Animation Fun Facts for April 30, 2020

Birthdays: Elector Johann-Frederich the Magnanimous, Franz Lehar, Joachim Von Ribbentropp, Max Skladanowsky, Jaroslav Hasek, Eve Arden, Jill Clayburgh, Alice B. Toklas, Isaiah Thomas, Cloris Leachman is 94, Jane Campion, Al Lewis, animator Bill Plympton is 73, Lars von Trier, Burt Young, Kirsten Dunst is 38, Gal Gadot is 35. 

1905- At Evansville Illinois, future baseball umpire Cy Rigler began the practice of raising his right arm to indicate strikes, so that friends in the outfield could distinguish calls. 

1939- The 1939 World’s Fair opened in Flushing Meadows, NY. The Trylon & Perisphere presided over the gleaming Art-Deco paean to optimism, even as the world waited nervously for Hitler’s next move.  With President Franklin D. Roosevelt in attendance the NBC network began regular television broadcasting. It only went to a few homes.  Experts were not optimistic." It requires a darkened room and constant attention." one said.

1952- Mr. Potato Head became the first toy advertised on television. Over one million kits will be sold in the first year! Originally invented by George Lerner in 1949 to stuck faces on real vegetables, Mr. Potato Head was sold to brothers Henry and Merrill Hassenfeld in 1951 (the creators of the toy company Hasbro). In 2000 Rhode Island declared itself the Mr Potato Head State. The Hasbro Toy Company is headquartered in Pawtucket, a city just outside of Providence.

1976- Great Disney animator Milt Kahl retired. 

1988- Tom Hanks married actress Rita Wilson.

1992- BERN, the Geneva particle lab where the World Wide Web was developed by Tim Berners-Lee, declared that WWW, aka The Web, would be open and free to all with no restrictions or royalties to be paid to them.

1993- The Walt Disney Company announced its’ purchase of top independent film producer Miramax. They produced films like The Crying Game. Ten years later a feud with Michael Eisner caused Miramax founders the Weinstein brothers to leave and form another company. By the time Miramax was sold off in 2010, it was a shadow of its former self.

1997- In the last show of the season, comedian Ellen Degenere’s character Ellen admits to Laura Dern that she’s gay. Disney promptly canceled the Ellen Show. Ellen returns with a talk show that became even more popular.

Animation Fun Facts for April 29, 2020

Birthdays: Emperor Hirohito, Duke Ellington, Duke Wellington, Sir Thomas Beacham, Zuben Mehta is 84, Tom Ewell, Rod McKuen, Fred Zinnemann, Jerry Seinfeld is 66, Michelle Pfeiffer is 62, Daniel Day Lewis is 63, Uma Thurman is 49, Willie Nelson is 87.

1771- Artist Benjamin West unveils his painting of the “Death of General Wolfe” at the Royal Academy in London. Wolfe was killed in the Battle of the Plains of Abraham, which decided that Canada would be English. West’s portrayal of Wolfe in his actual uniform instead an idealized Grecian god surrounded by floating cherubs, was considered scandalously realistic, and revolutionized painting.

1786- The day before his opera THE MARRIAGE OF FIGARO was to premiere, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart sat down after dinner and wrote the famous overture. Friends said he liked to think while playing billiards.

1929- The film "All's Quiet on the Western Front" premiered. The world war one battlefield was constructed on a California ranch and dozens of real veterans hired to be extras. When the antiwar film debuted in Germany, Nazis agitators were sent out to Berlin theaters to release rats, skunks and snakes in the theaters to scare people away. The star of the movie Lew Ayres ruined his career when he declared himself a conscientious objector during World War II. 

1939- It’s strangely ironic that Adolf Hitler’s Government while murdering millions also waged the first campaigns against smoking. This day the Nazi Party officially banned smoking in all their offices because of health concerns. The rest of the world wouldn’t even begin to think of linking cancer with cigarette smoking until the 1960’s.

1944- Dancing Romeos, the last Our Gang comedy short was produced by MGM, which had bought the franchise in 1938 from Hal Roach.

1949- MGM chief Louis B. Mayer fired Frank Sinatra for making a joke about him. Mayer had hurt his hip riding, and Sinatra joked he got hurt not from falling off his horse, but falling off Jean Howard, a young actress Mayer was chasing. 

1962- President John Kennedy hosted a dinner for a group of Nobel Prize winners at the White House. Kennedy said: “ I think this is the most extraordinary collection of talent and human knowledge that has ever been gathered together at the White House, with the possible exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined here alone.”

1986- Los Angeles Central Library burns down. A lot of the costs of rebuilding was raised by private donation, much raised by a wild local televangelist named Dr. Gene Scott. Scott would preach his own strange brand of Bible study while smoking a cigar and wearing funny hats on camera. He also liked to laugh at other evangelists.  

1992- THE GREAT LOS ANGELES RIOT- Los Angelenos go berserk after an all white jury in Simi Valley acquitted four policemen who beat up drunk motorist Rodney King while being videotaped. 63 killed, 2500 businesses destroyed, $1.5 billion dollars in damage, 13,200 arrests and large sections of Los Angeles put under martial law. Even Rodney King was moved to go on TV and proclaim: " Can't we all just get along?" 

Animation Fun Facts for April 28, 2020

Birthdays: English King Edward IV (1442), President James Monroe, Lionel Barrymore, Oskar Schindler, Carolyn Jones-aka Morticia Addams of the TV Addams Family, Ann Margaret is 80, Jay Leno is 70, Saddam Hussein, Jean Redpath, James Baker III, Penelope Cruz is 46, Jessica Alba is 41, Godzilla is 66- see below.

1686- Sir Issac Newton published the first volume of his Principia Mathematica, outlining the Theory of Gravity. The earliest account of the apple story was in 1738.  Voltaire writing about Newton claimed his niece told him when the scientist had left Cambridge for the country during the Great Plague of 1666- "He observed an apple falling from a tree and fell into a deep meditation on what was this force that drew all objects in a straight line that until interrupted would continue to the center of the Earth."

1925- T.S. Elliot landed a job at Faber & Fabers Publishing. His enabled the poet to quit his job as a bank teller at Lloyds and get serious about his literary career.

1937- Italy’s movie studio Cinecitta’ was dedicated.

1954- Happy Birthday Godzilla! The movie by Ichjiro Honda was inspired when a Japanese fishing boat was fatally exposed by radioactive fallout from a U.S. hydrogen bomb test. Also the Harryhausen movie The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms. Godzilla is an Anglicized version of the Japanese Kohjira, which is a combination of Gorilla and Whale. 

The famous roar was done by rubbing a resin-covered glove down some bass fiddle strings. The film was later released in the U.S. with American actor Raymond Burr (actually, Canadian actor..) acting in inserted scenes. The complete Japanese version of the film was not seen in North America until 2004.

1961-At La Scala, When tenor Guiseppi Di Stefano took ill, a young schoolteacher from Modena took the lead role in the opera La Boheme. Lucciano Pavarotti debuted.

2019 The Marvel superhero movie Avengers Endgame earned $1.2 billion worldwide in its opening weekend.  $350 million North America, and $850 million worldwide. A record shattering opening.

Animation Fun Facts for April 27, 2020

Birthdays: Ulysses S. Grant, King Edward IV, Samuel Morse, Mary Wollenstonecraft, Edward Gibbon, Anouk Aimee, Sheena Easton, Sandy Dennis, Coretta Scott King, Kasey Kasem, Jack Klugman

1667- Blind poet John Milton sold his masterpiece "Paradise Lost" to publisher Samuel Simmons for ten pounds. Ten years earlier under Oliver Cromwell’s patronage Milton was getting over a thousand pounds each for his poems

1784- Over the protests of King Louis XVI, Pierre de Beaumarchais’ play The Marriage of Figaro premiered at the Opera Comique in Paris. It was the first play to openly criticize the nobility for being no better than anyone else except for being born with money. This concept alone was radical, and it caused a sensation. Napoleon described it as "The Revolution already in action". 

1951- Disney Goofy short Cold War, directed by Jack Kinney.

1958- The Lavender Scare. Pres Eisenhower issued Executive order 10450, banning gays and lesbians from ever holding government jobs. 5,000 govt workers and scientists were fired.  The ban was not lifted until 1977.

1964- The John Muir National Wilderness created.

1970- THE FIRST ATM- Automatic bank teller machine, opened at the Surety National Bank in downtown Los Angeles.

1981- Ringo Starr married Barbera Bach, his costar on the film 'Caveman'. UngaBunga!

Animation Fun Facts for April 26, 2020

Birthdays: Marcus Aurelius, French Queen Marie De Medicis, Pasquale Paoli, John James Audubon, Frederick Law Olmstead, Eugene Delacroix, Syngman Rhee, Dr. Lee DeForrest, John Grierson founder of the National Film Board of Canada, Rudolf Hess, Bobby Rydell, Anita Loos, I. M. Pei, Carol Burnett is 87, Eyvind Earle, Giancarlo Esposito is 64, Kevin James, Amos Otis, Joan Chen is 58, Jimmy Giuffre, Rocker Duane Eddy- 80, Jet Li- born Li Lian jie is 57, Vic Perrin 1916, voice actor who did the Control Voice in The Outer Limits. He also was Dr Zin in Johnny Quest.

1928- Los Angeles City Hall dedicated. 

1937- GUERNICA- In Spain the Stuka bombers of the German Condor Legion, Nazi subcontractors for Franco, bombed an innocent Basque village, killing 5,000 and provoking an international outcry and a painting by Picasso. Attacking at the height of the market time, for three hours the planes bombed and strafed the helpless civilians with no military target in sight. 

1965- Fred Smith, a student at Yale, got his economics paper back with a "c'" and a note stating the idea he espoused was impractical. The idea was an overnight air-freight service which he founded six years later as Federal Express.

1969- PAUL IS DEAD. The height of a strange rumor that excited the rock & roll world that Paul McCartney of the Beatles had died, and the news was being kept a secret. Evidence was presented in the cryptic lyrics of "I am the Walrus", songs played backwards and the record album photo where Paul is the only figure with his back to the camera. 

A TV special hosted by celebrity attorney F. Lee Bailey explored the controversy. Finally, this day Paul and Linda McCartney held a news conference and declared he was very much alive and what on Earth was everyone on about? 

1977- In New York City, Studio 54, the mecca of 70’s Disco culture opened.

1986- Arnold Schwarzenegger aka Conan the Republican, married Maria Shriver, the niece of John F. Kennedy. 

1993- NBC announced former Simpsons and Saturday Night Live comedy writer Conan O’Brien would take David Letterman’s old Late Show spot. 

2004- Michael Eisner of Disney named to Forbes list of the Worst CEO’s in America.

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Animation Fun Facts for April 25, 2020

Birthdays: Roman emperor Otho -32AD, English King Edward II-1284, Oliver Cromwell-1599, Giuseppe Marconi, Edward R. Murrow, Ella Fitzgerald, Al Pacino is 80,  Jason Lee is 50, Meadowlark Lemon, Talia Shire, Paul Mazursky, Hank Azaria is 56, Rene Zellwellger is 51,  Ron Clements is 67

1719- The Life and Strange Adventures of Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe first published.

1926- Giacomo Puccini's last opera Turnadot premiered in Milan. Puccini died before its completion, so students had to finish the work based on his notes. Conductor Arturo Toscanini put down his baton at the beginning of the Third Act, turned to the audience and said:" Here is where the Maestro died." He then left the podium and let someone else finish it. 

1956- Elvis Presley’s song Heartbreak Hotel goes to #1 in the pop charts.

1972- Witty, urbane actor George Sanders (All About Eve, Samson & Delilah, Sher Khan in Jungle Book) had turned age 65. He complained he had been famous and rich, and was not looking forward to old age, and having a nurse wipe his bottom. So he committed suicide and left a witty, urbane note. "Dear World: I am leaving because I am bored. Adieu, I leave you with your worries in this sweet cesspool."

1981- Dixie, the world’s oldest living mouse, died at age 6 1/2.

1996- "Bring in Da Noise, Bring in Da Funk" opened on Broadway.

Animation Fun Facts for April 23, 2020

Birthdays: William Shakespeare, James Buchanan, Sergei Prokoviev, J.M.W. Turner, Vladimir Nabokov, Senator Stephen Douglas the Little Giant, Shirley Temple, Roy Orbison, Halston, Sandra Dee, Valerie Bertinelli, Lee Majors is 80, Judy Davis, Simone Simon, Michael Sporn, Tony Esposito, Michael Moore is 66, Herve Villechaise

1616- After a night out partying with Ben Johnson, John Draydon and other old buddies from Ye Old Mermaid Tavern, William Shakespeare caught a fever and died on his fifty third birthday.

1867- William Lincoln patents the zoetrope, an optical toy predating motion pictures..

1896-THE FIRST PROJECTED MOVIES IN THE U.S.- The first projection of Thomas Edison’s kinetoscope film by means of Thomas Armat’s Vitascope at Koster & Bials Music Hall on 28th street and Broadway in New York City. Edison had to be nagged into this by his engineer W.K.L. Dickson. Edison thought projecting movies like the Lumiere Brothers were doing in Europe would never catch on, and the future of film was in nickelodeon machines.  The movie show featured the sultry Annabella the Dancer and a boxing match, but the real hit of the evening was footage of Waves Hitting the Rocks on Shore, which made people instinctively duck to keep from getting wet.

1903- The first game of the New York Highlanders (later Yankees) baseball team. They defeated the Washington Senators, 7-2.

1914-  Chicago’s Wrigley Field opened. 

1951- Comedian Lenny Bruce was arrested for a stunt where he dressed as a priest and solicited funds in a leper colony.

1970- Grace Slick of the Jefferson Airplane was inadvertently invited to a tea party at the White House by Pres. Nixon’s daughter Trisha. She had invited Slick because under her maiden name Grace Ward, she was a fellow alumni of Finch College. Grace Slick and her escort Abbie Hoffman were in line to get into the event, when at the last minute White House security recognized them and turned them away. It was too bad, because she had a plan to slip LSD into President Nixon’s tea.   

1985- Coca Cola introduces New Coke. They decided to make the basic formula slightly sweeter to appeal to younger people. Its reception by the public was so overwhelmingly bad that the company returned to the original formula 90 days later. The chairman of rival Pepsi Cola exulted: " We've been eye to eye for decades and I think the other guy's just blinked! New Coke became a symbol for large-scale executive incompetence, 

1998- Microsoft chairman Bill Gates introduced Windows 98 to a 4,000 industry leaders. When he ceremonially opened the first window, the system crashed- Doh!

2005- The first You-Tube video was uploaded- Me at the Zoo.

Animation Fun Facts for April 22, 2020

Birthdays: Queen Isabella I of Castille, Dr. Robert Oppenheimer, Immanuel Kant, Madame De Stael, Alexander Kerensky, Aaron Spelling, Eddie Albert, Glen Cambell, Betty Page, Marilyn Chambers, Charlie Mingus, Peter Frampton, John Waters is 74, Jack Nicholson is 83

1741- Georg Frederich Handel dipped his quill into ink and began to write the Messiah.

1811- Last of the Parthenon Marbles pried off their walls in Greece and sent back to England on a British frigate.

1876- Composer Peter Tchaikovsky completed his score for the ballet Swan Lake.

1952- The first nuclear bomb test shown on network TV -Tommy Turtle says duck and cover!

1954- The U.S. Congress added the phrase "In God We Trust" on to US money.

1964- The opening day of the New York World’s Fair. It was in Flushing Meadow Park in Queens, built on the site of the 1939 Worlds Fair.

50^th Anniversary 1970- The first Earth Day. The idea was started by Senator Gaylord Nelson of Wisconsin "The objective was to get a nationwide demonstration of concern for the environment so large that it would shake the political establishment out of its lethargy," Senator Nelson said, "and, finally, force this issue permanently onto the national political agenda."

1972- Magnavox announced the Magnavox Odyssey. Created by Ralph Baer in his spare time, it was the first home videogame console.

1978- Comic actors Dan Ackroyd and John Belushi debut two new characters on the Saturday Night Live TV show, Joliet Jake and Ellwood Blues. The Blues Brothers are born.

1996- Christopher Robin Milne died at age 75. The young boy who’s fascination with a bear in the London Zoo called Winnie inspired his father A.A. Milne to write the Winne the Pooh stories. Christopher Robin wasn’t always appreciative of all the attention. He said of his father: "Someday I’ll write some verses about him and see how He likes it!"

Animation Fun Facts for April 21, 2020

Birthdays: Edwin S. Porter, Charlotte Bronte', John Muir, Freiderich Froebel the inventor of kindergarten-1782, Anthony Quinn, Patti Lupone, Iggy Pop, Charles Grodin, Anna Magnani, Andie MacDowell is 61, Tony Danza, Elaine May, James McAvoy is 41, Rob Riggle is 50, Queen Elizabeth II is 94

1910- Mark Twain died of congenital heart failure at 75 as Haley's comet appeared overhead. 

1918- The Red Baron was shot down. 

1921- The Coconut Grove nightclub opened in Hollywood.

1938- Disney animator Bill Tytla married artists model Adrienne LeClerc.

1961- Two British teenage rock bands meet each other for the first time- The Beatles met the Rolling Stones.

1964- British TV viewers double their pleasure- BBC 2 goes on the air. Their first program is Play School.

1973- The pop song “Tie a Yellow Ribbon ‘Round the Old Oak Tree” became a number one hit on the US, Canadian and UK pop charts. The song spawned the custom of a yellow ribbon as a symbol of remembering a soldier overseas, which reached its’ peak during the Iran Hostage Crisis. That in turn spawned variations like the red AIDS ribbon, the pink breast cancer ribbon, and so on.

1986- Reporter Geraldo Rivera hosted a live primetime TV special in an old Chicago Hotel that was once a headquarters for gangster Al Capone. After wasting two hours speculating on discovering buried treasure or mobster skeletons, they broke into a room sealed since 1932. All they found were some old dusty bottles, trash and a few dollar bills.

1997-The first Intergalactic Funeral.  The ashes of Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry and 1960's LSD guru Dr. Timothy Leary were shot into space.

Animation Fun Facts for April 20, 2020

Birthdays: Harold Lloyd, Juan Miro', Adolf Hitler, Tito Puente, Nina Foch, Gregory Ratoff, Ryan O'Neal, Daniel Day Lewis, Jessica Lange, Luther Vandross, Don Mattingly, Rosalyn Summers, Crispin Glover, Betty-Lou Gerson the voice of Cruella da Vil, George Takei, Carmen Electra is 45, Andy Serkis is 57, animator Bob Kurtz

1759- Composer George Friedrich Handel died after collapsing in the orchestra pit while conducting the Messiah. He was 74, almost blind, and suffering from a number of illnesses. 

1859- " It was the Best of Times, It was the Worst of Times..." Charles Dicken's novel "A Tale of Two Cities" began to be published in magazine form.

1909- Mary Pickford, the first Movie Star, goes in front of a camera for the first time.

1912- A slightly built London theater manager and failed author named Abraham “Bram” Stoker died. He managed the theater that famed stage actor Henry King performed. If anyone noticed him, it was because he worked with Henry King. Stokers seven books and several plays made little money in his time. But a decade later a play adapted from one of his novels entitled Dracula made him world famous.

1925-The Warner Bros. Moving Picture Company merged with Vitagraph, and began experimenting with fixing sound on to film.

1935- Radio program “Your Hit Parade” premiered. 

1939- RCA president David Sarnoff dedicated RCA pavilion at World's Fair in New York City. First U.S. news event filmed on television. Sarnoff predicted that one day everyone would have a television in their home!

1974 - Paul McCartney and Wings releases "Band on the Run" 

1976 - At a stage performance at City Center NYC, George Harrison secretly slipped in and sang the Lumberjack Song with the Monty Python comedy troop. John Cleese recalled: “George was wonderful. He came up on stage with us as a Mountie and sang the 'Lumberjack Song’ impeccably, and I don’t suppose 10 percent of the audience knew he was up there."

1977- Woody Allen & Diane Keaton starred in the film “Annie Hall”. 

Animation Fun Facts for April 19, 2020

Birthdays: Paulo Verronese, Elliot Ness, Jayne Mansfield, Dudley Moore, Paloma Picasso, Scooby doo creator Iwao Takamoto, Ashley Judd, James Franco is 43, Kate Hudson is 42, Tim Curry is 75

1927- Mae West found guilty of indecent behavior in writing, producing and starring in a Broadway musical entitled “SEX”.   She said:” Everyone thinks I am opposed to censorship. Actually, I’m in favor of censorship. I’ve made a fortune from it!”

1956-Movie star Grace Kelly married Prince Rainier of Monaco.

1973- Xerox Parc booted up the Alto, the first personal computer. They invented a new mouse, point and click windows, graphic interface and digital printer. President Carter installed one in the White House. Yet Xerox didn’t know what to do with them, they were in the copier business. There was no internet yet, except for government communications. The Alto cost $16,500 each, too expensive for most, so the idea bombed. One day in 1979 a group from Apple visited led by Steve Jobs. The group was inspired by their progress, and they went back to Apple and put what they learned into the development of the Lisa and Apple II Computer.

1987- The first Simpsons short aired today. MG01 "Good Night Simpsons" was on the 3rd episode of The Tracey Ullman Show, airing Sunday, 4/19/87 at 9pm. Animated by Wes Archer, Bill Kopp, and David Silverman.

Animation Fun Facts for April 18, 2020

Birthdays: Lucretzia Borgia, Franz Von Suppe’, Haley Mills, Leopold Stokowski, Miklos Rosza, Herb Sorell, Wahoo Sam Crawford, Conan O’Brien is 57, James Woods is 73, Eric Roberts, Rick Moranis is 68, Maria Bello is 53, David Tennant is 49, America Ferrerra is 36, Disney animator Phil Young is 79

1906- THE SAN FRANCISCO EARTHQUAKE. 3,500 deaths and the city destroyed in the most frightening earthquake in U.S. History. Writer Jack London wrote:” Never has a modern Imperial city been so completely destroyed. San Francisco is gone!” 

San Franciscans dusted themselves off and rebuilt. By 1913 they were doing well enough to host the World’s Fair. A little ditty of the time said: 

            "They say God spanked the town, for being rather frisky.

                  Then why'd He knocked the churches down, yet leave up

                           Hotaling's Whiskey?"

1914-. The full feature length movie premiered in Turin, Italy. "Cabiria" directed by Giovane Patrone. It was believed to be the first full length movie ever until the discovery of a 1912 version of Quo Vadis.  D.W. Griffith’s 1915 classic the Birth of a Nation popularized the format for feature films.

    

1934- The first automatic Laundromat opened in Ft. Worth Texas.

1955- Scientist Albert Einstein died in Princeton New Jersey at 75. As he fell in and out of a coma his last words were in German. Since no one around his bed could understand German, we don't know what his last words were. 

1958- A U.S. court ruled that poet Ezra Pound no longer had to stay at a Washington D.C. mental hospital for the criminally insane. The Idaho born Pound had moved to Italy in the 1920s and became an ardent supporter of Fascists like Mussolini. He felt artists thrived under strongman rule. Gertrude Stein couldn’t stand him because of his open Anti-Semitism. When World War II ended, he was arrested for treason and sent to this mental hospital. His release after 13 years incarceration, he returned to Italy and died in 1972. 

1994- Disney’s first theatrical musical based on an animated film, Beauty and the Beast A New Musical, opened on Broadway.

2000- Earlier that spring some of the worlds biggest internet companies –e-Bay, Amazon and CNN were paralyzed by a virus spreading hacker. Today the FBI made an arrest. The culprit was a Canadian High School student who went by the domain name of Mafia Boy. He received probation and a promise to only use his computer for schoolwork for two years.

Animation Fun Facts for April 17, 2020

Birthdays: artist Tobias Stummer-1539, Duke Maximillian Ist of Bavaria- leader of the Catholic League 1579, Nikita Khruschev, Thorton Wilder, Clarence Darrow, Arthur Schnabel, Olivia Hussey is 68, Gregor Piatigorsky, Don Kirschner, William Holden, Harry Reasoner, Boomer Eiseason, Sean Bean is 61, Victoria Beckham, Martha Sigall, Ron Miller, Jennifer Garner is 48, Rooney Mara is 35.

1875- The billiard game Snooker was invented by Sir Joseph Chamberlain, the uncle of the future British Prime Minister.

1924- Metro Pictures, Goldwyn and Mayer Films all merged to become Metro-Goldwyn- Mayer. By 1940 MGM was the largest studio in Hollywood.

1929- Baseball great Babe Ruth married Ziegfeld Follies dancer Marge Colson in a morning ceremony. Then he drove to Yankee Stadium and hit a home run.

1937 "Porky's Duck Hunt" The birth of Daffy Duck. One legendary story is that newly hired voice actor Mel Blanc in part designed Daffy’s distinctive lisp to be an impression of the Looney Tunes boss Leon Schlesinger. When they screened this cartoon all the artists stood in dread of how Leon would take the joke. Leon never made the connection that the Ducks voice was an imitation of him:" Gee Fellers, dat Duck iz pretty Ffffunny!"

1964-The Ford Mustang introduced by Lee Iacocca.

1971- The song "Joy to the World" by Three Dog Night tops the pop charts. 

1987- Comedian Dick Shawn ­the Hippy-Hitler in the original Mel Brooks film the Producers- was doing his one-man show The Second Funniest Man in the World at UC San Diego. After one particularly funny punch line he fell over dead from a heart attack. The audience laughed and clapped for several more minutes because they thought it was part of the act.

2011- The first season of Game of Thrones premiered in the U.S. on HBO. 

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Animation Fun Facts for April 16, 2020

birthdays: King John II “The good” of France (1319), Elisabeth Vignee-Lebrun, Wilbur Wright, Charlie Chaplin, J.P. Morgan, Kingsley Amis, Anatole France, Henry Mancini, Peter Ustinov, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Bobby Vinton, Spike Milligan, John Halas, Edie Adams, Hans Sloane, Disney artist Victor Haboush, Martin Lawrence, John Cryer is 55, Ellen Barkin is 66, Claire Foy is 37, Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI is 93 

1787- What some consider the first professionally produced American play- Royall Tyler’s The Contrast- debuted at New York City’s John Street Theater. It was a comedy that poked fun at aristocracy. Gen. George Washington was in the audience. At this time the Broadway theater district and Times Square was a quiet forest clearing.

1828- Spanish artist Francisco Goya died at 82 in Bordeaux, France. Years later when his remains were moved to Madrid, it was discovered Goya wasn't exactly alone in his grave. His friend Martin Goesochea's remains were in with him. Maybe there was a two-for-one sale.

1926- The Book-Of-The-Month-Club distributed its first selection-Lolly Willowes by Sylvia Townsend Warner. 

1933- Dick Huemer’s first day working at Walt Disney. Huemer became a senior story artist, and writer. He and Joe Grant developed Dumbo, among others.  

1935- Fibber McGee and Molly debut on radio.

  

1947- The Zoom Lens patented.

1952- THE NUNIVAK INCIDENT AND DEVELOPMENT OF THE COMPUTER – American coastal air defenses had been neglected since the end of WWII. But by 1952 the Cold War raised tensions. America knew the Soviets had Tupelov bombers capable of reaching the US mainland with nukes. This night, a radar station at Nunivak Alaska, and another at Presque Isle Maine both reported flights of unidentified aircraft headed towards the U.S.  They turned out to be false alarms, but the reports of the planes took four hours to reach Washington! The resultant scandal in Strategic Air Command resulted in the rapid building up of a new early warning system. This fostered the birth of the SAGE computer systems, inventing the computer screen, the keyboard and the stylus.  

1959- John McCarthy of MIT invented the computer language LISP. 

1962- Walter Cronkite took over the job of anchor at the CBS Evening News, building a reputation for journalistic integrity almost equaled to Edward R. Murrow. Nicknamed the Most Trusted Man in America, many credit Cronkite for breaking the news to America that the U.S. was not going to win the Vietnam War. President Lyndon Johnson said: If I lost Cronkite then I’ve lost middle America.” When Cronkite retired, the redoubtable CBS News Division descent into tabloid stupidity and irrelevance began. 

1983- Disney Channel debuted.

Animation Fun Facts for April 15 ,2020

Birthdays: Leonardo DaVinci, composer Domenico Gabrieli, Nanak I the founder of the Sikh religion 1469, Charles Wilson Peale, Theodore Rousseau, Henry James, Bessie Smith, Heinrich Klee, Kim Il Sung, Claudia Cardinale is 81, Roy Clark, Emma Thompson is 60, Hans Conried, Olympic runner Evelyn Ashford, Alice Braga is 36, Seth Rogen is 38, Emma Watson is 30

1729- The Saint Matthew’s Passion oratorio by Johann Sebastian Bach was first sung at the Thomaskirche in Leipzig.

1738-The Bottle Opener invented.

1755- Dr. Samuel Johnson's Dictionary of the English Language first published. Dr. Johnson first created the system of listing a word’s phonetic pronunciation, ancient roots and how to use the word in a sentence. Before this, nobody fussed much about spelling words correctly. The excellence of Dr. Johnson’s dictionary made him the virtual dictator of English writing in his time. 

1850- The townships of Yerba Buena- Good Herbs, incorporated as the City of San Francisco.

1874- The first Paris show of Impressionist Painting.

1927- First Hollywood star's footprints in cement ceremony at Grauman's Chinese theater. Called Hollywood's most enduring publicity stunt. Norma Talmadge, Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks and Sid Grauman himself are the first to leave their prints. Grauman also invented the classic Hollywood premiere with spotlights, red carpet runways and chauffeured limousines.

1933- Chief of production Darryl F. Zanuck quit Warner Bros. over an argument about employee salary cuts, to take over a struggling little movie studio called Twentieth Century Fox, which he turned into a giant.

1935- Kodachrome film developed. First as motion picture film, later for home photography.

1940- Franklin Roosevelt covertly gave permission for American volunteer pilots to join General Claire Chennault in fighting the Japanese invasion of China as part of a freelance foreign corps serving in the Chinese air force. The Flying Tigers are born. The famous toothy grimace painted on their planes was created by a Walt Disney artist.

1951 Chuck Jones cartoon "The HypochondriCat".

1953- Famed illustrator Charles R. Knight died peacefully in a Manhattan hospital. The man who inspired the lush look of such films as 1933 King Kong, his last words were to his daughter Lucy, “Don’t let anything happen to my drawings.”

1955- The First McDonald's Restaurant franchise opened in Des Plains, Ill.  Ray Kroc, a travelling milkshake machine salesman, buys into a franchise restaurant idea cooked up in 1948 by two brothers named McDonald from Santa Bernadino. He urged the brothers to go national with their pre-prepared food system, but the brothers wanted to stay local. So he offered them 1 million bucks for their idea and name (would you go to" Kroc's?") and the rest is history. The oldest surviving McDonald’s from 1953 in Downey California was recently destroyed despite the efforts of historians, and replaced with a plastic plaque. 

\1962-AUNTIE EM! actress Clara Blandick, 80, the Auntie Em of the Wizard of Oz, took an overdose of sleeping pills and tied a plastic bag around her head.

She had been retired for several years and was suffering from bad arthritis and failing eyesight. She left out on a table her resume and press clippings so the newspapers would get her obituary right. 

1964- Walt Disney sent attorney Robert Foster to Orlando Florida to quietly start buying up land for a planned new Disneyland Park.

1983- Tokyo Disneyland opens.

1990- Kennan Ivory Wayans comedy show In Living Color premiered on FOX TV. The show made stars of Marlon Wayans, Damon Wayans, Jamie Fox, Jim Carrey and Fly-Girls Jennifer Lopez and Rosie Perez.

2019- A terrible fire gutted Notre Dame Cathedral, which had stood for 856 years.

Animation Fun Facts for April 14, 2020

Birthdays: King Phillip III of Spain, Christian Huygens, Arnold Toynbee, Sir John Gielgud, Menachem Schneerson- the Grand Rabbi of Chabad, Papa Doc Duvalier- Haitian dictator 1907, Robert Doisneau, Rod Steiger, Loretta Lynn, Morton Sobotnick, Frank Serpico, Pete Rose, Julie Christie, Kenneth Mars, Anthony Michael Hall, Steve Martin is 69, Sarah Michelle Geller is 42, Adrien Brody is 46. Katsuhiro Otomo

1543- Explorer Bartolomeo Ferrelo returned to Spain with news of a big new harbor he discovered on the Pacific coast of California that he named for his patron, Saint Francis- San Francisco Bay.

1828- The first edition of Noah Webster’s American Dictionary published. In the 70.000 entries Webster made it a political point to separate American English from the King’s English, and substituted Spanish roots for words in the place of Norman French roots. This is when “Colour” became “Color”, Theatre became Theater, and Cheque became Ch 

1871- Canada set its currency in dollars and cents, instead of pounds and shillings.

1883- Leopold Delibes’ opera Lakme premiered in Paris.   

1925- WGN broadcasts its first regular season baseball game. Quinn Ryan behind the mike as Grover Cleveland Alexander and the Cubs defeated the Pirates on Opening Day, 8-2. 

1956- In Redwood City, Cal. Charles Ginsburg, Ray Dolby and Charles Anderson demonstrated the first videotape recording machine. They were going then for a mere $75,000 each.

1960- The musical Bye Bye Birdie opened on Broadway.

1962- Bob Dylan recorded “Blowing in the Wind”.

1963- Beatle George Harrison was impressed by an unsigned rock band he just heard called the Rolling Stones.

            

1969- The first regular season baseball game played outside the United States. The Montreal Expos play their first home game, treating 29,184 fans at Jarry Park to an 8-7 win over the St Louis Cardinals. Speaking about Expo fans, Cub announcer Harry Carrey noted: "They discovered 'boo' is pronounced the same in French as it is English.”

2008- Ollie Johnston, the last animator of Walt Disney’s original Nine Old Men, passed away at age 96.

Animation Fun Facts for April 13, 2020

Birthdays: St. Thomas Becket, Thomas Jefferson, Frederick Lord North, Samuel Beckett, Dame Eudora Welty, Al Green, Jack Cassidy, Butch Cassidy, Franklin W. Woolworth, Howard Keel, Don Adams, Ricky Schroeder, Peabo Bryson, Ron Perleman, Stanley Donen, Alfred Butts the inventor of Scrabble, animator Glen Keane is 66

1612- Date of the famous duel on Ganryu island between Japanese swordsmen Musashi Miyamoto and Sasaki Kohjiro. Musashi defeated Kojiro with a wooden sword. 

1870- New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art opens.

1939- The film Wuthering Heights starring Lawrence Olivier and Merle Oberon premiered. Sam Goldwyn was disgusted by the headaches to bring this Charlotte Bronte novel to the Hollywood Screen. When asked if he planned to adapt more 19th Century novels for film he replied: "Don’t bring me no more scripts by guys who write with feathers!"

1949- Lead character designer and story artist Joe Grant resigned from Disney Studios, not to return until 1989. 

1953- A British WWII intelligence officer turned newspaperman in peacetime was bored with his life. His name was Ian Fleming. He decided to write a novel about his idea of the ultimate spy. Looking for a suitably bland name, his favorite book on birdwatching was written by someone named James Bond. "It struck me that this brief, unromantic, Anglo-Saxon,  yet very masculine name, was just what I needed.”  His wife thought the finished story was vulgar. This day, the first Bond novel, Casino Royale, came out and was an instant hit.

1964- Sidney Poitier became the first African American to win an Oscar for Best Actor for the film Lilies of the Field. The first Oscar for any black actor or actress went to Hattie McDaniel as Best Supporting Actress for Gone With the Windin 1939. Best actress was not won until Halle Berry in 2002.

1964- The Best Animated Short Oscar was won by Ernie Pintoff’s film The Critic, voiced by Mel Brooks.

1967- Columbia Picture’s bizarre satire of Ian Flemings Casino Royale premiered. Several directors, John Huston, Orson Welles, Ursula Andress, Peter Sellers, Woody Allen, George Raft, and David Niven. Richard Williams opening titles, and Dusty Springfield ‘s song “The Look of Love.” 

Animation Fun Facts for April 12, 2020

Birthdays: Henry Clay, Lily Pons, Lionel Hampton, Herbie Hancock, Monserrat Caballe', Ann Miller, Tiny Tim, Shannon Dougherty, Andy Garcia is 64, Claire Danes is 41, David Letterman is 73

 HAPPY EASTER, Commemorating the time when Jesus Christ was crucified and after three days rose from the dead.  The Resurrection story has roots in other cultures- Osiris in Egypt, Dionysius and Orpheus in Greece and Odin in Scandinavia all had death and resurrection myths about them. 

Easter is named for Oster, Eostre or Aster, German goddess of the East Wind that brings Spring, who’s sacrifice was painted eggs laid at her alter. In 63AD. Baodicea, The British warrior queen who battled the Roman legions of Nero had on her flags the Great Moon-Hare, who was the servant of Oster. In 1680 a German writer named Georg Franck published a story of a fantastic rabbit who laid magic eggs and hid them for lucky children to find. How this all got mixed up with Jesus, you gotta ask Mel Gibson

We owe a big colorful Easter Eggy thanks to druggist, William Townley who invented Easter egg dye tablets in his Newark, New Jersey drug emporium in 1880. He branded his five-color dye kits, Paas, which comes from the word Passen, the Pennsylvania Dutch name for Easter. 

1709- In London the first issue of the Tattler published. “All accounts of gallantry, pleasure, poetry, foreign and domestick news you will have from Saint James Coffeehouse.”

1796- George and Martha Washington sit for painter Gilbert Stuart. Stuart noted that the General was a singularly uncooperative model. He tried small talk about his famous battles but that made GW even more annoyed. Washington much preferred a discussion on how to raise turnips to reliving his military career. The likeness Stuart painted became the basis for many other paintings and prints. Today it is on the U.S. one dollar bill. Eventually Gilbert Stuart had to move to England, because the only commissions he ever got were people wanting copies of his Washington portrait.

1911- Cartoonist Winsor McCay opened his vaudeville act with his "Little Nemo" animated short. 

1954- "ROCK AROUND THE CLOCK' recorded by Bill Haley and the Comets- arguably the first true Rock & Roll hit.

1992- Euro-Disney, now called Disneyland Paris, opened. It attracted only 50.000 visitors the first year, about ten times less than what was expected. The first Disneyland in California drew 100,00 on opening day alone. Many felt it should have been built in Barcelona where the climate was milder. Disneyland Paris finally paid for itself in 1997.

1995- To celebrate David Letterman’s 49^t birthday, actress Drew Barrymore climbed up on his desk and flashed her breasts. For once, the bucktoothed talkshow host was speechless.

Animation Fun Fact for April 11, 2020

Birthdays: Roman Emperor Septimius Severus, Frederick the Warlike of Saxony-1370, Ethel Kennedy, Joel Grey is 88, Louise Lasser, Mason Reese, Oleg Cassini, Cameron Mitchell. Norman McClaren, Bill Irwin, John Milius, Jennifer Esposito

1890- In England John Merrick, who was known as the Elephant Man, died.

1914- George Bernard Shaw’s play Pygmalion premiered at the Haymarket in London.

1926- Horticulturist Luther Burbank died. His last words;" I don't feel good."

1931- Dorothy Parker resigned her job as drama critic for the New Yorker Magazine. She married an actor named Alan Cambell, and moved to Hollywood to become a screenwriter. While on her honeymoon the magazine editor bugged her for some final fixes on an article. She sent a telegram from Paris: ” Don’t bother me. Stop. F*cking busy. Stop. And visa-versa. “

1933- the Bauhaus directed by Mies Van Der Rohe was closed down by the Nazis.

1950- First day filming on the movie All About Eve. As Bette Davis said “Fasten your seatbelts, its going to be a bumpy night.”

1955- WABD in New York and KTLA in Los Angeles began running pre-1948 Warner Bros cartoon shorts in a half hour format, introducing the baby boomer generation to the world of Bugs, Daffy and Porky. 

1981- Valerie Bertinelli married rocker Eddie Van Halen.

1983- At that year’s Academy Awards the winner for Best Animated Short was Polish artist Zybigniew Rybcyzinski for his film Tango. During the ceremony he stepped outside for a smoke. When Security guards refused to let him re-enter, he became combative, shouting the only English he knew: ” I Have Oscar!” He wound up in an LA  jail for assault, and his Oscar wound up in the bushes.

Animation Fun Facts for April 10, 2020

Birthdays: Josef Pulitzer, Lew Wallace, George Arliss, Omar Sharif, Harry Morgan, Max Von Sydow, Ken Griffey Sr, Claire Booth Luce, Chuck Connors, John Madden, Dandy Don Meredith, Paul Theroux, David Halberstram, Steven Segal is 69, Orlando Jones, Mandy Moore is 36, Haley Joel Osment is 32

1868- Johannes Brahms A German Requiem debuted.

1906- O' Henry's story " The Gift of the Magi " first published.

1923- Peeps invented. The sweet Easter marshmallow confection that is shaped like a yellow baby chick and can stick to most surfaces.

1925- F. Scott Fitzgerald's "The Great Gatsby" published by Scribners.

1947- THE FBI PAY A VISIT to Screen Actor’s Guild president Ronald Reagan and actress-wife Jane Wyman. They accuse them of belonging to Communist Party front organizations. Ronnie agrees to become an informer on his own guild SAG, and just about everyone else in Hollywood. Jane Wyman later divorced him.

1952- Film director Elia Kazan ( On the Waterfront, East of Eden,etc.) saved his career but earned the lasting hatred of Hollywood by testifying to the House Un American Activities Committee. He named 8 of his friends as Communists, including writers Clifford Odets and Lillian Hellman.

1953- The Vincent Price film The House of Wax in 3d premiered.

1961- Singer Joan Baez entered the Greenwich Village club called Folk City and was accosted by a funny young man with a nasaly twang ;”Joan Baez! Here, I wrote a song for you!” His name was Bob Dylan. Baez and Dylan became friends and together changed the image of folk music.


1962- Stuart Sutcliffe was the bass guitarist of the Beatles until creative differences and a marriage made him drop out of the band in favor of George Harrison. This day Sutcliffe died of a brain hemorrhage at age 21.

1971- Rob Reiner married Penny Marshall.

1973- At Xerox PARC, Dick Schoups team of scientists created Superpaint, the first digital paint and surfacing system for CG images. The first picture on the computer was a photo of Dick holding a sign that read “ It works, sort of.”

1985- Madonna began her first tour, the Virgin Tour.

1992- Bill Kroyer’s Ferngully the Last Rainforest premiered.

1992- Raunchy comedian Sam Kinison was killed in a head on collision with a truck on the road to Laughlin Nevada. Ironically, the comedian who had glorified the wild sex, drugs and rock& roll lifestyle was sober at the time, and the other driver was drunk.

Animation Fun Facts for April 9, 2020

Birthdays: Tamerlane, Lenin, Paul Robeson, Jean Paul Belmondo, Ward Bond, Seve  Balesteros, Carl Perkins, Michael Learned, Tom Lehrer, Paula Poundstone, Cynthia Nixon, Hugh Hefner, Dennis Quaid is 66, Elle Fanning is 22

1553- French comic writer Francois Rabelais died. His last words were: ” I go to seek a Great Perhaps.”

1747- Famed British actor David Garrick signed a contract to take over the management of London’s Drury Lane Theatre.

1778- In Paris the philosopher Voltaire is initiated into the Masonic Order of the Nine Sisters on the arm of his friend, Benjamin Franklin.

1859- Mark Twain received his Mississippi riverboat pilot’s license. 

1914- The first all color film” The World, The Flesh and the Devil” premiered in London.

1921- The Fly-In Lunch Party. Leslie Brand was a millionaire who developed Glendale California north of Los Angeles. This day he invited guests to a special garden party provided they call arrived in their own airplanes. The little biplanes parked all around his grounds, today known as The Brand Library.

1942- Black opera star Marian Anderson gives her concert at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington to an audience of 75,000. She was snubbed from giving a recital at the Daughters of the American Revolution Hall which caused a furious Eleanor Roosevelt to resign from the DAR and arrange this concert.

1943- A U.S. Patents court concluded that Gulgielmo Marconi had used several of Nichola Tesla’s patents to create Wireless Broadcasting. So in effect, Tesla was the real inventor of radio broadcasting. Vindication came too late. Marconi died a rich Nobel-Prize winner, and Tesla died alone and penniless.

1948- Variety columnist Lee Mortimer had been needling Frank Sinatra for his advocacy of liberal causes. He accused Old Blue Eyes of draft-dodging, and hinted maybe he had pro-Communist sympathies. This day as Sinatra passed Mortimer in front of Ciro's restaurant on Sunset Blvd. he heard Mortimer call him a “dirty Dago”. Frank went at Mortimer and punched his lights out.

1952- The quiz show Whats My Line premiered.

1953- The first issue of the T.V. Guide.

1966- actress Sophia Loren married producer Carlo Ponti, with whom she had been living with for a decade but not allowed to marry because Catholics did not allow divorce from their previous spouses.

2004- Archaeologists in Cyprus discover a 9,000 year-old grave of a New Stone Age man. In his arms were the remains of a kitten. This is the oldest evidence of man domesticating cats. So rest in peace- Gronk and Fluffy.