Sunday, December 5, 2021

Animation Fun Facts for Dec 5, 2021


Birthdays: Pope Julius II, Martin Van Buren, Walt Disney would be 120, Fritz Lang, Eugene Debs,  George Armstrong Custer, Little Richard Penniman, Strom Thurmond, Otto Preminger, Lin Piao, Calvin Trillin, Joan Didion, Jim Plunkett, Jose Carrerras, Margaret Cho is 54


1704- In Hamburg, towards the end of the opera Cleopatre, composer Georg Frederich Handel and soloist Johann Mattheson started bickering over who should bow and receive the audiences applause.  As the curtain came down and the cheers rang out, Handel and Mattheson began furiously wrestling over the harpsichord. Finally they rushed out into the snowy public square and fought with swords. The audience followed them and cheered on this unique encore. Neither was hurt in the end, and they even made up over their next opera.

1766- London auction house Christies held it’s first auction.

1791-MOZART DIED- The 35 year old composer was slaving away on a commission for a Requiem Mass when he died of scarlet fever and kidney failure complicated by exhaustion and alcoholism (and he didn't work in animation ). His last words was telling his student Sussmeyer how to form the percussion for the Requiem.  Mozart was buried in a pauper's grave, and when his wife came to mourn him a few days later nobody could recall where he was buried. 

1837- Hector Berlioz chorale Requiem premiered.

1854- Aaron Allen of Boston patented the theater chair that folded up so you could exit.


1912- New York Hat directed by D.W. Griffith starring Mary Pickford and Lionel Barrymore premiered. The first movie script written by 19 year old Anita Loos to be produced. The first American women to be a staff screenwriter, she became one of the finest Hollywood screenwriters and Broadway playwright, who penned films like Gentlemen Prefer Blondes and Gigi. She helped discover Douglas Fairbanks and Audrey Hepburn. She died in 1981 at age 93.

1938- The FCC concludes there was no malicious intent in Orson Welles Halloween broadcast of The War of the Worlds, and no fines would be imposed.


1947- Paramount’s “Santa’s Surprise” the first Little Audrey cartoon. The short was directed by Bill Tytla for Famous Studios. He designed Little Audrey based on his own daughter Tammy.

1952- The Abbott & Costello Television Show premiered. Hilary, Mr Fields and Stinky. “ Niagara Falls! Slooowwlly I turn! Step by Step! Step by Step!” 

1953- Russian Composer Sergei Prokoviev died, but the news was overshadowed by the death of Stalin.

1974- The Seattle Seahawks football team formed.

1974- The BBC aired the last Monty Python show.. 

2002- Peter Jackson’s second part of his Lord of the Rings trilogy “ The Two Towers” opened.



No comments:

Post a Comment