Animation Fun Facts for Nov 29, 2019

Birthdays: Gaetano Donizetti, Busby Berkeley, C.S. Lewis, Louisa May Alcott, Chuck Mangione, Vin Scully, Yakima Canutt, Gary Shandling, Cathy Moriarity, Don Cheadle, Joel Coen is 63, Jacques Chirac, Howie Mandell, Susee “Chapstick” Chafee, Anna Faris is 43

1913- In the first years of animated films, one artist like Winsor McCay drew everything alone, and may have hired a cameraman or assistant. This day, John Randolph Bray's cartoon "Colonel Heeza Liar in Africa" debuted. Bray adapted Henry Ford's assembly line system to making animation, today known as the Production Pipeline. He created the job positions of layout, animator, inbetweener, background painter, inker, blackeners (cel painters), and camera. In the 1920s the job of gag man (storyboarder), cleanup and checkers. After 1919, Bray shifted his studio focus from entertainment to technical and training films. J.R. Bray started the careers of Paul Terry, Walter Lantz, Max & Dave Fleischer and Shamus Culhane. 

1942- During WWII, the U.S. declared coffee would be rationed along with sugar, gasoline and rubber. And lots more. People put their cars up on blocks "for the duration". Gas Ration cards were listed as C, B & A. The C card meant essential defense worker. B cards police & fire, so they had unlimited access to gasoline. An A card was the least important.

1959- The Second Grammy Awards, broadcast for the first time on television. Bobby Darin’s rendition of Mack the Knife won top honors.

1972- Atari announced Pong, the first popular mass-marketed interactive game. 

1981- Actress Natalie Wood drunkenly toppled off her yacht near Catalina Island and 

drowned. Her husband Robert Wagner, and friend Christopher Walken were onboard having an argument and unaware of her predicament. Wood had once confessed to a friend that she had a horror of drowning. 

2001- Beatle guitarist and composer George Harrison died of cancer. He was 58.

2018- The premiere of Mary Poppins Returns.