Animation Fun Facts for June 1, 2016

Birthdays: Brigham Young, Marilyn Monroe, Pat Boone, Mikhail Glinka, Red Grooms, Karl Von Clausewitz, Andy Griffith, Morgan Freeman is 79, Nelson Riddle, Lisa Hartman, Cleavon Little, Frederica Von Stade, Powers Booth, Rene Aubergjenois, Lisa Hartman, Jonathan Pryce is 69, Brian Cox is 70, Heidi Klum is 43

1931- 48 year old Swiss artist Albert Hurter joined the Disney staff, giving the look of cartoons like Snow White a more Germanic storybook look. His hiring created a new type of job at the studio, an Inspirational Sketch Artist, what we call today a Vis-Dev artist.

1933 - Charlie Chaplin wed actress Paulette Goddard

1936 - "Lux Radio Theater" moved from NYC to Hollywood.

1939- SUPERMAN- In Cleveland, Joe Seigel and Jerry Shuster, two aspiring cartoonists in High School created a character called “Superman”. Jewish kids, they had read about the Nazi concept of the Aryan Superman. They wanted to show a Superman could be on the American side. On this day they sold all the rights to their characters to Detective Comics (D.C.) for $130.

When the first megabudget Superman movie was being made in the 1976, the National Cartoonist's Society spokesman Neal Adams pointed out that Seigel & Schuster were now poverty stricken. They never shared a nickel of the multi-millions their creation had generated. Seigel was blind on disability, and Schuster delivered sandwiches from a local deli. The publicity forced Warner Bros and DC Comics to award them and their families pensions for life.

1942- British actor Leslie Howard, who played Ashley in" Gone with the Wind "was killed. The movie star was doing diplomacy in Spain, but on the flight home his commercial DC-3 airliner was shot down by German JU-88s over the Bay of Biscay. He was such an effective propagandist that when German agents learned his schedule, they sent the interceptors just to get him.

1961 - FM multiplex stereo broadcasting 1st heard.

1966 - George Harrison is impressed by Ravi Shankar's concert in London.

1967 –Beatles released Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band in the US and it immediately goes gold.

1968 - Simon & Garfunkel's "Mrs. Robinson" hits #1

1979- Gannett News Services began USA Today, called by some critic's- 'MacPaper'.

1980- Ted Turner started CNN news channel.