Animation Fun Facts for June 20, 2020

Birthdays: Wolf Tone, Jacques Offenbach, Lillian Hellman, Errol Flynn, Audie Murphy,

Andre Watts, Cyndee Lauper, Bob Vila, Chet Atkins, Stephen Frears, Brian Wilson, Robert Rodriquez, John Goodman, Martin Landau, John Mahoney, Nicole Kidman is 52

1936- Mickey short Moving Day premiered.

1940- Thirty thousand people gather at the Hollywood Bowl for an America First rally. There they listened to isolationist celebrities like Lillian Gish and Charles Lindbergh protest President Franklin Roosevelt’s plans to aid Britain.”  It is obvious that Britain will lose the war…. It is not freedom when one fifth the country can drag four fifths into a war it does not want!” Students like future President Gerald Ford were in the audience.

1940- Artist Alberto Vargas signs a contract with Esquire Magazine to paint the ‘Vargas Girls’ pin ups that made the magazine famous. He replaced artist George Petty who was demanding $1,500 a week. Vargas was paid $75 a week. Today an original Vargas goes for $350,000.

1941-Walt Disney's "the Reluctant Dragon" premiered, with cartoonist's pickets around the Pantages Theater in Hollywood. Police actually have to close part of Hollywood Blvd. out of concern for what the rampaging animators might do. Future UPA producer Steve Bosustow drove up in a limo and picketed in tuxedo and top hat. His chauffeur was Maurice Noble, the designer of the Road Runner cartoons. Ironically the movie was part documentary about how wonderful life was working at the Disney studio.

1947- Benjamin Bugsy Siegel, the gangster creator of modern Las Vegas, was murdered while reading his evening paper in his Beverly Hills home. 

1948- The TV show "Toast of the Town" later to be “the Ed Sullivan Show” premiered. Sullivan's show was the showcase that brought new acts like Elvis Presley, the Beatles, Signor Winces and the Rolling Stones into the average American living room. Prior to this, Ed Sullivan was a columnist and radio show personality who co-authored "Red Channels", a book accusing dozens of his Show Biz compatriots as Communists..

1975- Steven Spielberg’s movie Jaws opened, bringing back the monster-hit event movie.