Animation Fun Facts for March 31, 2021

Birthdays:  Rene' Descartes, Franz Josef Haydn, Serge Diaghilev, Harald von Braunhut 1926- the inventor of Sea Monkeys and X-Ray Specs, Richard Chamberlain, Cesar Chavez, Herb Alpert, Gordie Howe, Liz Claiborne, Gabe Kaplan, Rhea Perlman, Shirley Jones is 87, Richard Kiley, Volker Schlondorf, William Daniels, Lucille Bliss the voice of Crusader Rabbit, Christopher Walken is 78, Colin Farrell is 43, Ewan McGregor is 50, Al Gore is 73, Ed Catmull is 76.

1836- Charles Dickens first work published "The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club."

1930- Floyd Gottfredson began drawing Disney’s Mickey Mouse comic strip after Ub Iwerks quit. He continued to do the strip uninterrupted for 45 years, until his retirement in 1975.

1930 -Reacting to charges that the movies had become too naughty, Hollywood producers accept the MOTION PICTURE CODE. It was regulated by Will Hays, former Republican Party Chairman. The regulation wouldn't really start to have strength until 1935-36 when pressure groups like the Catholic League of Decency went after Mae West and the Tarzan pictures. 

The Hays Code forbade open sex and obscenity:

  - twin beds only in a bedroom, nightclothes buttoned to the neck. 

  - if a couple were seated together on a bed they must have at least one foot touching the floor,

  -"kisses with a duration of no longer than 3 seconds, parting with lips closed."

-  One other little known clause was the forbidding of members of different races from kissing on camera. 

1931- ITT transmits the first message by microwave, from Dover to Calais.

1933- Max Fleischer's short cartoon "Snow White" (starring Betty Boop) premiered. Cab Calloway singing the "St. James Infirmary Blues" is a highlight.

1943- Rodger & Hammerstein's "Oklahoma!" debuts.  Despite the opinion of producer Mike Todd -"No legs, No Laughs, No Chance", the musical becomes one of the great hits of American musical Theater.

1950- Thor Heyderthal's book of his exploits Kon Tiki published. This was an account of his 4,200 mile voyage which proved ancient mariners could have traveled from Peru to Polynesia on boats made from tied reeds.

1962- The Los Angeles County Museum of Art opened on Wilshire Blvd. No, it didn’t display customized surfboards or the ideal tuna melt with sprouts, but an exhibit of paintings by Bonnard. 

1967- In a small London nightclub, rising young rock & roller Jimmy Hendrix burned his guitar for the first time. Rock luminaries like Paul McCartney, John Lennon, Eric Clapton, and Pete Townsend sat in the audience stunned at the technical brilliance of this unknown former paratrooper who played left handed. The pieces of his guitar were purchased by Microsoft chairman Paul Allen and today are in his Seattle Rock Museum.

1973- Comic strip hero Smilin' Jack gets married, the strip concludes next day.

1991- Former child star Danny Bonaduce arrested for a fist fight with a transvestite prostitute.

1995- In Corpus Christy Texas legendary Tejana singer Selena Perez was shot and killed by an obsessed fan. The woman Yolanda Saldivar was president of the Selena Fan Club. “The gun just went off, I didn’t mean to shoot anybody.” 

1999- The movie The Matrix opened in theaters.

Animation Fun Facts for March 30, 2021

Birthdays:  Maimonides- Moses Ben Maimon, Anna Sewell (the author of Black Beauty), Vincent Van Gogh, Francisco Goya, John Astin, Peter Marshall, Warren Beatty is 84, Eric Clapton is 76, Arthur Lee Harrington the designer of the first Jeep, Tracey Chapman, Robby Coltrane, Paul Reiser, Celine Dion, Nora Jones is 42, Disney animator Marc Davis

1858- The pencil eraser patented. The Eraser, or Rubber outside the U.S., was developed in 1770, but Hymen Lipman of Philadelphia first put it on the top of a pencil.

1918- Thomas Edison sold his studio and got out of the movie business. He fired W.K.L. Dickson, inventor of the movie studio set, Edwin Porter the inventor of the narrative film, and J. Stuart Blackton, the inventor of cartoon animation, for annoying him too much about filmmaking. Edison was more interested then in finding a way to extract iron ore from rocks using magnets. 

1968- In New York City’s Bowery district two children find the dead body of a homeless drug addict. He is later identified as Bobby Driscoll, 31, Walt Disney child star, and the voice of Peter Pan.

2000- Dreamworks animated feature the Road to El Dorado premiered.

2007- Disney’s Meet the Robinsons.

Animation Fun Facts for March 29, 2021

Birthdays: President John Tyler, Sir William Walton, Eric Idle is 79, former English P.M. John Major, Bud Cort is 72, LaToya Jackson, Eugene McCarthy, Jennifer Capriati, M.C. Hammer, Walt "Clyde" Frazier, Cy Young, Christopher Lambert is 66, Jimmy Dodd, Disney animator Jack Kinney, Brendan Gleeson is 66, Lucy Lawless, Elle MacPherson, Amy Sedaris is 58

1886- COCA-COLA invented. Atlanta Pharmacist and liver pill salesman John Pemberton developed the carbonated drink, originally with Cocaine in it. His bookkeeper Francis Robinson penned the famous script logo, still in use today. Advertising for the drink claimed it cured everything from hysteria, cholic and the common cold.

1936- Republic Pictures formed.

1939- Moviestars Clark Gable and Carole Lombard marry. They had a happy marriage until Lombard was killed in a plane crash in 1942. It’s been said the first California King Size mattress, slightly larger than normal king size, was ordered custom made for Gable and Lombard for their rather exuberant assignations at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel. 

1951- 'The King and I' debuts on Broadway with Gertrude Lawrence and Yul Brynner, who shaved his head for the first time for the role.

1971- First day of shooting on the film The Godfather. Francis Coppola wanted young actor Al Pacino for the Michael Corleone role, but Pacino had signed with Fox to do a different film- The Gang that Couldn’t Shoot Straight. Producer Robert Evans begged and pleaded with Fox exec James Aubrey aka "The Smiling Barracuda", to get Pacino released from his contract. Finally Aubrey replaced him with Jerry Ohrbach. He called Evans and said:" Alright, you can have the midget." The scene was Michael and Kaye coming out of Best & Co. Dept. Store while Christmas shopping.

1974- A Chinese farmer digging a well discovered the huge buried terracotta army of Chinas’ first emperor at XIAN.

1989- As part of one of the silliest Oscar telecasts in history, actor Rob Lowe had to dance and sing 'Proud Mary" with Las Vegas showgirl Eileen Bowman dressed as Disney’s Snow White.  Rob Lowe had just been embarrassed by the publication of a videotape shot in a hotel room of him having sex with two teenage girls. The Walt Disney Company immediately threatened a lawsuit. The Academy apologized and replaced director Alan Carr with Gilbert Cates.

1989- At that same Oscar ceremony Pixar’s short Tin Toy became the first CG animation to ever win an Oscar.

1993- At the 65^th Academy Awards, Disney’s Aladdin won two Academy Awards for Best Song and Best Track. Best Animated Short was Mona Lisa Descending a Staircase by Joan Gratz.

2018- A Buzzfeed article detailed how animator John Kricfalusi, the creator of Ren & Stimpy, preyed on underage girls, promising them careers at his studio.  

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Animation Fun Facts for March 26, 2021

B-Days: Robert Frost, Chico Marx, Conde Nast, Tennessee Williams, Alfred Houseman, Joseph Campbell, General William Westmorland, Erica Jong, Duncan Hines, Bob Woodward, Leonard Nimoy, Alan Arkin, James Caan is 82, Diana Ross is 78, Sandra Day-O’Connor, Martin Short, Bob Elliot of Bob & Ray, T. Hee, Michael Imperioli is 56, Keira Knightley is 37

1900- The Happy Hooligan comic strip.

1920- This Side of Paradise, the first novel published by a young Minnesota writer named F. Scott Fitzgerald. F. Scott Fitzgerald was a descendant of Francis Scott Key, writer of the Star Spangled Banner.

1937- A statue of Popeye the Sailor unveiled at the Crystal City Texas Spinach Festival.

1955- The song The Ballad of Davey Crockett, went to number 1 in the pop charts. 

1959- Writer Dashell Hammett died.

1969- The western movie 100 Rifles premiered. It broke taboos, because it featured sexy Raquel Welch making love to sexy black hero Jim Brown.  And Burt Reynolds as the bandito Yaqui Joe Hererra.

1973- The Young and the Restless soap opera premiered. 

1975 - The Who¹s rock opera "Tommy" premiered in London.

1976- USC sophomore Levar Burton screen tested for the role of Kunta Kinte in the landmark TV miniseries Roots. The role made him a star.

1976 - Wings release "Wings at the Speed of Sound" album .

1977 - Elvis Costello releases his first record "Less Than Zero" 

1982 - Paul McCartney & Stevie Wonder release "Ebony & Ivory" in the UK

1997- Turner Animation's film 'Cat's Don't Dance", featuring the last movie work of Gene Kelly. He was a consultant on the dance sequences.

2008- Arnold Schwarzenegger fired Clint Eastwood. No, its’ not a movie plot line. The former actor, turned Republican Governor, objected to a position the actor/director and former Republican mayor took on the California State Parks Commission. 

2228 - According to Star Fleet records- James T. Kirk, captain of Federation Star Ship Enterprise (Star Trek) was born. 

Animation Fun Facts for March 25, 2021

B-Days: King Henry II Plantagenet, Joachim Murat, Gudson Borglum, David Lean, Mary Flannery-O’Connor, Arturo Toscanini, Aretha Franklin, Bela Bartok', Howard Cosell, Bonnie Bedelia, Anita Bryant, Simone Signoret, Gloria Steinem is 87, Sarah Jessica Parker is 57.

In ancient times this was the feast of the goddess of comedy Thalia, one of the Nine Muses. In Latin she was called Hilaria.

1928- Young American composer George Gershwin first arrived in Paris.

1932- Motion Picture Academy President William DeMille, the brother of Cecil B., started a 'Squawk Forum", inviting film industry workers to air their grievances with their studio heads. (and this way they won't ask to unionize). The first boss on the hot seat was MGM's Louis B. Mayer. He was greeted with boos, insults and catcalls. The forum quickly devolved into a screaming free for all. Mayer furiously stormed out and preceded to fire all those Metro employees he could remember were there. The Squawk Forum idea was quickly abandoned.

1933- Nazis Minister of Propaganda Josef Goebbels offered famed director Fritz Lang a job. Fritz said he’d think about it, then immediately packed his bags for Hollywood.

1943 - The first Japanese anime feature premiered "Momotaro's Divine Sea Warriors" by director Mitsuyo Seo.

1954- RCA began mass production and marketing of color television sets. At the time the set cost as much as an automobile, 12 inch screen and there was very little programming in color.

1955- US Customs seize a shipment of 258 copies Alan Ginsburg’s poem Howl printed in the UK on the grounds it was obscene." I saw some of the finest minds of my generation destroyed by madness." Next year when Lawrence Ferlinghetti of San Francisco’s City Lights Bookstore printed the poem, he was arrested.

1960- Thirty-five years after it was written and published in Europe an American judge ruled that D.H. Lawrence's novel 'Lady Chatterley's Lover" was not pornography and could finally be sold in the U.S. Whaddaya think of that, John-Thomas?

1960- The Moulin Rouge Agreement. After a lot of agitation and arm twisting from Frank Sinatra, the owners of the Las Vegas casinos agreed to integrate. It was so named for the Moulin Rouge Casino, which up to then had been the only casino that allowed black and white patrons to mix freely.

1966 - Beatles pose with mutilated dolls & butchered meat for the cover of the "Yesterday & Today" album, It was later pulled.

1967 -The Who & Cream make their US debut at Murray the K's Easter Show.

1969- John Lennon and Yoko Ono began their week-long "love-in" for peace in the bed of Room 902 of the Hilton Hotel, Amsterdam.

Animation Fun Facts for March 22, 2021

Birthdays: Anthony Van Dyck, Marcel Marceau, Stephen Sondheim, Karl Malden, Werner Klemperer- Colonel Klink in Hogan’s Heroes, George Benson, James Gavin, Allen Neuharth, Milt Kahl, Mort Drucker, Fanny Ardant is 72, Lena Olin is 66, Bruno Ganz, Reese Witherspoon is 45, Keegan Michael-Key is 50, William Shatner is 90.

1894- First Stanley Cup Game- Montreal 3, Ottawa I.

1913- Jack London (White Fang, The Call of the Wild) wrote fellow writers HG Wells, George Bernard Shaw and Winston Churchill, and asked them how much they get paid? He was unsure what to charge.

1935- The first regular electronic television service began in Berlin as Deutscher Fernseh Rundfunk. Broadcasting from the Fernsehsender Paul Nipkow, it used a 180-line system, and was on air for 90 minutes, three times a week. Very few receivers were ever privately owned, and viewers went instead to Fernsehstuben (television parlors). During the 1936 Summer Olympics, broadcasts, up to eight hours a day, took place in Berlin and Hamburg.

1958- Hollywood producer Mike Todd was killed in a small plane crash. He produced hit movies like Around the World in 80 Days and romanced starlets like Gypsy Rose Lee and Elizabeth Taylor. Taylor and Todd had been married for one year and she was devastated by the accident. Years and many marriages later Taylor said Mike Todd was the only man she ever really loved.

1960- Arthur Schawlow and Charles Townes patented the laser beam. Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation or LASER. Pussycats rejoice! 

1970- The Beatles broke up. Paul McCartney filed papers in a London court for a formal dissolving of the Fab Fours partnership.

1972- Concluding a five-year study, the National Commission on Drug Abuse recommended ending all penalties and laws prohibiting marijuana. No one in authority listened to them.

1978- Karl Wallenda, 73 year old scion of the daredevil family the Flying Wallendas, fell to his death from a tightrope between two resort hotels in San Juan, Puerto Rico.

1991- Ivana Trump divorced Donald Trump. A celebrated court case ensued to see how the huge Trump fortune would be divided. Newspapers cried, Ivanna More Money!

1995- First day of shooting on that utterly classic film- Dinosaur Valley Girls!

Animation Fun Facts for March 21, 2021

Birthdays: Plato, Johann Sebastian Bach, Benito Juarez, Modest Mussorgsky, Fats Waller, Josef Pulitzer, Florenz Ziegfeld, Bronco Billy Anderson, Rev Ralph Abernathy, Armand Hammer, Harold Robbins, Matthew Broderick is 59, Gary Oldman is 63, James Coco, Timothy Dalton is 75, Rosie O’Donnell is 59, animator Kathy Zielinski.

1617-Pocahontas, now called Lady Rebecca Rolfe, died at Gravesend, England after being taken off the homeward bound ship, too ill with smallpox to continue. She was 21. Her children with John Rolfe became the beginnings of one of the largest families in Virginia, with many scions of the Old Dominion tracing their ancestry to Pocahontas.

1859- The first public zoo opened in the U.S.

1915- President Woodrow Wilson hosted a private screening of D.W. Griffith’s film “The Birth of a Nation” at the White House. 

1917- Buster Keaton first stepped in front of a movie camera.

1930- Col. Harland Sanders founded Kentucky Fried Chicken in North Corbin, Kentucky. Sanders was never in the military. The title Colonel is an honorific title bestowed by the Commonwealth of Kentucky. Harland was a buddy of the governor. 

1951- HOLLYWOOD COMMIES- House UnAmerican Activities Committee (HUAC) under Judge J. Parnell Thomas from Washington and sets up in Hollywood to continue rooting out Communist subversion in the movies. They began in the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel, and later move to the federal building downtown. 

Their concerns weren’t total fantasy, actor Sterling Hayden confessed he was ordered by his communist operatives to try and influence the Screen Actor’s Guild. Still the point remains whether the authorities overreaction was justified and whether Congress could get more publicity looking for spies in Tinseltown than the Department of Games and Fisheries.

Out of 15,000 people who made a living in the movies and television, only 295 were ever proven or confessed communists. It was an open secret that for $5,000 delivered to the right committee member, your dossier would be moved to the bottom of the pile. The hearings stopped in 1956, the blacklist was broken in 1960, and Judge J. Parnell Thomas went to jail for embezzlement.  

1952- DJ Alan Freed put on an event of the new pop music in Cleveland Ohio. Called the MoonDog Coronation Ball, it was the very first Rock Concert.

1961- The Beatles first perform at the Cavern Club in Hamburg Germany.

1961- based on the success of the first Playboy Club in Chicago, Playboy Clubs with their Bunny waitresses opened in New York, Miami and LA.

1963- Barbara Streisand married Elliot Gould. 

1988- the Screen Actor's Guild hits the bricks for the fourth time in twenty years, this time striking Hollywood for residuals for cable and videocassette income. 

2006- The first Tweet sent on the new format Twitter. Scientist Jack Dorsey tweeted his friends “Setting up my twttr…” Twitter went public that July. 

Animation Fun Facts for March 20, 2021

Birthday: Roman poet Ovid 43BC, Napoleon’s son Napoleon II "l'Aiglon" The eaglet, Henryk Ibsen, Lauritz Melchior, Ray Goulding, Mr. Rogers, Bobby Orr, , B.F. Skinner, Pat Riley, Sir Michael Redgrave, Edgar Buchanan, Holly Hunter is 64, William Hurt, Sheldon "Spike" Lee is 64, Carl Reiner, Chris Wedge is 64

1841- Edgar Allen Poe's The Murder's in the Rue Morgue first published in Graham’s Magazine. Called the first true detective novel, Poe's detective C. Auguste Dupin was inspired by a real French sleuth named Jules Vinquoc, who used disguises and scientific technique to solve crimes the Paris police could not handle. Dupin was the inspiration for Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes, and Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot.

1852- Harriet Beecher Stowe's "Uncle Tom's Cabin" first published. It sold one million copies within six months. Based on the story of escaped slave Josiah Henson, the book was the first to treat the horrors of slavery directly. It portrayed slave families not as dumb brutes, or happy minstrels, but victimized human beings. Because of this book, Yankee soldiers referred to Southerners as women whippers, and baby sellers. Mrs. Stowe said modestly: “I didn’t write it, God did. I just took dictation.” When she visited the White House President Lincoln met her with:”So here’s the little lady who started the big war.”

1903- Henri Matisse exhibits at the Salon des Independents in Paris.

90 Years Ago 1931- Canters Deli. The Canter moved out from Jersey City and opened their first deli in the Boyle Heights section of Los Angeles. In 1948 they moved to the Fairfax neighborhood of West LA. Movie stars and rock bands alike enjoyed their Kosher pastrami, challah and home made pickles..

1943-MGM's "Dumb Hounded" the first Droopy Cartoon.

1969-John Lennon married Yoko Ono on the Rock of Gibraltar.

1991- In 1955 Walt Disney recorded Peggy Lee to sing “He’s a Tramp” for the film Lady and the Tramp. For that she was paid $3,500. This day a judge ordered the Walt Disney Company to pay Peggy Lee $3.8 million for the songs she wrote and performed in the film. This additional income was from videocassette sales for a re-issue of the soundtrack. 

1999- Legoland opened in Carlsbad Cal.

Animation Fun Facts for March 19, 2021

Birthdays: George De La Tour, Wyatt Earp, Dr. David Livingston, William Jennings Bryan, Sir Richard Burton (The African explorer), Charles M. Russell, Jacky Moms Mabley, Adolf Eichmann, Phillip Roth, Adolf Galland, Ursula Andress, Patrick McGoohan, Ornette Coleman, Bruce Willis is 66, Glenn Close is 74, 

Richard Williams animator and educator. (1933-2019)

1853- Charles Dicken’s novel Bleak House first appeared in magazine installments. It is the first novel to ever mention dinosaurs-" It would be wonderful to meet a Megalosaurus, forty feet long, waddling like an elephantine lizard up Holborn Hill…"

1859- Charles Gounod's opera 'Faust" premiered. 

1875- Mark Twain admitted in a letter to a friend that he now likes to use a typewriter, a new technology accused of ruining the art of writing.

1895- The Lumiere Brothers shot their first movie, employees leaving their dad’s factory.

1953- First T.V. broadcast of the Oscar ceremony. That utterly memorable circus film 

"The Greatest Show on Earth" won top honors. Ironically it was Cecil B. DeMille’s only Oscar of his career. Before TV, the Oscars ceremony included a dinner and an hour of dancing before the awards were presented.

1954- Singer Sammy Davis Jr. lost an eye in an auto accident in the California desert. He was left lying bleeding unattended in a hallway in Riverside County Hospital. This was because he was black and it was a segregated facility. Finally, actor Jeff Chandler found him and forced the doctors to treat him. Friend Frank Sinatra urged Davis out of his depression and got him out on stage again. That first night at Ciro’s nightclub the entire Ratpack- Sinatra, Dean Martin and Peter Lawford each preformed on stage wearing a black eye patch similar to Davis’.

1957- Elvis Presley purchased an estate outside Memphis Tennessee called Graceland from Ruth Moore for $100,000.

1959- Disney released The Shaggy Dog, their low budget live action comedy hit.

1962- The first Pillsbury Doughboy commercial.

1964- IBM gave the green light to plans for the 360 series. The first compatible computers.

1964- First day shooting on the James Bond film Goldfinger. 

1973- During the Watergate Scandal, President Richard Nixon's lawyer John Dean tells him "There is a cancer on the Presidency."

1974- The band Jefferson Airplane changed its name to Jefferson Starship.

1979- C-Span cable channel started broadcasting live from the floor of Congress. The first Congressman to speak on camera was Al Gore.

1982- Randy Rhoads, the lead guitarist for Ozzy Ozbourne died when he playfully flew his plane buzzing the bands travelling bus and smacked into a farmhouse. 

1984- I’LL BE BACK- James Cameron began shooting the film the Terminator. He first considered casting O.J. Simpson for the cyborg killer before settling on Austrian weightlifter Arnold Schwarzenegger.

1993- Monkey-cam debuted on the David Letterman Show.

2004- Brian Maxwell, the inventor of the Power Bar nutrition snack, died of a heart attack at age 51.

2004- The Florida unit of Walt Disney Feature Animation was shut down. Originally set up as an attraction at Walt Disney World theme park, they grew into a viable studio in their own right. They created hits like Muhlan, Lilo & Stitch, and Brother Bear.

ANIMATION FUN FACTS FOR MARCH 18, 2021

Birthdays: Amerigo Vespucci, John Calhoun, Nicholai Rimsky-Korsakov, Neville Chamberlain, Wilson Picket, Edgar Cayce, John Updike, Grover Cleveland, Edward Everett Horton, Vanessa Williams, F. W. DeKlerk, George Plympton, Peter Graves, Irene Cara, Luc Besson, Queen Latifah is 52

1902- BIRTHDAY OF THE RECORDING INDUSTRY. The RCA Victrola company sent it's engineers to Milan to record ten discs of the young singer Enrico Caruso. He became a world celebrity and the phonograph moves from being a scientific curiosity to something every home had to have.

1910- Rosie O’Neill invented the Kewpie Doll.

1924-The film “The Thief of Baghdad” starring Douglas Fairbanks released. Directed by Raoul Walsh and designs by William Cameron Menzies. It is considered the first great special effects blockbuster.

1942- Paramount’s “The Lost Dream” Little Audrey cartoon. The short was directed by Bill Tytla for Famous Studios. He designed Little Audrey based on his own daughter Tammy.

1965- The Rolling Stones were fined 5 English pence for urinating on a wall in Stratford at ABC recording studio Romford.

1967- The Pirates of the Caribbean ride opened at Disneyland, designed by master animator Marc Davis. In recent years political correctness has disturbed the pirates fun. One diorama that portrayed a lusty buccaneer chasing a wench around a table while she giggles. It was changed to show he was only interested in her sandwich tray. An animatronic of Jack Sparrow was sandwiched in. 

Animation Fun Facts for March 17, 2021

Happy St Patricks Day

1394- FREE LANCERS - Sir John Hawkwood died. During a time-out in the Hundred Years War in France Hawkwood formed a company of unemployed English knights and went to Italy to become “condottierie”-mercenaries, fighting for money in the feuds between all the little Italian city-states. Their distinctive brightly polished silver armor gave them the name “The White Company”. Sir Arthur Conan-Doyle wrote a novel by that name about them. 

This is around the time the term 'free lance' had been coined, meaning a knight who was free of any Shield-Oath to a noble lord.   

1845- Rubber Bands invented.

1879- New Mexico Territorial Governor Lew Wallace stopped work on his novel Ben Hur long enough to meet face-to-face outlaw Billy the Kid to discuss an amnesty.

1884- To quiet the fears of New Yorkers that the Brooklyn Bridge was too dangerous to cross, circus-master P.T. Barnum led a herd of his circus elephants led by Jumbo the Elephant across the bridge safely.

1901- At a grand exhibition of his paintings at Bernheim-Jeune Palace in Paris, the world discovered the brilliance of a poor Dutch lunatic who had shot himself a few years back- Vincent Van Gogh.

1941- The National Gallery of Art opens in Washington D.C.

1949- The first car show for Porsche sportscars.

1965- Chicago began the Saint Patrick’s Day tradition of dyeing the Chicago River green

1982- Politically conservative Hollywood actors led by Charlton Heston broke with the Screen Actor’s Guild and form a rival group called AWAG (American Working Actor’s Guild). They were angered by SAG president Ed Asner’s taking their union into national politics by publically condemning Pres. Ronald Reagan’s policies in Central America, capped by the SAG board refusing Reagan (their former president) the Guild lifetime achievement award. 

As a result Ed Asner’s hit TV show “Lou Grant” lost sponsors and was cancelled, and Heston’s career cooled as well, beyond speaking at NRA events, and writing cranky letters to the L.A. Times that Ben Hur wasn’t gay.

1983- On trial for libel, and refusing to name sources, wheelchair bound porn publisher Larry Flynt showed up in a US Federal court wearing a diaper made from an American flag. This was calculated to mock a conservative demand for a Constitutional amendment against burning the flag.

Animation Fun Facts for March 15, 2021

Birthdays: Andrew Jackson, Lee Schubert-one of Broadways Shubert Brothers, Ry Cooder, Sly Stone, Harry James, Lightnin' Hopkins, Rev. Jimmy Swaggart, Judd Hirsch, Norm Van Brocklin, Sabu, Fabio, Reni Harlin, David Cronenburg is 78, Eva Longoria is 46, Simpsons director David Silverman

 

1909- Harry Gordon Selfridge, formerly manager of Chicago’s Marshal Fields, opened Selfridges, London’s first Department Store. Selfridge invented the Bargain Basement, the Annual Sale, and the motto “ The Customer is Always Right.”

 

1913- President Woodrow Wilson held the first presidential news conference.

 

1915- Universal Studios formed. Carl Laemmele bought a huge track of Burbank farmland and set up his studio. Laemmele had wooden bleachers built next to the movie sets where he charged people a nickel to come watch the filming. He used so many of his relatives in production that Ogden Nash quipped: "Carl Laemmele has a very large Faemmele." Universal actually had been operating as a film company since 1912 but the company counts today as its birthday.

 

1933- Young animator Chuck Jones first hired at Leon Schlesingers Looney Tunes cartoon studio.

 

1941- The daughter of Cecil B. DeMille, Katherine DeMille, had married actor Anthony Quinn. This day tragedy struck the family. On a visit to Cecil B.’s estate, the couple’s three year old son Christopher walked off into neighbor W.C. Fields yard where he fell into Fields unsupervised swimming pool and drowned. The parents were so shattered they divorced afterward. Anthony Quinn refused to talk about the rest of his long life. Fields was so depressed he had the pool filled in and landscaped so no reminder of the tragedy would remain.

 

1944- The DeHAVILAND CASE- A judge ruled actress Olivia DeHaviland free of her exclusive seven year personal contract to Warner Bros. For years movie stars like Bette Davis, Barbara Stanwyck and James Cagney had been fighting in court the system of exclusive contracts the studios used to keep them under control. They had no choice in the type of films they did, no residuals, and studios could lend them out to other studios for higher fees, and keep the money.  

 

1956- Lerner & Lowe’s musical "My Fair Lady" premiered. 

 

1956- The film Forbidden Planet premiered in theaters. Condisdered the grand daddy of Sci-Fiction blockbusters

 

1962- The discovery of anti-matter.

 

1964- Elizabeth Taylor married Richard Burton, for the first time.

 

1964- The book The Femine Mystique by Betty Freidan first published. The first major book to point out women were unhappy with their second class roles. And it coined the term Feminist. 

 

1969- Two young heirs to the Polident false Teeth Company and two hippy promoters announced a rock festival would be held that summer in the farm community of Woodstock New York.

 

1977- Television sitcom Threes Company debuted.

 

1979- Strange lights danced in the night skies over Phoenix Arizona from 8:30 pm until 11:00 pm. The military dismissed them as experimental flares but the duration and patterns seemed unusually long for mere flares. Was it a UFO light show? 

 

1985- Symbolic.com is assigned the first registered private domain site on the Internet. 

 

2002- Blue Sky’s hit animated film Ice Age premiered.

 

2004- Cal Tech Scientists announce the discovery of Planet Xenia, the tenth planet orbiting our Sun, beyond Pluto. Some want to call it Sedna, an Inuit goddess who lived under the ice.

 

 

 

Animation Fun Facts for March 14, 2021

Birthdays: Georg Phillip Telemann, Johann Strauss Sr., Albert Einstein, Casey Jones, Quincy Jones is 87, astronaut Frank Borman, Les Brown, Hank Ketcham, Wolfgang Petersen, Diane Arbus, Chris Klein, Michael Cain born Maurice Mickelwhite is 88, Billy Crystal is 73

 

1883- Karl Marx died in London. Marx's last words were:" Get out of Here!

Last words are for fools who haven't said enough already!"

 

1885- Gilbert and Sullivan’s operetta The Mikado premiered in London.

 

1903- President Teddy Roosevelt established Pelican Island as the first Federal Wildlife Preserve. 

 

1932- Inventor George Eastman shot himself- The inventor of the Roll-film camera, who named his celluloid strips 'film' and founded Eastman/Kodak. He had been suffering from a long illness and left the note: " To my friends: The End is near, why wait? "

 

1941- Xavier Cugat and his orchestra recorded "Babalu".

 

1943- Aaron Copland's "Fanfare for the Common Man" premiered. George Szell conducting.   Young Leonard Bernstein once asked Copland how he could write more "American" sounding music. The maestro answered:" Lenny, just shuttup and write. You're American. It's all going to sound that way anyway!" 

 

1991- Lyricist Howard Ashman (Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast) died of HIV/AIDS.

 

1992- The official Soviet newspaper Pravda- Truth, ceased publication. 

 

1998- The epic disaster movie Titanic surpassed Star Wars and Jurassic Park as the greatest money earning film (until Avatar). It cost over $200 million to make but it earned at least $1 billion in box office alone. Quote director James Cameron: I’m King of the World!!

Animation Fun Facts for March 13, 2021

Birthdays: Hugh Walpole, Charles 2^nd Earl Grey 1764- English Prime Minister whom the tea blend 'Earl Grey Tea " is named for, Pope Innocent XII (1615), Abigail Powers Filmore- First Lady of Millard Filmore, Hugo Wolf, Ted Sears, Sammy Kaye, Danny Kaye, Neil Sedaka, L. Ron Hubbard, William Macy is 70, Dick Katz, Annabell Gish, Joe Ranft

 

1639- Richard Burbage died. Burbage was the famed Elizabethan actor and friend of William Shakespeare. On his tombstone was a simple epitaph- EXIT BURBAGE.

 

 

1928- In New York City, Walt Disney sent a telegram to his brother Roy back in California, informing him of his disastrous meeting with producer Charles Mintz. That Mintz had exercised a clause in their contract to take the rights to Oswald the Lucky Rabbit away from them. He cabled “ Leaving Tonight, stopping over KC. Arrive Sunday Morning. Don’t Worry. All Will be Well.” Later on the train home, Walt with Ub Iwerks, Les Clark and his wife Lillian came up with a new character named Mickey Mouse.

 

1939- Hollywood recognized the Screen Director’s Guild, later called he DGA. After a nasty battle lasting several years Guild President Frank Capra signed the contracts representing 80% of movie directors. They also contractually ensured the custom of the director’s credit being the last one seen at the opening title sequence of a film. 

 

1943- Radio station WNYC goes on the air.

 

1944- Abbot & Costello copyrighted their baseball routine ‘Who’s on First?"

 

1947- MGM Tom & Jerry’s Cat Concerto won the Oscar for Best Animated Short.

1965- Guitarist Eric Clapton quit the band The Yardbirds. 

 

1969- Disney’s comedy about a Volkswagen beetle,"The Love Bug" premiered.  

 

1983- The Larry King Show debuted on HBO, later moving to CNN. King retired that show in 2010, but he did shows on cable until his death from Covid in 2020.

 

1986- Microsoft made its first public stock offering. A share went for $21.

Animation Fun Facts for March 12, 2021

Birthdays: Jack Kerouac, Billy "Buckwheat "Thomas, Darryl Strawberry, Edward Albee, Andrew Young, Joan Kennedy, Eugene Ormandy, Gordon McCrae, Liza Minelli is 77, Courtenay Vance, James Taylor, Frank Welker, Al Jareau, Maurice Evans, Barbara Feldon- agent 99 in Get Smart is 88, DeWitt Bodeen- writer of the 1942 film Cat People. Aaron Eckart is 53

 

1932- Disney short "Mickey’s Revue" featuring Dippy Dog, now turned into a new character named "the Goof" or Goofy.

 

1945- Anne Frank died of typhus in Bergen-Belsen concentration camp at age 15.

Her father discovered her diary after the war.

 

1945-THE WAR OF HOLLYWOOD BEGAN-Throughout the 1930’s and 40’s several national unions battled studios and each other to represent Hollywood film workers. The Teamsters, the FWPC, the Brotherhood of Electricians. 

By 1945 only two remained, the IATSE and the CSU.(International Alliance of Theater and Screen Engineers and the Conference of Studio Unions) IATSE had a reputation of gangsterism and making cozy deals with the studio heads. The CSU, a much more militant group with past ties to communist organizations, was headed by a charismatic scenery painter named Herb Sorrell who had helped win the Disney strike for the cartoonists in 1941. Sorrel called several citywide strikes that paralyzed Hollywood in 1945, 46 and 47. President Richard Walsh of IATSE fought them and rioting in front of the studios was commonplace. 

 

1951- Former Disney assistant animator Hank Ketcham was trying his hand as a print cartoonist. He had some success selling gags to the New Yorker Magazine. His baby son Dennis was a precocious infant. Once after she caught the child smearing the contents of his diaper around the house, his mother exclaimed to Hank-“ Your son is a Menace!” That gave Ketcham an idea. Today the first Dennis the Menace comic strip was published.

 

1955- BIRD DIED- Jazz genius Charlie "Bird" Parker had a lifelong drug addiction. Since the death of his infant daughter earlier that year, his drug use had spiraled out of control. He was sleeping on the couch in the NY apartment of the Baroness du Rothschild-Konigswarter, a jazz supporter. He awoke to watch TV. While laughing at a juggler on the Dorsey Brothers Variety Show, he died. The coroner said death was by heart failure, cirrhosis and pneumonia. He estimated Parker’s age at 65. He was really 34. When his band heard of his death they paused between sets to shoot up with heroin in his honor. "Seems silly now, come to think of it." Said one musician later.

 

1969- Here’s to you, Mrs. Robinson –a song written by two young folk singers named Simon & Garfunkel, won a Grammy award.

 

1969- Paul and Linda McCartney married.

 

1989- Tim Berners-Lee flicked a switch and the World Wide Web became operational, connecting several regional web systems into a global network.

 

1992- Warren Beatty married Annette Benning.

 

2003 –The female vocal group the Dixie Chicks were tops of the country-western world. They had preformed at last years Super Bowl. But in an interview during a concert in Britain, singer Natalie Maines expressed her sadness over America’s invasion of Iraq. “ Just so you know, we're on the good side with y'all. We do not want this war, this violence. And we're ashamed the President of the United States is from Texas." Starting today the conservative backlash from this comment destroyed their careers. They made a documentary about it in 2006 entitled “ Shut Up and Sing.”