Animation Fun Facts for July 1, 2015

Birthdays: Louis Bleriot, Tommy Dorsey, George Sand, Charles Laughton, James Cagney, Princess Diana, Twyla Tharp, Carl Lewis, Jamie Farr, Sidney Pollack, Wally "Famous"Amos, Estee Lauder, Debbie Harry (Blondie), Genevieve Bujold, Karen Black, Dan Ackroyd. Andre Crouch, Pamela Anderson is 48, Liv Tyler is 38,

Olivia DeHaviland, who starred in Gone With The Wind, and the Adventure of Robin Hood, is 99!

1933- Mickey’s Gala Premiere, Mickey short with Joe Grant’s caricatures of famous Hollywood celebrities.

1941- Animation director Tex Avery stormed out of the Looney Tunes Studio when Jack Warner ordered cuts in the first Bugs Bunny cartoon, A Wild Hare. Boss Leon Schlesinger put him on a four week suspension without pay, but Avery had already lined up a gig at MGM.

1941- THE FIRST TV COMMERICAL -During the live coverage of a Brooklyn Dodgers-Philadelphia Phillies baseball game the first FCC sanctioned television commercial aired. It was for the Bulova Watch Company.

1945- Bill Mauldin's wartime comic strip "Willie and Joe' ends it's run along with the European front line edition of Stars and Stripes magazine. Charles Schulz of Peanuts fame said no one could draw mud like Bill Maudlin. Mauldin was once chewed out by General Blood & Guts Patton for making his GIs so slovenly and cynical. He felt it was a negative image of the American Fighting Man. Seesh...everybody’s a critic!

1945- NY Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia read the Sunday comics section over the radio because of a newspaper strike.

1966- The US Medicare Program began. The first Medicare card was given by LBJ to elderly former President Harry Truman. At the time it was felt there was no need to include prescription drugs in the program since their cost was so low. Since then while general inflation rate has been nil to 1% prescription drugs average inflation rate is 400%.

1970- Hanna & Barbera’s attempt at a primetime animated series "Where’s Huddles?"

1970 The Xerox Company of Connecticut are convinced to open a new computer science lab on the west coast near Stanford University, It’s called Palo Alto Research Center, or Xerox PARC. In 9 years PARC will develop laser-printing, color graphics, Graphics User  interface, windows, cursor point and click and the Ethernet e-mail.

1972- Ms. Magazine started publication.

1981- The Wonderland Murders. Over-endowed porn star Johnny Holmes was implicated in a gang murder. In a Los Angeles home known to be involved in drug dealing. four people were found beaten to death with a steel pipe. Holmes was picked up and tried as an accomplice but was acquitted. Hung jury.   -I’m sorry, I just had to say it!

1996- the movie Dinosaur Valley Girls premiered.

1998- Barbara Streisand married James Brolin.