B-Dayz: Annie Oakley, Alfred
Hitchcock, Don Ho, Buddy Rogers, Bert Lahr, Ben Hogan, Richard Baseheart, Saul
Steinberg, Regis Toomey, Johann Christoph Denner (1655)- inventor of the
clarinet. Danny Bonaduce, John Logie Baird one of the inventors of television,
Hockey great Bobby Clarke, Daniel Schorr, Bombay movie star Viyayanthimala,
Fidel Castro is 88
1934- First Little Abner comic
strip by Al Capp. Dogpatch, Mammy Yokum, Daisey Mae, Kickapoo Joy Juice,
Jubilation T. Cornpone and the Schmoo are born. Al Capp was a hard drinking old
curmudgeon of a cartoonist who lost one leg when as a child he fell off a
streetcar. In his old age he gloried in being a right wing chauvinist who got
into arguments with lefties like John Lennon & Yoko.
1941- James Stuart Blackton
certainly had an interesting career. The English born artist became a top
newspaper cartoonist, a vaudevillian drag act as Mademoiselle Stuart, the first
American animator, founder of the Vitagraph Company, the movie fanzine Motion
Picture World. He even successfully faked a newsreel of the battle of Manila
Bay in 1898 using toy boats, sparklers and cigar smoke. He made fortunes and
lost them just as quickly. On this day, penniless, he was struck and killed by
a bus on Pico Blvd.
1942 Disney's Bambi opened in
theaters nationwide. Today the film looks quaint but in its time artists felt
it was as realistic as artists could attain. Designer Rico LeBrun had a hunter
friend bring in a real deer he shot in the Sierras. LeBrun set up drawing and
anatomy sessions to study the dead animal. But LeBrun was so inspired by the
opportunity he refused to dispose of the carcass even after several days it
began to smell badly and attract flies. Finally the other animators waited until
LeBrun had left for lunch and tossed the rancid thing.
1946- MGM cartoon Northwest
Hounded Police, the short in which Tex Avery perfected the 'Tex Avery
Take" - used since in films like Mask, Roger Rabbit and Casper.
1955- Shooting wrapped on Cecil B.
DeMille’s The Ten Commandments. He was remaking the film he had done as a
silent movie in 1925. One wag said:
DeMille has done God one better, because he has now parted the Red Sea
twice."
1991- Jack Ryan died. The Toymaker
was the inventor of Hot Wheels toy cars, and helped launch the doll Barbie.
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