Thursday, June 1, 2023

Tom Sito's Animation Almanac for June 1, 2023


Welcome to June, from Iunius mensis, the month of Juno, queen of the Roman gods. Mother of Mars and Vulcan, protector of the Home and Defender of Women. From the Greek Hera.


Birthdays: Brigham Young, Marilyn Monroe, Pat Boone, Mikhail Glinka, Red Grooms, Karl Von Clausewitz, Andy Griffith, Nelson Riddle, Lisa Hartman, Cleavon Little, Frederica Von Stade, Gerald Scarfe, Powers Booth, Rene Aubergenois, Lisa Hartman, Tom Holland, Morgan Freeman is 86, Jonathan Pryce is 76, Brian Cox is 77, Heidi Klum is 50, Josef Pujol *


*Pujol was famous throughout late Victorian Europe as Le Petomane- The Fartiste- who could fart musical melodies and snuff candles at great distances. He performed concerts for crowned heads that he would finish by farting La Marseillaise.


1876- Eighteen-year old Milton Hershey opened his first candy store. After he saw European machines to make milk chocolate demonstrated at the Chicago Worlds Fair, he decided to focus exclusively on chocolate. Hershey's goes on to become the largest candy maker in the U.S. The Hershey’s chocolate kiss is so named because the machine that creates the candy looks like it is kissing the conveyor belt.


1931- 48 year old Swiss artist Albert Hurter joined the Disney staff, giving the look of cartoons like Snow White a more Germanic storybook look. His hiring created a new type of job at the studio, an Inspirational Sketch Artist, what we call today a Vis-Dev artist.


1933 - Charlie Chaplin wed actress Paulette Goddard.


1933- The first Mickey Mouse watch sold.


1933- Eric Larson’s first day at Walt Disney Studio. One of the Nine Old Men, he retired 53 years later in 1986.


1936 - "Lux Radio Theater" moved from NY to Hollywood.


1938- SUPERMAN- Joe Shuster and Jerry Seigel were two aspiring cartoonists in a Cleveland High School. Jewish kids, they had read about the Nazi concept of the Aryan Superman. They wanted to show a Superman could be on the American side. So, they created a new hero named Superman in 1933. They scrambled about as cartoonists in NYC for a few years and in 1938 sold Detective Comics (D.C.) on their Superman idea for $130. The first Superman in Action Comics came out this day. Part of the contract was they gave DC all rights to their creation. 

When the first megabudget Superman movie was being made in the 1975, the National Cartoonist's Society spokesman Neal Adams pointed out that Seigel & Schuster were now destitute. Seigel was blind on disability, and Schuster delivered sandwiches from a local deli. The bad publicity forced Warner Bros and DC Comics to award them and their family’s pensions for their life. 


1943- British actor Leslie Howard, who played Ashley in" Gone with the Wind "was killed. The movie star was doing an appearance in neutral Spain, but on the flight home his commercial DC-3 airliner was shot down by German JU-88 fighters over the Bay of Biscay. He was such an effective propagandist that when German agents learned his schedule, they sent the interceptors just to get him.


1955- Marilyn Monroe’s movie The Seven Year Itch opened.


1961 - FM multiplex stereo broadcasting 1st heard.


1966 - George Harrison is impressed by Ravi Shankar's concert in London.


1967 –Beatles released Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band in the US and it immediately goes gold.


1968 - Simon & Garfunkel's "Mrs. Robinson" hits #1.


1980- Ted Turner started CNN, the first 24 hour news channel.


1981- Superman II, directed by Richard Lester. With Christopher Reeve, Margot Kidder and Terence Stamp. Kneel before Zod!



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