Animation Fun Facts for Dec 18, 2017

Birthdays: Antonio Stradivari, Karl Maria Von Weber, Ty Cobb, George Stevens, Ozzie Davis, Diane Disney-Miller, Anita O’Day, Paul Klee, Betty Grable, Willy Brandt, Keith Richards is 75, Leonard Maltin is 67, Alyssia Sanchez-Vaccario, Ray Liotta is 63, Katie Holmes is 39, Brad Pitt is 54, Steven Spielberg is 71

1812- The first volume of stories Childrens and Household Tales by the Brothers Grimm came out. The world learns of Rapunzel, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty and Snow White.

1937- Mae West does a comedy routine on national broadcast radio with Don Ameche about Adam and Eve that was considered so racy CBS banned her from their network.

At the same time she got fined by the networks for joking about ventriloquist puppet Charlie McCarthy:" Hmmm…he’s all wood and a yard long!"

1939-Max Fleischer's animated classic “Gulliver's Travels”.

1956- TV Game show To Tell the Truth made its debut. Bud Collier hosting, and panelists like Kitty Carlisle, Bennett Cerf, Orson Bean and Dorothy Killgallen as panelists.

1960- A young, eccentric man named Jerry Garcia was dishonorably discharged from the U.S. Army. He had done things like drive a tank into a field then walk away. He had been AWOL 8 times in one year. After leaving the army, Jerry Garcia became a hippie musician in San Francisco. In 1966 formed the rock band the Grateful Dead.

1961-" In the Jungle, the mighty jungle, the lion sleeps to-night…a winoweh, etc. " this song by the Tokens goes to #1 in pop charts.

1964- DePatie-Freleng’s The Pink Phink, the first Pink Panther cartoon short.

1966- Chuck Jone's 'How the Grinch Stole Christmas' premiered.

1975- Rod Stewart announced he was leaving the band Faces, for a solo singing career.

1978- SAG strikes Hollywood again for residuals. (again...)

1983- Jean Shephard’s The Christmas Story opened to tepid acclaim and weak box office, but soon became an annual holiday classic. On Christmas Day many TV stations play it 24 hours straight.

1984- Christopher Guest married Jamie Lee Curtis at Rob Reiner’s house .

1984- Pixars first short The Adventures of Andre and Wally-B released in theaters. Directed by Alvy Ray Smith and animated by John Lasseter.

1997- Saturday Night Live Comedian Chris Farley was found dead in his Chicago apartment in the John Hancock Tower, surrounded by empty food containers and porn magazines. The chubby 31-year-old had been partying for 17 straight hours doing cocaine, heroin, vodka and crystal-meth. His last words were to an exhausted prostitute:" Please don’t leave me.” Farley idolized the late John Belushi, who had also died of drugs and hard living at age 31. One writer recalled once a drunken Farley turned to him and asked:" Do you think Belushi is in heaven?"

1988- Don Bluth’s The Land Before Time opened.

1998- Dreamworks feature cartoon the “Prince of Egypt”, or, as it was known in Hollywood," The Zion King".

2015- Star Wars VII, The Force Awakens opened. J.J. Abrams reboot of the old Star Wars franchise became a box office phenomenon. It earned $247 million in its opening weekend, and ended way over a billion and a half dollars.