Thursday, September 1, 2022

Tom Sito's Animation Almanac for Sept 1, 2022


Welcome to September from Septembrius Mensis, After August the Romans ran out of names for months. Septembrius means Number 7, March being the first month of the Roman Calendar.


Birthdays: Joachim Pachebel, Gentleman Jim Corbet, Sir Roger Casement, Seiji Ozawa, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Walter Reuther founder of the United Auto Workers, Englebert Humperdinck- the 19th century composer, Conway Twitty, Jack Hawkins, Leonard Slatkin, Yvonne DeCarlo, Gloria Estefan, Mike Lah, Boxcar Willie, Richard Farnsworth, Lily Tomlin is 83 


1852-The Hot Dog or Frankfurter was invented by a group of butchers in Frankfurt, Germany. Frankfurterwurst didn't catch on in the U.S. until it was served at the opening the Coney Island Exhibition in 1894, where it was billed as a Vienna Sausage or Red Hots. Dog was one newspaper's speculation upon the origins of the meat. It was first served at a baseball game in 1910.


1913 - George Bernard Shaw’s play "Androcles & the Lion," premieres in London. 


1919- Pat Sullivan's 'Feline Follies" cartoon staring Felix the Cat.   Felix is the first true animated star, not depended on a previous newspaper comic strip. His body prototype, a black peanut shape with four fingers, will be the standard for years to come. By 1926 he was the most popular star in Hollywood after Chaplin and Valentino. Lindbergh had a Felix doll in his plane and it has been speculated that Groucho Marx copied his famous strut. The first television image broadcast by scientists in 1926 was of a Felix doll.


1928- Paul Terry premiered his sound cartoon RCA Photophone system for a short called "Dinner Time". Young studio head Walt Disney came by train out from Los Angeles to see it. He telephoned his brother Roy back in L.A." My Gosh, Terrible! A Lot of Racket and Nothing Else!" He said they could continue completing their first sound cartoon "Steamboat Willie". 


1939- FIRST CANNES FILM FESTIVAL- The premiere film event in Europe had been the Venice Film Festival but western democracies tired of the bias of the judges for Fascist and Nazi films. For example Walt Disney was annoyed his Snow White, the box office and critical champ of 1938, lost out to Leni Reifenstahl's Olympia. So the little French Riviera city was chosen as the site for a new festival. Two days after opening World War II was declared and the festival shut down until 1946.


1939 – The Physics Review published the first paper on a celestial phenomena called "black holes".


1955- Phillip Loeb was a TV star, playing Papa on the show The Goldbergs on radio and television. But the book Red Channels listed him as a Communist. He was blacklisted and the show dropped by CBS and NBC. This day Loeb checked into the Hotel Taft and swallowed a bottle full of sleeping pills. 


1956- Elvis Presley bought his momma a pink Cadillac. 



1963- The Mighty Hercules animated TV series began.


1972 - Bobby Fischer (US) defeated Boris Spassky (USSR) for the world chess title.

The young eccentric genius Fischer was the Tiger Woods of chess and for a time a pop icon. He would after a few years of fame drop out of competition at the height of his powers and go into seclusion.


1978 - Last broadcast of "Columbo" on NBC.


1979- The fantasy book The NeverEnding Story by Michael Ende first published.


1979 – An LA Court ordered retired TV star Clayton Moore to stop wearing his Lone Ranger mask in public appearances. Paramount was pushing it’s remake the Legend of the Lone Ranger starring Klinton Spillsbury, so they wanted the old man to stop competing for the spotlight. Today that 1979 movie, as well as the 2013 movie are forgotten, while many still fondly remember the old TV show,


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.


1995 – The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame opened in Cleveland Ohio.


1998- The Wild Thornberries TV series premiered.

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