Animation Fun Facts for Oct. 27, 2017

B-Days: Captain James Cook, Theodore Roosevelt, Dylan Thomas, Nicolo Paganinni, Gerhard Von Gneisenau, Sylvia Plath, Roy Lichtenstein, John Cleese is 78, Freddy De Cordova, Ruby Dee, Roberto Benigni is 65, illustrator Bernie Wrightson

1886- Musical fantasy "Night on Bald Mountain" premiered in Russia. Composer Modest Mussorgsky worked as a florist during the day and wrote music at night. He was convinced he couldn’t make a living otherwise.

1916- The entertainment trade magazine Variety has the blurb: "Chicago has added recently to it’s number of so-called Jazz bands." Now jazz was around in black neighborhoods for years before, but the form was labeled Ragtime or Syncopation. This is the earliest known use in print of the word Jazz.

1919- New Orleans Louisiana was unique because it governed itself using French law. This day saw the last execution of a criminal by axeman in the Big Easy, twenty years after most of America had gone from hanging to the electric chair.

1941- The Chicago Tribune announced in an editorial that there was no chance that the US would go to war with Japan.

1947- The "You Bet Your Life" quiz show premiered on radio. "Say the Secret Word and Win Fifty Dollars". Comedian Groucho Marx had struggled after his brothers act the Marx Brothers broke up. During a live radio program with Bob Hope at one point Hope dropped his script. Before he could pick it up Groucho stepped on the pages, threw his own away and the two improvised their conversation. The result was much funnier that anything anybody had written. The producer of the show was so impressed he hired Groucho and built a quiz show around him.

1954- The" Disneyland" television show premieres. Up until then the major Hollywood Studios were all boycotting the new upstart medium of television, then mostly done in New York by blacklisted stage actors and writers. MGM Production head Dori Schary called TV “ the Enemy”. Walt Disney is the first to break ranks with the major film studios and get into television production and even films the show in Technicolor, figuring television will develop color broadcasting eventually.

1964- Sonny & Cher married. I got you babe!

1964- The “ You Choose Speech” Actor and TV pitchman Ronald Reagan made his maiden political speech at a fundraiser for Republican presidential candidate Barry Goldwater. He had made political speeches in the past, but this one marks his shedding his acting and union careers to become a full time conservative politician.

1966- Bill Melendez's Peanuts TV special "It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown'.

1967- the worlds fair in Montreal called Expo 67 closed.