Animation fun facts for Jan 12, 2015

Birthdays: Pilgrim leader John Winthrop, Charles Perrault (Mother Goose)*, John Hancock, Edmund Burke, John Singer Sargent, Jack London, James Farmer the founder of CORE, Herman Goering, "Smokin' Joe" Frazier, Tex Ritter, Martin Agronsky, Howard Stern is 60, Rush Limbaugh, Oliver Platt is 55, Wayne Wang, Tiffany, Kirstie Alley is 59,  Disney Animator John Sibley, John Lasseter is 58

1960-” The Scent of Mystery”- the first film in Smell-O-Vision.

1965- NBC TV premiered Hullabaloo, a Rock & Roll dance show with lots of mini-skirted go-go dancers. ABC responded with Shindig.

1971- “ ALL IN THE FAMILY” Norman Lear's TV sitcom about racism and the 60's,debuted. Based on a successful British show Steptoe and Son, it broke new ground for American sitcoms by frankly discussing race prejudice, menopause, rape and other taboo subjects. The first show featured the sound of a toilet flushing. 

The networks were so worried about its explosive content ABC rejected the show twice, and CBS ran the first episodes with a long apologetic disclaimer. Carrol O’Connor, the actor who played Archie Bunker, was so convinced the show would flop, he demanded as part of his contract a round trip plane ticket home. The show ran for 13 years, a bushel of Emmy Awards and made Archie Bunker a folk-hero.

1995- Steven Speilberg, Jeffrey Katzenberg and David Geffen announced the name of their new partnership would be 'Dreamworks SKG'. Someone in Florida immediately bought the domain name “Dreamworks.com” and waited for their buyout offer.  I heard it was $5,000.

1997-According to Arthur C. Clarkes 1968 book "2001, a Space Odyssey", the HAL-9000 computer was booted up today.

2001- The Cohen Bros film Oh, Brother Where Art Thou? Goes into general release.

*Charles Perrault was a 17th century French author who wrote Tales of Mother Goose and practically invented the fairy tale genre, Some of his most famous ones, which he culled from even older folk takes, are The Sleeping Beauty, Little Red Riding Hood, Cinderella and Puss In Boots. Read today, his original versions can seem almost grotesque, but they always have some sort of moral overtone. Over the years, his fairy tales have been adapted and retold by many notable storytellers, including the Brothers Grimm and Walt Disney.