Producer Darryl Zanuck’s original concept was the story of the Pearl Harbor attack told by Kurosawa from the Japanese side and David Lean from the American side. But Lean passed and Richard Fleischer stepped in.  Japanese sections were directed by Toshio Fukusaku and Masuda, whose previous credit was The Green Slime.

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1990- Tom Cruise married Nicole Kidman.

1997- 62 year old Film director Woody Allen married 27 year old Soon-Yi Previn, the adopted daughter of his former lover Mia Farrow. When asked to explain himself the director said: " The Heart wants what it Wants.."