Tom Sito's Animation Almanac for Feb. 28,2022

Birthdays: Michel de Montaigne, The Marquis de Montcalm, Zero Mostel, Vasclav Nijinsky, Molly Picon, Gavin MacCleod, Bernadette Peters, Bubba Smith, Mario Andretti, Milton Caniff- the creator of Terry and the Pirates", Ben 'Bugsy' Siegel, Tommy Tune, Vincente Minelli, Linus Pauling, Dorothy Stratton, Frank Gehry, John Tarturro, Gilbert Gottfried is 67, Bernadette Peters is 74. Sir John Tenniel.

1835- Dr. Elias Lohnnrot published the Finnish national epic poem Kalevala. It’s about the first man Vanjiamoimmen, who was born old and searched for the magical machine called the Samo, kept in a mountain with seven locks, guarded by seven wizards chanting Samo, Samo! Modern scholars cannot agree just what the heck the samo was, or what it did.

1882- The first college store opened, the COOP, this one attached to Harvard & MIT. The COOP means Harvard Cooperative Society.

1896- Robert Paul demonstrates a kinetograph to the Royal Institute. The British Cinema industry is born.

1916- Writer Henry James died. William Faulkner said, "He was the nicest old lady I ever met." H.L. Mencken eulogized: "Henry James was an idiot, and a Boston idiot to boot, of which there is no form lower." Mencken was equally caustic of other regions.

1920 Maurice Ravel’s Le Tombeau de Couperin debuted.

1938- Russian composer Sergei Prokofiev toured the Walt Disney Studio, and performed his piece Peter and the Wolf for Walt and his music director Leigh Harline.

    

1940- At the Oscars ceremony Hattie McDaniel became the first black actress to win an Oscar for her supporting role in Gone With The Wind. When some criticized her for portraying a stereotype black mammy, McDaniel snapped:” I’d rather make $5000 a week playing a maid than $5 a week being a maid!”

1940- Richard Wright’s novel Native Son, about growing up black in America, first published.

1949- Bob Clampett’s live puppet show Time for Beanie premiered. Even Albert Einstein was a fan. Ten years later it was revived as the popular animated series Beanie and Cecil.

1953- Chuck Jones “Duck Amuck” premiered. 

1968- Former teen idol singer Frankie Lyman OD’s on heroin.

1975- A fog bank crossing Freeway 91 near Corona California caused a 300 car pile up.

1982- BP oil tycoon J. Paul Getty had died in 1976 the richest man on earth. Getty found his immediate family so annoying he left the bulk of his estate to his little Getty Museum in Malibu California. This day after all attempts of the family to challenge his will were exhausted, the Getty Museum was endowed with two billion dollars and immediately became the richest museum on earth. 

1983-The last episode of the television series M*A*S*H.  It was the single most watched TV episode in history.

Tom Sito's Animation Almanac

Birthdays: Roman Emperor Constantine 280AD, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, John Steinbeck, Ralph Nader, Marion Anderson, Chelsea Clinton, Franchot Tone, William Demarest, James Worthy, Mirella Freni, Judge Hugo Black, David Sarnoff the founder of the NBC network, Elizabeth Taylor, Jeff Smith-creator of comic Bone, Joanne Woodward is 92

1814- Beethoven’s 8th Symphony premiered.

1827- The first Mardi Gras celebration was held in New Orleans. Mardi Gras parties were first held by the French colonists of Mobile Alabama in 1709. From there the custom spread to the Big Easy. 

1888- Prof. Edweard Muybridge traveled to Menlo Park NJ for a private meeting with inventor Thomas Edison. There they discussed the possibilities of combining his zoopraxiniscope with Edison’s sound recording machine to create sound movies.  It came to naught. Muybridge left, then Edison had his staff immediately try to copy their own version of Muybridge’s device. Edison concluded, “ I doubt Motion Pictures will have any commercial application beyond the science laboratory. “

   

1919- Gustav Holst’s orchestral suite The Planets first premiered in London.

1941-At the 13th Academy Awards, for the first time a Walt Disney cartoon did NOT win Best Animated Short.  MGM’s The Milky Way won.

1956- Elvis Presley released song Heartbreak Hotel.

1958- Columbia Pictures mogul Harry Cohn died of a heart attack at age 66. His ruthlessness was legend in Hollywood. He once said " I don't get ulcers, I give them!" Hedda Hopper said:' You have to get in line to hate him." The entire Columbia staff was ordered, not requested, to attend a memorial service. Looking at the large crowd around the coffin, Red Skelton quipped: "You see, like Harry always said, give the people what they want, and they'll show up."

1977- In Toronto, the Canadian Mounties busted Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones, and his girlfriend Anita Pallenberg for heroin possession. The Stones agree to do two benefit concerts as punishment.

1991- The Mitchell Brothers were tops in the pornography business, producing blockbusters like Behind the Green Door and running the O’ Farrell Theater in San Francisco. This day, after doing a lot of drugs, Jim Mitchell shot his brother Arnie to death with a rifle. The Mitchell Brothers Court case marked the first use of 3D computer animation as a crime scenario tool. Jim served three years in prison, and died at home in 2007. He was buried next to his brother. 

1994- Figure skater Nancy Kerrigan skipped the closing ceremonies of the Winter Olympics in Lillehammer so she could begin her multi-million dollar endorsements with DisneyWorld. She blows it all later when she’s caught by a hot mike during a Disney parade saying: “This is all so corny. I can’t believe I’m doing this!”

Tom Sito's Animation Almanac for Feb 26, 2022

Birthday: King Wenceslas of Bohemia-1361, Frances Marion, Victor Hugo, Buffalo Bill Cody, Emma Destin, Levi Strauss, Jackie Gleason, Fats Domino, Betty Hutton, Johnny Cash, William Frawley, Robert Alda, Tony Randall- born Arthur Rosenberg, Erhyke Bahdu, Tex Avery born Fred Bean Avery.

1929- Congress declared the Grand Tetons a national park.

1942- Walt Disney received the Irving Thalberg Award at the Academy Awards. Leopold Stokowski got a special Oscar for his work on Fantasia, Frank Churchill and Oliver Wallace won Best Score for Dumbo.

1962- First day shooting on the first James Bond film Dr. No. The scene was in M's office and featured Bernard Lee, Peter Burton and the new discovery, Sean Connery.

1965- First day of shooting on the Beatle's second film 'Help!"

1983- Michael Jackson’s album Thriller went to #1 in the pop charts and stayed for weeks. Twenty-six year later, after Jackson’s death in 2009, Thriller again went to #1 around the world.

1990- Cornell Gunther, lead singer for the DooWop group the Coasters, was shot dead at a Las Vegas traffic intersection."Yakkety-Yak, Don't Talk Back!"

1991- At a meeting in Switzerland, Tim Berners-Lee introduced the first Web Browser. www.

1996- Silicon Graphics Corp (SGI) bought Cray Research. 

2017- Disney's Zootopia won best animated feature, and Pixar's Piper won best animated short.

Tom Sito's Animation Almanac for Feb 25, 2022

Birthdays: Enrico Caruso, Pierre Auguste Renoir, Zeppo Marx, St. Louis (King Louis IX of France), Bobby Riggs, Carl Eller, Dicky Jones the voice of Disney’s Pinocchio, Sir Anthony Burgess, Neil Jordan, Larry Gelbart, Tom Courtenay, Sean Astin is 50, Tea Leoni, John Foster Dulles, Neil Jordan is 71, Rashida Jones is 46

1932- TOONTOWN SCANDALS. Former Australian prizefighter Pat Sullivan was the producer of the Felix the Cat cartoons, the first true animation star. Although animator Otto Mesmer actually created him, Sullivan's name is the only one on the titles. Felix was one of the top film stars of the 1920s. Lindbergh supposedly had a Felix doll with him in the Spirit of St. Louis and his body shape was the prototype of Mickey Mouse and dozens of other characters. While Mesmer quietly drew pictures Sullivan lived the fast life of a roaring twenties celebrity. 

Mrs. Marjorie Sullivan had been having an affair with her chauffeur. After a nasty scene when husband confronted wife and the chauffeur fled, Mrs. Sullivan mysteriously fell out of her window to her death. The scandal was front page news and Sullivan never got over it. He soon drank himself to death, which during Prohibition was difficult to do. Sullivan's death and his failure to get Felix into sound cartoons doomed his studio. Otto Mesmer went on to animate the first Broadway light signs but did not receive any recognition for his contributions to animation until he was re-introduced to the public at an animation event at Expo 67 Montreal. Then at a  Bob Clampett night at the Museum of Modern Art in 1975. Kid animators Eric Goldberg, John Canemaker and Tom Sito were in the audience.

1955- Davy Crockett at the Alamo with Fess Parker premiered on Walt Disney’s Wonderful World of Color TV show.

1956- Poets Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes met at a party in Cambridge England.

1956- Chuck Jones Bugs Bunny short “ Broomstick Bunny” with Witchy Hazel, premiered.

1957- Buddy Holly and the Crickets record "That'll Be the Day."

1971- Oh Calcutta, the first play with lots of actors shedding their clothes, premiered on Broadway at the Belasco.

1983- Famous playwright Tennessee Williams was found dead in a New York hotel room. He died when he choked on a nose spray bottle cap that fell into his mouth while he was using the spray. Others say it was a Pepsi bottle cap. He was 71.

2004- Movie star conservative-Catholic Mel Gibson’s movie the "The Passion of the Christ" opened in North America. The film was criticized for its perceived anti-Semitism, it was the first movie in which Jesus spoke his real language –Aramaic. Pastors bought blocks of tickets for their congregations. The film earned nearly a billion dollars, most of the profit earned by Mel Gibson, who was the films sole investor. 

Tom Sito's Animation Almanac for Feb 24, 2022

B-Dazes: Roman Emperor Hadrian, Winslow Homer, Arrigo Boito, Wilhelm Grimm (of the brothers Grimm), Honus Wagner- early 1900’s baseball player called the Flying Dutchman, Admiral Chester Nimitz, Edward James Olmos, Barry Bostwick, Michel Legrand, James Farentino, illustrator Zdzislaw Beskinski, Michael Radford, Billy Zane, Steve Jobs, Abe Vigoda. 

1711- Handel’s opera Rinaldo premiered in London.

 1852- Russian writer and hypochondriac Nicolai Gogol burned the second half of his masterpiece DEAD SOULS on advice of a religious mystic to atone for his sins. He died two weeks later of "brain fever".

1937- MGM studio announced it acquired the rights to L. Frank Baum’s book The Wizard of Oz, to be made into a movie for their new star Judy Garland. They won out over Walt Disney and Hal Roach.

1942- The radio service The Voice of America first went on the air.

1943- Fed up with the bad climate in the studio because of the Strike, master animator Bill Tytla resigned from the Walt Disney Studio and returned back east.

1987- US Robotics sold the first 56k modems.

1988- PARODY LAWS- The US Supreme Court upheld the right of public figures to be satirized, by throwing out a lawsuit Rev Jerry Falwell brought against Hustler Magazine owner Larry Flynt. Flynt published a gag about Rev Falwell having sex with his mother in an outhouse. Falwell tried to sue for libel. The Court ruled a public figure can be lampooned, so long as it is not presented as factual.

1989- According to the David Lynch television series Twin Peaks this is the day Laura Palmer’s body was found and F.B.I. agent Dale Cooper came to town to investigate.

1996- Los Angeles Angel Flight reopened.

2008- Pixar’s Ratatouille won the Oscar for best animated feature.

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Tom Sito's Animation Almanac for Feb. 22, 2022

Birthdays: Hungarian King Ladislas the Posthumous-1440, Shah Tahmasp I-1514, George Washington, Frederic Chopin, Edward St. Vincent Millay, John Mills, Edward Gorey, Luis Bunuel, Ted Kennedy, Dr. J- Julius Erving, Dwight Frye- Renfield in Dracula, Sparky Anderson, Sheldon Leonard, Charlie O. Finley, Nicky Lauda, Don Pardo, Jonathan Demme, Jeri Ryan, Lea Salonga is 51, Kyle McLachlan is 61, Rachael Dratch, Steve Erwin, Drew Barrymore is 47

1911-The Kester Ranch in the San Fernando Valley became the town of Van Nuys, named for early settler Issac Newton Van Nuys.

1929- Grand Central Airport in Glendale dedicated. Los Angeles first major airport. 

1924- President Coolidge becomes first president to address the nation over the radio.

1957- The Incredible Shrinking Man premiered, directed by Jack Arnold.

2002- Animator, director Chuck Jones passed away at age 89.

2009- Slumdog Millionaire won best picture and best cinematography at the 81st Academy Awards. The first movie to win that was shot completely digital, with no celluloid film used.

Tom Sito's Animation Almanac for Feb 21, 2022

Birthdays: Leopold Delibes, C. Brancusi, Anais Ninn, W.H. Auden, Hubert de Givenchy, Era Bombeck, Sam Peckinpah, Nina Simone, Robert Mugabe, Joe Oriolo, , Mary Chapin Carpenter, Kelsey Grammar is 67, Jennifer Love Hewitt is 43, Alan Rickman, Elliot Page is 35. David Geffen is 79, Pebbles Flintstone is 59. 

1838- The first telegraph message sent by Samuel Morse "What hath God wrought?" He strung electric cables up and down several floors of his art studio using wood stretchers normally used for oil paintings. Morse was an artist and never wanted to be an inventor, he just did it to finance his paintin

1885- The completed Washington Monument was dedicated by Pres Chester Allan Arthur. Plans for the obelisk were first drawn up in 1792 by Pierre L’Enfant and the cornerstone laid in 1840 but construction was constantly suspended. First they ran out of money for 20 years, then they stopped because of the Civil War, another time because the Presbyterian workers refused to handle Italian marble blocks donated by the Catholic Pope. The final capstone point as affixed last December, and the official dedication today.

1958- THE PEACE SIGN. British graphic designer Gerald Holtom was creating signs for a nuclear disarmament protest in London. He wanted a visual that would stick in people’s minds. He created a symbol based on the naval semaphore flag designation for “N” nuclear, and “D” disarmament. It was adopted by the Anti-Vietnam War Peace movement in the late 1960s.

1977- Animation director John Hubley died suddenly on an operating table of an aortic aneurism during heart surgery. He was 62. 

1980- Ukrainian astronomer Ludmila Karachkina named a main belt asteroid for Walt Disney, asteroid 4017 Disneya. 

2014- The Wind Rises, directed by Hayao Miyazaki premiered in the US.

Tom Sito's Animation Almanac for Feb. 19, 2022

Birthdays: Copernicus is 1542, Luigi Boccherini, Smokey Robinson, Andre Breton, Lee Marvin, Sir Cedric Hardwicke. Karen Silkwood, Paul Terry, Paul Krause, Merl Oberon, Amy Tam, John Frankenheimer, Jeff Daniels, Benicio Del Toro is 56

1736- Georg Frederich Handel’s oratorio Alexander’s Feast premiered at Covent Garden.

1847-“ ARE YOU FROM CALIFORNIA OR ARE YOU FROM HEAVEN?” The Donner Party found at last.  The wagon train of settlers had been trapped in the High Sierra mountains of California near Lake Truckee in blizzard conditions with no food since last October 31st. Half the settlers were dead and the rest subsisting on cannibalizing the dead for food. This day a survivor named John Reed who got to safety returned with a rescue party from Sutter’s Fort. Of the 89 original settlers only 45 made it out alive. One opened a restaurant.

1878- Thomas Edison patented the phonograph.

1913- Crackerjacks start putting toy prizes in every box. Legend has it the name Crackerjack for the caramel corn was named for the reaction of Teddy Roosevelt trying it for the first time- These caramel-corns are Crackerjack!

 

1915- L.A. Times publisher and land baron Harry Chandler was indicted with 8 other prominent Angeleanos for conspiring to start a new revolution in Mexico. The Mexican government had seized their large land holdings there for land redistribution, and this was their quaint little way of getting them back.

1944- Writer John Steinbeck asked that his name be taken off of the credits for the Alfred Hitchcock film version of “Lifeboat”. “In view of the fact that my script for the picture was distorted in production.”

1951- Poet philosopher Andre Gide died in Paris. Several things were quoted as his last words, my favorite is " Before you quote me, please make sure I'm conscious."

1960- Bill Keane's "Family Circus" cartoon strip debuts. 

1963- The book The Feminine Mystique was published. Betty Freidan’s analysis of contemporary women’s issues is considered the first shot of the modern Women’s Movement. 

1964- Peter Sellers married actress Brit Ekland. His huffing amyl nitrate as a sexual stimulant probably contributed to a series of early heart attacks he had. They divorced in 1968.

1968- “It’s a beautiful day in the Neighborhood…” Mister Roger’s Neighborhood debuted on National Education Television, later called PBS. Ordained Presbyterian minister Fred Rogers had been doing children’s shows similar in Pittsburgh and Canada since the 50’s, but today was the start of his national show. It would run unchanged for thirty-five years.

1995- Sexy actress Pamela Anderson married sexy rocker Tommy Lee. On their honeymoon they shot an explicit sex tape on Lake Powell, that leaked onto the internet, becoming the first viral video. By 2000, one sixth of everything viewed on the world-wide web was about Pamela Anderson. The incident has recently been made into a movie.

1990- ILM VFX designer John Knoll helped his brother grad student Tom Knoll create a surfacing and paint system for home computer use. Adobe bought it, and this day released it as Photoshop.

Tom Sito's Animation Almanac for Feb. 18, 2022

Birthdays: Queen Mary I Tudor -Bloody Mary, Pietro Guarnieri the violin maker, Harry Grover- Seeley one of the founders of Paleontology, Louis Comfort Tiffany, Andre Segovia, Wendell Wilkie, Billy de Wolfe, Enzo Ferrari, Yoko Ono is 89, Jack Palance, Milos Forman, Bobby Bachman of the Bachman Turner Overdrive, Gahan Wilson, Johnny Hart, Matt Dillon is 58, John Travolta is 68, John Hughes, Dr. Dre

1564- Michelangelo Buonarotti died just 6 days before his 89th birthday. He was carving yet another Pieta a few days before his death. 

1885- Mark Twain's 'Adventures of Huckleberry Finn' published.

1888- The Hotel Coronado in San Diego Cal. opened for guests. It remains one of the largest remaining wood structures in the U.S. Several presidents stayed there, the Duke of Windsor met Wallis Simpson there, and films like the Marilyn Monroe film Some Like it Hot and The Stuntman were shot there.

1950- First Mr. Magoo cartoon "Ragtime Bear".

1953- First 3-D stereoscopic movie, "B'wana Devil" starring Robert Stack.

1964- Death of Jean-Armand Bombadier, inventor of the snowmobile.

1973- Richard Petty the Stock Car King won his first Daytona 500 race. He would go on to win 6 more and prove that NASCAR racing was one of America’s favorite though most underreported sports.

2001- Dale Earnhardt Sr, the reigning NASCAR racing car champion, died in a crash on the final lap of the 2001 Daytona 500. His eldest son Dale Jr. placed second.

Tom Sito's Animation Almanac for Feb 17, 2022

Birthdays: Roman Emperor Constantine the Great, Montgomery Ward, Red Barber, Marian Anderson, C'haim Potok, Jim Brown, Rene Russo, Michael Bay, Jerry O’Connell, Cybil Shepard, Huey Newton, Lou Diamond Phillips is 60, Denise Richards is 50, Paris Hilton is 41, Michael Jordan is 59, Hal Holbrook, Joseph Gordon Levitt is 53

1765- Leopold Mozart with his two gifted children Nannah and Wolfgang were touring in London, when Leopold became grievously ill with flu. While he was recovering, no noise, including music, was allowed in the house. So, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart decided to spend his time writing his first symphony. He was 8 years old. This day Mozart Symphony #1 premiered at the Haymarket Theatre. 

1890- The Los Angeles City Council voted to change the name of their main street, called Fort Street because it led up to the old fort, to Broadway. 

1912- THE NEW YORK ARMORY SHOW- Mabel Dodge and Gertrude Stein introduced the American public to modern art. The first showings of Picasso, Matisse, Duchamp and the Italian futurists in the USA. The show was denounced as a "chamber of horrors" and Matisse was burned in effigy in Chicago. Marcel Duchamp's "Nude Descending a Staircase" was described by an art critic as "an explosion in a shingle factory".  Duchamp was highly gratified, I believe.

1925- First issue of Harold Ross’s The New Yorker magazine. 

1933- comic strip character Blondie married Dagwood Bumstead.

1934- Pennsylvanian Amos Neyhardt started the first driver’s education course.

1942- Ernst Lubitsch’s classic comedy "To Be, Or Not To Be" with Jack Benny debuted.  the comedy flopped, in part because beautiful co star Carole Lombard had died tragically in a plane crash a few weeks before the film opened.

1958 – Johnny Hart’s comic strip "BC" 1st appears

1967 – The Beatles release "Penny Lane" & "Strawberry Fields".

1979- A Prairie Home Companion radio show starring Garrison Keilor was first broadcast nationally. It was a feature on Minnesota Public Radio since 1974. It ended when Garrison retired in 2016 and was accused of Me-Too sexual abuse shortly after.

1989- "Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure" premiered, starring the most excellent Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter. Whoah-Dude!

Tom Sito's Animation Almanac for Feb 16, 2022

Birthdays: The Great Elector Frederick William of Brandenburg-Prussia, Henry Adams, Charles Taze Russell founder of the Jehovah’s Witnesses, Edgar Bergen, James Baskett, Sonny Bono, John McEnroe, Frank Welker, John Schlesinger, Faith Hubley, Katherine Cornell, John Corligiano, Kim Jong Il, Levar Burton is 65, Ice-T is 64, Elizabeth Olsen (Wandavision)

1848- Frederic’ Chopin played his last concert in Paris. Slowly dying from incurable tuberculosis, the 38 year old retired to the isle of Majorca, and died a year later.

1923- Bessie Smith made her first recording-"Downhearted Blues".

1978- The first computer bulletin board goes on live. Two guys from Chicago named Ward Christensen and Randy Seuss built a Computerized Bulletin Board System that was an S-100 motherboard and CP/M, and a Hayes 300 band modem. It still runs today, but the Internet has taken the place that BBS's used to have.

1982- In Houston, three friends from Texas Instruments, Rod Canion, Bill Murto, and Jim Harris got together and formed the company COMPAQ. They designed their first portable computer on a back of a House of Pies placemat. Made with off the shelf components, and compatible with all IBM programs, it was a tremendous success.

1987-"Family Dog" episode on Steven Spielberg’s Amazing Stories show. The first direction by Brad Bird.

1994- Apple announced the introduction of the Apple Quicktake digital camera, the first camera that needed no film but could load images directly into a computer. They added it to the iPhone in 2007. Within ten years Polaroid and Kodak were filing for bankruptcy. 

2018- The Black Panther opened in theaters. Directed by Ryan Coogler, and starring Chadwick Boseman.

Tom Sito's Animation Almanac for Feb. 15, 2022

Birthdays: Galileo, French King Louis XV, Michael Praetorius, Susan B. Anthony, Charles Tiffany, John Barrymore, Jane Seymour, Cesar Romero, Gale Sondergard, Melissa Manchester, Chris Farley, Claire Bloom, Chris MacDonald,  Art Spiegelman is 74 (Maus), Marissa Berenson is 75, Matt Groening is 68

1950- Walt Disney’s Cinderella opened in general theater release.

1954- Future President and b-movie star Ronald Reagan tried doing a stand-up act at the Las Vegas Ramona Room with the "Honey Brothers", a comedy troupe similar to Abbot & Costello. 

1965- Canada first flew the Maple Leaf flag.

1984- Touchstone Pictures created, so the Walt Disney Company could do more adult PG movies. Their first film was Splash, starring a tastefully topless mermaid Darryl Hannah.

1994- After months of insane bidding, Viacom’s Sumner Redstone beat out QVC’s Barry Diller to buy Paramount Pictures. The cost was $20 billion, although the studio’s net worth was estimated at $8 billion. When asked, Diller replied: “What’s done is done. Next.”

2002- Scientists announced the first discovery of fossilized dinosaur vomit.

Tom Sito's Animation Almanac for Feb. 14, 2022

Birthdays: Joshua Norton aka Joshua Ist Emperor of the United States 1819, Jack Benny- real name Benjamin Koubielsky, Frederick Douglas, Christopher Latham Scholes- inventor of the typewriter, George Washington Ferris inventor of the Ferris Wheel, Pier Francesco Cavalli, Jimmy Hoffa, Vic Morrow, Skeezix Wallet (character in Gasoline Alley comic strip), Gregory Hines, Ignaz Friedman, Thelma Ritter, Carl Andersen, Hugh Downs, Jim Kelly, Florence Henderson, Meg Tilly, Alan Parker, Simon Pegg is 51,

Margaret Knight the inventor of the flat bottom paper bag. The character Lara Croft, is 54.

  

 Happy Valentines Day!

1886- Los Angeles began to export its first trainload of oranges back east.

1907- Golden Books incorporated. One of their artists was Gustav Tennegren, who would  become a key stylist of Walt Disney's Snow White and Pinocchio.

1927-Alfred Hitchcock’s first suspense film “The Lodger” opened in London.

1931- Tod Browning's film of the play Dracula, starring Hungarian actor's union organizer and recreational morphine addict Bela Lugosi, premiered.

1946- John Mauchly and J. Presper Eckert unveil the ENIAC, the first all electronic circuited computer, started up at the University of Pennsylvania.  ENIAC stands for Electronic Numerical Integrator And Calculator.

1962- First Lady Jackie Kennedy gave a tour to network television cameras of the private living quarters of the White House. It’s the first time most Americans had ever seen the inside of the Executive Mansion. She worked mostly without a script, adding her own details as she went along. The day after the broadcast, Pres. Kennedy called the FCC just to see how here Nielsen ratings were. They were much higher than his speeches ever were. 

1979- Digital music composer Walter Carlos, who scored the film A Clockwork Orange, announced he had undergone a sex change and was now Wendy Carlos.

1991-Meg Ryan married Dennis Quaid. The divorced a few years later.

2005- Steve Chen, Chad Harley and Jared Karan started You Tube.

Tom Sito's Almanac for Feb 12, 2022

BIRTHDAYS-Abraham Lincoln and Charles Darwin are born on the same day in 1809, although an ocean apart; Austrian Emperor Francis II, Tadeusz Kosciuszko, Joe Garagiola, Luigi Boccherini, John L. Lewis, Bill Russell, Franco Zeffirelli, Lorne Greene, Joe Don Baker, Arsenio Hall, Christina Ricci is 42, Josh Brolin is 54.

1924- RHAPSODY IN BLUE- Band leader Paul Whiteman had commissioned a rhapsody for Jazz Band from the famous composer George Gershwin. Tonight at a concert at the Aeolian Hall in New York City it premiered in a long bill of "Modern Music". Also on the bill was jazz interpretations of "Yes We have no Bananas" and "Kitten on the Keys." Sergei Rachmaninoff, Fritz Kriesler, Igor Stravinsky and Leopold Stokowski were in attendance.

Interestingly enough, Gershwin’s orchestrator was Ferde Grofe’, the composer famous for the Grand Canyon Suite. It was Grofes’ idea to bring in a jazzman named Ross Gorman to do the opening clarinet solo. While rehearsing the piece, Gorman took Gershwin’s opening 17 note ascent and ‘smeared’ the riff to the long high note, creating the famous opening. Gershwin liked it so much he told him to play it always that way. 

Gershwin was originally going to call his piece Concert Rhapsody for Jazz Band & Piano or American Rhapsody. But his brother Ira Gershwin was inspired by some Whistler paintings he saw at a museum called Nocturne in Blue and Green and Harmony in Grey and Green. He suggested Rhapsody in Blue. 

1947- THE BIRTH OF THE 'NEW LOOK' The Paris fashion show where designer Christian Dior defined the look for women of the 1950s into the early 60's: Wasp waists, gloves and patent leather accessories, pleated mid length skirts. 

1964- Miles Davis and his band played Carnegie Hall. 

1967- London police arrest Mick Jagger, Keith Richards and Marianne Faithful for doing drugs and doin’the nasty. 

1976- actor Sal Mineo was killed outside his car port in West Hollywood. Marilyn Monroe and Shelley Winters once shared an apartment in the same building. Mineo's murder remained unsolved for many years and there were rumors that he was done in by a gay acquaintance, but the killer turned out to be a routine robber who wanted money.

1999- Rushmore released, the first quirky movie, by quirky director Wes Anderson.

Tom Sito's Animation Almanac for Feb. 11, 2022

History for 2/11/2022

Birthdays: Thomas Edison, Leslie Nielsen, Eva Gabor, Tina Louise-Ginger on Gilligan’s Island is 88, Rudolph Firkusny, Joe Mankiewicz, Sidney Sheldon, Burt Reynolds, Sergio Mendes of the band Brazil 67, Al Eugster, Brandy Norwood, Bobby Picket -who recorded the Monster Mash, Jennifer Aniston is 53, Sheryl Crow is 60

1789- In Italy, American consul William Short wrote his friend Thomas Jefferson that as per his request he had obtained for him a pasta mold. The first known introduction of pasta in America. 

1936- Famed German Expressionist animator Oscar Fischinger escaped Nazi Germany for the U.S. Paid for by Hollywood director Ernst Lubitsch. 

1948- Famed Russian film director Sergei Eisenstein died of a heart attack.

1963- Bell Jar author Sylvia Plath laid out bread and butter and two glasses of milk for her children, then stuck her head into an oven and committed suicide. Her poet-laureate   husband Ted Hughes was in bed with another woman when he got the news. Hughes wrote stories for his children like The Iron Giant to explain death and loss.

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1976- Chuck Jones TV special "Mowgli’s Brothers."

1995- Disney Studios planned neighborhood suburban community Celebration opened.

2000- Disney’s The Tigger Movie premiered. Directed by Jun Falkenstein, one of the first animated features written and directed by a woman.

2005- Playwright Arthur Miller died at 90.

2012- Singer actress Whitney Houston was found dead in her bathtub. She was 48, She was preparing for the Grammy Awards when she had a heart attack and drowned in the water.

Tom Sito Animation Almanac for Feb 10, 2022

Birthdays: Former British PM Harold Macmillan, Jimmy Durante, Bertholdt Brecht, Leontyne Price, Roberta Flack, tennis great Bill Tilden, Lon Chaney Jr., Stella Adler, Mark Spitz, Boris Pasternak, Dame Judith Anderson, Greg Norman, Donavan, Dr Alex Comfort author of the Joy of Sex, Michael Apted, Jerry Goldsmith, Robert Wagner, Laura Dern is 55

1837- Russia’s greatest poet Alexander Pushkin died of wounds from fighting a duel defending his wife's honor. His last words were directed to his books "Farewell, my friends..." Pushkin was the great, great grandson of a black man Abram Gannibal, brought from Cameroon to serve Czar Peter the Great in his Moorish Guard.

1862- After a hard night partying with fellow poet Swinburne, pre-Raphaelite Dante Rossetti returned home to find his wife dead of an opium overdose.

1870- Anaheim California was founded. No Disneyland yet. The name means Ana, as in Santa Anna River, and Heim, the German word for home. So- Home of the Santa Anna Rover. The town was founded by 50 German immigrants families who wanted to raise grapes and build a socialist commune..

1920- Major League Baseball banned the spitball pitch, scuff ball, licorice ball, all attempts to effect a baseball by defacing its surface.

1929- Elsa Lanchester married Charles Laughton.

1938- RKO screwball comedy with Katherine Hepburn and Cary Grant “ Bringing Up Baby” premiered.

1940- MGM's "Puss gets the Boot" the first Tom and Jerry cartoon and the first collaboration of the team of Bill Hanna & Joe Barbera.

1949- The premiere of Arthur Miller’s play "Death of a Salesman”.

1960- Jack Paar was the star and host of NBC’s The Tonight Show. He pioneered the talk show format, the opening monologue and couch, that everyone uses today. He tried to tell one joke about a woman in a water closet (i.e. toilet) when the network censors cut the joke. Jack Paar was so angry, that in the middle of this show, he stood up, exclaimed “ There’s gotta be better ways to make a living,” and walked off the show.  A few weeks later he was convinced to return, but he left permanently in 1962. 

1966- CBS co-ops broadcasting the senate Kennan Hearings on the conduct of the Vietnam War with reruns of "I Love Lucy'. CBS news division president Fred Friendly quit in protest. 

1966- Jaqueline Susanne’s novel The Valley of the Dolls first published. Although critics considered it cheap and trashy- Time Magazine called it “Dirty Book of the Month”,  Valley of the Dolls sold like wildfire.  Its frank portrayal of single women enjoying casual sex and taking drugs in suburbia was a big step in the sexual revolution of the 1960’s.

1992- The children’s book- The Stinky Cheese Man debuted.

1996- IBM computer Deep Blue defeated world chess master Garry Kasparov. The first time a computer ever beat a human chess champion. 

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Tom Sito's Animation Almanac for Feb 9, 2022

Birthdays: Constantine XI Palaeologus- the last Byzantine Emperor 1404, President William Henry Harrison, Samuel Tilden, Carmen Miranda, Alban Berg, Ronald Colman, Ernest Tubb, King Vidor, Mamie Van Doren, Roger Mudd, Alberto Vargas, Carole King, Bill Veeck, Fred Harman, Joe Pesci is 79, Zhang Zhu-Yi, Disney animator Bill Justice, Frank Frazetta, Mia Farrow is 77, Mena Suvari is 43, Ciaran Hinds is 69, animation historian Jerry Beck.

1856- An early tabloid The London Illustrated News reported a live Pterodactyl dinosaur popped out of a rock and flew away when workers were excavating a railroad tunnel in Culmont France. Believe it or Not!

1914- “Mabel’s Strange Predicament” The Max Sennett Keystone short where Charlie Chaplin first donned his baggy pants, little mustache and derby to create The Tramp, one of the most beloved characters in film history. He was so popular, even young Adolf Hitler was advised to change his mustache, because he looked too much like Chaplin.

1927- Mae West caused a scandal by writing and staring in a play called “Sex”, and mounting a new production about homosexual life entitled “ Drag”. This day the NY Police raided her offices, shut down production and carted her off to jail. She emerged after 8 days in a work-house more popular than ever.

1964- Ed Sullivan introduced the English rock band The Beatles to a nationwide TV audience.  Out of a nation of 140 million, and estimated 73 million were watching this one show. It was a "Rrrreally Big Shewww!" (Sullivan’s signature line)

1971- The Sylmar Quake (6.8) rocks L.A.

1989- Animation director Osamu Tezuka, died of stomach cancer in Tokyo. He was 60. Called the God of Manga and the Walt Disney of Japan. His work helped give birth to what we today know as Japanese comics (manga) and animation (anime). His dying words were to a nurse trying to take his pencils and paper away. “Leave me alone and let me work!”

1989- In testimony before the New Jersey State Senate World Wrestling Federation President Vince McMahon admit that the sport of wrestling is purely entertainment, and no one actually gets hurt. I’m shocked, shocked!

1990- Singer Del Shannon, who had a hit with the 1961 song Runaway, shot himself with a 22 rifle. Del Shannon was supposed to replace Roy Orbison in the Travelling Wilbury's, the group that featured Dylan, George Harrison, Tom Petty and Jeff Lynn.  Orbison had died the previous year of heart failure and the Wilburys were starting to rehearse with Del Shannon.  After Shannon's suicide, the group decided to disband.

2001- Actor Tom Cruise filed for divorce from Nicole Kidman.

Tom Sito's Animation Almanac for Feb. 8, 2022

Birthdays: St Proclus of Constantinople 412AD, Jules Verne, Dmitri Mendeleev- inventor of the Periodic Table of Elements, James Dean, William Tecumseh Sherman, animator Ivan Ivano-Vano, Lana Turner, Jack Lemmon, Alejandro Rey, Jack Larson (Jimmy Olsen in the 1950s TV Superman),Ted Koppel, Nick Nolte, Gary Coleman, Robert Klein, Seth Green, Sesame Street composer Joe Raposo, composer John Williams is 90

1864- Abraham Lincoln visited Matthew Brady's Photo Studio and posed for the photos that would one day be on the Penny and Five-dollar bill. 

1893- THE FIRST RECORDED STRIPTEASE - discounting Salome. At Paris' Moulin Rouge at the Bal de Quart’z Artes, an artist's model named Mona decided to get an edge in a beauty contest judged by art students by disrobing to music while walking up and down the stage. She was arrested and fined 100 francs, and the students rioted. 

1910- Boy Scouts of America incorporated on the British model.

1914- THE FIRST TRUE CHARACTER ANIMATION- Windsor McCay's "Gertie the Dinosaur" premiered as part of his vaudeville act. Up to then most U.S. animations were attempts to bring popular newspaper comic characters to life, but Gertie was a new character never before seen. Some critics had wondered if animated characters weren’t some kind of man in a special suit, so McCay drew a dinosaur, a character that couldn’t possibly be impersonated by any living thing. Giving the dinosaur the personality of a precocious kitten gave the character a new level above merely drawings that move. It was the first true character animation. The brilliant draftsmanship and timing of this film would inspire the generation of Animation artists of the Golden Age of the 1930's-40s.

1915- THE BIRTH OF A NATION or The Clansman, premiered at Clunes Auditorium in Los Angeles. Film pioneer D.W. Griffith's racist movie was considered for many years the first American feature length film. The discovery in 1999 of a 1913 Richard III film predates it. Son of a Confederate veteran, it’s been thought that Griffith was making a personal statement, truth is there was a flood of films to mark the 50th anniversary of the Civil War and the book the Clansman by Thomas Dixon was a national best seller. President Woodrow Wilson (another son of the Confederacy) endorsed the film, when he called it: "History written with a thunderbolt and I’m afraid all too true." 

Birth of a Nations’ inflammatory imagery and this politically incorrect Presidential endorsement helped a rebirth of the defunct Ku Klux Klan, and caused an increase in lynching.  But despite the film’s politics, it’s technique influenced world cinema.

   D.W. Griffith in later years lost his fortune and became a drunken has-been. Watching him at Chasens Restaurant pathetically beg MGM studio head Dore Schary for work, inspired Billy Wilder to write SUNSET BLVD. 

1928- Englishman John Logie Baird transmitted a still television image across the Atlantic from England to Hartsdale New York. It was a still image of a woman. 

1960- Adolph Coors III the heir to the Coors beer empire was killed in a failed kidnapping attempt.  Joseph Corbett Jr was apprehended in Canada and charged with the crime. Ironically, Adolph Coors was reputedly allergic to beer.

1961- Nebraska teenager and future movie star Nick Nolte was busted for the first time. He was accused of selling fake Draft cards so his friends could buy alcohol to celebrate his birthday.

1966- The Vatican closed its office of censorship.

1967- Georgy Girl by the Seekers goes to #1 in pop charts.

1968- The Planet of the Apes, directed by Franklin Schafner, starring Charlton Heston, Kim Hunter, Roddy McDowell and Maurice Evans, premiered. 

1976 - TAXI DRIVER, directed by Martin Scorsese and written by Paul Schrader, starring Robert De Niro, Jodie Foster, Harvey Keitel, Cybill Shepherd, Peter Boyle, and Albert Brooks, was released.

1994- Screaming, “You cut me off!” Jack Nicholson destroyed the windshield of his neighbor’s car with a golf club. He settled out of court.

2001- Walt Disney California Adventure opened.

2007- Anna Nicole Smith, centerfold, pole dancer, heiress and reality TV star, died from an overdose of prescription drugs. She was 39.

tom sito's animation almanac for feb 7, 2022

Birthdays: St. Thomas Moore, Eubie Blake, Sinclair Lewis, Larry "Buster" Crabbe, Laura Ingalls Wilder writer of Little House on the Prairie, Gay Talese, James Spader is 62, Chris Rock is 57, Eddie Izzard is 60, Ashton Kutcher is 44

1900- In Barcelona a new young talent named Pablo Picasso had his first show. 

1910- The Town of Hollywood was absorbed into the growing City of Los Angeles.

1925- Professor Raymond Dart of the University of South Africa named the small human like skull found in a lime deposit Australopithicus, a missing link between ape and man.

1939, Raymond Chandler's The Big Sleep was published. Chandler was a 51 year old ex-oil company executive who had taken up writing at the age of 45, after being fired for alcohol-soaked absenteeism. Over the previous five years he had published enough crime stories in the pulp magazines to survive, but this was his first novel, the first of seven featuring the inimitable detective Philip Marlowe.

1940- Disney's second animated feature "Pinocchio" opened at the Central Theater in Manhattan. It cost a staggering $2.6 million to make. 

1964- THE BRITISH ROCK INVASION BEGAN. Thousands of screaming fans welcomed THE BEATLES to New York for their first U.S. Tour. The last music out of England to be taken seriously by Americans was The Lambeth Walk, now the UK announced itself as a powerhouse of rock & roll. For a Brit to do Rock & Roll in America was as audacious as an American reciting Shakespeare in Stratford, but the welcome for the Beatles was so overwhelming that other bands like the Rolling Stones, The Who, and Herman’s Hermits soon followed. 

1964- The GI Joe action figure born. In 1974 it got the Kung-Fu Grip.

1989- Retired tennis champ Bjorn Borg was rushed to a Madrid hospital and had his stomach pumped after he tried to overdose of sleeping pills. He recovered and today is 65.

2014- The Lego Movie premiered. Directed by Chris Miller and Phil Lord.

Tom Sito's Animation Almanac for Feb. 6, 2022

Birthdays: Christopher Marlowe, Eva Braun, Ronald Reagan, Francois Truffaut, Babe Ruth, Elias Disney-Walt’s dad, Bob Marley, Queen Anne I of England, Aaron Burr, Robert Townsend, Mike Farrell, Tom Brokaw, Mike Maltese, Haskel Wexler would be 100, Axel Rose, Patrick McKnee- Mr. Steed of the Avengers,  Zsa Zsa Gabor, Kathy Naijimy is 65, Rip Torn, Marty Sklar 

Happy Birthday Thurl Ravenscroft (1914-2005), basso voice who voiced Monstro the Whale, Kirby from Brave Little Toaster and sang " Youre a Mean One, Mister Grinch."

1847- The Treaty of Waitangi- Britain settled New Zealand from the Maoris. Hobbits to follow….  

1929- Introduction to Photoplay, the first lecture of the first university film degree course ever in the USA, was given at The University of Southern California. 

1935- The board game Monopoly is introduced by Parker Brothers. The prototype monopoly board was round oilcloth and had street names derived from Atlantic City NJ. 

1937- John Steinbeck’s novel “Of Mice and Men” published. In a result Mr Steinbeck probably didn’t anticipate, was the stereotype image of a mildly autistic man as the big dumb sidekick Lenny, cartoonists used so often. “Duh, tell me about da rabbits, George.”

1938- The first automatic donut making machine invented in Dubuque, Iowa.

1956- Invasion of the Body Snatchers opened in theaters.

1974- John Boorman’s sci-fi cult classic Zardoz premiered. Sean Connery in his red jock-strap. 

1985- Steve Wozniak, the young engineer who started Apple Computer with Steve Jobs in his garage, retired from running the company. He’d rather work as an engineer and teach children. He also returned to Berkeley to complete his undergraduate degree, under the name Rocky Clark. Rocky was the name of his dog. 

2018- First launch of the Space X Falcon Heavy, the first privately owned reusable rocket, capable of taking people to the Moon or Mars. This rocket took into orbit entrepreneur Elon Musk’s personal red sports car with a dummy astronaut in the drivers seat, with the music playing David Bowie’s Space Oddity in an endless loop. Also the words from Hitchhiker’s Guide “Don’t Panic” in a panel in the dashboard.

tom sito's animation almanac for feb. 5, 2022

Birthdays: Sir Robert Peel founder of London’s police force- the Bobbies, outlaw Belle Starr, John Carradine, William Burroughs, Arthur Ochs Schulzburger, Hank Aaron, Tim Holt, Barbera Hershey, Charlotte Rampling, Roger Staubach, Michael Mann is 79, Bobby Brown, H. R. Giger, Red Buttons, Christopher Guest, Jennifer Jason Leigh is 61, Laura Linney is 58, Michael Sheen is 53, Bruce Timm, who created Harley Quinn.

1846- The Oregon Spectator, first English newspaper on the Pacific Coast, published.

1887- Verdi’s opera "Otello" debuted. Guiseppi Verdi had retired from composing after 1875, but was goaded by a new generation of composers like Arrigo Boito to take up his pen once more. 

1916- Enrico Caruso recorded O Solo Mio for the Victor Talking Machine Co.

1919- Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks and D.W. Griffith sign papers to form the United Artists Studio. The press teased, “ The Lunatics have taken over the asylum!”

1921- The Loews State Theater in Chicago opened.

1922- The Reader’s Digest began publication.

1937- Charlie Chaplin’s film Modern Times opened in theaters. Chaplin was inspired to lampoon modern technological madness when he was invited to view the auto assembly production lines in Detroit and saw men moving like machines. 

1952- New York City is the first to adopt the three light traffic lights-red, yellow, green.

1953- Walt Disney’s "Peter Pan" opened in theaters.

1956- Darryl Zanuck resigned from 20th Century Fox, the studio he built into a powerhouse. He later won back the chairmanship in 1962, and was ousted again in 1970 by a consortium led by his own wife and son, Darryl Zanuck Jr.

1957- Mel Lazarus’ comic strip Miss Peach debuted.

tom sito's animation almanac or feb 4, 2022

Birthdays: Francois Rabelais, Big Bill Haywood, Fernand Leger', Charles Lindbergh, the Agha Khan, Betty Friedan, Rosa Parks, Erich Liensdorf, Dan Quayle, Ida Lupino, Conrad Bain, McKinlay Kantor, George Romero, Lisa Eichhorn, boxer Oscar De La Hoya, Clyde Tumbaugh the astronomer who discovered the Pluto in 1930. Janet Waldo the voice of Judy Jetson, Alice Cooper (born Vincent Furnier) is 73

1938- After being in first run houses since Dec 21st, today Walt Disney’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs opened in general release across the US.

1961- United Artists released The Misfits, the last film of stars Clark Gable, Marilyn Monroe and Montgomery Clift. John Huston directed and Arthur Miller wrote the screenplay. The film flopped in its initial run but has since gained classic status.

1966- Winnie the Pooh and the Honey Tree, Disney’s first Winnie the Pooh film came out with the live action film The Ugly Dachshund.

(***Now stop what you are doing and sing the Winnie the Pooh Song!!)

1968- Old beatnik Neal Cassady was found dead in Mexico. Cassady was not an intellectual but his wild non-conformist lifestyle was the inspiration for his companion author Jack Kerouac to write his greatest novel " On the Road'. While Kerouac disliked hippies, Cassady drove the first Hippie Bus filled with LSD advocates like Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters. 

1983- Pop singer Karen Carpenter died of anorexia-nervosa. She was 32 and weighed only 77 pounds. Her death brought to national prominence how the societal pressure to stay thin could lead to this deadly condition. 

2004- Mark Zuckerberg, Dustin Moskovitz, Eduardo Saverin, and Chris Hughes launched their social networking site called Facebook. 

Tom Sito's Animation Almanac for Feb. 3, 2022

Birthdays- French King Charles VI the Mad –1380, Felix Mendelson-Bartoldy, Horace Greely, Gideon Mantell 1790-pioneer British fossil hunter that named the Iguanadon, Pretty Boy Floyd, Gertrude Stein, Norman Rockwell, James A. Michener, Joey Bishop, Shelley Berman, Bob Griese, Fran Tarkenton, John Fiedler the voice of Piglet, Victor Buono, Blythe Danner is 79, Morgan Fairchild is 72, Nathan Lane is 66

1863- MARK TWAIN- It was a long custom in American newspapers for columnists and critics to publish under pseudonyms. Riverboat pilot turned writer Samuel Clemens first considered names like Thomas Jefferson Snodgrass, and W. Epaminondas Adrastus Blab. Today he borrowed from another riverboat pilot the idea for the pseudonym for which he would become famous. This day in the Virginia City Nevada Territorial Register newspaper was an article authored by someone calling himself - 'Mark Twain'. Mark Twain was the Mississippi River pilot's term for when a steamboat is in two fathoms of water or more, in other words, safely enough away from shallows to proceed at full speed.

1920- The play Beyond the Horizon premiered. The first hit of a young man who tried to drink himself to death, but instead became a playwright- Eugene O’Neill.

1930- Roy Disney signed a deal with M. George Borgfeldt Co. of New York to sell figurines of Mickey and Minnie Mouse. Disney merchandising is born!

1945- Walt Disney’s The Three Caballeros opened in the USA. It had premiered first in Mexico City last Dec.

1953- Jacques Cousteau, inventor of the Aqua Lung published The Silent World, and later made a film version of the book with Louis Malle.

1959 "The Day the Music Died" The first Rock & Roll tragedy. Top pop stars Buddy Holly, Richie Valens and  J.P. "Big Bopper" Richardson died in plane crash. They were on tour and Holly chartered the small plane so they could get to Fargo, North Dakota in time to get his shirts cleaned. Waylon Jennings was supposed to join them but he gave up his seat to Richardson because Richardson was running a fever and didn’t want a long cold bus ride. As they left Richardson teased Jennings:” Hope your bus doesn’t freeze.” And Jennings joked:” Hope your plane doesn’t crash.” The plane was called the American Pie, which inspired a Don McClean’s hit song “Bye, Bye Miss American Pie.”

1986- After three months of negotiations, Steve Jobs signed papers to acquire the Lucas Film Graphics Division, now under their new name Pixar Inc.

1989- Swiss firm L'Oreal/Nestle bought LA animation studio Filmation (HeMan, SheRa) from Westinghouse, and shut it down laying off 229 artists the day before a new federal regulation requiring a company give it's employees 60 day notice before closing went into effect. 

2003-Legendary rock and roll producer Phil Spector killed his girlfriend B-movie actress Lana Clarkson at his LA mansion. Spector had created the Wall of Sound concert technique and produced for the Beatles, Diana Ross The Ronnettes, and Lenny Bruce, among many others. The few days before, Phil Spector said to the British Daily Telegraph, “. I would say I'm probably relatively insane, to an extent. I take medication for schizophrenia, but I wouldn't say I'm schizophrenic. I have a bipolar personality, which is strange.” Phil Spector died in prison of CoVid in 2021.

2013- American super-sniper Chris Kyle spent his time back from the Iraq War helping men suffering from post traumatic stress syndrome by taking them hunting. The Clint Eastwood film American Sniper was based on him. Today he took out a vet named Jodi Routh. At a shooting range, Routh turned his weapon on Kyle and shot him. Shortly before he was killed, Kyle texted his wife about Routh “ This guy is straight-up nuts.”

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Tom Sito's Animation Almanac for Feb. 2, 2022

 

Birthdays: Tallyrand, Charlie Halas a co-founder of the NFL, James Joyce, Ayn Rand, Fritz Kreisler, Jascha Heifitz, Abba Eban, Farrah Fawcett, Garth Brooks, Christie Brinkley, Tommy Smothers, Stan Getz, James Dickey, Liz Smith, Elaine Stritch, Brent Spinner is 73, Shakira is 45

Happy Groundhog Day. This morning if Paxatawney Phil sees his shadow, it means 6 more weeks of winter. 

1852- London’s first public toilet was dedicated- near 95 Fleet St.

1870- Samuel Clemens also known as Mark Twain, married Olivia Langdon or Livy.

1870- The first international news agency. Reuters, Havas and Wolf News Agencies agreed to pool their resources for the shared expense of telegraphy.

1876- The National Baseball League founded.

1910- D.W. Griffith's' In Old California', sometimes called the first Hollywood film.

1913- New York’s Grand Central Station opened.

1922- the novel "Ulysses" is published. James Joyce had finished the book months earlier but delayed publishing until his birthday, when it would be 2/2/22, which he considered lucky.

1922- Twenty one year old Walt Disney founded Newman's Laff-O-Grams in Kansas City.

1940- Soviet dictator Stalin had futurist theater director Vselevod Meyerhold shot.

At the time of his arrest Meyerhold’s wife Zinaida was stabbed to death. Neighbors who heard her screams assumed they were rehearsing a new play.

1952- Chuck Jones cartoon short “Feed the Kitty”. When Chuck was young he witnessed a big dog kill a tiny kitten. It stuck with him for years, so obviously this was how he hoped it should have ended.

1957- Elizabeth Taylor married producer Mike Todd. Todd was killed in a plane crash a year later. Despite her famous association with Richard Burton, Taylor later said Mike Todd was the only man she ever truly loved.

1961- In a little Greenwich Village nightclub called the Blue Angel a young stand up comic got his first debut. His name was Woody Allen

1963- In England, singer Helen Schapiro was on tour.  On the lower end of her program card was a new band called the Beatles.

1966- Woody Allen married Louise Lasser. They later divorced.

1971- Murakami-Wolf's TV special "The Point" with Dustin Hoffman narrating and Harry Nilsson's music. In 1973, Hoffman's track was re-recorded by Ringo Starr for some reason. “Me and my Ar-row…”

1979- Sid Vicious, lead singer for the punk band The Sex Pistols, was found dead of a drug overdose. The 21 year old was awaiting trial for the stabbing death of his girlfriend Nancy Spungen.

1985- O.J. Simpson married Nicole Brown Simpson.

1997- Nationally known sportscaster Marv Albert allegedly had an evening of sex and porn with a prostitute. At one point he bit the lady on the back. He was tried for lewd behavior and his career tanked.

2006- The Cartoon Riots. A Danish newspaper printed a political cartoon of the Prophet Mohammed with his turban shaped like a bomb. This so offended people in the Moslem world, that rioting broke out in Lebanon, Iraq, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jakharta and European capitols. Grenades were thrown at Danish embassies and Danish nationals made to flee. Cartoonist Peter Westergaard dodged a Somali man who attacked him with an axe, and still today needs a bodyguard. 

2014- Actor Phillip Seymour-Hoffman died of a drug overdose.