Animation Fun Facts for Jan 1, 2018

Birthdays: Lorenzo De Medici” the Magnificent”, Pope Alexander VI Borgia, Paul Revere, Betsy Ross, Mad Anthony Wayne, E.M. Forrester, J. Edgar Hoover, Alfred Steiglitz, Xavier Cugat, Frank Langella is 79, Barry Goldwater, Kuniyoshi Utagawa, Dana Andrews, Idi Amin, Kliban, Verne Troyer (Mini-Me)

1881- The Eastman Kodak Company formed. Kodak supposedly was named from the sound of the snapping camera shutter. Ko-DAK!

1890- The First Tournament of Roses Parade in Pasadena California.

1914- The Archbishop of Paris threatens with excommunication young people who dance the Tango. "It's lascivious nature offends morality."

1939- Vladimir Zworkin patented the Iconoscope (the eye of a TV camera) and Kinescope. The television process evolved over so many years -there were experimental TV stations in 1923 and the Berlin Olympics of 1936 were televised. So you can't really point to one Tom Edison type inventor, although Zworkin, Englishman James Logie Baird in 1924, Philo Farnsworth, and Dr. Lee DeForest all at one time tried to take the full credit.

1942- Because of the fear of a Japanese attack on the California coastline, the Rose Bowl that year was played in North Carolina.

1943- Walt Disney's Donald Duck cartoon Der Fuehrer's Face premiered.

1953- 29 year old country music star Hank Williams had spent the night drinking whiskey and doing chloral hydrate. When a West Virginia policeman pulled over his car, he remarked to the driver that Williams looked dead. The driver said he was just sleeping and drove on. He was dead.  Hank Williams last song was “I’ll Never get out of this World Alive.”

1959- The Chipmunk Song by David Seville (aka Ross Bagdassarian) tops the pop charts..

1960- The Radio and Television Director's Guild merge with the Screen Directors Guild to form the DGA.

1963- Tetsuwan Atomu or Atom Boy, an animated television show by Osamu Tezuka premiered on Japanese TV. As Astro Boy it became the first Japanese anime show to break into the mainstream American market.

1966- Ailing Walt Disney served as Grand Marshal for the Tournament of Roses Parade. Standing in the crowd on the curb with his mother was 8 year old John Lasseter.

1976- Potheads sneak up to the Hollywood Sign and change the two “O’s to “E’s so the sign read HOLLYWEED.

1984- By court order, the phone system AT&T also called the Bell System, which had dominated telephone communication exclusively since Alexander Graham Bell, was ordered broken up into 22 regional companies, the Baby Bells. The explosion of telecommunications, smart phones, Blackberries and bigger phone bills result.