Tom Sito's Animation Almanac for May 30, 2022

Birthdays: Czar Peter the Great, Benny Goodman, Mel Blanc, Stepin Fetchit, Boris Pasternak, Irving Thalberg, Milt Neil, Howard Hawks, Gale Sayers, Agnes Varda, Michael J. Pollard, Wynonna, Keir Dullea is 85, Ceelo Green is 46, Idina Menzel is 50

In the US- MEMORIAL DAY

For those who are curious why America celebrates Memorial Day in May instead of November 11th like most of Europe, it is because of our Civil War. 

The main Confederate field armies surrendered in early April; it took this long to quiet the entire countryside, the last fighting on May 27th. Once the countryside was finally at peace, the U.S. government declared a Day of Remembrance of the fallen. Abolitionist named James Redpath reported back to Washington that newly freed black families in Charleston South Carolina would decorate the graves of fallen union soldiers with flowers. The locals were only decorating their own Confederate graves. Later in 1868, Mary Cunningham Logan, wife of General John A. Logan, Commander in Chief of the Grand Army of the Republic, the Union Army Veterans Organization, went to Petersburg, where she mentioned to her husband the Southerners were decorating the graves of their soldiers. The holiday was first called Decoration Day, and the first formal one was held May 28, 1868. By the end of WWI in 1918, Americans had gotten used to honoring all their war dead at the end of May, and the holidays name changed to Memorial Day.

1919- Hollywood entrepreneur Charles Tolman bought a natural declivity north of Hollywood Blvd called Daisy Dell. People had been picnicking in the grass there for years. Now Tolman wanted to build a concert amphitheater. Conductor Hugo Kirchhofer remarked “ It looks like a big bowl!” So it became the Hollywood Bowl thereafter. 

1930- The Lockheed Terminal was rededicated as Burbank Airport.

1935 - Babe Ruth's last game. He went hitless for the Boston Braves against Phillies.

1955- The New York chapter of the Catholic League of Decency pressured Loews Theater on Broadway to take down a giant 30-foot billboard of Marilyn Monroe trying to push her skirt down.

1962- Benjamin Britten’s War Requiem had its first performance.

1972- Director choreographer Bob Fosse filmed a live performance of Liza Minelli’s one-woman show Liza with a Z. It was telecast in Sept. and became a sensation.

1994 - Death of Baron Marcel Bich, Italian-born French engineer and industrialist who created an empire of disposable BIC pens, lighters and razors.

2003- Pixar’s Finding Nemo opened wide. 

Tom Sito's Animation Almananc for May 29, 2022

Birthdays: John F. Kennedy, King Charles II (the "Merry Monarch"), Bob Hope, G. K. Chesterton, Patrick Henry, Oswald Spengler, T.H. White, Erich Wolfgang Korngold, Josef Von Sternberg, LaToya Jackson, John Hinckley Jr., Al Unser Jr., Beatrice Lilly, Danny Elfman, Annette Benning is 64, Melissa Etheridge is 61, Rupert Everett is 64

1912- In Philadelphia, 15 young women were fired by the Curtis Publishing Company for dancing "Turkey Trot" during their lunch break. 

1941-THE GREAT WALT DISNEY CARTOONISTS STRIKE.. The picket line and campsite went up across the street where St. Joseph's Hospital is today. Chef's from nearby Toluca Lake restaurants would cook for the strikers on their off time and the aircraft mechanics of Lockheed promised muscle if any ruff stuff was threatened.   

Picketers included Hank Ketcham (Dennis the Menace), Walt Kelly and Margaret Selby (later Kelly) (Pogo), Bill Melendez (A Charlie Brown Christmas), Steve Bosustow and John Hubley (Mr. Magoo), Maurice Noble and Chuck Jones (What's Opera Doc?), George Baker (Sad Sack), Dick Swift ("the Parent Trap") Frank Tashlin (Cinderfella) Ade Woolery (Playhouse), and four hundred others. Animators from Warner Bros. MGM and Walter Lantz marched with their Disney brothers and sisters, because they knew this was where the fate of their entire industry would be settled. Celebrities like Dorothy Parker, Frank Morgan, and John Garfield gave speeches. The studio claimed no one of importance was on strike. 

The strike was eventually settled by Federal arbitration and a little arm twisting by the Bank of America. Many of the artists who left the studio afterwards set up U.P.A. and pioneered the modern 1950's style.

1942- JOHN BARRYMORE- The great dramatic actor, the first American to dare to play Hamlet in England, died of cirrhosis and kidney failure at age 60. Grandfather to Drew Barrymore.

1942- Bing Crosby recorded "White Christmas," debatably the greatest selling record of all time.

1952- Edmund Hillary and Sherpa guide Tenzing Norga became first men to reach the top of Mt. Everest. The tallest mountain on the Earth.

1954- New York Police raided the studio of Irving Klaw, the photographer of the Betty Page kinky pin-up photos. Klaw tried to appeal to the Supreme Court but couldn’t get a hearing.

1973 - Columbia Records fired president Clive Davis for misappropriating

$100, 000 in funds, So Davis went on and founded Arista records.

1977 - Janet Guthrie becomes 1st woman to drive in Indy 500.

1978 - Bob Crane, (Hogan-Hogan's Heroes), died at 49 under mysterious circumstances. He was found in a Tucson hotel room surrounded by pornography, bludgeoned to death by a camera tripod.  The murder was never solved.

1987 –pop singer Michael Jackson attempted to buy the XIX century remains of Joseph Meredith a.k.a. the Elephant Man.

1999- Hikers in a Malibu ravine discovered the remains of Phillip Taylor Kramer, the bass guitar player of the 1960’s band Iron Butterfly. The musician had disappeared four years before. Now his skeleton was found sitting in his Ford Aerostar at the bottom of a steep ravine.

Tom Sito's Almanac for May 28, 2022

Birthdays: Solomon 970 BC, Noah Webster, Dr. Joseph Guillotine, William Pitt the Younger, General Pierre Beauregard, Ian Fleming, Jim Thorpe, The Dion Identical Quintuplets 1930, Gladys Knight, Jerry West, Dietrich Fisher-Deiskau, Sandra Locke, T-Bone Walker, Taffy Abel (one of the first professional hockey stars), John Fogarty is 77, Carey Mulligan is 37, Carol Baker.

1929 - 1st all color talking picture, "On With the Show" exhibited (NYC).

1935- Tortilla Flat published. The first novel by John Steinbeck.

1941- THE WALT DISNEY STRIKE- Labor pressures had been building in the Magic Kingdom since promises made to artists over the success of Snow White were reneged on, and Walt Disney’s lawyer Gunther Lessing encouraged a hard line with his employees. The union claimed they had a majority of employee rep-cards signed, which Walt Refused to acknowledge. On this day, in defiance of the federal Wagner Act, Walt Disney fired animator Art Babbitt, the creator of Goofy, and thirteen other cartoonists for demanding a union. Babbitt had emerged as the union movements’ leader.  Studio security officers escorted him off the lot. “Would you mind if I collect my pencils?” 

That night in an emergency meeting of the Cartoonists Guild at Hollywood Legion Hall, Art’s assistant Bill Hurtz, made a motion to strike, and it was unanimously accepted. Bill Hurtz will later go on to direct award-winning cartoons like UPA’s "Unicorn in the Garden". Picket lines go up next day in Hollywood animation’s own version of the Civil War.

  Walt Disney nearly had a nervous breakdown over the strike, and a federal mediator was sent by Washington to arbitrate. In later years, Uncle Walt blamed the studio’s labor ills on Communists. The studio unionized completely, but the hard feelings remained for their rest of their lives.

1954- Alfred Hitchcock’s Dial M for Murder in 3D premiered.

1957- The National League Baseball owners voted to allow the Brooklyn Dodgers and NY Giants to move west to California. 

1960- George Zucco 74, a character actor who specialized in horror movies like Blood from the Mummies Hand, died. One version says he died of fright in a mental hospital in San Gabriel California. He was convinced that H.P. Lovecraft's Great God Cthulu was after him. He actually died of natural causes in a nursing home.

1966- the It’s a Small World exhibit, which had been created for the 1964 NY Worlds Fair, reopened at Disneyland, California. 

1977- George Lucas film Star Wars opened in wide release across the country.

1983- “What a Feeling” the theme from the film Flashdance by Irene Cara and Giorgio Moroder reached the top of the pop charts. Everyone began dancing with leg warmers and baggy sweaters torn at the neck.

1998- Saturday Night Live comedian Phil Hartman was shot to death by his wife Brynne as he slept. She was a heavy drinker and pill user. At 6:00am as the LAPD were knocking Brynne turned the gun on herself. Hartman’s last role was doing the English dub of Gigi the cat in Miyazaki’s Kiki’s Delivery Service.

2005- The great London clock Big Ben mysteriously stopped for 45 minutes. 

2005- Actress Lindsay Lohan was photographed passed out drunk in her car shortly after a court hearing for a DUI.

Tom Sito's Animation Almanac for May 27, 2022

Birthdays: James 'Wild Bill' Hickock, Julia Ward Howe, Aemelia Jenks-Bloomer, Dashell Hammett, Vincent Price, Henry Kissinger is 99, Leopold Goldowsky (the inventor of Kodachrome film), Hubert H. Humphrey, Herman Wouk, Harlan Ellison, Joseph Feines, Christopher Lee would be 100, Richard Schiff is 67, Peri Gilpin, Paul Bettany is 51

1874- Prostitution was outlawed in Los Angeles central business district.

1895 - British inventor Burt Acres patented a film camera/projector

1930- HAPPY BIRTHDAY SCOTCH TAPE -Chemist Richard Drew of Saint Paul Minnesota invented cellophane tape, marketed by the 3M Company under the brand Scotch. It was called Scotch after the stereotype perception that Scots people are frugal with money, so it’s a good value. Three years later Drew invented Masking Tape as a way for car manufacturers to paint cars two tone.

1933- Disney’s cartoon “The Three Little Pigs” premiered, whose song “Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf” became a national anthem of recovery from the Great Depression. 

Director of the short Burt Gillette left Disney afterwards to run the Van Beuren Studio in New York. 

1935- The U.S. Supreme Court strikes down Franklin Roosevelt’s National Recovery Act (The NRA) program. Roosevelt responds by unsuccessfully trying to stack the court with judges more to his liking. He referred to them as 'The Nine Old Men', a sobriquet Walt Disney would borrow in 1949 for his top animators.

1942- The aircraft carrier USS Yorktown limped into Pearl Harbor after being shot up in the Battle of the Coral Sea. The crew expected to be sent Stateside for weeks of major repairs, but the word came down from Admiral Nimitz that the Yorktown had to be ready for battle in just three days! Nimitz needed all his forces for an anticipated Japanese strike at Midway. 1,500 dockworkers labored around the clock patching her up. The Yorktown left on schedule to achieve the victory at Midway Island on June 5th.

1948- Walt Disney feature Melody Time released, featuring Pecos Bill. 

1949- Actress Rita Hayworth married playboy Prince Aly Khan. Prince Aly Khan, 1911-1960, was born in Italy a son of dispossessed Pakistani royalty to the Aga Khan II. He lived his life as an international playboy, socialite and sportsman, making love to women from actress Rita Hayworth to Winston Churchill’s daughter-in-law Pamela Churchill-Harriman. Cole Porter wrote him into a song. He died when he crashed his sportscar in France.

1961 – The first black light is sold.

1969 – Construction on Walt Disney World Florida began..

1977- Punk band The Sex Pistols release their hit God Save the Queen, the Fascist Regime, in time for the Queen’s Jubilee year. Her Majesty preferred the Beatles’ All You Need is Love.

1994 – Nobel Prize winner and dissident Alexander Solzhenitsyn returned to Russia after a twenty-year exile.

1995- Actor Christopher Reeve was left paralyzed from the neck down after falling from his horse in an equestrian event in Charlottesville,Va.  He became a spokesman for stem-cel spinal chord research, but his efforts in the US were frustrated by powerful religious-right lobbyists. Christopher Reeves died in 2004.

Tom Sito's Animation Almanac for May 26, 2022

Birthdays: The Duke of Marlborough, Pope Clement VII the Medici Fox-1478, Mary Wollenstonecraft Godwin 1759- early feminist writer and mother of Mary Shelley, Alexander Pushkin, Isadora Duncan, Norma Talmadge, Paul Lukas, Dorothea Lange, John Wesley Hardin the shootist, John Wayne, Al Jolson, Jay Silverheels (Tonto), Peter Cushing, Robert Morley, Peggy Lee, Sally Ride, Pam Grier is 73, Helen Bonham Carter is 56, Bobcat Golthwaite is 62, Matt Stone the co-creator of South Park

1897- A novel by a London theatre manager named Abraham “Bram” Stoker appeared in bookstores.  It was titled Dracula. 

1913- Actors Equity formed.

1933- Jimmy Rogers "the Singing Brakeman", the father of modern country music, died of tuberculosis at age 31. Shortly before his death he recorded a song called "TB Blues". 

1962- The Isley Brothers single “Twist & Shout” released.

1969- John Lennon and Yoko Ono have their "Bed-In for Peace" news conference in New York.  One of the most testy exchanges was one Lennon had with Lil' Abner cartoonist and curmudgeon Al Capp.

1994- Singer Michael Jackson married Elvis’ daughter Lisa Marie Presley in the Dominican Republic. They keep the wedding a secret for six weeks, then divorced 18 months later.

1995- Looney Tunes director Friz Freleng died at age 89.

1995- In a memo to Microsoft, founder Bill Gates declared the Internet the “most important single development” since the personal computer.

2006- The World Premiere of Pixar’s Cars, held at the NASCAR speedway in Charlotte NC.

Tom Sito's Animation Almanac for May 25, 2022

Birthdays: Miles Davis, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Josef Broz Tito, Igor Sikorsky, Pontormo, Bennett Cerf, Claude Akins, Leslie Uggams, Bill Bojangles Robinson, Frank Oz (Richard Frank Oznowicz), Beverly Sills, Robert Ludlum, Anne Heche, Irwin Winkler, Mike Myers is 59, Ray Stevenson is 58, Ian McKellen is 83

1878- Gilbert & Sullivan’s HMS Pinafore or The Lass that Loved a Sailor premiered at the Savoy in London. 

1911- Thomas Mann visited Venice Italy. On the Lido Beach he was inspired to write A Death in Venice.

90 Years Ago- 1932- Mickey’s Revue, the first Disney cartoon that featured the character that would eventually be called Goofy.

1935- Babe Ruth hits his final home runs. The Bambino was in his last year, working out his contract with the Boston Braves. This day in Pittsburgh, the Babe showed his old form when he hit three home runs and a single. His record of 714 home runs held for over sixty years.

1942- First day shooting on the film “Casablanca”.

1946- Chuck Jones cartoon Hare Raising Hare, where Bugs meets a large shaggy monster originally named Rudolf, later Gossamer, “Monsters are such interesting people…”

1950- Brooklyn Battery Tunnel opened in NYC.

1957- Sid Caesar's Your Show of Show's ended after nearly a decade. The show used future star writers like Mel Brooks, Carl Reiner, Woody Allen and Neil Simon.  They pioneered the executive strategy of producer Sylvester “Pat” Weaver to not let the show be owned by an entire sponsor, but the network would produce the show and would sell the sponsor commercial time in 30 second chunks. Pat Weaver’s daughter is Sigourney Weaver. Your Show of Shows was finally bested in the ratings by The Lawrence Welk Show.

1965- The Saint Louis Gateway Arch dedicated.

1968- The Rolling Stones release the song Jumping Jack Flash. 

1969- John Schlesinger’s film Midnight Cowboy premiered. The first X-rated film to ever win the Oscar for Best Film. “Hey! I’m walking here!”

1977- The premiere of George Lucas’ movie Star Wars. The movie opened on the 28th.  After Universal passed, Twentieth Century Fox picked up the distribution but let the backend profits go to Lucas. First because they had taken a loss with the failure of Dr. Doolittle, and second because they didn't think the film would do any serious business. Even George Lucas didn’t expect the film to break even. 

Star Wars was a monster hit. It was like there were no other movies playing that summer. It sold out Grauman’s Chinese in Hollywood 50 weeks in a row. George Lucas became a seriously rich man and developed THX sound, digital animation and Industrial Light and Magic special effects. 

1979- Ridley Scott's sci-fi classic Alien opened. It featured the exotic designs of Swiss artist H.R. Giger, and John Hurt with a classic case of chest pains!

1983- Return of the Jedi opened. It was originally Revenge of the Jedi, but George Lucas changed the name just a month before.

1986- Hands Across America stunt to help hunger has 7 million people at one time holding hands at noon.

1994- First International Conference on the World Wide Web. Tim Berners-Lee and CERN talked on how to unify existing internet systems into the new World Wide Web.

Tom Sito's Animation ALmanac for May 23, 2022

Birthdays: Douglas Fairbanks Sr., Scatman Crothers, Rosemary Clooney, Artie Shaw, Alicia de Larrocha, Marvelous Marvin Hagler, Melissa McBride, Frank McHugh, Drew Carey is 64, Joan Collins is 89

1931- In Max Fleischer's Silly Scandals, the girl character first seen in Dizzy Dishes is first called Betty Boop.

1969- The Who released their rock opera Tommy. 

1980- Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining, opened. Here’s Johnny!

Tom Sito's Animation Almanac for May 22, 2022

Birthdays: Sir Lawrence Olivier, Mary Cassatt, Richard Wagner, Sir Arthur Conan-Doyle, T. Bone Pickens, Herge’ (Tintin), Irene Pappas, Paul Winfield, Richard Benjamin, Susan Strassberg, George Baker, Paul Winchell, Tommy John, Naomi Cambell, Dr. Robert Moog –inventor of the music synthesizer, Ginnifer Goodwin is 44

1954- Bob Dylan’s Bar Mitzvah. Maseltov!

1954- Chuck Jones “Claws for Alarm” with Porky and Sylvester.

1955-The Golden Age of Radio ended when after 22 years the Jack Benny show was canceled. Once the top broadcast show in the nation, Benny went into television.

1966- Bill Cosby became the first African-American to win an Emmy Award for starring in a television series- I-Spy.

1967- T.V. children's show Mr. Roger's Neighborhood debuted.

1973- Scientist Bob Metcalfe of Xerox PARC patented the Ethernet.

1985- Top Disney animation director Wolfgang "Woolie" Reitherman, who directed the Jungle Book among other films, died in a car crash following lunch at the Smoke House in Burbank. He was 75. 

1992- The film Encino Man premiered, with Brendan Frazier and Pauly Shore.

2001- Ted Turner and Jane Fonda divorced. 

Tom Sito's Animation Almanac for May 21, 2022

Birthdays: Plato, Fats Waller, Albrecht Durer, Andre Sakharov, Armand Hammer, Raymond Burr, John Hubley, Dennis Day, Al Franken, Harold Robbins, Judge Reinhold, Larry Terro called Mr. T. is 72

1892- Leoncavallo's opera "I Pagliacci" debuted at La Scala in Milan.

1908 - 1st horror movie “Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde” premiered in Chicago.

1916 - Britain began "Summer Time" Daylight Savings Time. The US adopted the system in the 1930s.

1922- On the Road to Moscow, the first political cartoon to win a Pulitzer prize. The cartoonist Rollin Kirby, was passionate about Prohibition. He had a regular character to extol temperance named Mr. Dry. When Prohibition was repealed in 1933 Kirby killed off Mr. Dry in print.

1933- Woolie Reitherman’s first day at Walt Disney Studio.

1945- BOGEY LOVES BABY-Humphrey Bogart married Lauren Bacall on a friend’s farm in Ohio. He was 44 and she was 21. Her real name was Betty Persky, but she passed for wasp. So when the publicity photographers came, they were under strict instructions from Jack Warner to frame out Bacall’s more Jewish-looking relatives. His nickname for her was “Slim”, and she called him “Steve”, after their characters in the film “To Have and to Have Not.”

1952- Actor John Garfield died. Some say he died in the midst of wild fornications; in truth he died in his sleep of heart failure aggravated by stress and alcoholism. He was 39. The matinee idol of “The Postman Rings Twice” and “Kid Galahad” was too politically left for the conservative postwar age. When a young stage actor he had run guns to the IRA, later he supported progressive union movements like the Walt Disney artists strike, anti-fascism and desegregation. His outspoken politics got him blacklisted in Hollywood, his friends deserted him, and he was ruined.

1952- Famed writer Lillian Hellman (The Little Foxes, The Children’s Hour) testified before the House UnAmerican Activities Committee HUAC, but refused to name names. “I cannot cut my conscience to fit the fashions of the day.” She escaped a contempt of Congress wrap but she was blacklisted and at one point was working the makeup counter in Magnins department store. By the late 50s she was back with plays like Toys in the Attic.

1971- Marvin Gaye’s song “ What’s Going On?” Released.

1972- A lunatic shouting I am Jesus Christ, attacked Michelangelo’s statue La Pieta with a hammer. He is the reason why today we can only enjoy this beautiful sculpture from behind 3 inch thick bulletproof glass.

1979 - Elton John becomes 1st western rocker to perform live in USSR.

1980 – Star Wars “The Empire Strikes Back" premiered.

1983 - David Bowie's "Let's Dance," single goes #1. The tracks featured a then little known guitarist named Stevie-Ray Vaughn.

1992- Tonight Show host Johnny Carson did his last show “I bid you a very heartfelt goodnight.” Johnny spent his remaining years in privacy, even refusing an invitation to appear at the NBC 75th anniversary special.

2017- In Nassau County NY was the final performance of Ringling Bros, Barnum & Bailey Circus. The Greatest Show on Earth had been a tradition for 146 years. Last week they announced they were going to attempt a return, just without any animal acts.

Tom Sito's Animation Almanac for May 20, 2022

Birthdays: Honore Balzac, Jimmy Stewart, Leon Schlesinger, William Fargo of Wells Fargo, Moshe Dayan, Henri Rousseau, Dave Thomas, Ted Bessell (Donald to Marlo Thomas’ “That Girl”), Japanese baseball great Sadaharu Oh, Antony Zerbe, Bronson Pichot, Joe Cocker, Cher is 76, Busta Rhymes

1609- Shakespeare’s sonnets first published.

1830 - D Hyde patented the fountain pen, replacing the goose quill. Recently archaeologists found a bronze pen in Roman Pompeii, but it’s probably not to write in ink, but scratch on wax or bronze tables.

1891- Thomas Edison demonstrated an early prototype of kinetoscope- a motion picture machine- to his wife's friends at a party. The footage was of engineer W.K.L. Dickson and his associates dancing. That night Edison wrote a letter about his movie machine to photographer Eadweard Muybridge: " I doubt it will ever have any commercial value...”

1916- Artist Norman Rockwell sold his first painting for a Saturday Evening Post cover.

1926 - Thomas Edison says Americans prefer silent movies over talking pictures. He also thought the flat record disc could never replace the cylinder.

1937-The Cinema Editor's Guild started.

1937- Bob Clampett promoted to director at Leon Schlesinger’s Looney Tunes Studio. Clampett’s mother hand sewed the first Mickey Mouse dolls for Walt Disney.

1975- In a small warehouse in Sherman Oaks California, George Lucas assembled an effects crew to create the film Star Wars. It is the birth of Industrial Light & Magic, or ILM. 

1979- The last Saturday Night Live show done by the original cast. Many of them had their 5 year contracts up and they wanted to do something else. Plus, producer Lorne Michaels was feuding with NBC chairman Fred Silverman and wanted to leave. So goodbye Lorne Michaels, Gilda Radner, Lorraine Newman, Garret Morris, Bill Murray and Al Franken. Hello Jean Doumainian and Joe Piscopo! Lorne Michaels came back to the show a few years later and has produced it ever since.

1984- Hanna Barbera’s “The Smurfic Games”.

1988- George Lucas film Willow premiered.

1993 - Max Klein, the inventor of Paint by Numbers sets, died at 77. President Eisenhower once passed out paint-by-numbers sets to his senior cabinet so their paintings could adorn the West Wing offices. Imagine seeing on your wall an original artwork by Richard Nixon or Curtis LeMay! 

1994- Walt Disney released Aladdin II, the Return of Jaffar. Done overseas at ¼ the budget of the original, it nevertheless success spawned the industry of Disney direct-to-video sequels, called “cheapquels” by some animators. 

Tom Sito's Animation Almanac for May 19, 2022

Birthdays: Malcolm X- born Malcolm Little, Ho Chi Minh- born Ngyun Tat Tanth- Ho Chi Minh means the Enlightener, Giovanni Della Robbia, John Hopkins, Lord Waldorf Astor, Dame Nelly Melba, Frank Capra, Wilson Mizner, Elena Poniatowska, Jim Lehrer, Nora Ephron, Grace Jones, Peter Mahew, Nancy Kwan, Pete Townshend, Joey Ramone, Andre the Giant, Polly Walker, 

Animator/Educator Tom Sito, aka me, your author.

1884 - Ringling Brothers circus premiered.

1934- Mickey Mouse short cartoon Gulliver Mickey.

1956- Cecil B. de Milles film " The Ten Commandments" premiered. Charlton Heston, Yul Brynner, Anne Baxter and Edward G, Robinson.

1956- The Disney film Pollyana debuted, making a star of Haley Mills.

1958- The film,” The Attack of the 50 Ft Woman” premiered. A drive-in favorite.

1960 - DJ Alan Freed is accused of bribery in the radio payola scandal, the first scandal to hit the new world of Rock & Roll.

1991- Willy T. Ribbs became the first African American racecar driver to qualify for the Indianapolis 500.

1992- The completion bond company seized Richard Williams unfinished masterpiece Cobbler and the Thief. They had the film’s remaining sequences completed by another studio (Fred Calvert, and one sequence subcontracted to Don Bluth) and released as Arabian Nights. 

1997- Matthew Broderick married Sarah Jessica Parker. 

1999- George Lucas’ much anticipated film Star Wars Episode One the Phantom Menace premiered, the first Star Wars sequel in over a decade. It was the first major film premiere to be projected digitally. Only two theaters in New York and two in Hollywood could do digital projection then. It featured Jarr Jarr Binks, a character so annoying, that web sites like  www. I Want Jarr-Jarr to Die-Die.com soon racked up tens of thousands of hits.

2000- Walt Disney film Dinosaur opened.

2005- Star Wars: The Revenge of the Sith premiered.

2006- Dreamwork’s animated film ‘Over the Hedge’ premiered.

Tom Sito' Animation Fun Facts for May 18, 2022

Birthdays: Pope St. John Paul II, Grover Cleveland, Ezio Pinza, Czar Nicholas II, Omar Khayam, Walter Gropius, Reggie Jackson, Margot Fonteyn, Robert Morse, Perry Como, Dwayne Hickman aka Dobie Gillis, Big Joe Turner, Richard Brooks, Mad artist Don Martin, Miriam Margolyes, Chow Yung Fat is 67, Tina Fey is 52

1911- Composer Gustav Mahler died of heart disease shortly before his 51st birthday. He had completed his Ninth Symphony with dread, because he knew Beethoven, Schubert and Bruckner had never lived beyond their ninth symphony.  On his table were preliminary sketches for his tenth.

1927- Sid Grauman's Chinese Theater in Hollywood opened. The first show was the premiere of Cecil B. DeMille’s King of Kings. Ushers and doormen were dressed in imported Mandarin robes, and wall hangings were painted by young artist/actor Key Luke. Sid Grauman was the showman who also invented the Hollywood premiere with spotlights and limo's pulling up to red carpets, etc.

1940- John Halas & Joy Batchelor founded Halas & Batchelor, for many years the preeminent animation studio in England.

1976- The filming of Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now was disrupted when the Philippines was hit by a major typhoon. Francis rode out the storm cooking pasta, smoking pot and listening to records of La Boheme.

1995- Elizabeth Montgomery, the star of Bewitched, died of colon cancer at age 62.

2001- Dreamworks animated SHREK opened. The voice of Shrek was originally planned to be Chris Farley but the big comedian died of a drug overdose and was replaced by Mike Myers. I’m serving Waffles!

2003 Pixar’s Finding Nemo opened.

Tom Sito's Animation Almanac for May 17, 2022

Birthdays: Sandro Botticelli, Eric Satie, Ayatollah Khomeni, Edmond Jenner, Archibald Cox, Sugar Ray Leonard, Maureen O'Sullivan, Howard Ashman, Craig Ferguson, Bill Paxton, Ralph Wright- the original voice of Eeyore, Alan Kay-inventor of the laptop computer, Dennis Hopper, Enya is 61- born Eithne Patricia Ni’ Bhraonain

1826- Artist-Naturalist John James Audubon departed for England” in deep sorrow” because he could find no publisher in America for his masterpiece the “Birds of North America”.

1845 - Rubber bands were patented by Stephen Perry of Mssrs Perry & Co, vulcanized rubber manufacturers of London.

1890 - Comic Cuts, 1st weekly comic newspaper, published in London.

1924- Marcus Loew of the Loew's theater chain buys Metro Pictures and combines them with Sam Goldwyn and Louis B. Mayer’s studio to form Metro Goldwyn Mayer. Last year Amazon bought MGM for $8 billion.

1931- Broadway dancer James Cagney became a tough guy movie star when the Howard Hawk’s film The Public Enemy debuted. “There you go with that wishing stuff! I wish you wuz a wishing well… so I could tie a bucket to ya and sink ya!”

1938 - Radio quiz show "Information Please!" debuts on NBC Blue Network.

1941- The Looney Toon Lockout. Producer Leon Schlesinger tried to forestall the unionization of his Bugs Bunny cartoonists by locking them out. After a week he relented and signed a contract with the cartoonist guild. Chuck Jones called it “our own little six-day war.”

1965- At a hotel in lower Manhattan, Stanley Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke shook hands and agreed to write a sci-fi movie, with an accompanying novel. First called How the Solar System was Won, because How the West Was Won was a popular film then. Then Journey Beyond the Stars, the title finally became- 2001: A Space Odyssey.

1967 – Bob Dylan's 1965 UK Tour is released as film "Don't Look Back"

1970 - Thor Heyerdahl crossed the Atlantic on reed boat Ra, proving the ancient Egyptians could have reached South America.

1971 - Stephen Schwartz' musical Godspell premiered off-Broadway.

1973 - Stevie Wonder released "You are the Sunshine of my Love"

2004- Massachusetts became the first US State to legalize gay marriage. 

Tom Sito's Animation Almanac for May 16, 2022

Birthdays: Tamara de Lempicka, Lily Pons, Richard Tauber, Henry Fonda, Liberace- real name Wladziu Valentine Liberace, Jan Kiepura, Edmund Kirby-Smith, Gabriela Sabbatini, Thurman Thomas, Margaret Sullivan, Olga Korbut- the original adorable little Olympic Gold Medal gymnast, Debra Winger is 68, Tori Spelling, Janet Jackson, Woody Herman, Studs Terkel, Danny Trejo is 68, Pierce Brosnan is 68.

Ivan Sutherland, who wrote the first software for computer animation, is 84

1866- Congress authorized the creation of a new 5 cent coin, which because of it’s metal content people called the Nickel.

1879- Dvoraks’ Slavonic Dances premiered.

1922- The White Star Line’s ocean liner Majestic, a sister ship to the Titanic, made its maiden voyage with no problems at all.

1929- The First Academy Awards ceremony at the Rose Ballroom of the Roosevelt Hotel. They gave out two best picture winners. One was to William Wellman’s “Wings”. The second for “unique and artistic merit” went to F. W. Murnau’s Sunrise. The Academy originally wanted to give the Best Actor Oscar to the dog Rin Tin Tin, but the reconsidered when reminded about what kind of message that would send. So they gave it to Emil Jannings. Janet Gaynor got the first Best Actress. The ceremony was originally a dinner party with some industry business conducted. About 270 attendees who paid $5 each. The ceremony then took about 15 minutes. 

1946- the musical Annie Get Your Gun starring Ethel Merman premiered on Broadway.

1957- in a town in Pennsylvania, a failing small time businessman who had been drinking heavily, died of a heart attack at age 54. Ironically, he had just completed the first draft of a memoir about his days as a young Treasury Agent in Roaring Twenties Chicago. His name was Elliot Ness. The book - The Untouchables- became a national best seller and Hollywood turned it into a hit television series, films. Elliot Ness became the most famous lawman since Wyatt Earp.

1963- Gordo Cooper orbited the Earth in the last flight of Project Mercury.

1965 – the birthday of Spaghetti-O's later known as Spaghettios.

1969- PEOPLE’S PARK- The escalating tension between anti-war counter-culture and "the Establishment" picked an unusual item to fight over. A group of activists in Berkeley took over a 2 acre plot of land scheduled for development by the college. They planted grass and flowers and called it a "people’s park". Conservative Governor Ronald Reagan wasn’t going to tolerate any more tomfoolery and after officers and a chain link fence failed to keep out the squatters, he sent in the National Guard. This day the confrontation between the bayonet wielding troops and hippies broke out into violence. One man was killed and another was blinded by riot gas. The college decided to yield the land for the park, and it stays so today.

1972- Hollywood Cartoonists local 839 voted to expel Business Agent Larry Kilty for misappropriation of funds. The called him Guilty-Kilty.

1975- Japanese climber Junko Tabei becomes the first woman to climb Mt. Everest. 

1975 - Wings release "Listen to What the Man Said" in UK

1979- Shooting wraps on Steven Spielberg’s movie 1941.

1980 - Brian May of rock group Queen collapsed on stage with hepatitis.

1980 - Paul McCartney releases "McCartney II" album.

1981 - "Bette Davis Eyes" by Kim Carnes hits #1 for next 9 weeks. The elderly movie legend was not impressed:” Kim Carnes does not have eyes like me!” quote Bette.

1985 - Michael Jordan named NBA Rookie of Year.

1986 – the film "Top Gun," directed by Tony Scott and starring Tom Cruise and Kelly McGillis premiered.

1990- Jim Henson died of viral pneumonia at Bellevue Hospital in NYC. He was 53. 

1996- One of the lamest moments in TV writing. On Dallas, Pam Ewing encounters her husband Bobby Ewing in the shower although he had been dead for one year. The incident meant the entire previous season had only been a bad dream.

2009- Pixar’s film UP premiered.

Tom Sito's Animation Almanac for May 15, 2022

Birthdays: Lyman Frank Baum, Claudio Monteverdi, Richard Avedon, James Mason, Joseph Cotten, George Brett, Jasper Johns, Anna Maria Alberghetti, Jean Renoir, Richard Daley Sr., Trini Lopez, Charles Lamont, director of Abbott & Costello Go to Mars, country singer Eddy Arnold, Chaz Palmintieri is 69, Lainie Kazan, Joe Grant

1927- The Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel opened for business. Named in honor of Teddy Roosevelt.

1928- Walt Disney held a private sneak preview screening of his completed cartoon Plane Crazy, featuring his new star Mickey Mouse, imitating hero Charles Lindbergh. But it was a silent cartoon, and Walt had recently been impressed by the new Talking Pictures. So, he decided to hold back the release of this cartoon and push ahead with his first sound cartoon Steamboat Willie. After the wild success of Steamboat Willie, Plane Crazy was refitted with a soundtrack and released as the 4th Mickey Mouse cartoon in 1929.

1940- The first Nylon stockings go on sale in the US.

1942- The U.S. initiated a program of wartime gas rationing. Slogans like “Is this Trip Really Necessary?” and a system of ratings vehicles with A, B & C cards pop up in a lot of gas stations for the duration. C meant a war-essential worker and you went to the head of the line to get gas. A cards was the lowest status. 

1946- The first Tommy’s Burger stand opened in Los Angeles.

1963 - Peter, Paul & Mary won their first Grammy for, “If I Had a Hammer”.

1967- Paul McCartney first met his first wife Linda Eastman.

1968 - Paul McCartney & John Lennon appear on the Johnny Carson Show to promote

Apple records, Joe Garagiola is substitute host. 

1970 – A month after their breakup, The Beatles' last album, "Let It Be," is released in US.

Tom Sito's Animation Almanac for May 14, 2022

Birthdays: Thomas Gainsborough, George Lucas is 78, Thomas Wedgewood, Francesca Annis, David Byrne, Jack Bruce, Bobby Darin, Mark Zuckerberg is 32, Tim Roth is 61, Robert Zemeckis is 71, Kate Blanchett is 53 

1842 - 1st edition of London Illustrated News.

1942- Walt Disney composer Frank Churchill, who wrote "Who’s afraid of the Big Bad Wolf", Whistle While you Work”, shot himself at his piano at home. He was 40. He left a suicide note that said, “Dear Caroline: My nerves have completely left me. Please forgive this awful act. It seems the only way I can cure myself. Frank.”

1944- In the comic strip Dick Tracy, the longtime nemesis Flattop Jones was killed.

1951 - Ernie Kovacs Show, debuted on NBC TV. Kovacs was a great pioneer in the video medium who created uniquely surreal images and pantomime blackout skits.

1976- Keith Relf of the rock group the Yardbirds, was electrocuted while playing his guitar in his bathtub.

1968 - Beatles announce formation of Apple Records.

1998 - Last episode of sitcom Seinfeld on NBC (commercial fees were $2M for 30 seconds) Elderly singer Frank Sinatra died shortly after watching it.

Tom Sito's Animation Almanac for May 13, 2022

History for 5/13/2022 Birthdays: St. Sergius of Radonez 1314, Sir Arthur Sullivan, Cyrus McCormick, Stevie Wonder, George Braque, Daphne DuMaurier, Joe Louis, Richie Valens, Gil Evans, Beatrice Arthur, Harvey Keitel is 81, Dennis Rodman, Clive Barnes, Burnett “Burny” Mattinson is 87, Steven Colbert is 57

HAPPY FRIDAY THE THIRTEENTH- A Friday, the day Adam died and Jesus was crucified, combined with the number thirteen- Judas Iscariot is called the Thirteenth Apostle, and the Vikings considered wicked Loki the Thirteenth God. So today is considered an unlucky combination. But you have a Lucky Day!

1950 - Diner's Club issued its first credit cards.

1956- Actor Montgomery Clift was disfigured in a car crash. He had to have his jaw wired until it could heal.

1963- The English adventure comic Modesty Blaise, by Peter O’Donnell and Jim Holdaway debuted.

1963- Marvel published the first The X-Men comic book.

1965 - Rolling Stones recorded "Satisfaction"

1965- In a DC nightclub, the Ramsey Lewis Trio recorded live “The In Crowd”, one of the last jazz singles to crossover and become a hit pop song. 

1966 - Rolling Stones released "Paint it Black"

1971 - Grace Slick of Jefferson Airplane seriously injured in a car accident

1988- Legendary jazz trumpeter Chet Baker “The Prince of Cool” died when he fell out of a window of the Hotel Prinz Hendrik in Amsterdam. He frequently locked himself out of his room and trying to climb in a window. Heroin and cocaine were found in his system. He was 58.

1992- Police arrest the manager of Comic Book Heaven in Sarasota Florida on seven counts of "displaying materiel harmful to minors", i.e., comic books.

Tom Sito's Animation Almanac or May 12, 2022

Birthdays: Dolly Madison, Dante Rossetti, Frank Stella, Florence Nightingale, Tom Snyder, George Carlin, Wilfred Hyde-White, Emilio Estevez, Ron Zeigler, Farley Mowat, Ving Rhames, Bruce Boxleitner, Katherine Hepburn, Yogi Berra, Joy Batchelor

1463B.C.- THE BATTLE OF ARMAGEDDON- Egyptian Pharaoh Thutmoses III defeated a coalition of Canaanite princes at an outpost fort named Ha-Megiddo. This fort was the intersection of several trade roads that led south through the Lebanon Mountains into Palestine, so for centuries it was known for all the vicious battles and invasions that occurred there. When Saint John of Patmos wrote of the final battle in Book of the Apocalypse, he said it would be as terrible as one fought at Ha-Meggido or Armageddon.

1809- Napoleon’s heavy cannon- called Napoleon’s Daughters- began bombarding the Austrian capitol Vienna. Beethoven hid in a cellar. A cannonball fell near composer Franz Josef Haydn’s house but the octogenarian composer comforted his friends:” Children don’t be frightened; Where Papa Haydn is, no harm can come to you.” When the city was occupied, the French officer in charge of the guard on Haydn’s house comforted the old composer by singing an aria from his oratorio The Creation. 

1938- “The Adventures of Robin Hood” starring Errol Flynn, Basil Rathbone, Olivia DeHaviland, Claude Rains and Eugene Paulette premiered. The swashbuckling film then cost a whopping $2 million dollars to make! The light brown mare Maid Marion rode in the movie was later bought by singing cowboy Roy Rogers and renamed Trigger.

1962- First day shooting on Frederico Fellini’s film 8 1/2. When screened for American Producer Joe Levine, Levine took the cigar from his mouth and growled-” Frederigo, what da hell did that movie mean? ” Fellini shrugged, “I don’t know”.

1963- Folksinger Bob Dylan walked out of a taping on the Ed Sullivan Show. He objected to CBS censors wanting to cut his number making fun of extra Right-Wing extremists like the John Birch Society.

1971 - Rolling Stone Mick Jagger weds Bianca Macias at St Tropez Town Hall.

They later divorced and Bianca became a famous habitue’ of trendy discos and fashion magazines.

1971- Tor Johnson died of a heart attack at age 68. Swedish wrestler turned actor, Tor’s best known role was of the bald eyeless zombie in classics like Plan Nine from Outer Space and Bride of the Monster.

1977- A small Westchester radio station WENW hired a thin, gawky, college grad as a DJ- Howard Stern. US radio would never be the same.

Tom Sito's Animation Almanac for May 9, 2022

Birthdays: John Brown, James M. Barrie the creator of Peter Pan, Henry J. Kaiser of Kaiser Aluminum, Pedro Armendariz, Frank Frazetta, Glenda Jackson is 86, Billy Joel, Candice Bergen is 76, Mike Wallace, Pancho Gonzales, James L. Brooks, Rosario Dawson, John Corbett, Albert Finney

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1887- Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show did its first performance in Europe. In London the English public, several European kings and writer Oscar Wilde thrilled to displays of trick riding, wild red Indians, cowboys and little Annie Oakley the trick shooter. 

1932 – London’s Piccadilly Circus first lit by electricity.

1935- The First Belch heard on nationwide radio. Melvin Purvis (the FBI man who killed John Dillinger) was doing an ad for Fleischmann’s Yeast when he committed the offense, which was dubbed “The Burp Heard Round the World”.

1937- ACTOR’S SHOWDOWN WITH L.B. MAYER- In a dramatic confrontation the heads of the Screen Actor’s Guild Robert Montgomery and Franchot Tone go to MGM boss Louis B. Mayer’s beach house during a Sunday garden party. While IATSE-Capone gangster Willie Bioff stood by to give Mayer support, Montgomery told Mayer he had a 96% strike vote from the actors, so if Mayer didn’t recognize SAG as the sole bargaining agent for actors they would paralyze Hollywood Monday morning!

  Mayer thought about it, then gave in. Bioff got from the actors a deal that the IA would back off if the actors would withdraw their support from a rival union to IATSE’s organizing the behind the scene’s technical artists. That night 5,600 actors and friends celebrated at Hollywood Legion Stadium. Next morning 200 waited in line to get their SAG cards including Garbo and Jean Harlow. 

1937- Burne Hogarth began drawing the Tarzan comic strip. Hal Foster had been in contract negotiations with the syndicate over money and the right to his originals. He had created Prince Valiant as a bargaining chip when the syndicate called his bluff by giving the Tarzan job to Hogarth. Foster went on to greater glory with Valiant, but remained angry at Burne.

1942- Chuck Jones wartime comedy short “ The Draft Horse” premiered. 

1950- Former Naval reserve officer and pulp science fiction author L. Ron Hubbard published Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health, his book defining his new religion Scientology.

1955- Washington D.C. station WTOP put on a young Univ of Maryland grad named Jim Henson as filler before the TODAY Show. First called Sam & Friends, Hanson antics with his puppets, including a green frog called Kermit, fashioned from fabric cut out from one of his mothers old green coats. The Muppets were born.

1961- John F. Kennedy's newly appointed head of the FCC, Newton Minow, did his first major address to a luncheon of top television executives. In his speech he blasted them for TV’s mindless content and violence. He called television: " A Vast Wasteland."

 What makes it historic is it's the first time anybody had noticed just how lousy TV is and how badly we are all addicted to it. Minnow did a lot to build up PBS and Sesame Street. In the show Gilligan’s Island, the boat they were on was named the Minnow for Newton Minnow.

1973- Soylent Green opened. Starring Charlton Heston and Edward G. Robinson in his last movie role. Soylent Green takes place in 2022.

Tom Sito's Animation Almanac for May 8, 2022

Birthdays: Harry Truman, Roberto Rossellini, Leopold Bakunin, Louis Gottschalk, Oscar Hammerstein, Ted Sorenson, Sonny Liston, Toni Tennille, Ricky Nelson, Peter Benchley, Thomas Pinchon, Arthur Q. Bryan the voice of Elmer Fudd, David Attenborough, Keith Jarrett, Alex Van Halen, Melissa Gilbert, French illustrator Jean Giraud aka Moebius, Enrique Inglesias, animator Bob Clampett, Don Rickles, Saul Bass

1778- Sir George Clinton arrived in occupied Philadelphia to relieve British commander Sir William Howe. Clinton’s instructions from London were that since the French had entered the American Revolution on the American side, he was to abandon the rebel capitol of Philadelphia and consolidate British forces in New York. Instead of being reinforced with more troops, he had to detach a few regiments for an attack on Saint Lucia in the Caribbean. 

1824- Ludwig Von Beethoven performed his Ninth (Choral) Symphony and Missa Solemnis in concert for the first time. Even though he was stone deaf he was still in demand as a conductor. The orchestra trained themselves to ignore the Maestro's baton waving and follow the lead of the concert-master (first violinist).  It was said when they finished and the audience was cheering,  Beethoven was still flapping his arms about and moaning the melody, unaware of the sound of his own voice.

1878- David Hughes invented the Microphone while trying to get over bronchitis.

1910- Russian-Jewish immigrant glove salesman Schmuel Gelpfisch married Blanche Lasky, the daughter of vaudeville performer Jesse Lasky. Gelpfisch later changed his name to Sam Goldfish, then Sam Goldwyn. He and his father-in-law Jesse Lasky went into the new flicker business and started the Jesse L. Lasky Feature Play Company. They soon moved to Hollywood. 

1912- The movie studio Famous Players Lasky born. In 1914 they changed their name to Paramount Pictures. 

1933- When the Rockefellers were building their huge office complex Rockefeller Center in New York City they decided to get one of the greatest living Mexican painter Diego Rivera to design the murals for the interior of the atrium ’Man at the Crossroads". This despite the fact that Rivera was well known as a radical communist.  

Soon Nelson Rockefeller noticed Rivera was painting in the center of the mural a huge portrait of Lenin stepping on his father John D. Rockefeller’s face! Over Rivera’s protests Rockefeller ordered the mural painted over and no record of it’s existence ever kept. But on the night before the painting was to be destroyed Swiss art student Lucienne Bloch slipped a camera into her shirt. While Frida Kahlo distracted the guards, she took the only photos of the mural for posterity. 

1943- Tex Avery's "Red Hot Riding Hood"- Ooohh Wolfy!

1947- Department store mogul Harry Gordon Selfridge died in poverty in Putney, a suburb of London. He was 89. Even though his store Selfridges made millions, in his old age he wasted so much money on gambling and women, his exec board stripped him of his power.  In 1943 he was arrested for vagrancy for loitering in front of his own store. 

1962-"A Funny thing Happened to Me on the Way to the Forum" opened on Broadway.

1962- Director Joe Mankiewicz shot the climactic spectacle scene of Cleopatra –Elizabeth Taylor, entering Rome through the Arch of Titus on a mobile sphinx surrounded by thousands of extras. The shot had been delayed six months after a stunt woman fell off an elephant, and then the light in the Forum had not been right. When Elizabeth Taylor appeared in the scene, the Italian extras were supposed to shout "Hail Cleopatra!, but instead they all shouted "Liz! Liz!"

 

Tom Sito's Animation Almanac for May 7, 2022

Birthday: Johannes Brahms, Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Gary Cooper, Anne Baxter, Gabby Hayes, Ichiro Honda, Robert Browning, Marcus Loew of Loews Theater chain, Darin McGavin, Edward Land (inventor of the Polaroid lens and camera), Amy Heckerling, Traci Lords, animation director Jun Falkenstein 

Greek Festival of the Birth of Apollo.

1937-Nobel Prize winning writer William Faulkner hired by MGM Studios, earning $500 a week. He celebrated by going on a two-week drinking binge. MGM's Head of Writing Sam Marx had him tracked down to an Oakie migrant camp in the Imperial Valley. He was dragged off, boozily whining, "Ah wanna write for Mickey Mouse!"

1939- Los Angeles Union Station opened. It was built on top of L.A's original China Town.

1941-Glen Miller records the "Chattanooga Choo-Choo" for RCA. the first gold record million seller.

1942- Battle of the Coral Sea-The U.S. Navy, suffering only defeats up till then, stopped a Japanese task force. This is the first engagement in which the two fleets never saw each other, but fought long distance with carrier launched airplanes. Veterans commented that one of the sadder losses was when the aircraft carrier USS Lexington went down, she took the fleet's supply of 6 Bugs Bunny cartoons down with her. War is Hell.

1945- Director Bob Clampett left Looney Tunes, now called Warner Bros Cartoons, to strike out on his own.

1950- The Carolwood Pacific Railroad. Walt Disney had grew up around and loved trains. Animator Ward Kimball got him interested in collecting model trains. Walt grew so enamored he built a miniature steam train big enough to take children on rides. The tracks ran all around the back of his Holmby Hills home on Carolwood St.. This day was the first running of his new hobby. The germ of his idea for Disneyland began here. After the home was sold, in the 1990s the Carolwood Barn and trains were moved to Griffith Park.

1966- “Monday Monday” by the Mammas and the Poppas becomes #1 in the pop charts.

1989- Police in Buenos Aires discovered the body of actor Guy Williams (Zorro, Lost In Space) He had died of a brain aneurysm in his apartment. He was 65.

1996- Comedian Martin Lawrence went berserk and ran down a main intersection in Van Nuys Cal. raving and waving a pistol. When asked to explain himself, Lawrence blamed it on “Dehydration.”

1998- Apple Computers introduced the iMac.

2020- Due to the Coronavirus quarantine the U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments on the social networking program Zoom. One of the justices excused himself, but did not leave on the mute button. So, at one point the proceedings were interrupted by the sound of a toilet flushing. 

Tom Sito's Animation Almanac for May 6, 2022

Birthdays: Maximillien Robespierre, Sigmund Freud, Rudolph Valentino, Orson Welles, Robert Peary, Willie Mays, Stewart Granger*, Bob Seger, Toots Schoor, Weeb Ewbank, Adriana Caselotti- the voice of Snow White, Ruben Hurricane Carter, Christian Clavier, Tony Blair, George Clooney is 61. Roy Nesbit.

*English actor Stewart Granger had to change his name to get into Hollywood movies. His real name was Jimmy Stewart. A nice name, but already taken

1793- After a stay in Europe, American artist Gilbert Stuart arrived back home dead broke. In the age of Gainsborough, Romney and West, Stuart didn’t fare too well. He left America because he was tired of being pestered to do copies of his famous portrait of George Washington, the one that is currently on our dollar bill.

1840- Britain issued the Penny-Blacks, the first perforated adhesive postage stamps.

1862- Henry David Thoreau died at age 44. When his sister asked him :"Have you made your peace with God?" Thoreau replied:" I was unaware that we had ever quarreled."

1915- Babe Ruth hits his first home run. He was a Boston Red Sox pitcher at the time. He will finish his career with 714 home runs, a record that held for decades until Hank Aaron.

1919- Wizard of Oz creator L. Frank Baum died of heart disease at 62. He was trying at the time to buy real estate in Los Angeles for an Oz- theme amusement park.

1937- THE FLEISCHER STRIKE-Cartoonists vote to strike Max Fleischers Studio after Max fires 13 animators for union activity and complaining about their 6 day work week.

  The strike was settled several weeks later when parent company Paramount forced Max to concede. Strikers sang "We're Popeye the Union Man! We're Popeye the Union Man! We'll Fight to the Finish, Cause We Can't Live on Spinach! We're Popeye...etc."

1937- The Society of Motion Picture Art Directors formed.

1941- A friend of Bob Hope who was now in the service suggested the comedian come and entertain troops on their army post. Hope took the suggestion, and it became his signature event. Into his eighties he entertained servicemen around the world in five wars.

1946- Curly Howard, was the most outrageous of the comedy troupe The Three Stooges. 

While people laughed at his antics, he lived a wild Hollywood life, lots of clubs, drinking, smoking and girls. This day while filming the short Halfwits Holiday, he suffered a massive stroke. He was only 42. He survived 6 more years in debilitated health, moved from hospital to hospital by his brothers. He died in 1952 at age 48.

1949- In Cambridge University England, The computer EDSAC ran its’ first calculations. The first computer that could store data in its memory.

. 

2001- Variety reported that the Walt Disney Company in promoting their upcoming summer film Pearl Harbor, had canceled plans for Pearl Harbor Happy Meals at McDonalds, as being in bad taste. 

Tom Sito's Animation Fun Facts for May 5, 2022

Birthdays: Tyrone Power, Karl Marx, Elizabeth Cochrane called Nellie Bly, Soren Kierkegard, Alice Faye, James Beard, Michael Palin is 80, Jim Kelly, Pat Carroll, Patrick Ewing, John Rhys Davies is 78, Lance Henriksen is 82, Brian Williams, Floyd Gottfredson

1862- CINCO DE MAYO- Battle of Puebla-Mexican Juaristas under Zaragosa defeated a French invasion force sent by Napoleon III. One of the heroes of the battle was a soldier named Porfiro Diaz. After Benito Juarez’s presidency Diaz made himself dictator and reigned 38 years until being ousted in the Mexican Revolution in 1910. 

1891-Carnegie Hall in New York opened. One old musician told me the acoustics are so perfect that you can fart in the trumpet section, and you'll be heard in the second balcony.

1945- Happy Birthday Yosemite Sam! Hare Trigger, the first cartoon to feature the red mustachioed desperado premiered.

1953- Broadway Director Jerome Robbins was riding high after directing hits like On the Town and King & I, when he was labeled a Communist. To save his career, this day he testified before Joseph McCarthy’s House UnAmerican Activities Committee. He admitted he had been a communist party member and named names. One actress he finked on, Margaret Lee said,” I’ve just been stabbed by a wicked fairy”. Ironically, Jerome Robbins went on to direct two of his biggest hits “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum and the Fiddler on the Roof using blacklisted actors like Zero Mostel, Beatrice Arthur and Jack Gilford, who all hated him. During a break in rehearsal on Fiddler, one actor said, “I’d like to kick Jerry in the balls!” Beatrice Arthur replied, “Jerry has no balls."

1975- Anne Rice’s novel The Interview With The Vampire first published.

1983- At a regional Comicon, the first edition comic of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles came out and sold out within two hours. 

2006- Walt Disney Company formally acquired Pixar Studio.

Tom Sito's Animation Almanac for May 4, 2022

Birthdays: Bartolomeo Christofori'- inventor of the piano, Alice Liddel 1852- the inspiration of Alice in Wonderland, Audrey Hepburn –real name Edda van Heemstra Hepburn-Rusten, Roberta Peters, Maynard Ferguson, Pia Zadora is 69, Howard Da Silva, Tammy Wynette, Randy Travis, Hosni Mubarak, George Will, Richard Jenkins

1776- Jumping ahead of the independence debate in the Continental Congress, the colonial assembly of Rhode Island renounced their allegiance to the Crown of England.

1776-While marching up the California coast, Spanish explorer Gaspar de Portola came upon a Chumash Indian village on the shore of a big bay. It being Saint Monica's Day, he named the bay Santa Monica. St. Monica was famous for crying, she had a wicked son, who later reformed and became a Saint himself, Augustine. Portola was looking for water that dry year, and Tongva locals took him to a spring, still there, on the campus of Uni High. He named the area for her life giving tears, on her day.

A little further up the coast he found a little beach and lagoon the Indians called “ place where the surf is loud”, in Chumash- Malibu

1891 –THE DEATH OF SHERLOCK HOLMES According to Sir Arthur Conan-Doyle, this was the day Sherlock Holmes perished at the Reichenbach Falls grappling with sinister Prof. Moriarity- The Napoleon of Crime.  Conan Doyle had tired of his eccentric detective and wanted to get on to other types of novels. But readers were horrified he had killed off the great sleuth. Conan-Doyle couldn’t take a walk down the street without someone stopping him:” Sir, How could you?!” When touring the U.S. he wanted to lecture about historical subjects and spiritualism, but people only wanted know about Holmes & Watson. Finally after a decade, Arthur Conan-Doyle gave in and began a new series called the Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes.

1897- In Paris during a charity cinematograph show the nitrate film catches fire and 200 die. Movie film before the 1940’s was made from a very unstable Nitrate mixture and could explode from the slightest contact with flame. 

 1927- The Motion Picture Academy of Arts & Sciences formed. Studio heads Irving Thalberg and Louis B. Mayer originally conceived the Academy as an arbiter where studio artists could air grievances without fear of retaliation, thereby sidetracking the call for union representation. It didn't work. After the stock market crash the Academy supported the studio heads enforced employee salary cuts. Soon all pretense as an ombudsman was abandoned and AMPAS focused instead on being the arbiter of artistic achievement.

1948- Norman Mailor's first novel published: "the Naked and the Dead".

1953 - Pulitzer prize awarded to Ernest Hemingway for The Old Man & The Sea.

1957 - Alan Freed hosts "Rock n' Roll Show" 1st prime-time network rock music show.

1963- Nelson Rockefeller married Margaret Fitzler-Murphy, called Happy Rockefeller. 

1967- The Big Mac hamburger is invented by Jim Delligatti at his MacDonalds franchise restaurant in Pittsburgh. Steelworkers weren’t coming to his McDonald’s. They often ate one big meal a day after double shifts and the tiny burgers at McDonald’s weren’t going to cut it. They preferred the hearty burgers and meal sizes sandwiched at Eat’n Park or Primanti Bro’s. So the only way he could compete was to double his burgers! 

1975- Moe Howard died, the last of the original Three Stooges.

1991- Bing Crosby’s son Dennis Crosby put a shotgun to his head and ended his life. In 1989 his younger brother Lindsay had committed suicide in a similar fashion.

1999- Goldman-Sachs, a 130 year old Wall Street investment bank that had once sparred with J.P. Morgan, becomes the last great bank on Wall St. to go public. In 2008 it’s shady dealings helped bring about The Great Recession, but soon most of it’s former execs scored jobs in the federal gov’t.

2000- The Love Bug Computer virus ravaged the worlds commerce through Microsoft Outlook causing $10 billion dollars in damage and shutting down temporarily the e-commerce of large firms like Reebok. It was launched by a Philippine grad student as part of his thesis.

2001- Bonnie Lee Blakely, the wife of actor Robert Blake, was found in her car dead of a gunshot wound to the head outside of Vitello’s Restaurant in Studio City, Ca. They had just had dinner, and Mr. Blake had returned into the restaurant to retrieve a gun he had left at his table. In 2005 the actor was acquitted of his wife’s murder but lost a wrongful death suit to Blakely’s family. No other suspect has ever been identified. 

2012- Marvel's The Avengers, directed by Josh Whedon, opened.

Tom Sito's Animation Almanac for May 3, 2022

Birthdays: Niccolo Macchiavelli, Bing Crosby, Golda Meir, Sir Richard D'Oly-Carte, Peter Gabriel, James Brown, Pete Seeger, Betty Comden, Doug Henning, Beaulah Bondi, Mary Astor, Sugar Ray Robinson, Alex Cord, 70’s singer Engelbert Humperdinck, Dule Hill

1812- A new poem called Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage became a huge hit in London and sold out in just three days. The author Lord Byron became the toast of London overnight. He said: "I awoke one morning and found myself famous."

1888- The Poem "Casey at the Bat" by Ernest Thayer first published.

1931- E.C. Segar introduced Popeye’s friend J. Wellington Wimpy in his Thimble Theatre comic strip. “ I would gladly pay you Tuesday, for a hamburger today.”

1933- Fritz Lang’s movie M released in the US. It made a star of Peter Lorre.

1948- THE PARAMOUNT DECISION- In 1938 the independent theater chains had brought suit in Federal court against the major Hollywood Studios over their monopolistic practices. Ten years later the Supreme Court ruled the Motion Picture Studios did constitute a monopoly and under the Sherman AntiTrust Act ordered them to sell their theater chains. One casualty of this rule was the short cartoon. Because theater managers no longer were forced to run a cartoon, newsreel and short with a feature (block-booking), they opted for the time to run more showings of the main feature. Many people were starting to become interested in that new television machine, anyway.

1969- Groundbreaking in Valencia for the California Institute of the Arts. 

1971- National Public Radio’s news program "All Things Considered" goes on the air, the first U.S. news program with women anchors like Susan Stanberg.

1978- THE FIRST SPAM E-MAIL- Gary Thuerk, a marketing manager for Digital Equipment Corp wanted to invite all the scientists and professors on the ARPANET system to an event. It was too much work to do one e-mail at a time, so he devised a way to mail 600 people at once. 

1991- Steve Jobs agreed to the deal between Walt Disney and Pixar to create the film Toy Story.  He insisted the Pixar logo be at the head of the film, instead of in the back roll credits. The world needs to know that Pixar are the one’s making these movies, not them. It’s all about marketing. The public will soon know who we are, more than they are.” .

1997- The Chairman of Phillip Morris Tobacco Company James J. Morgan testified to a congressional committee that cigarettes are no more addictive than Gummy Bears candy.

2002- Spiderman, directed by Sam Raimi, and starring Tobey McGuire and Kirsten Dunst.

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Tom Sito's Animation Almanac for May 2, 2022

Birthdays: Czarina Catherine the Great, Domenico Scarlatti, Manfred Von Richthofen the Red Baron, Bing Crosby, Dr. Benjamin Spock the Baby Doctor, Vernon Castle, Lorenzo Music, Theodore Bikel, Lesley Gore, Roscoe Lee Browne, Satyajit Ray, Pinky Lee, Link Wray of the Wraymen, Christine Baranski, Doug Wildey, Dwayne Johnson aka The Rock is 50, Marty Abrahams.

1519- Leonardo Da Vinci died of a stroke at the Chateau d’Amboise in the arms of King Francis I. He had accepted the offer of the French King of a stable retirement (even then artists worried about that kinda stuff).  He was 67. Two hundred and eighty years later, during the French Revolution, peasants broke into his tomb to get the lead lining for cannonballs. They threw his bones into a trash pile. Today there is a marker in the Amboise church in his name, but no one is really sure where he's buried.

1921- Chicago’s Field Museum opened to the public. It was housed in the building originally called the Hall of Fine Arts in the Great Chicago Exhibition of 1893.

1932- Jack Benny's Radio Show debuts. Oh Rochester! Mel Blanc the voice of Bugs Bunny did many characters and voices on the show, including the sputtering engine of Jacks’ old Maxwell automobile. 

1933- The first modern sighting of the Loch Ness Monster. The Inverness Courier published an account of a couple that sighted Nessie and offered a reward for proof.

1964- Disney’s audio- animatronic Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln opened at the NY World’s Fair.

1972- First day shooting on Steven Spielberg’s film JAWS. The giant mechanical shark used as a prop was nicknamed "Bruce" after Spielberg’s lawyer.

1982- The 24 hour Weather Channel started.

1983- Microsoft introduced the three-button mouse.

1997- Movie star Eddie Murphy was busted for picking up trans hooker Artisone Seiuli at 4:45 in the morning on Sunset Blvd in Hollywood. Murphy said he was just being a good Samaritan and giving the young lady a ride home.

1999- Actor Oliver Reed was filming the movie Gladiator in Malta with Russell Crowe and Ridley Scott. Reed, like many British actors of his generation was a very hard drinker. Some like Richard Harris and Anthony Hopkins managed to pull themselves out of their spiral and went on to full careers in later life. But Oliver Reed did not. This day in a local pub, he got into a drinking contest with several young English sailors from HMS Cumberland. At one sitting Oliver Reed drank 8 pints of beer, a dozen shots of rum, half a bottle of whiskey and a few shots of Hennessey cognac. Then when arm wrestling the sailors, he suffered a massive heart attack and dropped dead. Oliver Reed was 61. Ridley Scott used digital manipulation to complete his remaining scenes in the film. 

Tom Sito's Animation Almanac for May 1, 2022

Birthdays: Mary Harris a.k.a. Mother Jones, Marshal Vauban 1633, Benjamin Latrobe, Calamity Jane, Joseph Addison, Kate Smith, Jack Paar, Joseph Heller, Rita Coolidge, Steve Cauthen, Judy Collins, Glen Ford, Ray Parker Jr., Maurice Noble, Fyodor Khytruk, Louis Nye, John Woo, Wes Anderson is 53, Joanna Lumley is 76, Animator-educator Eric Goldberg is 67.

1902- Richard Outcault's comic strip Buster Brown and Tige first appeared. Outcault, the creator of the first hit cartoon the Yellow Kid was so famous that as part of his deal to do this strip he negotiated the first back-end deal for a percentage of the merchandise sales.

1914-THE BIRTH OF THE BIG BLUE- Thomas Watson got a job at a little business machine company called CTR, the Calculating Typewriter and Regulating Company. He quickly rose to the top and renamed the company International Business Machine or IBM. When he retired in 1956 it employed 60,000 workers, and was one of largest companies in the world.

1926- Famed black baseball pitcher Satchel Page pitched his first game. His nickname came from Satchel-mouth.

1941- Orson Welles film "Citizen Kane" debuted at the Paramount theater (the El Capitan) in Hollywood. At the last minute William Randolph Hearst's friend Louis B. Mayer tried to buy and destroy every print of the film and the Hearst press went crazy attacking it. Hearst spokesperson Louella Parsons threatened "A Beautiful Lawsuit" if the film was not pulled. Despite winning some Oscars, the film didn't do well in its initial release, but it remains one of the greatest films of all time. Welles said later:" The problem I've always had is my movies become classics ten years later."

1964- Scientist John Kemeny at Dartmouth created the computer language BASIC.

1967- Elvis Presley married Priscilla Beaulieu at the Aladdin casino in Las Vegas.

1989- Walt Disney Feature Animation in Orlando Florida opened. It closed in 2006.

1993- The Florida Animation Union Local 843 chartered. 

1997- Bebe, the dolphin who played Flipper on the television show, died at age 40.

1999- Spongebob Squarepants premiered on Nickelodeon. 

3019TA- Aragorn II was crowned King of Gondor (according to Tolkien)