Animation Fun Facts for Oct 30, 2016

 Birthdays: John Adams, Christopher Columbus, English playwright Richard Sheridan,

Ezra Pound, Emily Post, Louis Malle, Henry Winkler is 69, Charles Atlas, Ruth Gordon,

Claude Lelouche, Dick Gautier, Louis Malle, Ted Williams, Grace Slick, Diego Maradona, Ivanka Trump is 35

1811- Jane Austen’s novel Sense and Sensibility published.

1931- first day shooting on the movie Tarzan the Ape Man, starring former Olympic Gold Medal swimming champ Johnny Weissmuller.

1936- London publishers George Allen & Unwin had received a manuscript from an Oxford languages professor named J.R.R. Tolkein.  Raynar Unwin, the ten year old son of the publisher, read it and made a report “ This book will be a very good read for children from ages 5-7.” He was paid a shilling. So they published “The Hobbit”.

1938-"THE NIGHT THAT PANICKED AMERICA- 27 year old Orson Wells broadcast a  radio update of H.G. Well’s story "The War of the Worlds". Despite periodic station announcements that it was only a fictional re-enactment, people across the U.S. go bonkers that an actual Martian invasion had landed in Grover’s Mill New

Jersey.  In Hollywood famed actor John Barrymore, drunk as usual, went over to his

kennel of prize winning racing greyhounds and open their cage doors, saying: "Fend

for yourselves!" In 1949 Ecuador and 1969 Buffalo NY, radio stations did updated versions of the broadcast, and they also started panics. 

1947- Bertholt Brecht, the playwright of Mother Courage and the Threepenny Opera,

testified to the McCarthy HUAC committee. He smoked a large cigar through the whole

session. Next day, as he had once fled Hitler’s Germany, he fled the U.S. and settled

in East Germany.

1973- The Carlin Case- Radical radio station WBAI in New York broadcast hippy comedian George Carlin’s routine about the “Seven Deadly Words” the naughty words you can’t say on the air.  I can’t write them because children read this column but you all

know what they are anyway. The FCC slapped a heavy fine and WBAI sued for free speech and the case made it to the Supreme Court. Today the High Court found for the FCC and those 7 deadly words remain banned from airwaves today. Aw, Sh*t!

2002- Rap star of Run-DMC Jam Master Jay was shot dead in the lounge of his recording

studio in Queens NY. The killer was never found.

2005- Disney feature Chicken Little premiered.

2012- The Walt Disney Company announced it was buying out George Lucas holdings (including the Star Wars franchise) for $4.05 billion.