Tom Sito's Animation Almanac for Aug. 17, 2021

Birthdays: Davy Crocket, Mae West, Marcus Garvey, Sam Goldwyn- born Schmuel Gelbfisz, Harry Hopkins, Monte Wooley, Boog Powell, Belinda Carlisle, Guillermo Vilas, V.S. Naipul, Jim Courier, Donnie Wahlberg, Belinda Carlisle, Maureen O’Hara, Sean Penn is 61, Martha Coolidge is 76, Robert DeNiro is 78

1876- Richard Wagner’s 4 hour opera Gotterdamerung- the Twilight of the Gods, premiered.

1877- Billy the Kid killed his first man.

1908- D.W. Griffith signed a contract to begin directing movies for Biograph Pictures. He was paid $50 dollars a week plus royalties.  

1908- The premiere of the first fully animated film, Emile Cohl's "Fantasmagorie". 

1941- EL GRUPO- Walt Disney and his artists arrive in Rio on a ten week goodwill tour of South America, underwritten by a $70,000 government grant.  President Franklin Roosevelt was worried that some South American countries might be sympathetic to the Nazis, forcing the U.S. to worry about her backdoor. So FDR sent Nelson Rockefeller to give the Latin American countries whatever they wanted to keep them out of the world war. One of the things they wanted was Donald Duck. Back in LA the federal mediator Stanley White had worked out with Roy Disney that if they got Walt out of town, they could settle the Disney animators strike. The name comes from hotel footmen in Buenos Aires paging the artists as “ El Grupo Disney! Your bus is here.”  The Three Caballeros and Saludos Amigos result.

1954- Walt Disney’s True Life Adventure, “ The Vanishing Prairie”, directed by James Algar, opened in theaters.

1962- The Beatles replaced drummer Pete Best with Ringo Starr. One of the reason’s they decided on Ringo was that he came with his own car.

1984- The Walt Disney Company informed its chairman Ron Miller that they wanted his resignation. Disney had fallen to 14th in film box office by then. Miller had been Walt’s son-in-law and he was he was once a tight end for the LA Rams. Within two years of Michael Eisner taking power Disney was number one. 

1985- The Hormel Meat Packing Strike, severely threatening the worlds supply of SPAM.

1986- Pixar short Luxo Jr, premiered at Siggraph ’86 Dallas.

1992- Famed film director Woody Allen admitted he was having an affair with Soon Yi Previn, the adopted daughter of his long time lover Mia Farrow. He was 60 and she was 21. But as the unrepentant Allen states: “The Heart wants what it wants.” They’ve been together ever since.