Tom Sito's Animation Almanac for June 10, 2022

Birthdays: Charles James Stuart “The Old Pretender”, Yamaoka Tesshu (1832- Japanese swordsman), Saul Bellow, Hattie McDaniel, Frederick Loew (of Lerner & Loew), Howlin’ Wolf, Maurice Sendak, Dorse Lanpher, Harald Sieperman, Gina Gershon is 60, Leilee Sobieski is 39, Jean Triplehorn is 59, Jurgen Prochnow, Elizabeth Hurley is 56, Britain’s Prince Phillip. 

Judy Garland would have been 100.

1776- The great English actor David Garrick went on stage for the last time, playing in a benefit for The Decayed Actor’s Fund.

1910- The first Krazy Kat comic strip- Cartoonist George Herriman was doing a strip for Hearst called "The Family Upstairs". He was amused at the idea of a friendship between a cat and a mouse. So, Herriman put them in the corner playing marbles while the family quarreled. First an office boy and later editor Arthur Brisbane suggested they have their own strip. The immortality of the denizens of Coconino County follows, loved by the likes of H.L. Mencken, e.e.cummings, and Jacques Kerouac. Krazy herself explains:" It's wot's behind me that I am."

1926- Artist Antonio Gaudi was run over by a streetcar while crossing in front of his famous cathedral in Barcelona. Construction begun in 1886, The Cathedral Sacreda Familia is still scheduled for completion- in the year 2035.

1939 - Barney Bear, cartoon character by MGM, debuted.

1957- “Tom Terrific and Manfred the Wonder Dog” cartoon debuted on the Captain Kangaroo show.

1980- Comedian Richard Pryor had been doing so much cocaine even his dealers were worried about him. This day, while trying to freebase he exploded, and ran screaming down his street on fire. Another version of the story said he tried to commit suicide by pouring tequila on himself and setting it alight. During his long recovery in the Sherman Oaks burn unit, his nurse once put on the news and he watched CBS news anchor Walter Cronkite report his death. `He thought to himself: "If Walter Cronkite said I died, it must be true! Ahhh!" He recovered but suffered from Muscular Dystrophy until he died in 2005.

1995-110,000 people jam Central Park in New York to see Disney's Pocahontas, up to then the largest audience ever to attend an animated movie premiere.