Friday, September 8, 2023

Tom Sito's Animation Almanac for Sept. 8, 2023


Birthdays: Richard the Lionhearted, Michel Caravaggio, Antonin Dvorak, Patsy Cline, Jimmy Rogers the Singing Brakeman, Peter Sellars, Sid Caesar, Freddy Mercury, Lyndon LaRouche, Ewell Gibbons- natural food advocate, Heather Thomas, David Arquette is 51, Jonathan Taylor-Thomas, Pink is 44, Alvy Ray Smith is 80


1760- Montreal, the last French stronghold in Canada and seat of the French Governor, fell to British troops. Governor Vaudreuil-Cavagnal surrendered all of New France to the Anglaise.


1771- Mission San Gabriel founded by Fra Junipero Serra.


1892- Writer Francis Bellamy published "The Pledge of Allegiance" in the Youth's Companion magazine as a vehicle to instill a sense of Patriotism in America's youth. The way Bellamy wanted you to salute the flag was in the ancient Roman style, a stiff right arm upraised, plan extended. Then in the 1930s when Adolf in Germany made that salute “questionable?’ It was changed to the hand over your heart. The phrase ”under God,” was shoe-horned in the commie-paranoid 1950s. Rev. Bellamy was a lifelong socialist also liked to put in his sermons that Jesus was too.


1920 - US Air Mail service begins (NYC to SF)


1921 - 1st Miss America crowned -Margaret Gorman of Washington DC.


1926- Screen actress Greta Garbo skipped her own wedding and left John Gilbert alone at the altar. They still stayed part-time lovers and lived together.


1930 - Richard Drew invented Scotch tape.


1935-A vocal group called "4 Joes from Hoboken" get their first break on Major Bo's radio show. One of the singers is a young man named Frank Sinatra.


1935- Top Hollywood musical director Buzby Berkeley (42nd Street, Footlight Parade) got drunk at a party in Malibu and drove his Cadillac head on into oncoming traffic on Pacific Coast Highway near where Gladstones Fish Restaurant is today. He piled into three other cars. Berkeley was unhurt but three people died and four were injured. After three trials for 2nd degree murder Berkeley was found innocent. 


1939- British film director Alfred Hitchcock began shooting his first Hollywood picture- Rebecca, for David Selznick.


1946 - SF 49ers play their first AAFC game, losing to the NY Yankees 21-7.


1954- Akira Kurosawa’s film The Seven Samurai premiered at the Venice Film Festival.


1960- Penquin Books was charged with obscenity for the first large public paperback printing of D.H. Lawrence's 'Lady's Chatterley's Lover'.


1965 - Dorothy Dandridge, beautiful black actress (Island in the Sun), dies at 41 in

Hollywood of sleeping pills overdose.


1966- STAR TREK debuts. LA policeman turned screenwriter Gene Roddenberry pitched it to Desilu Productions as, “Wagon Train in Outer Space.” The first episode “The Man Trap” aired this night. The show was produced by Lucille Ball’s production company, Desilu. That season Star Trek ranked 52nd in the Nielsen ratings, behind #1 "Iron Horse" starring Dale Robertson, and "Mr. Terrific". It was canceled after two seasons but a letter writing campaign won it a third season. Star Trek then found a new life in syndication. 

The cult fan base called Trekkies kept the memory of the show alive for ten years until Paramount revived it to cash in on the Star Wars-Close Encounters craze for Sci-Fi. First as a Filmation animated series, and then from 1979 a series of feature films, then spin-offs. 

Frank Sinatra once said: "The only good thing to come out of the 1960s was Star Trek." 


1966 - "That Girl" starring Marlo Thomas and Ted Bessell premiered on ABC-TV


1967 - Surveyor 5 launched; made a soft landing on Moon, Sept 10.


1971- Washington D.C.'s Kennedy Center opened. It was planned in the early sixties by John and Jackie Kennedy, although then unaware that their name would be on it. The performance featured the debut of Leonard Bernstein’s choral work “Mass”.


50 Years-1973- Hanna Barbera’s The Superfriends premiered on ABC TV.



50 Years 1973- Star Trek the Animated Series by Filmation premiered.


1974- Daredevil Evil Knievel in his most famous stunt, jumped the Snake River Gorge in a rocket powered motorcycle.


1979- The decomposing body of actress Jean Seberg (Breathless, Paint Your Wagon), was discovered in the back seat of a car in Paris. She had been missing since Aug. 30th. Today it is assumed she committed suicide. She had been in an affair with a member of the radical Black Panther Party and was under continual harassment by the FBI and other Federal authorities. She was 40.


1986- The Chicago based television talk show the Oprah Winfrey Show went national and became one of the most successful talk shows ever.

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