Tom Sito's Animation Almanac for June 30, 2023

Birthdays: Buddy Rich, Lena Horne, Czeslaw Milosz, Susan Hayward, Deanna Durbin, Howard Hawks, Anthony Mann, William Goldman, Martin Landau, Essa-Pekka Salonen, David Alan Grier, Vincent D’Onofrio, Monica Potter, Mike Tyson is 57, Michael Phelps, Rupert Graves is 60 

1856- In London, Charles Dickens does his first public reading from his works.

1933- A group of actors met in secret at Frank (the Wizard of Oz) Morgan’s house and form the Screen Actors Guild. The secrecy was because studios threatened to blacklist anyone who so much as breathed the word union. Among the founding members that night is James Cagney, Groucho Marx, Joan Crawford, Franchot Tone, Frederic March, Robert Montgomery and Boris Karloff. Karloff said every member carried pockets full of nickels so they could use the nearest payphone to talk. They feared the studios had gotten the police to tap their home and office phones. 

1936- Margaret Mitchell's bestseller “Gone With the Wind" first published.

1936- the 40 hour work week was made a federal law. 

1937- Congress voted to shut down the Federal Theater Project, the division of the government funded WPA that produced plays for Depression wracked poor people. The FTP produced cutting edge works of Orson Welles, Clifford Odets and Eugene O’Neill and at its height reached 25 million people. But conservative senators thought it had been taken over by lefties. Theater actors working in L.A. on a hit production of Pinocchio held a mock funeral for the puppet. Over its casket was the headstone FTP: Born 1934, Killed by an Act of Congress, June 30th 1937.

1940- Dale Messick takes over the Brenda Star comic strip and adds the trademark sparkles. Born Dalia Messick, she used her nickname Dale to throw off publishers who would reject samples they knew came from a woman.

1948- Bell Laboratories announced the Transistor, a possible substitute for radio-vacuum tubes. So early computers can shrink from the size of a building to the size of a bus. In 1980 the silicon chip reduced the same computing power to the size of your fingernail.

1950- The Goofy short Motor Mania released.

1953- The first Chevy Corvette rolled off the assembly line. Only three thousand were made that first year, all white with red interior, selling for $3,500. 

1971 – the movie Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory was released. Directed by Mel Stuart, adapted from the 1964 novel Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl (who wrote the screenplay) and starring Gene Wilder. The Oompha Loompha song titling was done by a very early digital CGI technique called Scanimate.

1975- Just 4 days after divorcing Sonny Bono, Cher married rocker Gregg Allman.

1996 - Margaux Hemingway, considered the first modern Supermodel, committed suicide at 41. Her grandfather Ernest Hemingway committed suicide, and his father before him.

1989- Spike Lee’s movie Do The Right Thing opened. 

Tom Sito's Animation Almanac for June 29, 2023

Birthdays: Bernard Hermann, Roscoe Fatty Arbuckle, Slim Pickens, Nelson Eddy, Gary Busey, John Hench, Little Eva, Harmon Killabrew, Antoine de Saint Exupery, Anna Sophie-Mutter, Leroy Anderson, Maria Conchita Alonso, Robert Evans, Matthew Weiner, Brett McKenzie, Ray Harryhausen, animator Roger Allers

1776- Happy Birthday San Francisco! Don Juan Bautista De Anza brought 247 colonists to the tip of a rocky promontory in a huge foggy natural harbor and built a Presidio, a fort. When a monk came six months later to build a mission, he called it San Francisco de Asiacutes. The nearby village was called Yerba Buena for all the good herbs growing in the area. Juan de Anza explored and mapped most of the route from Old Mexico through Northern California but is not as well known to Americans as Fra Junipero Serra, or the Anglo explorers John Freemont, and Kit Carson.

1801- Ludwig van Beethoven confessed to a friend that he was going deaf.

1936- Pope Pius XI published an encyclical warning of the evils of Motion Pictures. “They glorify Lust and Lascivious behavior.”

1940 – ROBIN THE BOY WONDER- According to Batman Comics, this day mobsters rubbed out a circus highwire team known as the Flying Graysons, leaving their son Dick an orphan. He was taken in by millionaire Bruce Wayne so Batman could have his Robin.

1940- First day shooting on the film Citizen Kane. 

1950- The Hollywood 10 were given jail sentences for contempt of Congress.

1956- President Eisenhower signed the Interstate Highways Act, allocating millions of dollars to build a system of interstate freeways connecting all the major U.S. cities. This is the reason you can drive one road from the Pacific Ocean at Santa Monica to the Atlantic Ocean at Baltimore. Eisenhower was an engineer in the 1920s and saw the deplorable condition of American roads. During World War II, he saw the Germans use autobahns to move heavy mechanized forces quickly. 

 The Interstate System had at first a definite Cold War logic to it. The Interstates would be commandeered in time of war and every few miles there had to be a five mile straightaway so military planes could use them for an emergency landing. Overpasses had to be at least 11’5” tall to clear an Ajax missile launcher. 

1956- Marilyn Monroe married author Arthur Miller.

1967- At 2:30AM outside of Biloxi, Mississippi, actress Jane Mansfield and her dog were killed in a car crash when their car slammed into the rear of a parked truck. Her children including Marisa Hargitay were in the back seat but unhurt.  Ever since then, high chassis trucks have to have Mansfield bars in the back. 

1968 - "Tip-Toe Thru' The Tulips With Me" by Tiny Tim peaks at #17 on the pop charts.

1978- Actor Bob Crane, best known as the star in the television series Hogan’s Heroes, was found beaten to death with an electric cord wrapped around his neck in a Scottsdale Arizona hotel room. Around his room were piles of his homemade porn tapes. He was 49. The killer was never found. 

2007- Pixar’s Ratatouille premiered, directed by Brad Bird.

2007- Steve Jobs introduced the iPhone, initiating the age of the smartphone. 

Tom Sito's Animation ALmanac for June 27, 2023

Birthdays: Swedish King Charles XII "the Madman of the North", Helen Keller, Norma Kamali, Charles Stuart Parnell, Bob" Captain Kangaroo" Keeshan, Emma Goldman, Marine General Chesty Puller, Walter Johnson, Ross Perot, Isabella Adjani is 68, Lauren Hill, Alice McDermott, J.J. Abrams is 57, Tony Leung Chu Wai is 61, Toby McGuire is 48. Katherine Beaumont the voice of Alice in Alice in Wonderland, and Wendy in Peter Pan 

1693 – The first woman's magazine "Ladies' Mercury" published in London.

1922 - Newberry Medal 1st presented for kids’ literature, the first winner was Hendrik Van Loon.

1949 - "Captain Video & His Video Rangers," debut on DUMONT-TV. The first Sci-Fi show made for TV.

1962- Daryl F. Zanuck showed up at the quarterly meeting of the exec board of 20th Century Fox, and in a celebrated corporate showdown, he wrested back control of the company he founded in 1935, but had lost control of.

1966- TV soap opera Dark Shadows premiered. Barnabas Collins was the first vampire to have issues with his job, and so became the ancestor of the modern romantic vampires of True Blood, Interview With the Vampire, and Twilight.

1967- In London, Barclay’s Bank sets up an automated teller machine, which they called a Robot Teller, but we know today as the first ATM.

1973- Senior White House Counsel John Dean testified to the Watergate committee that President Richard Nixon maintained an Enemies List. The list ran from Senator Ted Kennedy and journalist Daniel Shore, to June Foray and Bill Scott, who did the cartoon voices of Rocky the Flying Squirrel and Bullwinkle the Moose. 

1984- Hollywood introduced the PG-13 rating to indicate graphic violence, invented for the film Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.

1986 -Labyrinth as released, fantasy directed by Jim Henson, written by Terry Jones, with concepts by Brian Froud. David Bowie, Jennifer Connelly. The animated owl in the opening is the first ever digitally created rendering of an organic animal. Done by Bill Kroyer.

1995- Boyishly proper British actor Hugh Grant is busted for soliciting sex from a Sunset Blvd. street hooker named Divine Brown. Grant had just released a film called “The Englishman Who went up a Hill and Came down a Mountain". Pundits had fun changing the title to "The Englishman who went to L.A. a Hugh and Came Back a John."

2007- British Prime Minister Tony Blair stepped down after ten years. While in office his security codename was Bambi.

2008- Pixar’s WALL-E opened in theaters.

2011- The Los Angeles Dodgers baseball team filed for bankruptcy. The team owners, Mr. & Mrs. Frank McCourt wrecked the team’s finances and almost destroyed the team fighting over their own personal divorce. The Dodgers have been doing quite well without them. 

Tom Sito's Animation Almanac for June 26, 2023

Birthdays: Peter Lorre- born Laszlo Lowenstein, Pearl Buck, Abner Doubleday, Babe Deidrickson-Zacharias, Willy Messerschmidt, Claudio Abbado, Woolie Reitherman, Gregg LeMond, Vittorio Storaro, Colonel Tom Parker, Pat Morita, Chris Isaak, Derek Jeter, Paul Julian, Chris O’Donnell, Sean Hayes is 52, Wallace Tripp, Makeup man Dick Smith (the Exorcist).

1496- Michelangelo Buonarotti arrived in Rome to look for work. Coming from the city of Florence he was treated like the citizen of a foreign country. 

1888- Scots writer Robert Louis Stevenson shipped out from San Francisco to wander the South Pacific, and finally settle in Samoa.

1906- The first Grand Prix automobile race was held at Le Mans, France. The winner was Hungarian Ferenic Szisz with a top speed of 63 miles an hour! Szisz also was sporting those newfangled rubber tires on rims, which change faster than regular wooden wheels.

1922- Montgomery’s Country House opened in the Los Feliz Area of LA. Started by Walter van de Kamp and Lawrence Frank. In 1926 it changed its name to The Tam O’ Shanter. For a time it was also called The Great Scot. In the 1930s it was the nearest bar to Walt Disney’s Hyperion Studio, so animators called it “the commissary”. It is still in business today. Walt Disney’s favorite table is marked.

1924 - The Ziegfeld Follies opened on Broadway.

1925- Charlie Chaplin has a lavish Hollywood premiere for his new film The Gold Rush.

He had edited the film in secret in an upstairs hotel room in Salt Lake City to keep away from his first wife’s bill collectors.

1925- From his Soho London flat, John Logie Baird invented an early form of television. The Boob Tube has no one single Tom Edison-like inventor, but many claimants. The Englishman joined the ranks of others who claimed to have invented TV first, including Philo Farnsworth, Bell Labs, Vladimir Zworkin, and Dr. Lee DeForrest.

1927- The Cyclone Rollercoaster ride debuted at Coney Island Amusement Park. It was built on the site of the Switchback Railway, the oldest rollercoaster. 

1949- Fred Allen’s last radio show was broadcast.

1959- Disney short Donald in Mathamagic Land premiered with the film Darbie O’Gill and the Little People.

1964 - Beatles release "A Hard Day's Night" album.

1965-"Hey, Mr. Tambourine Man " by the Byrds hits number one on the US pop charts. Bob Dylan wrote the lyrics. William Shatners version became the most well known.

1977 - Elvis Presley does his last public performance, in Indianapolis.

1984- Campy singer Tiny Tim married Miss Vicky on the Johnny Carson show during a live broadcast.

1997- a novel called "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone," the product of five years’ work by a new writer named J.K. Rowling with her own drawings, was published by Bloomsbury in the UK with an initial print run of five hundred copies. It became a worldwide phenomenon. In 5 years J.K. Rowling was the richest woman in England after Queen Elizabeth II and Madonna.

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Tom Sito's Animation Almanac for June 25, 2023

Birthday: George Orwell, Marc Charpentier, Lord Louis Mountbatten, General Hap Arnold, Cajun musician Clifton Chenier, Sidney Lumet, Walter Brennan, Willis Reed, George Abbott, Carly Simon, June Lockhart, Alex Toth, Peyo (the creator of the Smurfs), Patrick Macnee, Jimmy Dyne-no-Mite Walker, George Michaels, Anthony Bourdain, Justice Sonya Sotomayor, Mike Myers is 60, Ricky Gervais is 62.

1835- Antoine Baron Gros was a celebrated painter under Napoleon and a friend of David and Ingres. But politics and tastes change. In a royalist postwar France dominated by Delacroix and Gericault, Baron Gros lived on forgotten and melancholy. This day the 64 year old artist drowned himself in the Seine.

Mrs. Libby Custer lived until 1933 and met FDR. The last living eyewitness of the battle, Mrs. Kate Bighead of the Cheyenne who was taken on the battlefield by her mother as a young child, died in 1959.

1870- Richard Wagner's opera Die Walkure (The Valkyrie) premiered in Munich. 

1910- First performance of Stravinsky's ballet "Firebird" by Diagheilev and his Ballet Russe.  Stravinsky used to refer to the dancers as "A bunch of knock-kneed Lolitas".

1934- Milt Kahl's first day at the Walt Disney Studios. It was said he was the first artist to ever show Walt a real portfolio of drawings to get hired.

1940- Young actor, and liberal labor activist Ronald Reagan married his first wife, actress Jane Wyman.

1949- Chuck Jones Bugs Bunny short “Longhaired Hare” premiered. “Leopold!”

1951- After losing a power struggle to Dory Schary, Louis B. Mayer announced he was stepping down as head of MGM. Mayer in his time was the most powerful man in Hollywood. He kept an all white office modeled after Mussolini’s in Rome. 

1951 - 1st color TV broadcast-CBS' Arthur Godfrey from NYC to 4 cities.

1953- The film Robot Monster premiered. It has attained cult film status as being one of the worst movies ever made. The lead actor only got the part of the monster because he owned a gorilla suit. After reading the reviews, the director Phil Tucker tried to kill himself.

1967- The "Our World" Beatles concert, the first television event to attempt a worldwide satellite linkup. They sing and record "All You Need is Love" live in front of an audience of 400.

1980- Disney’s film Herbie Goes Bananas, premiered.

1981- Bill Gates and Paul Allen file papers to incorporate their company Microsoft.

1982- Ridley Scott’s sci-fi film Blade Runner opened. 

1997- Disney's animated film Hercules opened in theaters.

2009- Singer Michael Jackson, called the King of Pop, died after his personal physician Dr. Conrad Murray administered a powerful sedative named Propofol to help him sleep and it stopped his heart instead. He was 50 and been performing on stage since the age of 5.

June 24, 2023

Birthdays: Earl Kitchener, the Sirdar of Omdurman, Roy O. Disney, E.I. Dupont, Ambrose Bierce, Jack Dempsey, John Ciardi, Mick Fleetwood, Phil Harris- singer and voice of Baloo in Disney’s Jungle Book, Billy Casper, Michelle Lee, Claude Chabrol, Chief Dan George, Pete Hamill, Peter Weller, Sherry Springfield

1497- English explorer John Cabot discovered Canada  -Eh! 

1889- The Bank of Telluride Colorado was robbed by a lapsed Mormon miner named Robert Parker, who now called himself Butch Cassidy. 

1901- The first exhibit in a Paris salon on the Rue Lafitte of a Spanish artist named Pablo Picasso.

1945- Meet the Press debuted on radio. Two years later it moved to television and it remains TV’s longest running program.

1947- THE FIRST MODERN UFO SIGHTING. A commercial airline pilot flying out of Seattle notices 6 silver disc shaped objects hovering over Mt. Reynier near Seattle. They then shot off at terrific speed. They are never identified nor explained. The pilot, Kenneth Arnold had impeccable credentials as an ex-combat Marine pilot and chamber of commerce member. The government response was to hit him with an IRS audit. The "flying-saucer" craze, with allegorical overtones to postwar atomic paranoia, sweeps the American imagination throughout the 1950’s.

1949 - "Hopalong Cassidy" became the first network western on television-NBC.

1963 - 1st demonstration of a home video recorder, at BBC Studios, London

1970 – The Mike Nichols movie "Catch 22" opened in movie theaters.

1994- Walt Disney’s The Lion King opened in regular theaters. 

1997- Brian Keith, actor (Family Affair, The Parent Trap), shot himself at 75. He was suffering from incurable emphysema and lung cancer and tired of fighting the disease.

Tom Sito's animation almanac for June 23, 2023

Birthdays: Roman Emperor Augustus, Josephine Bonaparte, Alan Turing, Bob Fosse, James Levine, Dan Ogilvy of Ogilvy & Mather, Joss Whedon, Dr. Alfred Kinsey the sex researcher, Edward VIII, aka the Duke of Windsor, Selma Blair, Justice Clarence Thomas, Josh Whedon is 60, Frances MacDormand is 63

1868- Christopher Latham Scholes patented the typewriter. In 1873, he sold his patent to the Remington Company, who up till now had only made rifles. 

1944- Disney short Springtime for Pluto released.

1963- In Disneyland the Enchanted Tiki Room opened with the first animatronics (the birds).

1972- Title IX passed by the US Government. It called for women’s collegiate sports to be funded equally as the men’s sports. 

1976- Work completed on Toronto’s CN Tower. Called then the world’s tallest free-standing structure.

1979- The Knack released the single My Sharona.

1989- Tim Burton’s film " Batman" opened.

1989- Disney’s Honey I Shrank the Kids opened with the Roger Rabbit short Tummy Trouble.

1995- Walt Disney’s Pocahontas went into general release.

Tom Sito's Animation Almanac for June 22, 2023

Birthdays: Captain George Vancouver, Eric Maria Remarque, John Dillinger, Anne Morrow Lindbergh, Mike Todd, Billy Wilder, Joe Papp, Bill Blass, Oskar Fischinger, Pistol Pete Maravich, Klaus Maria Brandauer is 80, Graham Greene is 71, Ed Bradley, Emmanuelle Seigner, Prunella Scales, Meryl Streep is 74, Konrad Zuse, Kris Kristofferson, Paul Frees,

1894 - Harry Houdini married Bessie Rahner. She remained devoted to him even after his death. Every Halloween for twenty years she held a séance to try and contact him.

1933- Max Fleischer promoted Lillian Friedman to be the first woman animator in American commercial animation. She animated a test, drawing Betty Boop and with the connivance of a camera woman, had it filmed without a name slate. Then she had it screened in front of the crew at dailies. Dave Fleischer said "Hire that guy!" "It's a girl", he was told. So, Lillian Friedman (Astor) was hired at 25 dollars a week when the male animators were making up to $125.00. I asked her about this and she said "It was the Depression and I was supporting my husband who was out of work. I wasn't angry then, but I am angry now."

 

1941- Walt Disney assistant animator Bill Hurtz married Mary Whitney, one of Walt Disney’s secretaries. Hurtz later went on to become an award winning director at UPA.

1966 – The Mike Nichols film "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" opened. Based on the play by Edward Albee and starring Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor. It was the first American movie to use four letter cuss words. Just a year before comedian Lenny Bruce had gone to jail for saying the same words, although everyone including President Johnson swore in everyday parlance.

1969- Singer actress Judy Garland OD’s on sleeping pills. She was 47. Whether it was an accident or a suicide we will never know. A pillhead from early age, she had gotten hooked when MGM chief Louis B. Mayer ordered studio nurses to put her on amphetamines so she would have the energy to finish the Wizard of Oz.  Fellow contract actress June Allyson explained- “You didn’t argue when the nurses brought them to you. They told us they were vitamins!” 

1970- President Nixon signed the law lowering the voting age in the U.S. from 21 to 18.

1977- Walt Disney’s The Rescuers opened in theaters.

1978 - James Christy's discovery of Pluto's moon Charon announced.

1990- A signal of the end of the Cold War, "Checkpoint Charlie" the main dividing gate between East and West Berlin was dismantled. John Le Carre' and other spy novel writers mourned. There is a replica and a Cold War Museum at the site today.

2012- Pixar’s Brave came out. Written and directed by Brenda Chapman-Lima.

2012- Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter opened. 

Tom Sito's animation almanac for June 21, 2023

Birthdays: Martha Washington, Alexander Pope, Berkeley Breathed, Al Hirschfeld, Al Martinez, Jean-Paul Sartre, Judy Holliday, Benazir Bhutto, Jane Russell, Mariette Hartley, Bernie Koppel, Rick Sutcliffe, Maureen Stapleton, Joe Flagherty, Juliet Lewis, Tony Scott, Chris Pratt is 42, Prince William the Duke of Cambridge is 41. 

1866- First recorded train robbery by Jesse James.

1871- The Los Angeles Star newspaper announced the first trainload of pretzels had reached town!

1879 - F W Woolworth opens his 1st five and ten cent store.

1893- The FERRIS WHEEL -George Washington Ferris, Jr. decided that the Columbia Exhibition, to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Columbus' discovery, needed to surpass the French Eiffel Tower (introduced in 1889 during the centennial celebration of the French Revolution). So he created his wheel so each compartment could hold 12 people plus a butler in a parlor-like atmosphere and rotate them 250 feet in the air.  People were afraid they would gasp for oxygen up so high but it was a big hit anyway. 

1907 - E W Scripps founded United Press Agency.

1939- Eugene O’Neill’s wife Carlotta wrote in her diary- “Gene kept me up all night talking about his outline for a new play about his family”- The Long Days Journey into Night. It took him two years to write, and it almost killed him.

1947- To silence a jeering crowd of racists at a Brooklyn Dodgers-Cincinnati game, Kentucky native PeeWee Reese put his arm around Jackie Robinson. 

1948- The Mark I computer, built at the Victoria University of Manchester by Frederic C. Williams, Tom Kilburn and Geoff Tootill, and ran its first program this day. The first computer that could store a program and re-open it.

1948- Columbia Records introduced the 33 1/3-rpm long playing record, the LP. Inventor Peter Goldmark was annoyed that he had to change his 78 rpm records several times to hear just one Brahms Symphony. He decided to invent a way to fit all of a symphony on one side of a record.  His immediate supervisors told him to stop it because people would not throw away all their 78 rpm records to replace them with his. So Goldmark went over their heads to CBS chief William Paley and Paley loved the idea. RCA and David Sarnoff tried to compete with the 45-rpm record, but all it was good for was singles. The 33 1/3 dominated recording until replaced by the Compact Disc in the 1980’s.

1965- The Byrds release record Hey Mr. Tambourine Man. 

1978 - Andrew Lloyd Webber & Tim Rice's musical "Evita," premieres in London.

1988- Who Framed Roger Rabbit? premiered at Radio City Music Hall.  It opened generally three days later.

1991- Disney’s The Rocketeer premiered. Based on Dave Stevens comic book.

1996- Walt Disney’s Hunchback of Notre Dame opened in theaters.

1998- Paleontologists in Canada announced the discovery of the largest Tyrannosaurus turd ever found. The search intensified for a T-Rex with a relaxed look on his face.

2008- Pixar’s WALL-E premiered at the Greek Theater in Los Angeles.

TOM SITO'S ANIMATION ALMANAC FOR June 20, 2023

Birthdays: Wolf Tone, Jacques Offenbach, Lillian Hellman, Errol Flynn, Audie Murphy,

Andre Watts, Cyndee Lauper, Bob Vila, Chet Atkins, Stephen Frears, Brian Wilson, Robert Rodriquez, John Goodman, Martin Landau, John Mahoney, Nicole Kidman is 56

1936- Mickey short Moving Day premiered.

1940- Peruvian Artist Alberto Vargas signed a contract with Esquire Magazine to paint the ‘Vargas Girls’, glamour pin ups that made the magazine famous. He replaced artist George Petty who was demanding $1,500 a week. Vargas was paid $75 a week. When Esquire cut him loose, Hugh Hefner put him on salary at Playboy until he retired in 1978. Today an original Vargas goes for $350,000.

1941-Walt Disney's "the Reluctant Dragon" premiered, with cartoonist's pickets around the Pantages Theater in Hollywood. Police actually have to close part of Hollywood Blvd. out of concern for what the rampaging animators might do. Future UPA producer Steve Bosustow drove up in a limo and picketed in tuxedo and top hat. His chauffeur was Maurice Noble, the designer of the Road Runner cartoons. Ironically the movie was part documentary about how wonderful life was working at the Disney studio.

1948- The TV show "Toast of the Town" later to be “the Ed Sullivan Show” premiered. Sullivan's show was the showcase that brought new acts like Elvis Presley, the Beatles, Senor Wences and the Rolling Stones into the average American living room. Prior to this, Ed Sullivan was a columnist and radio show personality.

1974- Roman Polanski’s film Chinatown opened.

1975- Steven Spielberg’s movie Jaws opened, bringing back the monster-hit summer event movie. Universal called that summer, “The Summer of the Shark.” 

Tom Sito's animation almanac for June 19, 2023

Birthdays: Euclid, Blaise Pascal, King James I Stuart, Wallis Simpson Duchess of Windsor, Moe Howard, Lou Gehrig, Guy Lombardo, Mildred Natwick, Charles Coburn, Pat Butram, Louis Jourdan, Pauline Kael, Salman Rushdie, Dame Mae Whitty, Lucie Sloane, Ang Sung Soo Chi, Kathleen Turner is 69, Paula Abdul is 61, Zoe Saldana is 45, Gena Rowlands is 93.

1619- THE OLD GLOBE THEATER FIRE. During a performance of William Shakespeare’s Henry VIII, a prop cannon fired a salute that set afire the straw thatch on the roof. Soon the blaze consumed the old theater. Shakespeare, as a partner in the company that owned the Globe, paid to rebuild it.  He soon retired home to Stratford. Fifty years later, during Cromwell’s Puritan rule, the Globe was pulled down because the Puritans frowned on theatrical entertainment as ungodly.

1867- The first Belmont Stakes horse race. The winner was Ruthless.

1889- Beginning of the Sherlock Holmes adventure, the Man with the Twisted Lip.

1921- Distributer Amadee van Beuren announced production of a new series of "Aesop’s Fables" cartoons to be done by former Bray director Paul Terry. Terrytoons studio is born.

1923 - "Moon Mullins," a Comic Strip, debuts.

1934- The Federal Communications Commission, or FCC, created.

1941 - Cheerios Cereal invented. Originally called Cheery-Oats, it was changed to Cheerios in 1945. 

1951-Happy Birthday Taz!  Devil May Hare, short by Bob McKimson, introduced the Tasmanian Devil.

1952 - "I've Got a Secret" debuts on CBS-TV with Garry Moore as host.

1956- The comedy team of Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis announced their breakup.

1956- Don Bluth’s first day at the Walt Disney Studio. 

1960- Freedomland amusement park opened in the north Bronx, New York. Several of its designers like Harper Goff had worked on Walt Disney’s Disneyland. 

1963- The Ray Harryhausen fantasy film Jason and the Argonauts premiered.

1963- The Canadian Football Hall of Fame formed.

1964- The Condor Club of San Francisco became the first modern club to offer topless dancers. Carol Doda became the first topless waitress, and a mainstay of San Francisco’s nightclub scene. She augmented her already ample bosom to 44 inches with silicon implants. She joked: "I dunno, I guess I just expanded in the heat!" 

1973- The Rocky Horror Show stage show opened in London. The film version became a midnight cult classic. Writer Richard O’Brien himself played the doorman Riff-Raff. Let’s do the Time Warp Again.

1978 – Garfield the Cat, created by Jim Davis, 1st appeared as a comic strip.

1983- Don Bluth’s video arcade game Dragons Lair debuted.

1987 - Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream & Grateful Dead's Jerry Garcia announce a new Ice Cream flavor, Cherry Garcia. Jerry is gone, but Cherry Garcia rocks on.

1987 –David Geffen Records signed their 1st artist -Donna Summer.

1998- Disney’s Mulan went into wide release. 

Tom Sito's animation almanac for June 18, 2023

Birthdays: M C Escher, Charles Gounod, James Montgomery Flagg, Kay Kayser, William Lassell 1799- English astronomer who discovered Neptune's moon Triton,  Richard Boone,  Jeanette MacDonald, Key Luke, Isabella Rosselini, E.G. Marshall, Roger Ebert, Eduard Daladier, Carol Kane, Sammy Kahn,  The Quay Brothers, Paul McCartney is 81

Happy Father's Day- It was organized by the Spokane, Washington members of the local YMCA and Spokane Ministerial Assoc. Father’s Day was celebrated for 1st time in 1910

1892 - Macadamia nuts first planted in Hawaii.

1898 - 1st amusement pier opens in Atlantic City, NJ

1903 - 1st transcontinental auto trip begins in SF; arrives NY 3-mo later

1913- composer Cole Porter graduated from Yale.

1923- The first Checker Cab was manufactured in Chicago. The big, boxy, durable Checkers were the most famous American city taxicabs until phased out in the 1980s.

1931- New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art had in its collection a little blue statue of a Hippo from the tomb of the Egyptian Steward Senbi from the Twelfth Dynasty. People nicknamed it Willie. This day an article about Willie with a color picture appeared in Punch Magazine. Soon museum craftsmen made little replicas of Willie that they gave as gifts to donors and eventually started  selling to the public. The massive retail business in museum reproductions and merchandise we have today all began with little Willie the Hippo.

1959 - 1st TV telecast transmitted from England to US.

1967- At the Monterey Pop Rock festival Jimi Hendrix electrified the audience then finished his set by burning and smashing his guitar on stage. Until then musicians didn’t behave in such a way towards their instruments. Ravi Shankar was particularly shocked.

1969- Sam Peckinpah’s film “The Wild Bunch” opened. With William Holden, Warren Oates, Robert Ryan and Ernest Borgnine.

1980 –"We are on a mission from God." John Landis movie " The Blues Brothers" with Dan Ackroyd & John Belushi premiered.

1983- Sally Ride becomes the first U.S. woman in Space. Russian Valentina Tereshkova had gone up in 1963.

2021- Pixar’s Luca opened, directed by Enrico Casarosa.

Tom Sito Animation Almanac for June 17, 2023

Birthdays: King Edward I "Longshanks", John Wesley the founder of the Methodists, Wally Wood, Ralph Bellamy, Dean Martin, Barry Manilow, Joe Piscopo is 72, Newt Gingrich, Martin Bormann, Jason Patric, Ken Loach, Greg Kinnear is 59, Venus Williams, Thomas Haden Church is 63, Will Forte is 53

1885- The pieces of the Statue of Liberty arrive from France. Some assembly required...

1893- Cracker Jacks invented by RW Reuckheim. Their name came from Teddy Roosevelt sampling the caramel corn, and exclaimed “These are Crackerjack!”- popular slang back then for something very good.

1919 - "Barney Google" cartoon strip, by Billy De Beck, premiered.

1946- The first mobile telephone was installed in an automobile in St. Louis, Missouri.

1964- The first Universal Studios tram car tour. Carl Laemmle had been inviting tourists in for a nickel to sit in bleachers and watch movies be filmed as early as 1915.

1968- Ohio Express’ single “Yummy, Yummy, Yummy I got love in my Tummy” went gold.

1990- The Battle of Century City- Police attacked 500 striking building maintenance workers and janitors, mostly Central American immigrants, for trying to form a union.

1994- THE WHITE BRONCO CHASE- Movie actor and Hall of Fame football player O.J. Simpson was wanted for questioning about the grisly murder of his second wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her boyfriend Ron Goldman. This day OJ tried to escape. He and his football friend Al Cowlings led police on a strange slow-speed pursuit for two hours around the freeways of Los Angeles as the world watched amazed on live television. He eventually was convinced to surrender. OJ Simpson was acquitted of murder in a controversial trial, but found guilty in a civil wrongful death suit. 

2016- Pixar’s Finding Dori opened, the Sequel to Finding Nemo, directed by Andrew Stanton

Tom Sito's Animation Almanac for JUne 16, 2023

Birthdays: Stan Laurel, Willy Boskovsky, Joyce Carol Oates, Nelson Doubleday, Brian Eno, animator Pete Burness, Martha Graham, Erich Segal, Jack Albertson, Helen Traubel, Ron LeFlore, Tupac Shakur, Laurie Metcalf, Sonia Braga is 74, John Cho is 51.

1884 - On Coney Island Amusement Pier the Switchback Railway, the first roller coaster began operating.

1897- Congress approves the treaty to annex the Kingdom of Hawaii.

1902- A musical play of L Frank Baum’s fantasy story the Wizard of Oz premiered at Chicago’s Grand Opera House. Like Jules Verne’s Around the World in Eighty Days, the play was a bigger success than the original book. When Baum was writing down the stories at one point he was stuck for a name for the magical kingdom. He looked down at his desk files that were labeled A-N and O-Z. 

1903 – The Pepsi Cola Company formed.

1904- "Blume's Day" all the actions in James Joyce's "Ulysses" takes place on this one day in Dublin. This day Dubliners dress up as characters from the book and do readings.

1932- Broadway star Mae West heads west for Hollywood to make movies.

1939- Bandleader Chick Webb died at age 30. Webb was an unlikely pop star, a crooked backed, tuberculate little person who played drums. But his band The Chick Webb Orchestra pioneered the new Jazz form called Swing Music and inspired the Big Band Sound. One of Webb’s last actions before succumbing to his debilitating health problems was to make a star out of 19-year-old street singer named Ella Fitzgerald.

1943- 54 year old actor Charlie Chaplin married his fourth wife, 18 year old Oona O’Neill. She was the daughter of playwright Eugene O’Neill. In Hollywood, Chaplin’s nickname in Hollywood was “Chickenhawk Charlie” for his fondness for underage girls. Oona did remain his wife until the end of his life in 1971.

1947 –The 1st regular broadcast network news show began-Dumont's "News from Washington”.

1951- Chuck Jones short, “Chow Hound”. Don’t forget the gravy.

1952- The CBS television comedy My Little Margie premiered. It starred Gale Storm and Charlie Farrell. 

1955- Disney’s Lady and the Tramp premiered.

1959- Actor George Reeves, who played the 1950s television Superman, went upstairs after a dinner party and shot himself with a Luger pistol.  Actor Gig Young, who was a friend of Reeves, said the actor 's career was going well, he was getting his first directing jobs, and his love life was fine. He never believed the actor would shoot himself. Gig Young shot himself in 1981. 

1960- Alfred Hitchcock's thriller "Psycho" premiered. “ Oh Mother! What have you done?”

1963- Cosmonaut Valentina Tereschkova was the first woman to go into space.

1967- The film “The Dirty Dozen” debuted. 

1987- Italian porn star Ciccolina announced that since all politicians were whores and she was a whore, she would run for office. This made sense to Italians, who this day elected her overwhelmingly to a seat in Parliament.

2002- The Premiere of Lilo and Stitch, written and directed by Chris Sanders & Dean Deblois.

2018- Brad Birds’ The Incredibles 2 opened in theaters.

Tom Sito's Animation Almanac for June 15, 2023

Birthdays: Edward the Black Prince of England, Rachael Donelson Jackson- Andy Jackson’s First Lady, Edvard Grieg, Saul Steinburg, Mario Cuomo, Jim Varney, Wade Boggs, Waylon Jennings, Xaviera Hollander the Happy Hooker, Jim Belushi, Neil Adams, Roger Chiasson, Michael Barrier, Ice Cube is 54, Neil Patrick Harris is 50, Courtenay Cox is 59, Helen Hunt is 60, Lang Lang is 41

Happy St. Vitus Day! "If St. Vitus Day be rainy weather, shall rain for thirty days together. "St. Vitus was the patron of epilepsy, and some extreme forms of seizure (chorea) was called "St. Vitus Dance".

1945- Judy Garland married director Vincente Minnelli. Lisa Minnelli was one result.

1951- Comedian Lenny Bruce married a stripper named Honey Stuart.

1969- The country music comedy TV show Hee-Haw premiered as a summer replacement for the Smothers Brothers Hour. Hee Haw ran for years with high ratings but CBS cancelled the show anyway. This was because CBS chief Bill Paley disliked country music.  CBS had so many shows like Mayberry RFD, Beverly Hillbillies and Hee Haw, that insiders joked that CBS stood for the Country Broadcasting System. Hee Haw had the last laugh, going on to a successful syndication run for decades. 

1977- Everybody Disco! KC and the Sunshine band release “I’m your Boogie Man”.

1983- Rowan Atkinson’s The Black Adder TV comedy premiered on BBC.

1985 Studio Ghibli was founded, headed by the directors Hayao Miyazaki and Isao Takahata and producer Toshio Suzuki.The studio was founded after the success of the 1984 film NAUSICAA OF THE VALLEY OF THE WIND written and directed by Miyazaki for Topcraft and distributed by Toei Company. The name Ghibli was coined by Hayao Miyazaki in reference to the Caproni Ca.309 Ghibli airplane. The Italian noun "ghibli" is based on the Arabic name for the sirocco, or Mediterranean wind, the idea being the studio would "blow a new wind through the anime industry".

1990- Warren Beatty’s movie version of Dick Tracy opened. Accompanied by the second Roger Rabbit short Roller Coaster Rabbit. Directed by Rob Minkoff.

1994- Walt Disney’s The Lion King premiere. 

2002- Mick Jagger of the Rolling Stones was knighted.

Tom Sito's Animation Almanac for June 14, 2023

Birthdays: Tomaso Albinioni, Fighting Bob LaFollette, Margaret Bourke-White, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Sam Wanamaker, Cliff Edwards the voice of Jiminy Cricket, Dorothy McGuire, Burl Ives, Gene Barry, Jerzy Kosinski, Diablo Cody is 44, Donald Trump is 77.

1816- Writers Percy Shelley, Lord Byron and Mary Shelley were spending the summer at the Villa Deodati on Lake Geneva. This day among the revels, drinking, partner swapping and opium taking, Byron suggested they all write a ghost story. They all failed except for 19 year old Mary, who invented a story of a Swiss scientist who created an artificial man. She called it Frankenstein.

1834- Isaac Fischer Jr. of Vermont invented sandpaper. 

1865- A group of Englishmen climbed the Materhorn Mountain in Switzerland, inventing the sport of mountain climbing. 

1951- Univac I, built by John W, Mauchly and J. Prosper Eckert Jr. of the Remington Rand Company to be the first U.S. commercial built electronic computer, went online for the census bureau in Philadelphia.

1957- Nelson Mandela married Winnie Mandela.

1959- Three new rides are debuted at Disneyland in Anaheim. The first monorail the Disneyland-Alweg Monorail System, Matterhorn Mountain, and the Submarine Voyage.( the submarine ride had been running since June 5).

1964- THE FIRST HIPPY BUS- Ken Kesey, the author of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, bought an old school bus, painted it psychedelic colors, took of troupe of 14 fellow free spirits called the Merry Pranksters and spent the next few months driving across the country taking LSD and staging Happenings in various cities and towns.

The Bus’s was name Further and its driver was Neil Cassidy, friend of Beatnik author Jack Kerouac. A book documenting the escapades of the "hippy bus" was "The Electric Koolaid Acid Test." Ken Kesey became interested in LSD when he volunteered for a college program to experiment with the drug, secretly funded by the CIA. The Merry Pranksters were invited in 1969 to be the security for the Woodstock Rock Festival.

1977- Skinny Carnaby Street fashion model Twiggy got married to Michael Whitney.

1983- The Pioneer 10 space probe left its orbit around Jupiter and headed off into deep space. NASA lost all contact in 1997. Pioneer 10 is expected to reach the solar system of the star Ross 246 in the Constellation Taurus in the year 34,600 AD. 

1989- Elderly actress Zsa Zsa Gabor was arrested for slapping a Beverly Hills policeman who was writing her a traffic ticket.

1990- Warren Beatty’s film “Dick Tracy” premiered at Disneyworld. And opened generally the next day.

1995- MP3.  The researchers at Fraunhofer Institute for Integrated Circuits decided to use "mp3" as the file name extension for their new audio coding technology. Development on this technology started in 1987. By 1992 it was considered far ahead of its time. MP3 became the generally accepted acronym as the popular standard for digital music on the on the Internet.

2001- The Oxford English Dictionary admitted the slang expletive of Homer Simpson "D’OH!" into its august pages.

2002- An asteroid the size of a football field bypassed the Earth by just 75,000 miles, about one fifth the distance to our moon. If it had hit us, the cataclysm might have rivaled the one that eliminated the dinosaurs. Little was said about it in the media because it came from the direction of the Sun and was undetectable until it was almost on top of us. So, sleep well tonight, modern science is on guard! Nyaaahhhh!!

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Tom Sito's Animation Almanac for June 13, 2023

Birthdays: Gnaeus Agricola- 40AD, Harriet Beecher Stowe, W.B. Yeats, Red Grange, Basil Rathbone, Dorothy Sayers, Ralph Edwards, Paul Lynde, Tim Allen is 70, Darla Hood, Ally Sheedy, Simon Callow is 71, Christo, Ralph McQuarrie, Malcolm McDowell is 80, Stellan Skarsgard is 72, the Olsen Twins are 37, Chris Evans is 42.

 

1920-The US Government ruled Americans cannot mail their children through the Parcel Post System.

1927- Wall St. tickertape parade for Charles Lindbergh.

1941-The American Federation of Labor, the AF of L called for a nationwide boycott of all Disney products and films. This was to support the Disney Cartoonists strike.

1958- Frank Zappa graduated Antelope Valley High School.

1982- Bill the Cat first appeared in the comic strip Bloom County.

2010- Pixar’s Toy Story 3 premiered.

Tom Sito's Almanac for June 12, 2023

Birthdays: Egon Scheile, John Roebling the builder of the Brooklyn Bridge, Uta Hagen, Chick Corea, Sir Anthony Eden, Jim Nabors, Vic Damone, David Rockefeller, Irwin Allen, Marv Albert, Arthur Fellig- better known as Weegee, Sherry Stringfield, George Herbert Walker Bush, Anne Frank, Clyde “Jerry” Geronimi, Richard Sherman of the Sherman Bros is 95.

1817- In Mannheim Germany, Karl von Drais invented something he called a “laufmachine”. Also called a “velocipede” or drasienne” “swiftwalker”, but we call the bicycle. In 1865 a Frenchman added the pedals.

1862- Dashing Confederate cavalry leader Jeb Stuart makes hea

1912- Archaeologist Ludwig Borchardt uncovered the bust of queen Nefertiti, the beauty icon, and the wife of King Akhenaten more than 3,300 years ago. It was created by the artist Thutmose in Amarna around 1345 B.C. Ludwig Borchardt did not have permission to take it to Berlin. He downplayed its importance to Egyptian authorities, then smuggled it out of the country. 

1936- Cooperstown's Baseball Hall of Fame dedicated on the supposed 100th anniversary of Abner Doubleday inventing baseball. We now know that date to be fiction but it was a good party anyway.   Babe Ruth, Christy Mathewson, Ty Cobb, Honus Wagner and Walter Johnson were the first inductees. Doubleday was a Civil War general and the composer of the bugle call "Taps", first called General Doubleday’s Lullaby.

1942- On her birthday, Anne Frank was given a diary.

1949- The first LA parking ticket.

1952- Chief auto designer for Chevrolet Maurice Olley completed work on a sports car originally code-named the Opel, but later released as the Corvette.

1956- Singer/activist Paul Robeson testified to The House UnAmerican Activities Committee. He was called in after he refused to sign an affidavit that he was not a Communist.  Robeson told the committee,” My father was a slave and my people died to build this country, and I am going to stay here and have a part of it, just like you. And no Fascist-minded people, just like you, will drive me from it. Is that clear?” 

1962- In Modesto California, a teenage film student named George Lucas was almost killed in a car accident.

1963- Twentieth Century Fox premiered the Elizabeth Taylor -Richard Burton epic CLEOPATRA. Costing $44 million, $400 million in modern money, four times more than the average film, it remains in comparable dollars the costliest disaster in movie history. 

Fox had to cut 2,000 jobs and almost went bankrupt. The area of LA known as Century City with its huge shopping mall used to be the Fox backlot before Cleopatra. 

1981- Steven Spielberg’s movie Raiders of the Lost Ark premiered.

1987- President Ronald Reagan did his famous Cold War speech in Berlin “Mr. Gorbachov, tear down this wall!” 

1991- In the Philippines, the volcano Mount Pinatubo erupted for the first time in 600 years.

1999- Disney’s Tarzan premiered. Directed by Chris Buck and Kevin Lima.

TOM SITO'S ANIMATION ALMANAC FOR JUNE 11, 2023

Birthdays: Ben Johnson, Richard Strauss, Jacques Cousteau, Nelson Mandela, Bartolomeo Vanzetti, Joe Montana, John Constable, Gustav Courbet, Vince Lombardi, Adrienne Barbeau, William Styron, Chad Everett, race car driver Jackie Stewart, Gene Wilder, Hugh Laurie is 64, Shia LeBoeuf is 37, Peter Dinklage is 54

1878- At a small track at the Palo Alto Stock Farm, English photographer Edweard Muybridge did the first of his Animal Motion Studies. He lined up 25 cameras and filmed California Governor Leyland Stanford’s favorite mare Sallie Gardner at a full gallop. He invited the press, so none could accuse him of doctoring the photos later. They proved that when a horse was in full gallop, all four hooves leave the ground. 

1928 - Alfred Hitchcock's 1st film, "The Case Of Jonathan Drew," is released

1934- the first Mandrake the Magician comic strip.

1936- Shy, quiet, 30 year old Texas writer Robert E. Howard had created the powerful warriors Conan the Barbarian, Kull and single-handedly defined the genre we now call Sword & Sorcery. This day after he learned his mother was dying and would never regain consciousness, he went into his garage and blew his brains out. Some say he had an Oedipal fixation, others that he always intended to end his life and was waiting to spare his mother the pain. On his typewriter he left a short message: "All fled, all done, so lift me upon the pyre. The feast is over and let the lamps expire."

1937 –" Getta’ yu tutsie-frutsie Ice Cream!" the Marx Brothers' "A Day at The Races" premiered.

1959 – The US Postmaster General banned D H Lawrence's novel Lady Chatterley's Lover as pornography. He was overruled by US Court of Appeals in March 1960. 

1964 - Chicago police break up a Rolling Stones press conference.

1964 - Manfred Mann recorded Do Wah Diddy Diddy.

1966 - "Paint It, Black" by The Rolling Stones peaks at #1

1966 - Janis Joplin played her 1st gig in San Francisco.

1977 - Main Street Electrical Parade premiered at Disneyland.

1979- John Wayne died after a long struggle with cancer. He was 73. Many believed his condition began as a result of filming the movie "The Conqueror" near the Nevada Atomic Test site. Half the crew of that film including all the stars and director died of cancer.  When Wayne made a final appearance at the Academy Awards two months earlier, he purchased a small size tuxedo to hide his emaciated frame, but he was still too thin even then. So, he filled it out by wearing a scuba wetsuit underneath. 

1984- In the freewheeling economy of the 1980’s tycoons conducted hostile takeovers of companies by buying most of their stock on margin. When Wall Street corporate raider Saul Steinberg announced he intended to target the ailing Walt Disney Company for takeover, CEO Ron Miller paid him $23 million just to make him go away. The Disney shareholders are outraged at this payment of "greenmail’ and demanded Miller’s resignation, which some say was exactly what Roy Disney had planned.

1993 –Steven Spielberg’s "Jurassic Park" opened. The film set a box office record of $931 million. It was begun with modelers and puppeteers about to do the dinosaurs with go-motion and clay. But after seeing tests using the new 3D CGI –computer graphic imaging software, Steven ordered all of ILM to do it digitally. Jurassic Park was the Jazz Singer-type event that clinched the digital takeover of Hollywood and set the standard for future special effects films.

2002- Fox TV’s show American Idol premiered.

2002- Lilo & Stitch premiered.

Tom Sito's Animation Fun Facts for June 10, 2023

Birthdays: Charles James Stuart “The Old Pretender”, Yamaoka Tesshu (1832- Japanese swordsman), Judy Garland, Saul Bellow, Hattie McDaniel, Frederick Loew (of Lerner & Loew), Howlin’ Wolf, Maurice Sendak, Dorse Lanpher, Harald Sieperman, Gina Gershon is 61, Leilee Sobieski is 40, Jean Triplehorn is 60, Jurgen Prochnow, Elizabeth Hurley is 57, Britain’s Prince Phillip Duke of Edinburgh. 

1860- The Comstock Lode- Near Virginia City Nevada, Old Pancake McGaughlin hit a vein of silver so big and pure that it will eventually yield $300 million dollars worth of ore and make millionaires of men like William Randolph Hearst's father.

1865- Wagners opera Tristan und Isolde premiered in Munich. 

1902 - Patent for the window envelope granted to H F Callahan.

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."

1921- Babe Ruth became top HR champ with #120 runs passing then champ Gavy Cravath. But the Bambino was just getting warmed up.  

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 Sagrada Familia is still scheduled for completion in 2026.

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

1944- A USO troop was entertaining soldiers in Normandy from the back of a truck but they lacked a piano player. They called out to the G.I. audience if anyone could play. A shy cattle rancher’s son from Modesto California came up and played. He did so well his colonel ordered him out of the line and told him to form his own G.I. band. Dave Brubeck’s jazz career began.

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. 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. 

Tom Sito's Animation Almanac for June 9, 2023

Birthdays: Ernesto "Che" Guevara, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Cole Porter, John Bartlett of Bartletts Familiar Quotations, Boy George O’Dowd, Les Paul, Burl Ives, Lash LaRue, Happy Rockefeller, Robert MacNamara, Major Bowes, Carl Neilsen, Jerzy Kosinski, Pierre Salinger, Steffy Graff, Marvin Kalb, Charles-Augustin de Coulomb, physicist who formulated Coulomb's Law, Dr. Alois Alzheimer, Michael J. Fox is 62, Johnny Depp is 60, Natalie Portman (born Neta-Lee Hershlag) is 42

1860- DIME NOVELS & PULP FICTION.  Mr. Erastus Beadle published the first dime novel, Maleska, Indian Wife of the White Hunter by Anna Stephens. Sometimes called the Penny Dreadfuls, pocket-sized stories printed on cheap pulp paper became popular reading. They fantasized the West, extolling two-gun chivalry and virtuous maidens, roaring desperadoes and wild savages. This early form of mass media made celebrities out of characters like Buffalo Bill, Wild Bill Hickok, Black Bart, Billy the Kid and Belle Starr.

1918- Louella Parsons began her Hollywood Gossip column. Louella became one of the most powerful and widely read columnists in Hollywood’s golden age. Stories say Louella got as much pull as she did in the Hearst newspaper empire for helping cover up the killing of director Thomas Ince as well as trying to stifle the release of Orson Welles’ film Citizen Kane. There is a story that Disney animator Frank Thomas spotted her being mean to a waitress while holding court at the Brown Derby. That inspired him to make her the model of the Queen of Hearts in Alice in Wonderland.

1934- Happy Birthday Donald Duck! Walt Disney's short cartoon "The Little Wise Hen". 

1934- The film The Thin Man with William Powell. Myrna Loy and Asta the dog went into general release.

1938 - Dorothy Lathrop wins the 1st Caldecott Medal for outstanding children’s books.

1941- First day shooting on the film, the Maltese Falcon. It was John Huston’s first directorial effort. The story had already been made into a movie twice before, so nobody had high hopes for it. The studio budget was so low, Humphrey Bogart had to wear his own suits on camera.

 

1942 - Anne Frank began her diary.

1943- The Internal Revenue Service introduced the Pay-As-You-Go system of tax collection, or today we know it as tax withholding from your paycheck.

1950- After all appeals fail the first of the Hollywood Ten, screenwriters Dalton Trumbo, Philip Dunne, Alvah Bessie, Waldo Salt, Edward Dymytrk, David Ogden Stewart, Ring Lardner and John Howard Lawson are sentenced to prison. In the L.A. Municipal Jail one felon greeted the writers with a smile and said: "Hi Ya, Hollywood Kids!”

1953 - Elvis Presley graduates from L.C. Humes High School in Memphis, Tennessee.

1976 – Chuck Barris’ the" Gong Show" premiered. Where’s Jean-Jean the Dancing Machine?

2006- Pixar film Cars released.

2160 - Montgomery Edward Scott, called Scotty or Mr. Scott, born in Aberdeen, Scotland, the engineer of the Starship Enterprise in Star Trek. “ Cap’n, Ah dunna know how much more the engines can take!”

Tom Sito's animation almanac for June 8, 2023.

Birthdays: Robert Schumann, Frank Lloyd Wright, Barbara Bush, Admiral David Dixon Porter, Leroy Neiman, Emmanuel Ax, Alexis Smith, Nancy Sinatra, Boz Scaggs, Jerry Stiller, Dana Wynter, British cricketeer Ray Illingsworth, Juliana Margulies, Kanye West, Joan Rivers, Keenan Ivory Wayans is 65. Disney director Gary Trousdale is 63

1786- A New York newspaper advertised that a Mr. Hall of Chatham was currently selling the new Italian confection called Iced Cream. First reference to Ice Cream in the Americas.

1889 –The Red Car cable car began service in LA.

1889 - Start of the Sherlock Holmes Adventure "Boscombe Valley Mystery"

1900 - Start of Sherlock Holmes story the "Adventure of 6 Napoleons"

1912- Carl Laemmle formed Universal Pictures Studio.

1942 - Bing Crosby records "Silent Night".

1942- In a private meeting at the White House, President Franklin Roosevelt asked movie mogul Jack Warner to please make a movie showing our new ally the Soviet Union to the American people in a positive light. The movie “MISSION TO MOSCOW” starring Walter Huston put a rosy spin on Stalin’s regime and even made excuses for his genocidal political purges. After the war and FDR’s death, angry conservative politicians conducting the House un-American Activities Committee went after Warner Bros over MISSION TO MOSCOW. Everyone who worked on the film got in trouble with HUAC and had to apologize.

1946- Bob Clampett's cartoon 'Kitty Kornered' premiered, one of the earliest of Sylvester the Cat. “ I like cheese…” SMACK! 

1948 - "Milton Berle Show" Uncle Miltie- premiered on NBC TV.

1949- During the Hollywood Blacklist, today an FBI report named actors Paul Muni, Frederick March, Edward G. Robinson, Paul Robeson and Dorothy Parker as reds. They had no proof, mostly anonymous accusers.  Robinson was blacklisted, but never called upon to testify before the committee to clear his name. He said, “It’s like I was accused of being a rabbit. I am not a rabbit, but how do we know if you cannot prove you’re not a rabbit?” 

1950- Universal pictures released 'Winchester '73', the first film in which the star James Stewart negotiated for a backend percentage of the profits. Stewart's agent was Lew Wasserman, the head of MCA and mentor of Steven Spielberg.

1962- Twentieth Century Fox fired Marilyn Monroe for her erratic, druggy behavior on the set of “Something’s Got to Give”, and cancelled the picture. Monroe went into a tailspin that would lead to her suicide four weeks later. Even after her death, Fox sued her estate for $80,000. 

1966- The American football leagues NFL and AFL announce their merger.

1968 - Rolling Stones release "Jumpin' Jack Flash".

1969- "The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour," last aired. The show was canceled by CBS, not for bad ratings, but because its format highlighted liberal and anti-Vietnam War performers like Buffy Saint-Marie, Bob Dylan and Pete Seeger.  Producer Tommy Smothers was constantly battling nervous network executives to let Seeger sing songs like “Big Muddy”, a direct criticism of U.S. war policy. Finally, when former President Lyndon Johnson personally called CBS chief Bill Paley to complain, the show was yanked.  When writer/singer Mason Williams learned the Smothers Brothers Show was canceled, he planned to make an enormous pie to throw at the eye logo on the CBS building, but they threatened to sue him for trespassing if he actually staged the stunt...

1969 - Rolling Stones guitarist Mick Taylor replaces Brian Jones.

1983- The films "Trading Places," & "Gremlins," premiered.

1984- Ivan Reitmans’ film "Ghostbusters" premiered. Who you gonna call..?

1984- Donald Duck officially became a member of the Screen Actors Guild- SAG.

1986- NBC was bought by General Electric. David Letterman joked about now having to interview toaster ovens on his show. 

2018- John Lasseter, director of hit movies like Toy Story, stepped down from the leadership of Pixar and Walt Disney Animation due to “Me-To” harassment complaints made against him. 

Tom Sito's Animation Almanac for June 7, 2023

Birthdays: Pope Gregory XIII, Beau Brummel, Paul Gauguin, Chick Corea, George Szell, Watergate congressman Peter Rodino, Tom Jones, Jessica Tandy, James Ivory, Virginia McKenna, Prince, Ken O’Connor, Liam Neeson is 71, Bill Hader, animator Dean DeBlois

1930- Mines Field was rededicated as Los Angeles Municipal Airport. (LAX)

1937- Screen goddess Jean Harlow, the original Platinum Blonde, died of kidney failure. She was only 26.

1946- In 1939 the BBC had begun broadcasting on the new medium of television. On Sept 3rd, they interrupted a broadcast of the 1933 Walt Disney cartoon Mickey’s Gala Premiere to announce the declaration of war with Germany, WW2. They shut down for the duration. Seven years later, on this day, BBC-1 television restarted back up with this announcement. “ Good Afternoon. Well now, where were we?” And they started by running the same Mickey cartoon again.

1954- Scientist Alan Turing helped break the WWII German Enigma Code, and is considered one of the fathers of the computer. Some people referred to early computers as Turing Machines. He predicted one day computers would be able to think like humans, and one day we would play games on our computers. But when Turing was revealed to be gay, he lost his top security clearance and was sentenced to a mental institution to undergo chemical castration. He was convicted with the same law used to jail Oscar Wilde in 1895. Alan Turing was a fan of the Disney film Snow White. This day he laced an apple with cyanide and bit into it. He was 42.

1955- The TV quiz show, The $64,000 Question premiered.

1975- This day Sony announced the first home videotape playing system, the Betamax. They were about $25,000 each, but we were promised as they became more popular the price would come down. 

1993- Rockstar Prince celebrated his birthday by changing his name to a funny symbol no keyboard can reproduce and no one can say. He did it because of a dispute with Warner Records who said because of his contract he could not issue recordings under his own name. In 2000 he switched back to Prince.

2002 –Kim Possible premiered on TV.

Tom Sito's Animation Almanac for June 6, 2023

Birthdays: Diego Velasquez, Pierre Corneille. Alexandre Pushkin, Nathan Hale, John Trumbull, Thomas Mann, The Dalai Lama, Klaus Tennestedt, Bjorn Borg, Richard Crane, Dr. Karl Braun, Walter Chrysler, Isaiah Berlin, Aram Khachaturian, Jason Issacs, Sam Simon (Simpsons Producer), Sandra Bernhard is 68, Paul Giamatti is 56, Aaron Sorkin is 62, Angelo Moriondo 1851, Inventor of the expresso machine.

1683- The world’s first public museum, the Ashmolean, was opened. English archaeologist Elias Ashmole donated his collection of curiosities to Oxford University for the students to study. A building was commissioned from Christopher Wren and the museum opened to the public this day.

1929- Luis Bunuel and Salvador Dali’ surrealist masterpiece Un Chien Andalou ( The Andalusian Dog) premiered at the Teatre des Ursulines in Paris. All the modernist artists were present like Picasso, Andre Breton and Jean Cocteau. Bunuel had filled his pockets with rocks, in case the crowd hated the film and he needed to defend himself, but it was warmly received.

1933-The first Drive In movie opened in Camden, New Jersey. 25 cents a car. Richard Hollingshead, a young entrepreneur, devised a way to offer comfortable movie watching to the public by experimenting in his own driveway.

1939- Playright Eugene O’Neill had hit a dry spell of no writing and dread of his impending Parkinsons disease. This day he got the inspiration to sketch out outlines for two plays- The Iceman Cometh, and Long Days Journey into Night.

1941- Actor George Raft wrote a memo to studio head Jack Warner reminding him of his contractual commitment to send Raft only good quality scripts. The latest he got: " The Maltese Falcon" he thought was “a lousy substandard idea, that has no chance." Humphrey Bogart did the film instead.

1944- D-DAY, the NORMANDY INVASION- General Dwight Eisenhower launched 6,000 ships, 14,000 planes and 156,000 troops on the shores of Nazi occupied France with the order: "Okay. Let's go." 

 In the assault were voiceover actor Paul Frees, Disney key assistant Dale Oliver, Marvel cartoonist Jack Kirby, and Disney/Warner development artist Victor Haboush. Peanuts creator Charles Schulz was in the second wave to Utah Beach. Ernest Hemingway was in a landing craft among other war correspondents. James Doohan (Scotty in Star Trek) was a Canadian officer and was wounded and Alec Guinness was in the Royal Navy. On Omaha Beach, war photographer Robert Capa leaped into the surf before the landing barges reached shore and walking backwards with the whole Nazi army shooting at him to photograph the first G.I.s landing.  His 22 rolls of film were later ruined by an inept lab developer. Only three photos remain.

1949- Comic strip character Joe Palooka gets married to Ann Howe.

1949-BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING- George Orwell's book about technological tyranny -1984 was first published. Orwell's working title was "The Last Free Man", but the publisher thought it too depressing to sell. So, Orwell picked the date 1984, who's only significance was that it was the year he was writing 1948- reversed.

1952- Disney short Susie, the Little Blue Coupe, directed by Clyde Geronimi. From a story by Bill Peet. The anthropomorphized cars became the inspiration for Pixar’s Cars movies.

1955 - Bill Haley & Comets, "Rock Around the Clock" hits #1.

1959-The Submarine Voyage attraction opened in Disneyland's updated Tomorrowland. The 8 vessels are named Nautilus, Seawolf, Skate, Skipjack, Triton, George Washington, Patrick Henry, and Ethan Allen.  Originally painted to look like USN nuclear subs, after the VietNam war they repainted them explorer yellow.

1972 - David Bowie released "Rise & Fall of Ziggy Stardust"

1976- The Glendale Galleria shopping mall in Glendale Cal. opened.

1984- In Moscow, 29 year old mathematics Professor Alexey Pajitnov invented the game Tetris. 

1991 - NBC announced Jay Leno would replace retiring Johnny Carson, winning out over David Letterman. Letterman moved to CBS.

2007- The Mighty Ducks of Anaheim California, named for a Walt Disney comedy movie, won the Stanley Cup after defeating the Ottawa Senators. It is the first Stanley Cup won by a west coast team since 1925.

TOM SITO'S ANIMATION ALMANAC FOR JUNE 5, 2023

Birthdays: Socrates, Pancho Villa, Thomas Chippendale -furniture maker, Igor Stravinsky, Little archduchess Anastasia Romanov, Frederico Garcia Lorca, Dean Acheson, Bill Moyers is 89, Hopalong Cassidy, Tony Richardson, Lancelot Ware the founder of Mensa, Jimmy Murakami, Harold Whitaker, Kenny G., Spaulding Gray, Ron Livingston is 56, Mark Wahlberg is 52

1944- As the Allies celebrated the liberation of Rome, A NY animator turned G.I. named Johnny Vita solicited laughs from the troops by appearing on Mussolini’s balcony on the Via Del Corso,  doing a mock impersonation of Il Duce.

1964 - Davie Jones & King Bees debut "I Can't Help Thinking About Me," The group disbanded but Davie Jones went on to success after changing his name to David Bowie.

 

1976- In a wine competition outside Paris, California wines won for the first time. Santa Magdelena Chardonnay for whites and Stags Leap Cabernet for the red. It marks the moment when the dominance of French wines was broken, and California wines went from being a joke, to world class status.

1981- The U.S. Center for Disease Control published the findings of scientist Michael Gottlieb on the pneumonias of five L.A. gay men to be something new called Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome or AIDS. Cases had been reported as early as 1975 and there is an ongoing argument whether Gottlieb or a French team at the Pasteur Institute discovered the disease first. One of the lead researchers at CDC was Dr. Anthony Fauci.

1989- Toronto’s Skydome Stadium opened. Home team Blue Jays lose to the Milwaukee Brewers 5-3.

1998- Walt Disney’s Mulan premiered at the Hollywood Bowl. Directed by Barry Cook and Tony Bancroft.

1998- Reuters and ABC News erroneously reported the death of 96 year old Bob Hope. Arizona Congressman Robert Stump announced the comedian’s death on the floor of the Congress, to the great surprise of Bob Hope, who was eating breakfast while watching TV at the time.  Bob Hope lived four more years, dying at age 100.

2010- The Dr. Who episode where the Doctor (Matt Smith) takes Vincent van Gogh in the Tardis to the present day to see his paintings hanging in the Louvre. 

Tom Sito's Animation Almanac for June 4, 2023

Birthdays: King George III, Alvah Bessie, Rosalind Russell, Gene Barry, Dennis Weaver, Robert Merrill, Bruce Dern, Andrea Jaeger, Dr Ruth Westheimer, Freddy Fender, Rachael Griffiths, Noah Wylie is 52, Russell Brand is 48, Angelina Jolie is 48

1666- Moliere’s play "Le Misanthrope" premiered.

1896- Henry Ford tests out his automobile with headlights in a nighttime drive around Detroit.

1916 - Mildred J Hill, one of the two Hill sisters who composed the song Happy Birthday To You, died at 56.

1938- Date of the famous Walt Disney Studio Hotel Norconian crew party to celebrate the success of Snow White. Walt picked the resort because when he first held a party at the studio, the crew trashed the place. One animator drunkenly fell out of a window. It was a first floor window, so he was unhurt. This party, billed Walt’s Field Day, featured golf, horse riding and swimming. But the young, mostly single artists (average age 26), released of stress and filled with booze, swapped bedrooms and galloped horses through the hotel corridors. After a while  Walt and Roy fled the scene for fear of bad publicity. 

1942- Capitol Records opened for business.

1947- The film "A Miracle on 34th St." opened. Starring Maureen O’Hara, Edmund Gwen and 8 year old Natalie Wood.

1951- The Supreme Court upholds the anti-Communist Smith Act. This act stated you could be fired from your job or jailed even on a suspicion that you were a communist, no proof required.

1951- Tony Curtis married Janet Leigh. The result was to produce Jamie Leigh-Curtis. 

1965- The Rolling Stones release the single "Satisfaction".

1967- The television show "The Monkees" win the Emmy award for Best Comedy.

go figure... The producers of the Pre-Fab Four raised enough money to fund later projects like the hit movie Easy Rider. This same ceremony saw Bill Cosby become the first African-American to win an Emmy, this for his role in the series I-Spy.

1977- The Apple II went on sale. 

1982- The film Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, premiered. Besides Ricardo Montalban as the badguy with the great pectorals, it features the Genesis Effect. This one minute sequence was a landmark of computer graphics effects. Done by the Lucas Graphics Group, who four years later would break off and become Pixar.

1984- Bruce Springsteen released “Born in the USA.”