Tom Sito's Animation Almanac for Nov. 30, 2021

Birthdays: Samuel Clemens aka Mark Twain, William Enos Berkeley aka Busby Berkeley, Winston Churchill, Jonathan Swift, Shirley Chisholm, Gordon Parks, G. Gordon Liddy, Alan Sherman, Abbie Hoffman, Virginia Mayo, Ephram Zimbalist Jr, Richard Crenna, Robert Guilliame, Rex Reason, Mandy Patinkin, Ridley Scott is 85, David Mamet, Shuggie Otis, Billy Idol, Joan Ganz Cooney the creator of Sesame Street, Dick Clark, Ben Stiller is 56, Kaley Cuoco is 36, Henry Selick

 

1869- Paris’ famed naughty nightclub the Follies Bergere opened. The home of the Can-Can, Toulouse Lautrec, Josephine Baker, Bricktop, and Maurice Chevalier.

1900- Oscar Wilde died of meningitis in a hotel in Paris. He was 46. His last words; "This wallpaper is appalling! Either it goes or I do.”

1918- Three weeks after the Kaiser was toppled, the new German government grants women the vote.

1922- The great actress Sarah Bernhardt made her last performance in Turin Italy. She was still considered sexy despite advanced age and a wooden leg.

1924- The first fax message sent. A photo of the Prince of Wales was wired across the Atlantic by radio transmission.

1940- Actress Lucille Ball married Cuban band leader Desi Arnaz. Together they pioneered the new art of Television Situation Comedy. They divorced in 1960.

1968- “Love Child” by Diana Ross and the Supremes hit #1 in the pop charts.

1970- First day shooting on William Freidkin’s film The French Connection.

1974- The Missing Link. In a dry gully in Ethiopia Dr Donald Johannsen discovered the perfect skeletal remains of one of the earliest human ancestors, an ape that walked upright. Australiopithicus Afrancenis. He called it Lucy. Johannsen liked the Beatles song Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds.

1979- ESPN, the 24 hour sports channel began broadcasting.

1982- Nova Pictures is founded, but due to conflict with a PBS TV show of the same name they change theirs to TriStar Pictures. In 1994 TriStar was merged into Sony Pictures.

1985- Punk band The Dead Kennedys released their album Frankenchrist.

1987- John Lasseter’s Pixar short Red’s Dream released.

2003- Roy Disney Jr, the last serving member of the Disney family, was forced to resign from the Walt Disney Company. It was claimed to be the mandatory retirement policy, but more likely he was forced out by the exec he himself hired to run the company in 1984- Michael Eisner. Roy built a successful grass roots stockholders campaign SaveDisney.com. In 2005 Eisner was compelled to retire. Roy Disney kept an emeritus board position until his death in 2009.

2010- Don Hahn’s doc Waking Sleeping Beauty was released on DVD.

Tom Sito's Animation Almanac for Nov 29, 2021

Birthdays: Gaetano Donizetti, Busby Berkeley, C.S. Lewis (Clive Staples Lewis), Louisa May Alcott, Chuck Mangione, Yakima Canutt, Gary Shandling, Cathy Moriarity, Don Cheadle, Joel Coen is 65, Jacques Chirac, Howie Mandell, Susee “Chapstick” Chafee, Chadwick Boseman, Anna Faris is 45, Vin Scully is 94

1914- 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 classifications 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, Dick Heumer, and Shamus Culhane. 

1932- Cole Porter’s musical The Gay Divorcee’ opened on Broadway.

1935- Physicist Edwin Schrodinger published his thought experiment “ Schrodinger’s Cat”.

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. She was 43. 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.

2017- Matt Lauer, the well-known host of NBC’s Today Show, was fired after allegations of sexual misconduct with staffers.

2018- Walt Disney’s Mary Poppins Returns opened. 

Tom Sito's Animation Almanac for Nov 28, 2021

Birthdays: Jean Baptiste Lully, William Blake, Frederick Engels, Stefan Zweig, Ernst Roehm, Brooks Atkinson, Berry Gordy the founder of Motown Records, Anton Rubinstein, Gary Hart, Vern Den Herder, Paul Warfield, Hope Lange, Ed Harris is 71 Paul Schaefer, Joe Dante is 75, Michael Ritchie, Anna Nicole-Smith, Randy Newman, John Stewart is 59

1907- 23 year old Russian-Canadian scrap metal dealer Lazar Meir, now renamed Louis B. Mayer, bought an old burlesque house in Haverhill Massachusetts to show the new moving picture shows. Originally called The Gem, it was such a dump locals called it The Germ. Mayer renamed it The Orpheum, and on Thanksgiving Day opened with the film “ From the Manger to the Cross”. L.B. Mayer grew his film business to become MGM, and at the time of his death in 1950 was the most powerful man in Hollywood. The Motion Picture Academy was his idea.

1925- First radio broadcast from the Grand Ol' Opry in Nashville.

1942- THE COCONUT GROVE FIRE-The U.S. public was distracted for awhile from war news by reports of a terrible disaster in Boston. A fire broke out at a popular nightclub called the Cocoanut Grove and killed 492 people in only twelve minutes. The clubs decorations caught fire and created carbon monoxide gas and there were only two exits. Among the dead was western movie star Buck Jones. The tragedy created the first mandatory laws requiring public buildings to have fire exits opening outwards and safety testing of decorative materials.

1946- During the traditional Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade in NYC, Hollywood cameras filmed the Macy Parade scenes for the movie “The Miracle on 34th St.” At this time, Hollywood movies were rarely filmed on location. But the studio had little faith the film would be a success, and did not want spend a lot of money building big sets on their lot. 

1947- Disney's cartoon "Chip and Dale".

1948- Hopalong Cassidy premiered on television.

1953- Cartoonist & writer Milt Gross died.

1989- Opposites Attract, Paula Abdul dancing with cartoon MC Skat Kat, was released. It became one of the most popular R&B & dance-pop singles of 1990 and won a Grammy. 

Tom Sito's Animation Almanac for Nov 27, 2021

Birthdays: Cornelius Vanderbilt, Jimi Hendrix would have been 79, Bruce Lee-original name Lee Jun Fan, would have been 81, James Agee, Chaim Weizmann, Mobster Vito Genovese, Czech leader Alexander Dubcheck, David Merrick, Marshal Thompson, Robin Givens, Judd Nelson, Buffalo Bob Smith, William Fichtner, Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg is 64, Kathryn Bigelow is 70

1924- The First Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade in New York. The marvel of the parade were large displays that moved down the street thanks to small automobiles concealed under them. They seemed to "float", so they were called parade floats today.  The huge balloons were added in 1927. Originally after the parade the balloons were let go to float away into the sky. Macy’s offered a bounty to people who found them after they landed, usually in rural New Jersey. 

1932- Former Terrytoons animator Art Babbitt, now at Walt Disney, wrote to fellow  animator Bill Tytla, encouraging him to come out to California. "Terry owes you a lot and Disney has plans for a full length color cartoon!"

1936- Max Fleischer's cartoon featurette, "Popeye meets Sinbad the Sailor".

1953- Playwright Eugene O'Neill died of pneumonia, Parkinson's Disease, and alcoholism at 65. He had been writing on cardboard laundry shirt boards because he needed something large to write on because his hands trembled so violently. When O’Neill realized his end was near he tore up six plays he was writing because he wanted no one else to complete them. He was staying at the Shelton Hotel in Boston. As his father was an actor his family traveled frequently. O'Neill's last words were: "I knew it! Born in a hotel room, and goddammit, I'm dying in a hotel room! "

1960 – Gordie Howe became the first NHL player to score 1,000 goals.

1963- The Beatles release the single “ I Wanna Hold Your Hand.”

1967- The Beatles release Magical Mystery Tour.

1973- Conjunction Junction, by Jack Sheldon, first played on the TV show Schoolhouse Rock.

1973- According to the X-Files this was the night Fox Mulder’s sister Samantha was abducted by aliens.

1978- San Francisco Mayor George Mosconi and openly gay City Supervisor Harvey Milk were shot and killed by embittered city councilman Dan White.  Councilwoman Diane Feinstein discovered their bodies, and took over as mayor. Dan White was acquitted on an insanity plea using the "Twinkie Defense", that junk food raised his blood sugar to such an extent that he went berserk. He served only 5 years in prison, moved to Orange County, then committed suicide. 

2002- Disney’s animated feature Treasure Planet opened in theaters.

2009- Tiger Woods was the greatest golfer of his time and could have been the greatest in history. He didn’t just win tournaments, he dominated the entire sport. While other athletes were tainted with drugs and scandal, Tiger had a squeaky clean image.

This Thanksgiving night at 2:30AM, Tiger Woods crashed his SUV into a tree as a result of an argument with his Swedish bikini model wife, who chased him from their home waving one of his golf clubs. This incident revealed Woods as a compulsive philanderer. More than a dozen women- cocktail waitresses, bimbos and porn stars came forward to admit riding the Tiger. His reputation in tatters, Tiger Woods’ game never again really regained his champion form. 

2013- Disney film Frozen premiered. Let it Go! Let it Go!

Tom Sito's Animation Almanac for Nov 26, 2021

Birthdays: John Harvard 1607(founder of Harvard University), Bat Masterson, Eugene Ionesco, Bruno Richard Hauptmann, Marian Mercer, Charles Schulz, Cyril Cusak, Eric Severaid, Rich Little, Wendy Turnbull, Robert Goulet, Don Hahn.

1716- In Boston, the first African lion ever seen in America was put on exhibit.

1865- Lewis Carroll sent a copy of the completed manuscript of his fantasy Alice in Wonderland to his 12 year old friend and inspiration Alice Liddell. Carroll later published the book with his own money. This is one of the first books written solely to amuse children, and not to educate or discipline them.

1868- At first baseball games were played in a convenient cow pasture. Today the baseball game was played in an enclosed field. It was in San Francisco at Folsom & 25th St..

1896- AA. Stagg of The University of Chicago invented the football huddle.

1917- The National Hockey League-NHL, was founded in Montreal. The first teams The Quebec Bulldogs, Ottawa Senators, Montreal Canadiens, Toronto Arenas, and Montreal Maroons.

1926- Potato Chips, or Crisps in the UK, were invented in the 1880’s and served in restaurants and fairgrounds. This day Mrs. Laura Scudder was the first to put potato chips in a bag and sold them as a handy snack food. She sold them out of the back of her pickup truck until the business picked up. She ran her own company until 1959. 

1940- Woody Woodpecker first appeared in an Andy Panda cartoon "Knock-Knock.’

1945- Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie recorded KoKo, the first bebop Jazz single. Instead of big bands as was the fashion, they used a smaller quintet. The pianist at the session didn’t have his New York union card, so after his solo, Dizzy dropped his trumpet and did the piano backup to Birds’ solo. The term Bop came from an earlier Lionel Hampton hit “Hey-Bop-A-ReBop”. Jazz critic Ira Gitler picked up on the witty interplay between musicians, and wrote of the new sound as BeBop.

1976- Sex Pistols Punk single “Anarchy in the UK” released.

1990- Acting on the example of Sony’s purchase of MGM-Columbia studios, Matushita (Panasonic) bought MCA- Universal studios for $6.6 billion. After a few fruitless years they sold it to the Bronfman’s group, the distillers of Seagram’s Whiskey. 

Tom Sito's Animation Almanac for Nov. 25, 2021

Birthdays: Lope de Vega, St. Pope John XXIII, Andrew Carnegie, Tina Turner, Joe Dimaggio, Carl Benz of Mercedes Benz, Virgil Thompson, Jeffrey Hunter, John Kennedy,Jr., Percy Sledge, Ben Stein, Ricardo Montalban, Bob Matheson, John Larroquette, Gloria Steinem, General Augusto Pinochet, Christina Applegate, Bucky Dent, Bill Kroyer

HAPPY THANKSGIVING 

1795- English architect Henry Latrobe left Europe for a life in the U.S. 

Latrobe was the architect who built the U.S. Capitol building.

1817- First sword swallower performed in the US.

1864- In a production of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar at New York’s Winter garden Theater the three Booth brothers- John Wilkes, Edwin and Junius Booth appeared together for the only time. Other famous acting families of the time included the Powers, whose descendant was the movie star Tyrone Power, and the Barrymores, who’s line continues down today from John to John Drew to Drew Barrymore.

1869- Ned Buntline was a hack dime novelist who understood that selling stories about gunfighters of the west would be easier if you could occasionally produce one in the flesh. So on a trip to Nebraska he found among the cavalry scouts an accommodatingly colorful rogue named William Cody, who everybody called Buffalo Bill. 

This day Ned Buntline announced in the New York Weekly the first installment of a serial series “Buffalo Bill, King of the Bordermen”. Buntline and Cody collaborated to make Buffalo Bill the first true American media star, entertaining millions, from crowned heads to street kids, until his retirement in 1916.

1929- Alfred Hitchcock’s film Blackmail opened in London. It was the first full length talkie in Britain.

1949- Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer sung by Gene Autry hit number one on the music charts. The TV program by Rankin/Bass premiered in 1964.

1952- The stage adaptation of Agatha Christie’s mystery the Mousetrap opened in London’s West End and became one of the longest running plays in history.

1960- CBS canceled its remaining five radio soap operas, most of them now on television. 

1963- THE FUNERAL OF JOHN F. KENNEDY. The massed muffled drums, bagpipes, bands blaring Chopin’s Funeral March, the riderless horse named BlackJack with the boots in the stirrups turned inward, a tradition that went back to Genghis Khan, the black horse drawn artillery caisson modeled on Abraham Lincoln's. 

This day was also John Kennedy, Jr.'s birthday, and a big party had been planned with lots of little tots.  Jackie knew that baby John-john didn't understand the gravity of what had transpired, so after the funeral she changed out of her widow’s weeds and ran a kiddie party.

1963- In his family home in Queens NY, young songwriter Paul Simon was deeply depressed by the assassination of President Kennedy. He locked himself in his bathroom and kicked around chords on his guitar. That night, he wrote “ Hello darkness, my old friend….”

1970- Japan's great poet-playwright Yukio Mishima committed suicide(seppuku) after attempting a coup at a military base. He had his suicide filmed as it happened. He felt Japan was losing her spiritual soul to crass materialism, so the ancient Bushido warrior code was the only way back. The Japanese Defense Force soldiers he appealed to join his cause, just laughed at him.

1975- According to the movie Rocky, this was the date of the first prizefight portrayed in the film where we first meet Rocky Balboa.

1992- Walt Disney’s Aladdin opened in theaters.

1995- Legendary Corporate CEO Akio Morita resigned as the leader of Sony. Under his guidance Sony went from a little postwar maker of electric rice cookers to the largest electronics giant in the world. His official reason was he suffered a cerebral hemorrhage while playing tennis. Some insiders said he was dealing with the stress of managing Sony's Hollywood studios -MGM, Columbia, TriStar losing $2 billion. By the time Morita died in 1999, the Sony movie studios had pulled out of their slump and were on top with movies like Titanic and Men in Black.

Tom Sito's Animation Almanac for Nov 24, 2021

Birthdays: Spinoza, Henri Toulouse-Lautrec, Scott Joplin, Zachary Taylor, Carrie Nation, Dick Powell, Garson Kanin, Cass Gilbert-the architect of the first skyscraper, Alvan Barkley-Truman’s VP, William F. Buckley, John Lindsay, Dale Carnegie- author of How to Win Friends and Influence People, Steve Yeager, Denise Crosby, Billy Connolly is 80

1904- Alfred Steiglitz and Edward Steichen opened 291, the first art gallery dedicated exclusively to the art of photography.

1933- The RKO movie Flying Down to Rio released, meant as a starring vehicle for Dolores Del Rio, but what we remember is it is the first pairing of the famous dance team of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers.

1937- The Andrew Sisters record their Boogie-Woogie version of “Bei Mir Bist Du Schon”, an old Yiddish Klezmer song that was updated by Bennie Goodman.

1941- After suffering a strike and declining revenue because of the war in Europe, Walt Disney’s studio was in trouble.  Animator Ward Kimball noted in his diary for this day: “ 100 layoffs announced. Studio personnel from 1600 down to a Hyperion level of 300. Geez, It this the writing on the wall?” 

1947- THE HOLLYWOOD BLACKLIST- 50 Hollywood moguls like Harry Cohn, Jack Warner and Dori Charey meet at the Waldorf Astoria in New York to formulate a group response to the House UnAmerican Activities Committee anti-commie hearings that were targeting Hollywood. Besides the heat from the feds their stockholders were clamoring for them to get the Reds out! They agreed to enforce an industry-wide blacklisting of anyone refusing to cooperate with the HUAC Committee. Nothing was ever officially written down or published, if you were blacklisted you suddenly were unable to find any work. 

   Eric Johnston, spokesman for the Motion Pictures Assoc. said on this day: "As long as I live, I will never be party ot anything as unAmerican as a blacklist!”.

 Two days later on Nov. 26th he said: " We will forthwith discharge and never again knowingly employ a Communist. Loyalty oaths for the Entertainment Industry are now compulsory." Many Hollywood artists signed Communist Party cards in the 1930's when it was chic' to be lefty, and the Communists were the only open opponents of segregation and Hitler. Writer Bud Schulberg’s excuse was CP parties had the prettiest girls. Out of an estimated 15,000 entertainment workers only around 300 were ever actually proven to be Communists. Famous blacklist victims included Zero Mostel, Lillian Hellman, Lloyd Bridges, Dashell Hammett, Gale Sondergaard, Edward G. Robinson, Howard Da Silva, Ed Wynn, Sterling Hayden & Dalton Trumbo. Sidney Poitier was blacklisted for no other reason than he was friends with black activist-actor Canada Lee; 'Somewhere over the Rainbow' composer Yip Harburg was blacklisted for writing a song: “Happiness is a thing called Joe" which the committee took to mean Soviet dictator Josef Stalin. 

1950- The musical Guys & Dolls opened. “ I got da horse right here, his name is Paul Revere, I know a jock who tells me Never Fear, Can Do- Can Do..The Jock sez da horse can –do ”

1958- The musical film Gigi opened, music by Lerner & Lowe. Based on the writings of French author Collette, Collette herself had insisted young unknown Dutch actress Audrey Hepburn play the lead.

1968- Hey Jude by the Beatles topped the pop charts while Tammy Wynette’s Stand By Your Man headed the Country & Western listing.

1991- Freddy Mercury, lead singer of the rock group Queen, died of AIDS. He was 45.

1998- America On Line bought their chief competitor Netscape.

1999- Pixar’s Toy Story 2. in theaters. 

2000- Catherine Zeta-Jones married Michael Douglas. 

2010- Disney’s Tangled released.

Tom Sito's Animation Almanac for Nov 23, 2021

Birthdays: German Emperor Otto I-972AD, Edward Rutledge, President Franklin Pierce, Krystoff Penderecki, Manuel DeFalla, William Henry Pratt better known as Boris Karloff, William Bonney better known as Billy the Kid, Roman Petrovich Tyrtof better known as Erte’, Arthur Marx better known as Harpo, Susan Anspach, Victor Jory, animator Ray Patterson,Vincent Cassel is 54, Joe Esterhaus is 78, Miley Cyrus is 28.

1874- Far from the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy first published.

1889- The first Juke Box installed at the Palais Royale Saloon in San Francisco. Created by Louis T. Glass, it used Edison cylinders instead of records and cost 5 cents a play. Juke comes from Juke Joint, a slang term then for a dance hall.

1897- Windsor Castle saw the first performance for Queen Victoria of a cinematograph moving picture. Her Majesty watched footage of the procession of her Diamond Jubilee taken in June. Also on the program was Monsieur Taffary's Calculating Dogs.

1903- Italian tenor Enrico Caruso made his debut at New York’s Metropolitan Opera in Verdi’s Rigoletto. The great singer loved drawing caricatures, collecting police badges, pinching ladies bottoms and doing practical jokes, like filling your hat with flour. Painter Norman Rockwell recalled when he was paying his way through school by being a Met stagehand, Caruso liked to talk art with him and he asked about George Bridgeman’s class, the great anatomy teacher.

1936- Time Magazine owner Henry Luce launched LIFE Magazine. The first picture on the cover was a dam photographed by Margaret Bourke-White. The second picture was a doctor slapping a newborn baby with the caption: “Life Begins!”

1938- Bob Hope recorded his signature tune “Thanks for the Memory” for the movie The Big Broadcast..

1942- PLAY IT AGAIN SAM- The movie CASABLANCA premiered. Based on a never produced musical, “Everybody Comes to Ricks’, Howard Koch and the Epstein Brothers adapted the play into one of the most memorable Hollywood love stories ever. It was never expected to be more than a rehash of the popular Charles Boyer film Algiers. (Come with me to zee Casbah…”). Humphrey Bogart told a friend about his new project “ Aw, its just some more shit like Algiers.” Bogie acted opposite Ingrid Bergman, although he had to stand on apple boxes to appear taller than his Swedish leading lady. 

1945- The U.S. government ends most wartime food and gas rationing.

1947- THE DEAD SEA SCROLLS- Prof E. L. Sukenik of Hebrew University in Israel was first told of a discovery made by two Bedouin shepherds in a cave near Qumran. Hebrew sacred scrolls dated from 200BC to 70AD, many were found to corroborate translated passages in the modern Bible.

1952- Animator Fred Moore, who drew Mickey Mouse in Fantasia and the Brave Little Tailor, died from cerebral injuries incurred in an auto accident in the Big Tujunga Canyon area of Los Angeles. He was 41.

1960- The Hollywood Walk of Fame is dedicated, featuring over 1,500 names- but not Charlie Chaplin, who was banned until 1972 because of his lefty political views.

1963- The very first episode of Dr. Who premiered on the BBC TV. William Hartnell played the first Dr. Who. There have been thirteen doctors since.

1966- The film “ Spinout “ premiered. Elvis Presley pioneered the genre movie of bored male movie stars who use their studio muscle to make us watch movies of them racing cars. James Garner in Grand Prix-arguably the best one, Steve McQueen in LeMans, Tom Cruise in Days of Thunder, Sly Stallone in Driven, etc.

1985- The first commercial compact discs (CDs) go on sale.

1990- 37-year-old baseball catcher Bo Diaz was crushed to death by a large satellite dish he was trying to install.

Tom Sito's Animation Almanac for Nov 22, 2021

 

Birthdays: French explorer Sieur de LaSalle, George Elliot- pen name for Mary Anne Evans, Benjamin Britten, Charles DeGaulle, Andre Gide, Wiley Post, Billy Jean King, Boris Becker, Geraldine Page, John Nance "Cactus Jack" Garner, Hoagy Carmichael, Rodney Dangerfield, Robert Vaughn, Tom Conti, Mark Ruffalo, Victoria Paris- porn star of such classics like Bimbo Bowlers from Buffalo, Stevie Van Zandt is 70, Jamie Lee Curtis is 63, Terry Gilliam is 82, Scarlett Johanssen is 37 

1809- Baltimore native Peregrine Williamson was given a patent for a re-usable steel pen. This finally freed the western world from sharpening goose quills and other feathers to write.

1880- Actress Lillian Russell made her debut on the New York Stage. Russell exemplified the sex appeal of the era- big figured, big bustle, tiny wasp waist and big caboose. 

1888- According to Edgar Rice Burroughs, this is the birthday of the boy who would become Tarzan.

She 

1916- Author Jack London died at 40 in Glen Ellen California of kidney disease. 

1928- Ravel’s Bolero Suite premiered in Paris.

1955- Shemp Howard, one of the Three Stooges, died of a heart attack while driving home with friends from a prizefight. No one noticed he was gone until they saw his lit cigar had fallen into his lap. He was 60.  Born Samuel Horvitz, he got the name Shemp from his mother attempting to say his name Sam in her thick Yiddish accent.

1957- The Miles Davis Quintet debuted.

1963- Aldous Huxley died. The author of Brave New World had inoperable cancer so his wife kept him high on LSD,

1965- The musical The Man of La Mancha opened on Broadway. “ To Dream, the Impossible Dreaaammm…”Brings back memories of middle school band practice.

1980- Screen goddess Mae West died at 87. He apartment suite at the Ravenswood in the Hancock Park section of Los Angeles has been lovingly restored, since the owner claims her ghost nagged him to put her furniture back!

1985- Apple ended a long lawsuit with Microsoft and Hewlett Packard that allowed them to share the visual characteristics of the Macintosh displays in their Windows software.

1986- 20 year old Mike Tyson knocked out Trevor Berbick to become the youngest Heavyweight Champion of the World.

1993- Sir Anthony Burgess died. The author of A Clockwork Orange had been diagnosed with a brain tumor and told he had one year to live, back in 1959.

1995- Pixar’s Toy Story opened, the first all CG movie, and the first true CG hit.

2005- Microsoft Xbox 360 goes on sale.

Tom Sito's Animation Almanac for Nov. 21, 2021

Birthdays: Francios Arouet called Voltaire, Marlo Thomas is 82, Colman Hawkins, Stan “The Man” Musial, Tom Horn, Pope Benedict XlV, Earl the Pearl Monroe, Harold Ramis, Rene Magritte, Goldie Hawn is 76, Dr. John (born Malcolm Rebennack), Mariel Hemingway, Troy Aikman, Bjork is 56 

1933- Film director Frank Capra went to Claudette Colbert’s home to talk her into delaying her holiday vacation long enough to star with Clark Gable in “It Happened One Night”. Colbert said she would only do it for double her normal salary and if they would be done by Dec 23rd so she could spend Christmas with friends at Squaw Valley Idaho.

 They made the picture on a rush, and Colbert later told her friends:” I just finished the worst picture in the world!” It Happened One Night” became a big hit for Capra, Columbia and swept the Oscars including one for Colbert’s most memorable performance.

1934- Cole Porter's musical 'Anything Goes!' opened on Broadway. Ethel Merman starring, In olden days a glimpse of stocking was looked upon as somewhat shocking. Now Heaven knows- Anything Goes!”

1942- Warner's "A Tale of Two Kitties" the first Tweety Pie. 

1959- The day after he was fired WABC radio, DJ Alan Freed refused to sign a statement that he never received cash payments or payola to run Rock & Roll records on the air, which is exactly what he did.

1959- Jack Benny with his violin played a duet with Vice President Richard Nixon on piano.

1980-  “The Who Shot J.R.?” episode of the TV show Dallas.

1980- Australian Olivia Newton John’s disco anthem to aerobic exercise “Let’s Get Physical ” goes to number one of the pop charts and stays there for ten weeks.

1986- Don Bluth’s An American Tale opened.

2007- Disney film Enchanted opened in theaters. 

2008- Walt Disney’s Bolt premiered.

2017- John Lasseter, the creative head of Walt Disney Animation and Pixar, responsible for Pixar’s string of successful films like Toy Story, stepped down from all his duties because of accusations of inappropriate behavior with his female employees.

Tom Sito's Animation Almanac for Nov 19, 2021

Birthdays: King Charles I of England, President James Garfield, Ferdinand de Lesseps, Roy Campanella, Tommy Dorsey, Ted Turner, Calvin Klein, Indira Ghandi, Dick Cavett, Larry King, Kathleen Quinlan, Alan Young -Mr. Ed’s friend, Ahmad Rashad, Allison Janey is 62, Meg Ryan is 60, Jodie Foster is 59, Terry Farrell

1942- In a concentration camp in Poland, author-artist Bruno Schulz was executed. The author of “Street of Crocodiles” last act was being forced by a Gestapo officer to paint images from Brothers Grimm fairytales on his son’s bedroom wall before he was shot.

1959- Jay Ward's television show 'The Adventures of Rocky and his Friends' debuts. 

1969- The great soccer champion Pele scored his 1,000 goal.

1998- Film Director Alan J. Pakula was one of the Hollywood community who preferred living in New York City. This day he was driving on the Long Island Expressway when he was killed in a freak accident. A large truck kicked up in its tires a discarded piece of steel pipe. It flipped it through Pakula’s windshield, killing him instantly.

Tom Sito's Animation Almanac for Nov 18, 2021

Birthdays: Armelita Galli-Curci, Karl Maria Von Weber, W.S. Gilbert, Johnny Mercer,

Astronaut Alan Shepard, Louis Daguerre, Brenda Vaccarro, Eugene Ormandy, George Gallup, Warren Moon, Pam Dawber, Rocket Ishmail, Delroy Lindo, Kevin Nealon, Owen Wilson is 55, Chloe Servigny is 49

1602- In Transylvania, 22 year old English soldier of fortune John Smith killed three Turkish warriors in single combat. Such single bouts were normal before large armies clashed. The Duke of Transylvania, Sigmund Bathory, granted the commoner Smith his own coat of arms, three Turkish heads. This is the same John Smith who will go to Virginia and meet Pocahontas in 1607. 

1718- Francois Voltaire’s first play Oedipe, premiered in Paris. 

1863- Abraham Lincoln boarded a train to Gettysburg to deliver “a few appropriate remarks” to dedicate the new national cemetery there.

1865 Mark Twain's first story "The Jumping Frog of Calaveras County' published.

1889- Richard Strauss completed his tone poem Tod und Verklarung, Death and Transfiguration. 

1902- THE TEDDY BEAR BORN-The Washington Evening Star published a story of how President Teddy Roosevelt while hunting couldn't bring himself to shoot a grizzly bear cub. Cartoonist Cliff Berryman illustrated the incident with one of his signature “dingbat” bear cubs in a gesture of  “oh no!” Brooklyn toymaker Morris Mitchcom sewed a doll from the illustration in the newspaper and sent the first one to the White House.

1928- HAPPY BIRTHDAY MICKEY MOUSE- At Universal’s Colony Theater in New York, Walt Disney’s cartoon "Steamboat Willie" debuted with a movie called Gang War. The first major sound cartoon success and the official birth of Mickey Mouse. Two earlier silent Mickey's were being completed, but when Walt saw Al Jolson speak in the Jazz Singer, he held those two shorts back so the sound experiment could go ahead. At this time Walt Disney had just 11 employees. 

1970- At the Lakeside School in Seattle, a young kid named Bill Gates was first shown computer programming.

1985- Bill Watterson’s comic strip Calvin & Hobbs debuted.

1988- Disney’s Oliver & Company released.

Tom Sito's Animation Almanac for Nov 17, 2021

Birthdays: Roman Emperor Vespasian 9 A.D, Il Bronzino, August Ferdinand Moebius-1790 the inventor of the Moebius Strip. Field Marshal Bernard Law Montgomery, Rock Hudson- real name Roy Sherer, Peter Cook, Lorne Michaels is 77, Isamu Noguchi, Lauren Hutton, Tom Seaver, Gordon Lightfoot, Les Clark, Lee Strassberg, Shelby Foote, Sophie Marceau, Martin Scorcese is 79, Danny deVito is 77

1839- Oberto premiered, an opera written by a new composer named Guisseppi Verdi. ( Joe Green). The great composer would go on to write Rigoletto, Aida and La Traviata.

1853- San Francisco passed a law to put up street signs at the intersections of major streets.

1858- A Pennsylvania businessman named William Larimer founded a new town at the foot of the Rockies called Denver.

1869- The Suez Canal opened. The opera "Aida" was commissioned to be premiered for this occasion but Verdi missed his deadline by ten years.

1876- Peter Tchaikovsky’s musical rhapsody the Marche Slav premiered.

1891- Polish pianist Ignaz Paderewski made his American debut at Carnegie Hall. Paderewski created the cliché image of the temperamental classical musician with long flowing hair combed straight back. Classical music became known as longhair music.

1933- The Marx Bros classic Duck Soup premiered.

1968- THE HEIDI GAME- NBC was broadcasting a football game between the New York Jets and the Oakland Raiders. The game was running late and would interfere with the broadcast of the movie "Heidi".  The network heads felt with the Jets leading 32-29 with 65 seconds left, why disappoint the kiddies?  So they pre-empted the rest of the game to start the movie. Oakland won 43-32 in a miracle comeback scoring the final touchdown in the final nine seconds. The embarrassed programmers had to answer nationwide firestorm of complaints from outraged football fans. So to this day on television, no matter how boring a football game is, it is seen to its very end.

1978- This night, our world was rocked by a disturbance in The Force more powerful than the destruction of Alderon, It was "The Star Wars Holiday Special", a two-hour comedy variety show on CBS, with Harrison Ford, Beatrice Arthur and Nelvana’s animated cartoon. To this day, even Mark Hamill jokes about how bad it was.

1989- Don Bluth's animated film All Dogs Go to Heaven premiered. 

1994- The Sony Corporation posted a $2.7 billion dollar loss from its first year owning a Hollywood movie studio. Yet despite a lot of industry jokes ( “What’s the difference between Sony Pictures and the Titanic?-answer: The Titanic had entertainment.”) By 1996 the studio was on top with blockbusters like “Men in Black”

2002- Premiere of Disney’s Treasure Planet.

2019- The first reported case of CoVid 19 was reported in Wuhan China. It grew to become a global pandemic not unlike the Spanish Flu epidemic of 1918. So far it has killed 5 million people around the world, 756,000 in the USA.

Tom Sito's Animation Almanac for Nov 16, 2021

Birthdays: Roman Emperor Tiberius 42BC, Paul Hindemith, George S. Kaufmann, W.C. Handy, Burgess Meredith, Daws Butler, Bob Watson, Zina Garrison, Dwight Gooden, Maggie Gylenhall is 44

 

 

1915- BIRTH OF THE COKE BOTTLE- The owners of Coca Cola were concerned that the success of their soft drink was being subverted by all the various cheap imitations. They decided if they had a distinctive bottle people would recognize genuine Coca Cola.  This day the first Coca-Cola appeared in their distinctive curved little green bottles, created by the Ross Glass Co. of Indiana.

 

1924- THE MURDER OF THOMAS INCE- Thomas Ince was a film director and early Hollywood studio owner whose property later became the site of MGM. This day he boarded William Randolph Hearst’s yacht Oneida for a birthday party in his honor. On the boat among the guests was Charlie Chaplin and Hearst’s mistress Marion Davies. When the boat docked Thomas Ince was dead and everyone very upset. The official cause of death was a heart attack but there was no autopsy or investigation and the Hearst press quickly hushed things up. The legend goes Hearst discovered Chaplin and Davies in flagrante-delicto, and in a jealous rage shot Ince when he came between them. We’ll never know for sure. 

 

1932- VAUDEVILLE DIED- Vaudeville was the generic name for one admission to a showcase of short theatrical acts- singers, comics, jugglers, trained animals, etc. Vaudeville gave their first opportunities to many great twentieth century performers like Chaplin, Jolson, the Marx Brothers, Mae West, Gypsy Rose Lee and W.C. Fields. But it was slowly supplanted by more modern forms of entertainment like Movies and Radio. If you asked experts to pinpoint a date for the official end of the popular venue, many would say it was this date, when the New York Palace Theater on Broadway, a premiere palace for Vaudeville, switched from live acts to purely Movies. 

 

1946- The Television Academy of Arts and Sciences founded. Fred Allen once said:  "We call television a Medium, because nothing on it is Rare, or Well Done."

 

1952- The first time in a Peanuts comic strip where Lucy pulls away the football as Charlie Brown was attempting to kick it. It became one of Schulz’s best recurring jokes.

 

1960- CLARK GABLE DIED- The 59 year old star had just completed the film the Misfits, a film in which director John Huston demanded a great deal of physical exertion.  He had told his agent that the unprofessional antics of his moody co-star Marilyn Monroe had driven him so nuts they were going to give him a heart attack. Gable had one after shooting. Ten days later, while convalescing in Hollywood Presbyterian Hospital, Clark  was sitting up in bed, joking with the nurse and reading a magazine. Suddenly he closed his eyes, leaned his head back against the pillow, and died. Clark Gable was 59.

He composed his own epitaph, but it was never used- " Oh Well, Back to Silents."

 

1977- Steven Spielberg’s film Close Encounters of the Third Kind opened in theaters.

 

 

1990- Disney’s feature film the Rescuers Down Under premiered. The first traditionally animated film to be painted digitally on computer instead of acetate cels and paints. 

 

1996- Warner Bros Space Jam, where Bugs Bunny met NBA star Michael Jordan.

 

2001- The film Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone premiered to great fanfare and massive box office. Harry Potter’s creator J.K. Rowling had been so poor she at one time had been on the dole, now she was one of the richest women in the world. In England second only to Madonna and the Queen.

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Tom Sito's Animation Almanac for Nov 15, 2021

B-Days: Georgia O'Keefe, Bill Melendez, Irvin Rommel the "Desert Fox", Avrial Harriman, Daniel Barenboim, George Bolet, William Pitt the Elder, Veronica Lake, Beverly D'Angelo is 70, Mantovanni, Ed Asner, Sam Waterson is 81, Otis Armstrong, Petula Clark is 89

1828- Author Victor Hugo signed a contract with Gosselin's Publishing House to write a story about the cathedral of Notre Dame du Paris. He was paid 4,000 francs in advance, The HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE DAME was the result. 

1907- The comic strip A. Mutt by Harry “Bud” Fisher debuted in the San Francisco Chronicle. The name was later changed to Mutt & Jeff. It was the first 6 day consecutive daily newspaper strip. The strip was so popular that its creator Harry “Bud “ Fisher became a celebrity, and negotiated the first large backend deal. 

1926- FIRST NETWORK BROADCAST- NBC hooked up 20 cities across America and Canada for a radio program "The Steinway Hour" with Arthur Rubinstein.  It came from the Steinway building penthouse on 57th St. in Manhattan.

1934- Animator Bill Tytla started work at Walt Disney's on a trial basis for $150 a week. He would create Grumpy the Dwarf, The Devil in Fantasia and Dumbo.

1958- Movie star Tyrone Power was filming a sword duel with George Sanders on the film Solomon and Sheba. He paused and told the director “ I have to stop, I don’t feel well”. He then dropped dead of a heart attack. He was 44. His father Tyrone Power Sr. had also died on a Hollywood movie set in 1931 of a heart attack,

1965- Walt Disney announced he planned to build a second Disneyland, this one in Orlando Florida.

1977- The Bee Gees soundtrack for the film Saturday Night Fever came out. 

1979- ABC news announced they would broadcast a daily update of the Iranian Hostage Crisis. The late night show became Nightline.

1989- Walt Disney's The Little Mermaid opened. 

1990- It was revealed that the Grammy winning pop group Milli Vanilli didn’t sing on their own album but lip synced to the music. 

Tom Sito's Animation Almanac for Nov. 14, 2021

Birthdays: Robert Fulton, Sen. Joseph McCarthy, Claude Monet, Aaron Copeland, McClean Stevenson, Jarahwahal Nehru, Mamie Eisenhower, Brian Keith, Louise Brooks, Ellis Marsalis, Harrison Salisbury, Dr. Condoleeza Rice, Yanni,P.J. O'Rourke, George Petrovic' called KaraGeorge "Black George" Serbian nationalist 1762, Astrid Lungren the creator of Pippi Longstockings, Prince Charles is 73, Laura San Giacomo is 59, Patrick Warburton is 57, Zhang Yimou is 70

1851- Herman Melville's novel "Moby Dick, or the Whale” was first published in the U.S. by Harper & Row. Melville in part was inspired by a report of an albino whale named Mocha-Dick who had sunk seven ships off the coast of Java and was reported to have " a hide white as wool". Also a New Bedford whaling ship Nantucket that was rammed and sunk by an enraged sperm whale in 1839.

For the famous author of Typee and Billy Budd, Moby Dick was a critical and financial disaster. What's now considered one of the greatest works of American literature was ridiculed in its time. Melville, broken in spirit, sank into obscurity and finished his life as a customs agent for the Port of New York. When he died, he was so forgotten the New York Times misspelled his name in it's obituary. 

1883- Robert Louis Stevenson’s novel Treasure Island, or, the Mutiny on the Hispaniola, first published.  Stevenson gave us our image of a typical Pirate of the Spanish Main. His book told us about peg legs, pet parrots, skull and crossbones flag, treasure maps, and the song “ Fifteen men on a dead man’s chest. Yo-Ho-Ho and a bottle of rum!”  

1889- Inspired by Jules Verne's book Around the World in Eighty Days, New York World reporter Nellie Bly, real name Elizabeth Cochrane, set out to travel the world in the declared time. She did it in 72 days. 

Bly was considered by Victorian society scandalously independent, she was a war correspondent, she had herself committed to a lunatic asylum to report on mistreatment of the mentally ill, she went up in a balloon and was the first woman to go down in a diving bell- bathosphere.

1922- Happy Birthday B.B.C.! the British Broadcasting Companies first regular radio service 2LO goes on the air with general election results. 

1937- SPAM introduced! Shoulder-Pork and HaM.

1943- When Bruno Walter was too ill to conduct the New York Philharmonic, 24 year old Leonard Bernstein was asked to assume the baton. Bernstein became an overnight sensation.

1957- The Supreme Court refused to review the challenge to government obscenity laws brought by Irving Klaw and his wife, producers of the Betty Page kinky pinup photos.

1959- In Holcomb Kansas, two men broke into a farm home and murdered a family of four. The subsequent trial and execution was attended by writer Truman Capote, who wrote the book “In Cold Blood”.

1960- Anthony Mann began shooting the film El Cid with Charlton Heston and Sophia Loren with her pre-collagen Lips.

1967- Jack Warner, the last surviving Warner Brother, sold his stake of Warner Bros and it’s huge film library to a Canadian company called Seven Arts. 

1968- Frank Sinatra announced that the smog and air pollution in Los Angeles had gotten so bad that he was moving out to the desert in Palm Springs. 

1998- Pixar’s A Bugs Life Premiered.

1998- Colorful and eccentric NBA basketball star Dennis Rodman married beautiful supermodel Carmen Electra. There was some doubt at first as to the validity of the story as Rodman admitted he was blind drunk throughout and didn’t remember the ceremony. They divorced shortly after.

2003- Looney Tunes: Back in Action directed by Joe Dante, opened in theaters.

Tom Sito's Animation Almanac for Nov 13, 2021

Birthdays: Saint Augustine 354 AD, King Edward III of England, Robert Louis Stephenson, actor Edwin Booth, Oskar Werner, Jean Seberg, Jack Elam, Judge Louis Brandeis (the first Jewish U.S. Supreme Court Justice), Alexander Scourby, Hermoine Badderly, Eugene Ionesco, Garry Marshall, Mel Stottlemyre, Joe Mantegna is 74, Jimmy Kimmel is 54, Gerald Butler is 53, Whoopi Goldberg- born name Caryn Johnson is 66

1842- Today Lewis Carroll noted in his diary:" Began writing the fairy tale of Alice. Hope to be done by Christmas.." 

1868- Giacomo Rossini died at 68. He retired at 37 from performing and lived on royalties. It was said he became so lazy he laid about in bed all day. One day when writing a concerto his score dropped to the floor as he leaned over to fill his glass. Rather than bend down to pick it up he took a fresh sheet and wrote a sonata. He still could do a nice piece on occasion, like The Fantastic Toy Shop. Born on leap day Feb 29, at 68, he’d list his age as 16.

1874 -At the sesquicentennial celebrations of the University of Pennsylvania, Robert Green invented the Ice Cream Soda.

1940- Walt Disney's 'Fantasia' premiered at the Broadway Theater in NYC. As Walt put it, "this'll make Beethoven!"  Frank Lloyd Wright's opinion was, 'I love the visuals, but why did you use all that old music?" 

1953- An Indiana judge ordered his local school district to remove any school books with references to the character Robin Hood. All the "take from the rich and give to the poor" it was obvious to the judge that the medieval rogue of Sherwood Forest was a Communist.

1971- ABC TV. movie "the Duel" premiered. It starred Dennis Weaver as a hapless motorist on a lonely freeway menaced by an unseen truck driver. The movie was directed by a young protégé of Lew Wasserman, named Steven Spielberg.

1971- Walt Disney’s The Aristocats opened.

1978- Mickey Mouse got his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

1986- Directors John Huston, Martin Scorcese and Woody Allen denounced the fad promoted by Ted Turner of computer colorizing classic Black & White films like the Maltese Falcon. Supposedly one of the last things Orson Welles said on his deathbed was "Keep Ted Turner and his crayons away from my movies!" Ted got the message and shifted his money to digital restoration and building channels like TCM.

1991- Disney's animated film Beauty and the Beast opened, the first animated film ever nominated for a Best Picture Oscar.

1997- Julie Taymor’s staging of The Lion King musical had its official Broadway debut. It had opened earlier in Minneapolis for a trial run.  She became the first woman director to win a Tony award for it.

Tom Sito's Animation Almanac for Nov 12, 2021

Birthdays: Auguste Rodin, Dr. Sun Yat Sen, Bahi-ullah 1817 founder of the Bahii faith, Elizabeth Cadie -Stanton, Cecil B. DeMille, Grace Kelly, Edward G. Robinson, Jack Oakie, Kim Hunter, Shamus Culhane, Charles Manson, Neil Young, Edvard Munch, Nadia Comenici, Tanya Harding, Wally Shaw, Megan Mullally is 62, Anne Hathaway is 39, Ryan Gosling is 41, David Brain is 80.

 

 

1859- The first trapeze act was demonstrated at the Cirque Napoleon in Paris. The act caused such a sensation that the daredevil was immortalized by his tights becoming a fashion named in his honor- Jules Leotard.

 

1920- In the wake of the "Black Sox" Baseball scandal, the first rigged World Series, Judge Kennesaw Mountain Landis was elected first Commissioner of Baseball. He ordered all those involved in the scandal including Shoeless Joe Jackson permanently banned from baseball, even though they had been acquitted in a civil trial.

 

1933- Hugh Gray of the British Aluminum Company takes the first photographs of what he claimed was a monster in Loch Ness. He would be the first of many to have claimed to have seen Nessie.

 

1937- Alan Turing delivered his famous paper "On Computable Numbers, with an Application to the Entscheidungsproblem" at Kings College, Cambridge. 

In it he postulated on the ability to create a "universal machine" that used numbers to solve problems and could be re-programable for different tasks. In his day they were called Turing Machines, but we know them now as Computers.

 

1939- Actor Bela Lugosi spent the day at the Walt Disney Studio posing for their animators as the Devil in Night on Bald Mountain in Fantasia. Despite the good publicity shots, lead animator Bill Tytla was dissatisfied with his performance and used fellow artist Ham Luske as his model instead.

 

 

1946- Disney's "Song of the South" with James Baskett as Uncle Remus.

 

1970- Florence Oregon found a large dead gray whale on its beach. City fathers decided it would be easier to dispose, if they blew it up. As an audience watched, they stuffed it with half a ton of dynamite. The explosion drew cheers from the audience, then everyone ran for cover as they were showered by falling 50 pound chunks of smelly blubber and guts. The film of it has been called the first viral video.

  

 

 

Tom Sito's Animation ALmanac for Nov 11, 2021

Birthdays: Abigail Adams, Alexander Borodin, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Gen. George Patton, Pat O’Brien, Kurt Vonnegut, Rene Clair, Carlos Fuentes, Jonathan Winters, Stubby Kay, Stanley Tucci is 71, Demi Moore is 59, Leonardo di Caprio is 47

Happy Veterans Day in the U.S., Memorial Day in many European and Commonwealth countries.

1932- The Girls Scouts first offered freshly baked cookies for sale.  The proceeds went to purchase camping gear. In 1936, the Girls Scouts signed a contract with Keebler to bake and package their cookies.

1937- Animation production wrapped on Disney’s first feature Snow White and the Seven Dwarves.. 

1938- The first day of shooting on the film 'The Wizard of Oz". Judy Garland met 125 little people hired to be the Munchkins. Judy's energy was fading under the heavy work schedule so L.B. Mayer ordered her put on Benzadrine (speed) every morning and Valium pills to sleep. June Alysson, another young MGM actress at the time said: "The studio nurse would give it to you and tell you it was vitamins." Judy Garland became a heavy drug addict and died of an overdose in 1969 at 47 years old.

1940- The Birth of the Jeep. The army introduces its first General Purpose vehicle-G.P. or Jeep, a name coinciding with a popular character in E.C. Segar's Popeye cartoons.

1951- In Los Angeles, the Bing Crosby Enterprises gave the world’s first demonstration of a videotape recorder. Developed by John T. Mullins and Wayne Johnston.

1953- Disney short Ben and Me, directed by Ham Luske.

1954- Tolkein’s second book of The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, first published.

1978- The renovated Hollywood Sign is unveiled. The second O was paid for by rock star Alice Cooper in memory of his idol, Groucho Marx.

1980- 'Heaven's Gate" Michael Cimino's $44 million dollar flop opened. Cimino originally said he could do the film for $8 million. Critic Pauline Kael said: "It's the kind of movie you want to deface. You want to draw mustaches all over it."

1992- The premiere of Walt Disney’s Aladdin, directed by John Musker and Ron Clements. Starring Robin Williams doing the voice of the Genie. 

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Tom Sito's Animation Almanac for Nov 10, 2021

Birthdays: Martin Luther, William Hogarth, Charles the Bold of Burgundy, Francois Couperin, King George II of England, Frederick Schiller, Claude Rains, Carl Stalling, Tim Rice, Richard Burton, Roy Scheider, Ann Reinking, MacKenzie Phillips, Russell Means, Sinbad, Brittany Murphy, George Fenneman-Groucho Marx’s TV announcer, Enrico Morricone, Tracey Morgan is 52, Animator and teacher Sue Kroyer

1880- Old Civil War general and New Mexico territorial governor Lew Wallace got his first novel published, and it came out pretty good- Ben Hur.

1950- Paramount's "Mice Meeting You" The first Herman and Katnip cartoon.

1953- Disney’s short “ Toot Whistle, Plunk and Boom” released.

1969- The children’s education show SESAME STREET premiered on PBS TV. The world is introduced to Bert & Ernie, Cookie Monster, Grover, Big Bird and Mr Hooper.

1975- S.S. Edmund Fitzgerald sinks at Whitefish Bay in Lake Superior, drowning all 29 crew members and causing a famous 1970's folk song to happen.

1981- Innovative French film director Abel Gance died at age 92. Shortly before his death he saw his great widescreen 1925 epic movie Napoleon restored by British historian Kevin Brownlow and produced by Francis Ford Coppola with a live audience. At Radio City Music Hall, Brownlow stretched a telephone cord out on stage so the old man could hear the wild cheers of the NY audience.

1982- The Vietnam Veterans Wall designed by Maia Lin opened to the public in Washington D.C,

1995- Carolco, the Hollywood studio that produced many hits like "Terminator II Judgement Day, Rambo, Basic Instinct and Total Recall" declared bankruptcy after producing $115 million dollar megaflop "Cutthroat Island".

Tom Sito's Animation Almanac for Nov 8, 2021

Birthdays: Roman Emperor Nerva, Bram Stoker, Sir Edmund Halley, June Havoc, Margaret Mitchell, Joe Flynn- Captain Binghampton in the 60’s TV sitcom McHales Navy, Ricky Lee Jones, Bonny Raitt, Dr. Christiaan Barnard, Ester Rolle, Katherine Hepburn, Parker Posey is 53, Gretchen Mol is 49, Tara Reid, Norman Lloyd

1880- Famous actress Sarah Bernhardt made her American stage debut in La Dame aux Camelias. She made a further ten tours of the US, all billed as Farewell Appearances.

1929- New York’s Museum of Modern Art opened.

1939- Pinks Hot Dogs in LA started by Betty and Paul Pink.

1943- The first one man show of American abstract painter named Jackson Pollock. Pollock later created his brushless dripping form of painting that earned him the nickname:” Jack the Dripper”.

1952- The Supreme Court upheld a 1922 ruling that Baseball a sport, not a business. Therefore it is exempt from anti-trust laws.

1956-The Ten Commandments opened in theaters. Directed by Cecil B. DeMille. Much of the animated effects like the pillar of fire were done by freelancing Disney effects animators like Josh Meador. 

1965- The Days of Our Lives soap opera first premiered on TV.

1966- Former actor and SAG president Ronald Reagan elected Governor of California trouncing two-term incumbent Pat Brown. Uber-Conservative Reagan declared a tough line with the hippies of Haight Ashbury and Berkeley. 

1966- Doctors at St. Josephs Hospital removed one of Walt Disney’s cancerous lungs, but discovered the cancer had spread to his lymph nodes and liver. They determined he did not have long to live. 

1973- Walt Disney’s animated Robin Hood premiered.

Tom Sito's Animation Almanac for Nov. 7, 2021

 Question: What is a lazaretto?

Yesterday’s Question: Why do old flags for Germany and Russia feature a two headed eagle?

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HISTORY FOR 11/7/2021

Birthdays: Francesco Zubaran, Madame Curie, Rev. Billy Graham, Leon Trotsky –real name Lev Bronstein, Albert Camus, Al Hurt, Dean Jagger, Joni Mitchell, Joan Sutherland, Judy Tenuda, Clive Barnes, Lindsay Duncan, Morgan Spurlock, Lucille LaVerne, the voice of the Wicked Queen in Disney’s Snow White.

8AD- Death of Maecenas, Roman millionaire, and friend of Augustus. Maecenas was famous for sponsoring artists and poets like Virgil with lifetime incomes so they could focus on their art. His name became synonymous with a generous patron.

1520- The BATH OF BLOOD. The 1397 Union of Kalmar had united Sweden and Finland under the Danish crown. This day Danes invited Swedish noblemen who opposed the Danish King to come to Stockholm under a pledge of safe passage and discuss their issues. But once there, they were all seized and beheaded. Sweden rose in revolt, and by 1523 had broken away and declared independence. One Swede who had escaped the massacre, Gustavus Vasa, was declared their king.

1659- Peace of the Pyrenees- Spain and France finally make peace after 23 years of war. This peace treaty completed Cardinal Richelieu’s master plan to break France out of surrounding power of the Hapsburgs, predominant in Germany and Spain. Catholic France joined the Thirty Years War late on the Protestant side and continued to battle long after the general peace was signed at Westphalia in 1648. The Peace of the Pyrenees marked Frances becoming the dominant power in Europe and set the stage for Louis XIV the Sun King.

1775- During the Revolution, the royal governor of rebellious Virginia, Lord Dunmore, offered freedom to all male slaves who joined His Majesties army. In only a few days he got 800 black recruits. One hidden fact of the American Revolution was the British policy of freeing slaves in territories they occupied, mostly to piss off their rich Yankee masters. Slavery had not yet been totally eradicated in the British Empire yet the public outcry for emancipation led by eminent men like William Wilberforce were making it a major issue in British politics. When the redcoats raided Tom Jefferson’s estate Monticello, they liberated 200 of his slaves. Dr. Samuel Johnson commented about Americans “Strange, all this complaining about liberty coming from the drivers of slaves!”

1783- The last public hanging at London’s Tyburn Hill, where executions of commoners had been going on since 1196. Today the Tyburn area is called Marble Arch.

1793- The French Revolution declared Christianity abolished in France. This because of the Church’s support of kings and tyrants. It was restored by Napoleon, but to this day it is considered very tacky for French politicians to invoke the Deity in speeches. The French Army is the only army in the western world without military chaplains.

1805- “Oh Joy of Joys!” explorers Lewis & Clark first sight the Pacific.

1811- Battle of Tippecanoe- General William Henry Harrison defeated Tecumseh and his united Indian tribes in a battle that decided the ownership of the Old Northwest (Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan).  When Harrison later ran for the Presidency with James Tyler, his slogan was "Old Tippecanoe and Tyler Too!"

1820- This day President James Monroe was re-elected after running unopposed for nomination and unopposed for the election. It was the most boring election in US History. One presidential elector refused to vote for him, only because he wanted George Washington to go down in history as the only US President ever elected unanimously.

1837- Abolitionist Reverend Isaiah Lovejoy was shot and killed defending his printing offices from being vandalized by a mob of slave owners. The news of the first white man dying over the slavery issue galvanized both North and South. Lincoln and Douglas frequently cited the example of Rev Lovejoy in the debate over slavery.

1841- Black slaves being transported from Virginia to New Orleans aboard the S.S. Creole seize control of the ship and sail it to British Nassau where they are granted freedom and asylum.

1951- Frank Sinatra left his wife to marry hot moviestar Ava Gardner.

1956- Eugene O’Neill’s biographical masterpiece play “Long Days Journey into Night” first premiered.

1963- The movie “It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World” premiered at Hollywood’s new Cinerama Dome theater.

1965- the first Pillsbury Doughboy commercial debuted. ‘Tee-hee-hee!”

1977- Harvey Milk won election to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. The first openly gay man to be elected to public office in the U.S A.

1980- Movie star Steve McQueen died of an aggressive cancer at age 50. 

1991- “Even Me” Basketball star Ervin “Magic” Johnson revealed he had HIV. 

2007- Walt Disney Pictures Enchanted premiered in London.

2014- Walt Disney’s Big Hero 6 opened.

Tom Sito's Animation Almanac for Nov 6, 2021

Birthdays: Sophocles 495 BC, Joanna La Loca (Crazy Joanie 1479), John Phillip Sousa, Joseph Smith the founder of LDS, Ignacz Paderewski, Charles Dow of Dow Jones, Adolphus Sax inventor of the Saxophone, James Naismith the inventor of Basketball, Mike Nichols, Edsel Ford, animator Eddie Rehberg, Ray Coniff, John Olsen of the comedy duo Olsen & Johnson, Harold Ross the founder of the New Yorker magazine, Jonathan Harris, Maria Shriver is 65, Rebecca Romjin is 49, Sally Field is 76, Emma Stone is 33

1893- Famed Russian composer Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky died at age 53. Just a few days before the premiere of his 6th Symphony. The cause of death for the composer was declared to be cholera from drinking un-boiled water in a local St Petersburg restaurant. Recent scholarship floated a different theory. Tchaikovsky was a closeted gay man afraid of being exposed. He had tried marriage to a woman, and hated it so much he tried suicide two weeks later. By this time he had formed an infatuation over his nephew. This allegedly caused a secret "Court of Honor" of alumni of his old civil service academy to confront him and threatened him with exposure and scandal. They threatened to even go directly to the Czar to expose him. So he may have taken poison and it was blamed on cholera which was prevalent in the city then. Fellow composer Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov though the inquest more oddly rushed and confused than usual. We may never really know. 

1916- Elderly Buffalo Bill Cody made his last public appearance in El Paso Texas. El Paso had been as wild a frontier town as Deadwood or Tombstone, but now it was a quiet modern city. Telephone and electricity wires crisscrossed overhead and streetcars clattered down the streets where gunfighters once shot it out. Buffalo Bills parade seemed to make plain to all the final passing of the Old West to the New. The wild cheering brought tears running down the old scout's white mustaches. It was a fitting final bow. Bill Cody died of prostate cancer a few weeks later.

1936-The Screen Children's Guild chartered.

1975- First appearance of the band the Sex Pistols.