Tom Sito's Animation Almanac for Oct. 30, 2023

 Birthdays: John Adams, Christopher Columbus, English playwright Richard Sheridan,

Ezra Pound, Emily Post, Louis Malle, Henry Winkler is 76, Charles Atlas, Ruth Gordon, 

Claude Lelouche, Dick Gautier, Louis Malle, Herschel Bernardi, Ted Williams, Grace Slick, Diego Maradona, animator Isao Takahata

1811- Jane Austen’s novel Sense and Sensibility published. 

1931- first day shooting on the movie Tarzan the Ape Man, starring former Olympic Gold Medal swimming champ Johnny Weissmuller.

1936- London publishers George Allen & Unwin had received a manuscript from an Oxford ancient languages professor named J.R.R. Tolkein.  The publisher gave it to his ten-year old son Rayner Unwin, to read. Rayner read it and made a report, “This book will be a very good read for children from ages 5-7.” For his troubles, the young lad was paid a shilling. Based on his recommendation, they published “The Hobbit”. 

1938-"THE NIGHT THAT PANICKED AMERICA- 27 year old Orson Wells broadcast on CBS a radio update of H.G. Well’s story "The War of the Worlds". Despite periodic station announcements that it was only a fictional re-enactment, one million people across the U.S. go bonkers that an actual Martian invasion had landed in Grover’s Mill New Jersey.  Interestingly enough, the broadcast was only #2 in the ratings. More people listened to the Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy Show. 

1947- Bertoldt Brecht, the playwright of Mother Courage and The Threepenny Opera,

testified to the Hollywood HUAC committee. He smoked a large cigar through the whole

session. Next day, as he had once fled Hitler’s Germany, he fled the U.S. and resettled in East Germany.

1963- The first Lamborghini 350GTV went on sale.

1973- The Carlin Case- Radical radio station WBAI in New York broadcast hippy comedian George Carlin’s routine about the “Seven Deadly Words” the naughty words you can’t say on the air.  I can’t write them because Facebook would put me in jail, but you all know what they are anyway. The FCC slapped a heavy fine and WBAI sued for free speech and the case made it to the Supreme Court. Today the High Court found for the FCC and those 7 deadly words remain banned from airwaves today. Aw, Sh*t!

2002- Rap star of Run-DMC Jam Master Jay was shot dead in the lounge of his recording studio in Queens NY. The killer was never found.

2005- The Disney feature Chicken Little premiered.

2012- The Walt Disney Company announced it was buying out George Lucas holdings (including the Star Wars franchise) for $4.05 billion.

TOM SITO'S ANIMATION ALMANAC FOR OCT. 29, 2023

Birthdays: James Boswell, Sir Walter Raleigh, John Keats, Sir Edmund Halley, Louis Blanc, Fanny Brice, Joseph Goebbels, Zoot Sims, Winona Ryder, Jesse Barfield, Kate Jackson, Bill Mauldin, Akim Tamiroff, Rufus Sewell, Neal Hefti-composer of the theme song for TV shows like Batman and the Odd Couple. Richard Dreyfus is 76, Ralph Bakshi is 85, Dan Castellenata, the voice of Homer Simpson.

1936- The resolutions of the First Geneva Convention announced.  It attempted to regulate the treatment of civilians and prisoners in wartime. It was set up by Henry Dunant, who also helped found the International Red Cross. More Geneva Conventions would be signed by nations in 1925 and 1949.

100 years ago, 1923- The musical Running Wild opened on Broadway, introducing the dance craze the Charleston. The tune was written by composer James P. Johnson. Some people say the dance moves were based on a native African dance called the Juba.

1956- NBC TV upgraded its evening news show The Camel News Caravan with the Huntley-Brinkley Report. President Eisenhower disliked the change.

1957- Louis B. Mayer died. His last words were: "Nothing Matters..." The head of MGM Studios lorded over Hollywood like a monarch, made and broke moviestars, ordered Judy Garland fed a steady stream of narcotics and had his office redesigned all white to resemble Mussolini’s, whom he admired. Humphrey Bogart was at the funeral. When asked if he was close to Mayer, Bogie replied: Nah, I'm just here to make sure he's dead!

1959- Goscinny and Uderzo’s comic character Asterix first appeared in Pilote magazine.

1968- The Lion In Winter, with Katherine Hepburn, Peter O’Toole and Anthony Hopkins opened. 

1993- Tim Burton’s fantasy A Nightmare Before Christmas, directed by Henry Selick, opened across the US.

1999- “Being John Malkovich”, quirky movie by Spike Jonze. 

2012- Disney’s Wreck-it Ralph premiered. 

Tom Sito's Animation Almanac for Oct. 28, 2023

Birthdays: Elsa Lanchester, Cleo Lane, Charlie Daniels, Evelyn Waugh, Jonas Salk, Joan Plowright, Edith Head, Chef August Escolfiere the great French Chef who created Peche Melba and moved French cuisine to the front rank of world cooking, Charles Grovesnor the founder of National Geographic magazine, Joaquin Phoenix is 49, Dennis Franz, Jack Soo, Julia Roberts is 56, Bill Gates is 68, Disney animator Don Lusk.

1726- Jonathan Swift published "Gulliver's Travels"-"To Vex the World rather than Divert it."

1886-THE STATUE OF LIBERTY DEDICATED- Frederic Auguste Bartholdi was originally asked by Ferdinand de Lesseps to create a huge statue of a woman to welcome Europeans sailing into the Suez Canal at Port Said. After that deal didn’t work out Bartholdi revamped the design for the Americas. The face looks like a classic Greek beauty although some insist it’s the artist’s mother. Bartholdi’s masterpiece, held up by Gustav Eiffel's superstructure, was supposed to be unveiled at the American Centennial celebrations in 1876, but was a little over deadline, about ten years.  President Cleveland had started giving his opening remarks when the curtain revealing the statue was dropped early and he was drowned out by cheers, boat whistles, cannon salutes and fireworks. Women suffragettes rented a boat and floated alongside the parade bearing a large banner "She's beautiful, but she cannot vote!"

1913- George Herriman’s Krazy Kat appeared initially as a side comic strip in his regular strip The Dingbat Family. This day Krazy and Ignacz debuted in their own strip in the NY Evening Journal. As Krazy herself would say,“ It’s wots behind me that I am.”

1929- Composer Irving Berlin scolded George Gershwin for his lack of patriotism that he unloaded his stocks and bonds. The Great Stock Market Crash the following day bankrupted Irving Berlin but Gershwin escaped unscathed. Stick to music, Irv...

1949- Kay Kamen, Walt Disney Studios merchandising mastermind, was killed in a plane crash in the Azores. For almost two decades the Baltimore-born ad man was the mastermind behind the creation of Disney merchandising, including the wildly successful Mickey Mouse watch. By the time of his death in 1966, Walt Disney merchandising was earning the studio $100 million a year.   

1965- St. Louis Gateway Arch completed.

Tom Sito's Animation Almanac for Oct. 27, 2023

B-Days: Captain James Cook, Theodore Roosevelt, Dylan Thomas, Nicolo Paganini, Gerhard Von Gneisenau, Sylvia Plath, Roy Lichtenstein, John Cleese is 84, Freddy De Cordova, Ruby Dee, Roberto Benigni, Bernie Wrightson, Dr. Stamen Grigorov 1878, Bulgarian microbiologist who discovered the bacillus that made natural yogurt.

1886- Musical fantasy "A Night on Bald Mountain" premiered in Russia. Composer Modest Mussorgsky worked as a florist during the day and wrote music at night. He was convinced he couldn’t make a living otherwise.

1916- The entertainment trade magazine Variety has the blurb: "Chicago has added recently to it’s number of so-called Jazz bands." Now jazz had been around in black neighborhoods for years, but the form was labeled Ragtime or Syncopation. This is the earliest known use in print of the word Jazz.

1947- The "You Bet Your Life" quiz show premiered on radio. "Say the Secret Word and Win Fifty Dollars". Comedian Groucho Marx had struggled after his brothers act the Marx Brothers broke up. During a live radio program with Bob Hope at one point Hope dropped his script. Before he could pick it up Groucho stepped on the pages, threw his own away and the two improvised their conversation. The result was much funnier that anything anybody had written. The producer of the show was so impressed he hired Groucho and built a quiz show around him.

1954- The" Disneyland" television show premieres. Up until then the major Hollywood Studios were all boycotting the new upstart medium of television, then mostly done in New York by blacklisted stage actors and writers. MGM Production head Dori Schary called TV “ the Enemy”. Walt Disney is the first to break ranks with the major film studios and get into television production.  He even filmed the show in Technicolor, figuring television will develop color broadcasting eventually.

1964- Sonny & Cher married. I got you babe!

1964- The “You Choose” speech. Actor, SAG President, and TV pitchman Ronald Reagan made his maiden political speech at a fundraiser for Republican presidential candidate Barry Goldwater. He had made political speeches in the past, but this one marks his shedding his acting and union careers to become a full time conservative politician. 

1966- Bill Melendez's Peanuts TV special "It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown'. 

1967- the Worlds Fair in Montreal called Expo 67 closed.

1989 - World Series play resumes between Oakland and San Francisco after a ten day delay from the 1989- Loma Pietra Earthquake. 

2004- After not winning it for half the history of baseball, since 1918, this day the Boston Red Sox swept the Saint Louis Cardinals to finally win a World Series. They go on to win several more. 

2018- The LA Dodgers defeated the Boston Red Sox 3-2 in the longest World Series game in history. 18 innings, 7 ½ hours, ending at 12:30am. 

Tom Sito's Animation ALmanac for Oct. 26, 2023

Birthdays: Danton, Leon Trotsky, Francois Mitterand, Domenico Scarlatti, Charles W. Post of Post Cereals, Bob Hoskins, The last Shah of Iran Mohammed Reza Pahlevi, Mahalia Jackson, Clive Barker, Bootsie Collins, Marla Maples, Count Helmuth von Molkte the Elder -German strategist of the Franco-Prussian War, Dylan McDermott, Cary Elwes, Jaclyn Smith, Hilary Rodham Clinton, Jon Heder, Seth McFarlane is 50,

1935 Disney short “Three Orphaned Kittens” premiered. Directed by Dave Hand. It won an Oscar.

1947-HOLLYWOOD FIGHTS BACK- Members of Hollywood's progressive elite tried to answer the McCarthy hearings and the blacklist with a nationwide radio broadcast "Hollywood Fights Back” -Starring Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall, Judy Garland, Katharine Hepburn, Danny Kaye, John Huston, Gene Kelly and Edward G. Robinson. 

 The event was a public relations fiasco. Nobel laureate Thomas Mann used his airtime to launch into a longwinded intellectual defense of Communism. When word reached them that some of the Hollywood writers they were defending really were communists Bogart and Bacall felt they had been hoodwinked. "As politicians we stink!" quote Bogie. 

1951- Despite being past his prime famed heavyweight boxing champ Joe Louis The Brown Bomber came out of retirement to attempt a comeback and pay off back taxes. This day he was knocked out by young champ Rocky Marciano. Growing up, Marciano had idolized Louis and afterwards apologized to him.

1952- The TV documentary Victory at Sea, first premiered, with its majestic soundtrack by Richard Rogers. Scoring by Robert Russell Bennett. 

1955- The Greenwich Village Voice, later called simply The Voice, first published. It ended in 2018. 

1957- Vatican Radio began broadcasting.

1958- The movie Bell, Book and Candle came out. Starring Kim Novak and Jimmy Stewart. The film inspired the 60s TV series Bewitched. Roy E. Disney liked the movie so much his car licenseplate was Piewacket.

1965- The rock band the Beatles received MBEs (most excellent Member of the British Empire) medals at Buckingham Palace.  John Lennon later returned his as a protest.

1970- Yale law graduate Gary Trudeau was convinced by his classmate Jim Andrews, now an editor at Universal Press syndicate, to recreate the funny comic strip he did in their campus newspaper. Its original name was 'Bull Tales". He renamed it Doonesbury. 

1984-" I’LL BE BACK…" James Cameron’s sci-fi thriller THE TERMINATOR first released. Arnold Schwarzenegger was considered a Hollywood joke before this film made him a major star.  An interesting what-if, was that before Arnold was cast in the role of the cyborg assassin, the producers were first considering O.J. Simpson. 

1985- The original date Marty McFly time travels from in the film Back to the Future.

2015- The Supergirl TV show staring Melissa Benoist premiered.

Tom Sito's animation almanac for Oct. 25, 2023

Birthdays: Pablo Picasso, George Bizet, Johann Strauss Jr., Bobby Knight, Helen Reddy  Minnie Pearl, Whit Bissell, Lyle Lovett. Leo G. Carroll, Bill Barty the famous Little Person actor, John Matusak, Tyrus Wong, Katie Perry is 39, Nancy Cartwright the voice of Bart Simpson is 66.

 

1903- New York’s New Amsterdam Theater opened with a gala performance of A Midsummer’s Night Dream. The New Amsterdam boasted all Art Nouveau decoration, the first theater in a steel girder building and a new style of floating balcony that didn’t obstruct the view with support pillars, an effect to be copied by movie houses throughout the world. The Great Ziegfield staged his great Follies there, and in the rooftop garden theater for only the cream of New York society. The theater fell into decay and in the 1970’s was a porno house, but the Walt Disney Company restored it to its Gilded Age glory in 1996.

1917- Sir Arthur Conan-Doyle, the creator of Sherlock Holmes, in a lecture announced his firm belief in spiritualism, divination, and communication with the dead. He called it The New Revelation. “The chasm between this life and the next is not insurmountable.” Other British intellects thought Sir Arthur had gone a bit potty.

1921- Bat Masterson, Quebec born gunfighter, marshal of Dodge City, gambler, Indian fighter and outlaw, died of a heart attack over a typewriter as a sports reporter for the New York Morning Telegraph, while covering a championship prize fight. He was 67.

1960- The Bulova Acutron Watch went on sale today. The first watch using an electronic power cell instead of a wound mainspring.

1964- At a football game Minnesota Viking defensive back Larry Marshal scooped up a fumble and ran 66 yards into the end zone. Except, it was his own goal line. DOH!

1993- Long time Hollywood horror movie star Vincent Price died at age 83. 

Tom Sito's Animation ALmanac for Oct. 24, 2023

Birthdays: Roman Emperor Domitian, Bob Kane the creator of Batman, Antoni van Leeuwenhoek- the founder of Microbiology, Moss Hart, Merrian Cooper, Jiles Perry Richardson better known as the Big Bopper, F. Murray Abrahams is 85, Enkwase Mfume, Y.A. Tittle, Sara Josepha Hale 1788- who wrote the poem "Mary Had a Little Lamb", animator Preston Blair, Kevin Kline is 76

3018 BCT- Frodo the Hobbit awoke safely in Lord Elrond’s palace in Rivendell, after escaping The Ring Wraiths. 

1861-The Last Pony Express ride. The idea was romantic, but a financial dud and only operated about two years before being replaced by stagecoach, rail and telegraph.

1901- Anne Taylor became the first person to go over Niagara Falls in a barrel and live to talk about it. She attempted the stunt for a cash prize she used to get a loan to buy a ranch in Texas.

1902- Author Arthur Conan-Doyle was knighted by King Edward VII. He received the honor not for his literary accomplishments but for his volunteer service as a doctor during the just concluded Boer War. It was also said the Adventures of Sherlock Holmes was one of the few books King Edward ever managed to read from cover to cover.

1907- President Teddy Roosevelt called for a grand conference of government and business leaders to discuss a strategy for the conservation of America’s natural resources.  For the first time, Conservation was made an issue of national policy. “ I have seen the last fluttering of bird species that once blackened the skies...”

1936- The first appearance in the Thimble Theater comic of Popeye’s father Poopdeck Pappy.

1937- At Piping Springs NY, composer Cole Porter suffered a spill while horseback riding that broke both his legs. Even after 26 operations he never regained their full use. One leg was amputated in 1958. He died in 1964 at age 73 of kidney failure.

1938- The Fair Labor Standards Act established the 40 hour workweek as the law of the land. The 40 hour week, that thing few of us see nowadays.

1946- KUSC, Southern California’s classical music station, started up.

1947- Walt Disney testified to the House UnAmerican Activities Committee (HUAC) as a friendly witness. He accused leaders of the Cartoonists Guild and the League of Women Voters –which he mistakenly called the League of Women Shoppers, as being infiltrated by Communists "Seeking to subvert the Spirit of Mickey Mouse”.

1956- Cartoonist Jules Feiffer had been working for Terrytoons writing Tom Terrific. This day he began moonlighting a simple one panel strip for The Village Voice. It became an institution that ran for decades, until 1997. 

1959- The TV program Playboy’s Penthouse premiered. Hugh Hefner hosted a variety show designed to look like a cocktail party in a swinging bachelor’s pad. It was a success despite many stations in the South refusing to show it. That was because they dared to have black celebrities like Ella Fitzgerald, Nina Simone, and Nat King Cole laughing and partying alongside white ones like Tony Bennett and Lennie Bruce. 

1962- UPA’s Gay Puree, animated film starring Judy Garland and Robert Goulet, and directed by Abe Levitow.

1969- Godfather Producer Robert Evans married young actress Ali McGraw.

1975- The musical play A Chorus Line opened.

1994- Disney TV series Gargoyles premiered.

2003- Walt Disney’s Brother Bear, directed by Aaron Blaise and Robert Walker opened in wide release.

2008- Oprah Winfrey hosted an internationally famous talk show. She promoted literacy and called herself, “The Queen of Reading.” This day she declared her new favorite thing in the world to be the Kindle from Amazon. This plug helped launch the era of e-books.

Tom Sito's animation almanac for Oct. 23, 2023

Birthdays; Johnny Carson, Adlai Stevenson, Pele, Zioniev, Weird Al Yankovic, Dwight Yoakham, Michael Crichton, Chi-Chi Rodriquez, Phillip Kaufman, porn star Jasmine St. Claire, Gummo Marx, Ang Lee is 69, Ryan Reynolds is 47, Sam Raimi is 64  

1928- A financial consortium led by Wall St. banker-bootlegger Joseph Kennedy Sr. bought the Keith Albee theater circuit and merged it with the Radio Company and the Orpheum theaters to form Radio-Keith-Orpheum or RKO pictures. 

1930- The first Miniature Golf tournament held in Chattanooga Tenn.

1940- Shooting on the film Citizen Kane wrapped.

1941- Walt Disney’s Dumbo premiered. 

1971-Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida opened.

1983- Jessica Savitch was one of the first women journalists to break the barrier for women getting the top anchor jobs in network news broadcasting. This day she died in a car accident.

2001- Apple Computers launched the ipod. Once you could collect all your favorite songs in a little device, it sealed the doom of the record industry. Ipods were made obsolete by iphones in 2007.

Tom Sito's Animation Almanac for Oct. 22, 2023

Birthdays: Sarah Bernhardt, Timothy Leary, Franz Liszt, Doris Lessing, Joan Fontaine, Derek Jacobi, Christopher Lloyd is 85, Annette Funicello, Brian Boitano, Jerry “Curly” Howard of the Three Stooges, Catherine Deneuve is 80, Spike Jonze is 55. Jeff Goldblum is 71.

1934- The comic strip Terry and the Pirates by Milt Caniff first appeared in newspapers.

1938-THE BIRTHDAY OF THE XEROX COPY- Chester Carlson working with an amateur chemistry set behind a beauty parlor in Astoria Queens, created the first photo copy. He took his invention to Edison, G.E., RCA and IBM who all rejected it. Finally a little firm that produced photographic paper for Kodak called the Haloid Company bought it. They later changed their named to Xerox, Greek for “Dry-Writing”. 

1939-The first televised football game-The Brooklyn Dodger's 23 Philadelphia Eagles 14.

75th Anniv 1948- The first In-N-Out Burger stand opened in Baldwin Park, a suburb of Los Angeles. Created by Harry & Esther Snyder as the first drive through hamburger stand. It is still in business today, selling only burgers, shakes, and fries, pretty much like they did back then. Their granddaughter Lynsi Snyder is CEO.  It was Bob Hope’s favorite burger place. Hollywood types learned to stock up there before the drive to Palm Springs.

1962- Twentieth Century Fox chief Daryl Zanuck fired long suffering director Joe Mankiewicz off of the editing of the spectacle Cleopatra. Mankiewicz had shot a 6 hour movie he wanted shown as two films. Zanuck wanted one big movie at half that size. After a lot of embarrassing feuding in the press, Zanuck rehired Mankiewicz and he recut Cleopatra, When Elizabeth Taylor saw the finished film, she threw up. Cleopatra became one of the biggest flops in Hollywood History and forced Fox to sell off most of their studio back lot.  It became Century City shopping mall.

1962- At the height of the Cuban Missile Crisis, a stand up comic named Vaughn Meador recorded a comedy album called The First Family. It made lighthearted fun of John F. Kennedy and his White House. The record became the fastest selling hit of the pre-Beatles era, 7.5 million copies. Jackie called Meador a rat, but JFK thought it was funny and gave out copies as Christmas presents. Kennedy said Meador’s impersonation sounded more like his brother Teddy than him.

Tom Sito's Animation Almanac for Oct. 21, 2023

Birthdays: Dizzy Gillespie, Whitey Ford, Alfred Nobel, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Mary Blair, Carrie Fisher, Patty Davis (Reagan's daughter), Benjamin Netanyahu, Sir Malcolm Arnold, Manfred Mann, Sir Georg Solti, Angus McFadyen, Ken Watanabe is 64, Kim Kardashian is 43.

1879- Thomas Edison announced the invention of the Light Bulb. After experimenting with dozens of different type filaments in a vacuum, Thomas Edison perfected the light bulb with carbonized cotton. He and his crew stared at the glowing bulb for 40 hours to make sure it was really worked.

1932- The film Red Dust premiered. It made stars out of Clark Gable and Jean Harlow.

1937- A cough medicine called Elixir Sulfalinamide sold in stores poisoned hundreds and killed 200 in 15 states, mostly children. It was found to have the same ingredients as antifreeze. The scandal led to the passage of the 1938 Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, which increased FDA's authority to regulate drugs.

1939- Walt Disney sent a confidential memo to his legal team: “Everything we do in the future should include television rights. There might be a big angle on television for the shorts we have already produced.” At this time, television was still mostly experimental. It would be 15 years until Disney had a television show, and he was considered an early pioneer.

1941- WONDER WOMAN, Elizabeth Holloway Marston was a niece of Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger. She married psychologist William Moulton Marston who was an educational consultant for Detective Comics, Inc. (DC Comics). Elizabeth noticed the DC line was filled with images of super men like Green Lantern, Batman, Superman. She wondered why there was not a female hero? On her urging, Dr. Marston brought this up to DC head Max Gaines. Gaines was intrigued by the concept and told Marston that he should create a female hero – at first “Amazon Woman”, then "Wonder Woman." Marston's 'good and beautiful woman' made her debut in All Star Comics #8.

1959- Six months after the death of Frank Lloyd Wright his last creation the Guggenheim Museum in New York City opened.

1969- Beat Generation author of On the Road- Jacques Kerouac died of alcoholism and stomach bleeding, a pencil and pad on his lap. 

1972- Curtis Mayfield’s theme to the movie “Superfly” debuted at Number #1 in the Billboard charts.

1975- The Cincinnati-Boston World Series-Carleton Fisk's 12th inning homer keeps the Boston Red Sox hopes alive against Johnny Bench and the 'Big Red Machine".

2003- The Great California Brush Fires. Hot dry wind and a lost hunter ignited the worst brush fires in California history. Ten fires from Ventura County north of Los Angeles to Tijuana Mexico burned hundreds of thousands of acres for two weeks, destroyed 3000 homes and killed 20. The smoke clouds were visible from space.

2015- According to Robert Zemeckis 1989 film Back to the Future II, all the events Marty McFly and Doc Brown experience in the future occur on this date. Did you ever get your hoverboard?

Tom Sito's Animation Almanac for Oct. 20, 2023

Birthdays: Sir Christopher Wren, Bela Lugosi (born Bela Blasgow from Lugosz), Charles Ives, Arthur Rimbaud, Daniel Sickles, Black Panther Bobby Seale, Juan Marechal, Tom Petty, Art Buchwald, Arlene Francis, Grandpa Jones, Mickey Mantle, Frank Churchill, Thomas Newman, Jerry Orbach, Rex Ingram, Dr. Joyce Brothers, Michael Dunn, Snoop Dogg (born Calvin Broadus Jr) is 52, Danny Boyle is 67, Viggo Mortensen is 65

1890- Retired explorer Sir Richard Burton died at 69. Burton was the first Christian to enter Mecca, he went up the Nile and the Amazon, fought Indians with Kit Carson and did the first modern translation of the Arabian Nights, introducing the western world to Aladdin, Scheherazade and Sinbad the Sailor. Wherever he went in his world travels he collected pornography and erotic poems, documenting of the sexual habits of various cultures. After his death his wife burned all this anthropological material in their backyard. She feared for his soul. It is considered one of the great literary crimes of the century.

1921- Rudolf Valentino starred in The Sheik, which premiered today.

1939- Frank Capra’s film “Mr Smith Goes to Washington” opened.

1951- the CBS Eye logo made its debut. Creative director Bill Golden was inspired when he drove through Pennsylvania Dutch country. He became intrigued by the hex symbols resembling the human eye that were painted on Shaker barns. In show biz slang CBS is still referred to as The Eye. 

1955- Harry Belafonte recorded the Banana Boat Song, that made him a star. “ Come Mister Tally-Man, tally me bananas…Dayo!”

1955- J.R.R. Tolkein’s 3rd book of the Lord of the Rings published. The Return of the King.

50th Anniv 1973- The Six Million Dollar Man with Lee Majors premiered.

50th Anniv 1973- Sidney Australia’s Opera House was dedicated by Queen Elizabeth II.

1977- Lynyrd Skynyrd band members Ronnie Van Zandt and Steve Gaines died when their plane crashed into a swamp while en route to a concert at Louisiana University.

2003- Disney’s Brother Bear premiered. Directed by Aaron Blaise and Robert Walker.

2013- Saving Mr. Banks with Tom Hanks as Walt Disney, premiered.

Tom Sito's animation Almanac for Oct. 19, 2023

Birthdays: Martha "Patsy" Jefferson, Auguste Lumiere, Tor Johnson, John Le Carre', Peter Tosh, Amy Carter, Jack Anderson, Peter Max, animator Lou Scheimer, John Lithgow is 78, Robert Reed of the Brady Bunch, Evander Holyfield, Patricia Ireland, Michael Gambon, John Favreau is 57, Trey Parker of South Park is 53

1216- King John Lackland died, legend has it from an evil monk who pours poison from a venomous toad into his ear as he slept. There's no such thing as a poisonous toad in England, he actually died from eating too many ripe peaches and brandywine.

1845- Richard Wagners’ opera Tannhauser premiered.

1945- Near his Chadd’s Ford home, N.C. Wyeth, artist and father of Andrew Wyeth, was killed by a train that struck his car. His grandson was in the car with him and was also killed. He was 62. 

1953 – Arthur Godfrey had one of the more popular TV variety shows at the time. One of his headliners was the singer Julius LaRosa. But Godfrey was seen to act more and more imperiously with his cast and crew. This day after a song, Godfrey put his arm around LaRosa and said gently. "Julie lacks humility, So, Julie, to teach you a lesson, you’re fired." La Rosa and the audience first thought he was kidding, but he wasn’t. He had fired LaRosa live, nationwide on the air.

1957- Montreal Hockey great Maurice Rocket Richard became the first player to score 500 goals.

1964- Doo Wah Diddy Diddy hit the pop charts.

1968- RUPERT MURDOCH INVADED ENGLAND. Never mind the Vikings or William the Conqueror, on this day the little Australian landed at Heathrow to begin a takeover war for his first English newspaper, the News of the World. Until now the Fleet Street press barons were a closed club of rich old gentlemen. Murdoch used Sir Robert Caro as his cover to get in and defeat a hostile takeover bid from Robert Maxwell. He then demoted Caro out of his leadership of the paper. He soon bought the London Times. Rupert Murdoch later became a U.S. citizen so he could build the Fox News and TV empires.

1985- Take on Me by Aha hit number one on the pop charts.

1990- Kevin Costner’s film Dances With Wolves premiered.

TOM SITO'S ANIMATION ALMANAC FOR OCT. 18, 2023

Birthdays: Cannaletto, Lotte Lenya, Wynton Marsalis, George C. Scott, Pierre Trudeau, Lee Harvey Oswald, Mike Dytka, Peter Boyle, Inger Stevens, Violetta Chamorro, Wendy Wasserstein, Wynton Marsalis, Martina Navratilova, Zack Efron is 32, Jean Claude Van Damme, The Muscles from Brussels- is 63. Pixar Art Director Ralph Eggleston. Alex Williams.

FEAST OF ST. LUKE. According to ancient sources Luke was actually a physician, but Medieval tradition made him the protector of artists. This is because John of Damascus claimed to have seen Luke draw paintings of the Madonna. In Rome during the Renaissance, Titian, Michelangelo, Rubens and El Greco were members of the Guild of St. Luke and paid union dues.

1648- The First official union in the U.S. started, the Shoemakers Guild of Boston.

1776- Cato’s Road House, a colonial tavern New York City decorated with birds opened. The owner was a free black man named Cato Alexander. Customers ordered a favorite drink he created, called a "Cocks Tail" or cocktail. The origin of the name.

1861- Poet and suffragette Julia Ward Howe was staying at the Willard Hotel down the block from the White House. She awoke in the middle of the night inspired to write new words to a popular soldiers tune she heard that day "John Brown's Body". She wrote "Mine Eyes have seen the Glory of the Coming of the Lord...." She called it "The Battle Hymn of the Republic"." Glory-Glory Halleluiah, His Truth is Marching On…"

1896- Joseph Pulitzer's N.Y. Journal American created the first Sunday Color Comics supplement.

1922- The British Broadcast Corp or BBC formed.

1922- In Hollywood Sid Grauman's Egyptian Theater opened.

1924- College football star Red Grange scored four long yardage touchdowns in one game.

1931- Thomas Edison died peacefully at age 84. His last words were-

"It's beautiful over there..."

1946- Walt Disney premiered The Story of Menstruation.

1950- In a heated showdown in the Directors Guild all motions by Cecil B.DeMille and Frank Capra to adopt the anti-Communist blacklist were defeated. Billy Wilder, John Huston, John Ford and Mervyn LeRoy supported President Joe Mankiewicz who blocked the Blacklist Motions, and they also blocked a recall vote on Mankiewicz' s presidency.

1954- Hi & Lois comic strip debuted.

1967- Walt Disney's last animated feature done under his supervision "the Jungle Book." premiered. Disney had died the previous December. “Look for the Bear-Necessities…”

1974- Tobe Hooper's low budget cult film Texas Chainsaw Massacre first opened. Despite one film critic calling it " a bunch of sick crap" it became a huge hit. 

1977- New York Yankee batter Reggie Jackson earned the name Mr. October by slugging three home runs in a World Series Game against the LA Dodgers.

1982- President Reagan said during a radio address:" My Fellow Americans, the economy is in a helluva mess....this microphone isn't on, is it?.." 

1984- Handsome young television star John Eric Hexum died after shooting himself with a prop pistol.  Even though it was loaded with blanks the concussion of compressed air at close range cracked his skull. He was playing at mock-Russian Roulette. His last words to his friends were "Let’s see if I can do myself in this time!"

2019- Jojo Rabbit, a dark comedy by Taiko Waititti opened.  Taiko’s producer told him, I’ll greenlight this project only if you play Hitler. He agreed.

 

Tom Sito's Animation ALmanac for Oct. 17, 2023

Birthdays: Arthur Miller, Rita Hayworth, Jean Arthur, Montgomery Clift, Jimmy Breslin, Tom Poston, Gary Puckett, Margot Kidder, Evil Knievel, Jerry Siegel (Superman co-creator), Virgil 'Vip' Partch, Charles Kraft the sliced cheese king, Beverly Garland- star of Attack of the Alligator People, George Wendt, Cameron Mackintosh, Mike Judge is 61, Eminem is 51

1873- MY NAME IS MUYBRIDGE.  One night a carriage drove up from San Francisco to the Yellow Jacket Mine near Calistoga in the north Napa Valley. A man asked for the foreman Major Harry Larkyns. When Larkyns answered the door the man quietly said to him: ”Good Evening, Major. My name is Muybridge.  Here is the answer to the message you sent my wife earlier. “ He drew a pistol and shot Larkyns through the heart, killing him instantly. He then dropped his weapon and waited for the sheriff.

The murderer was the famous Photographer and Motion Picture Pioneer Edweard Muybridge. Muybridges’ young wife Flora had been having an affair while he was working on his Motion Studies Series in Palo Alto. Muybridge discovered the son she bore him was not his. They were even calling him Little Harry behind his back. 

The jury that convened in Napa did not hang the artist-inventor. In the Code of the Old West, proven adultery was considered a justifiable homicide. Plus, Governor Leyland Stanford was paying for Muybridge’s experiments. So, he was acquitted. 

1904- In San Francisco, Amadeo & Giovanni Giannini opened La Banca di Italia, the New Bank of Italy, which in 1930 became the Bank of America. Among the 40 or so independent banks in California, Giannini’s bank grew because they encouraged immigrants to put their money in, when Anglo bankers refused to do business with foreigners. After the great San Francisco earthquake, they buried the banks total assets in a strongbox in their garden until their building could be rebuilt. The Bank of America grew from that garden to become the largest bank in the U.S. and a major Hollywood financier.

1928- Duke Ellington recorded The Mouche, the Fly.

1938- The radio show Captain Midnight premiered on WGN Chicago. In 1940, sponsor Ovaltine dropped its decade old show Little Orphan Annie in favor of making Captain Midnight a nationwide broadcast.

1965- After a two-year run, the New York World’s Fair in Flushing Queens officially closed.

1967- The Hippy musical “Hair” opened at the Anspacher Theatre on Broadway. 

1990- William Stieg published his children’s book Shrek.

1990- IMDB.com, the Internet Movie Data Base started up. 

2005- A spinoff from Jon Stewart’s Daily Show, The Colbert Report with Steven Colbert premiered on Comedy Central.

Tom Sito's Animation Almanac for Oct. 16, 2023

Birthdays: Lord Cardigan, Eugene O'Neill, Noah Webster, Dave DeBusschere, David Ben-Gurion, Disney animator Ham Luske, Angela Lansbury, Gunter Grass, Linda Darnell, Charles Colson, Susanne Somers, David Zucker, Flea of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Tim Robbins is 65.

1834- The British House of Parliament caught fire and burnt to the ground in a horrific conflagration. Luckily artists William Turner and John Constable were around watching the blaze from the south bank of the Thames, so at least we got a few neat paintings out of it...

1847- Jane Eyre, an Autobiography first published. Writer Charlotte Bronte’ did it under the pen-name Currier Bell. 

1860- Olivia Bedel, a little girl from NY, wrote a fan letter to presidential candidate Abraham Lincoln, where she suggested that he grow a beard. Abe took her advice.

100 Years Ago, 1923- The Walt Disney Studios Born. 22 year old Walt and his older brother Roy signed a deal with Margaret M.J. Winkler for six "Alice in Cartoonland" short cartoons. Budget-$1,500 each.  

1929- New York City skyscraper the Chrysler Building completed. It won a race with the Bank of Manhattan Company to become the world’s tallest building. But it only held the title for a few months because the Empire State Building was going up.

1929- The frosted light bulb patented.

1950- C.S. Lewis’ book “The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe” published. First book of the Chronicles of Narnia series.

1952- Charlie Chaplin’s film "Limelight" premiered in London. Chaplin had shot the film in Hollywood but released it in Europe because he had been driven into exile by McCarthyite Red Baiters.

1955- Ann Landers published her first column.

1969- The Miracle Mets. The New York Mets, then possessing some of the worst records in baseball history, defied all 100-1 odds and won the World Series, defeating the Baltimore Orioles in 5 games. 

1976- Disco Duck by Rick Dees became #1 on the pop charts.

1992- The Duchess of York Sarah Ferguson filed a $1.4 million dollar lawsuit against a French tabloid for publishing photos of her topless and her boyfriend Texas millionaire John Bryan sucking her toes. 

1997- According to the writers of the 1965 television show 'Lost in Space', this was the date the Jupiter-2 with Will, Penny, Dr. Smith and the Robot took off to colonize deep space. "Danger! Danger! Spare me your insolence, you mechanical ninny..."

Tom Sito's Animation Almanac for Oct. 15, 2023

Birthdays: Quintus Virgilius-Virgil 70 BC, Mughal Emperor Akbar the Great 1542, Oscar Wilde, Fredrich Nietszche, Mikail Lermontov, John L. Sullivan, Jane Darnell, Burt Gillett, John Kenneth Galbraith, Robert Trout, Klaus Barbie the Butcher of Lyon, P.G. Wodehouse, Penny Marshall, Mario Puzo, Sarah Ferguson-Fergie' the former Duchess of York, Chef Emeril LeGasse, Chuck Berry  

1905- Premiere of Claude Debussy’s tone poem La Mer- the Sea. 

1929- The Canadian Parliament passed a resolution declaring women to be people, too.

1930- Duke Ellington first recorded Mood Indigo.

1937- The Disney short Clock Cleaners premiered. “Loudly the Bell, in the Old Town rings….”

1940- Charlie Chaplin’s film The Great Dictator premiered.

1951- THE FIRST I LOVE LUCY SHOW- The successful family sitcom began its pilot episode this night. CBS and sponsor Phillip Morris had wanted Lucille Ball to transfer her popular radio show-“My Favorite Husband” to television. The story of the family life of Ricky Ricardo, a Cuban immigrant nightclub bandleader, his daffy wife Lucy, and their landlord friends Fred and Ethel Murtz became an overnight sensation. 

1959- Twentieth Century Fox signed Elizabeth Taylor to star in their new movie Cleopatra. The first time an actor was paid a million dollars for one movie. By the time production wrapped, she had earned $7 million. 

1969- The film musical Paint Your Wagon opened. Lerner & Lowe, Paddy Chayevsky, Andre Previn, Lee Marvin, Jean Seberg, Nelson Riddle, Josh Logan, with Clint Eastwood singing!

1976- What’s Love got to do with it? Ike and Tina Turner break up.

1988- Bottom of the 9th, old, injured, Kirk Gibson came off the bench and hit the game winning home run to give the LA Dodgers victory over the Oakland A’s.

1989- Wayne Gretsky surpassed Gordie Howe’s all time record of scored points in hockey-1,850. 

2018- Sears Roebuck, once the largest retail store in America, declared bankruptcy.

     

 

Tom Sito's animation almanac for Oct. 14, 2023

B-Days: William Penn-1644, King James II Stuart, Joseph Plateau, Sword master Masoaka Shiki 1867, Dwight Eisenhower, Lillian Gish, Ralph Lauren, Eamon De Valera, e.e. cummings, Mobutu Sese Seko, C. Everett Koop, John Dean III, Cliff Richards, Jack Arnold the director of the Creature from the Black Lagoon, Ralph Lauren- real name Ralph Lifshitz, Roger Moore 007 actor and former animator. 

1908- The Chicago Cubs defeated the Detroit Lions for their first World Series championship. The next time they won a World Series was 2016.

1926- A.A. Milne’s first book of Winnie the Pooh, Eeyore, Piglet and Christopher Robin debuted this day.

1934- The Lux Radio Theater premiered.

1950- The LAPD raided a house party of gay men, which was illegal back then. One of the men arrested was future movie star Tab Hunter. This was kept secret until in 1955, when an angry agent Hunter leaked the story to Confidential Magazine. “Tab Hunter Busted at Limp-Wristed Pajama Party!” It soon blew over and Tab Hunter went on to have a full movie career.

1954- First day of shooting on Cecil B. DeMille’s remake of the Ten Commandments staring Charlton Heston out in the Egyptian desert. It was so brutally hot that Anne Baxter joked to Vincent Price “ Vin, who do I have to sleep with to get OFF this movie?”

1955- Actor Zero Mostel testified before the House Un-American Activities Committee. Zero made jokes at the committee’s expense, and even made some of them laugh, but was still blacklisted. In a playful mood, he told the Committee that he was employed by "19th Century-Fox." Zero denied he was a Communist, but refused to name names. He told the Committee that he would gladly discuss his own conduct, but was prohibited by religious convictions from naming others. Consequently, he was blacklisted during the 1950s. Shut out from the movies, he also lost many lucrative nightclub gigs, and he had to make due by playing gigs for meager salaries and by selling his paintings until the mid 1960s.

1959- Errol Flynn died of a heart attack in Vancouver. Exhausted by overindulgence in his favorite vices, doctors said the 50 year old movie star had the body of a 70 year old. A descendant of one of the Bounty mutineers, the Tasmanian born actor's last film was ' Cuban Rebel Girls'.  

1964- Dr. Martin Luther King Jr won the Nobel Peace Prize.

1972 - KUNG FU, starring David Carradine, premiered on ABC TV. In her memoirs, Bruce Lee's widow, Linda Lee Cadwell, asserts that Lee created the concept for the series. There is circumstantial evidence for this in a December 8, 1971 television interview that Bruce Lee gave on The Pierre Berton Show. In the interview, Lee stated that he had developed a concept for a television series called THE WARRIOR, meant to star himself, about a martial artist in the American Old West (the same concept as KUNG FU, which aired the following year), but that he was having trouble pitching it to Warner Brothers and Paramount. Show creator and producer Ed Spielman denied taking Bruce Lees idea. He claimed he had been working on it on the East Coast long before. The show’s star David Carradine was a “gweilo”-Cantonese for white foreigner, pretending to be Chinese.

1972- Joe Cocker and his backup band were busted in Australia for drug possession.

1978- Lover Scott Thorsten “outs” pianist Liberace by filing a palimony suit.

1979- Wayne Gretsky scored his first goal.

Tom Sito's Animation Almanac for Oct. 13, 2023

Birthdays: Revolutionary War hero Mary Ludwig nicknamed Molly Pitcher, Lily Langtry-the Jersey Lilly, Lenny Bruce, Larraine Day, Nipsy Russell, Cornel Wilde, Margaret Thatcher, Herblock, Yves Montand, Nancy Kerrigan, Sammy Hagar, Marie Osmond, Kelly Preston, Chris Carter, Paul Simon is 82, Sascha Baron-Cohen is 51

HAPPY FRIDAY THE THIRTEENTH- A Friday, the day Adam died and Jesus was crucified, combined with the number thirteen- Judas Iscariot is called the Thirteenth Apostle, and the Vikings considered wicked Loki the Thirteenth God. So today is considered an unlucky combination. But you have a Lucky Day!

1843- Bnai’ Brith, the oldest Jewish benevolent organization, was founded in New York by Henry Jones. It means “Sons of the Covenant”.

1903- Victor Herbert’s operetta Babes in Toyland premiered.

1904- Sigmund Freud's book 'The Interpretation of Dreams" first published.

1938- RKO Pictures was having a salary dispute with their singing cowboy Gene Autry. So, they cast around for another handsome cowpoke. Today they signed a Cincinnati born dentist from a vocal group called the Sons of the Pioneers named Leonard Slye. He became a star with the film “Under Western Skies” under his new name- Roy Rogers. 

1947- Kukla, Fran & Ollie debuted on television. Burt Tillstrom was the creator and puppeteer, and Fran was his wife.

1978- Mickey Mouse gets his star on Hollywood Blvd Walk of Fame.

1982- The computer spreadsheet program Lotus 1-2-3 introduced.

1993- The Nightmare Before Christmas premiered. Directed by Henry Selick. Based on a three page poem Tim Burton wrote in the 80s while a bored Disney staff animator. 

2016 – Bob Dylan was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature.

Tom Sito's Animation Almanac for Oct. 12, 2023

Birthdays: King Edward VI- only son of Henry VIII called God’s Imp”, Emperor Pedro I of Brazil 1798, Helena Modjeska, Ralph Vaughn-Williams, Alastair Crowley, Luciano Pavarrotti, animator Izzy Klein, animator Corny Cole, Gumby creator Art Klokey, Joan Rivers, Dick Gregory, Tony Kubek, Susan Anton, Kirk Cameron, Hugh Jackman is 55

1886- Beginning of Sherlock Holmes story:” Adventure of the Second Stain”.

1920- Champion racehorse Man O’ War won his last race.

1928- The Winnie the Pooh stories featuring Tigger are first published.  

1937- Under pressure from parent Paramount Studio, Max Fleischer signed the first animation union contract and settled the cartoonist strike begun May 8th. A year later Fleischer tried to escape unions by moving his studio to Right-To-Work State Florida, where the governor bragged “ All the union organizers here are hanging from trees.” The additional expense and poor box office helped sink his studio.  

1940- Retired movie star Tom Mix “The King of the Cowboys” died in auto crash outside of Florence, Arizona. The 60 year old actor ignored signs that a bridge was out and drove into a dry gulley. A large overpacked suitcase popped out of his back seat, hit him in the back and broke his neck. “The Suitcase of Death” is preserved along with Tony the Wonder Horse at the Tom Mix Museum in Oklahoma.

1966- Sammy Davis Jr. appeared on the Batman TV Show. Sock-it-to-me!

1971-Weber & Rice’s musical Jesus Christ Superstar opened on Broadway at the Mark Hellinger theater. 

1977- Script completed for the classic film comedy Animal House.  

1994- Steven Spielberg, David Geffen and Jeffrey Katzenberg announce their new partnership would be named Dreamworks SKG. 

Tom Sito's Animation Almanac for Oct. 11, 2023

Birthdays: Eleanor Roosevelt, Henry Heinz the Ketchup king, Jerome Robbins, Carl Hubbard, Ron Leibman, John Candy, Omar Shariff, Ben Vereen, Art Blakey, Luke Perry, Joan Cusak, Jane Krakowski, Sig Ruman– the fat actor with the goatee and the over-the-top German accent in the Marx Brothers comedies.

1944-“ To Have and to Have Not,” written by Ernest Hemingway premiered. The movie paired Humphrey Bogart with a sultry Harpers model turned actress Betty-Lou Persky, now renamed Lauren Bacall. Bacall originally had a higher voice, but director Howard Hawks told her every day to go behind the soundstage and scream for an hour, to bring her voice down to a dusky, sexy alto. It worked on Bogart, who fell in love and married her despite his being 44 and she 20 years old. They called each other Slim and Steve after the characters in the film. “If you want me, just whistle. You know how to whistle, don’t you? Just put your lips together and blow.”

1956- The Muppets first appeared on national TV, on the Steve Allen Show.

1960- The Bugs Bunny Show premiered on TV. “Overture, Curtain, lights! This is it, we’ll hit the heights, and oh what heights we’ll hit…..etc..”

1962- McHales Navy TV show premiered. Starring Ernest Borgnine, Tim Conway and Joe Flynn.

1967- The NY Times printed an image of a nude by Bell Lab artists-in-residence Leon Harmon and Ken Knowlton.  Titled Study in Perception I, It was done on a computer as a digital mosaic of thousands of numbers. It was an early breakthrough in digital imaging or CGI.

1968- Apollo 7 blasted off. The first of the Apollo Program, replacing the Gemini program.

 1975- NBC needed a Saturday replacement for the Best Of Carson reruns, so Lorne Michaels’ TV show SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE premiered. Featuring the Not-Yet-Ready-For-Prime-Time Players: John Belushi, Dan Ackroyd, Gilda Radner, Garrett Morris, Chevy Chase, Lorraine Newman, Gilda Radner, Jane Curtin and Michael O’Donaghue. First guest host George Carlin did his opening monologue while stoned.

Albert Brooks did a short film and Andy Kaufman did his Mighty Mouse lip sync bit. 

Paul Shaefer conducted the music and the show was held in NBC’s Studio 8H, which was built originally for Maestro Arturo Toscanini and The NBC Symphony of the Air. At the last moment a sketch by young Billy Crystal was cut from the show. 

The show also revived the career of announcer Don Pardo, who had trouble finding work since the original Jeopardy quiz show was canceled. He was the announcer for the show until his death in 2014 at age 96.

1978- Sex Pistols bass player Sid Vicious murdered his girlfriend Nancy Spungen at the Chelsea Hotel in New York. Sid was too stoned to explain why he had killed her. It’s assumed they had a suicide pact. Sid Vicious died of an overdose before his trial.

1987- The AIDS Quilt was first displayed on the National Mall in Washington.

1991- Comedian Redd Foxx was famous for doing bits like faking a heart attack. This day on the set of his new TV series The Royal Family, while joking with Della Reese, he clutched his chest and fell over. Everyone thought he was faking and laughed.  But this time he wasn’t. He died at the hospital an hour later.

2001- V.S. Naipul won the Nobel Prize for literature.

Tom Sito's animation almanac for Oct. 9, 2023

Birthdays: Camille Saint Saens, E. Howard Hunt, Jacques Tati, Alastair Sim, Bruce Catton, Joe Pepitone, cartoonist Mike Peters, Savannah, John Lennon would be 82, his son Sean Lennon, E. Howard Hunt, Scott Bakula, Peter Tosh, Charles Rudolph Walgren-the inventor of the modern Drugstore, Guillermo Del Toro is 58, Tony Schaloub is 70, Pete Doctor is 55.

Happy Canadian Thanksgiving! Societies have celebrated bringing in the harvest since primitive times. About forty years before the pilgrims of Massachusetts, English explorer Martin Frobisher and his crew exploring Canada celebrated at a harvest feast with the indigenous peoples in 1578. The first official celebration of Canadian Thanksgiving was in November of 1879, and in 1957, it was set as celebrate the second Monday in October. 

1809- The first Royal Jubilee celebrated in England. The monarchy had taken a number of hits lately.  King George III was a blind, insane shut in and the Prince Regent and Princess of Wales were separated and quarreling. So, an old widow named Mrs Biggs came up with the idea of a celebration of King George's 50th anniversary of his reign as a way to boost morale.  It worked and it's been a custom ever since.

1855- James Stoddard patents the steam calliope. 

1888- The Washington Monument finally opened to the public. Construction on it was begun in 1840 and discontinued for a decade during the Civil War. Work was also held up when Protestant workmen refused to use marble donated by Pope Pius IX. It was dedicated the previous year by President Arthur. But he did it in February, and only 300 people showed up in the cold.

1899- Chicago writer and travelling salesman L. Frank Baum wrote a friend that he had just finished a new children’s book called The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. “It is the best thing I’ve written, so they tell me. We’ll see if the queer and fickle public will like it.” It became a huge bestseller.

1905- The World Series resumes after a one-year haggle between the owners of the American and National leagues. A best of seven contest between the N.Y. Giants and the Philadelphia Athletics. It would continue undisturbed until 1994 with the players strike.

1919- After a year overseas serving in WWI, young volunteer Walt Disney arrived back home in America and was mustered out.

1938- Eugene O'Neill's play 'The Iceman Cometh' opened.

1951- RKO Pictures asked Marilyn Monroe to please wear panties while working? She was distracting the film crew.

1981- Sir Hugh Hudson’s movie Chariots of Fire, about British Olympians at the 1924 Paris Olympics became a sleeper hit. The decision to let Greek composer Vangelis score the period film with an all-electronic synthesizer soundtrack became a sensation. Soon most of the movies of that time had synthesizer tracks. People said symphony orchestras, Jazz quintets and garage bands would all be obsolete.

1986- People said there would never be more than three networks. Today the first show of the fourth network, The Fox Network's the Late Show with Joan River's, premiered. That show failed, but future hits like The Simpson's, Married With Children and the X-Files made Fox a major network within ten years.

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

Birthdays: Eddie Rickenbacker, Rev Jesse Jackson, Juan Peron, David Carradine, Chevy Chase is 80, Paul Hogan, Ruben Mamoulian, Edward Zwick, Johnny Ramone, Bruno Mars, Sigourney Weaver is 74, Matt Damon is 53, Art Babbitt -animator, teacher would be 116

1929- British Imperial Airways shows the first in-flight movie.

 

1933- HOLLYWOOD ACTORS FIRST MASS PROTEST- When Franklin Roosevelt created the NRA to fix wages and prices to try and solve the Depression, he even went as far as to try to regulate Motion Picture rates and fees. The catch was the rates were drafted with the advice of friends of the studio heads. 

The actors went ballistic when they saw new rules, such as a cap on actors salaries of $100,000 a year (the producers had no such cap), restriction of actors independent agents, and terms of an old salary contract could stay in effect even after the contract expired, until it was renegotiated.

This night, at the El Capitan theater, hundreds of actors met to draft a petition calling for rewriting of the codes. The activists included Paul Muni, Frederic March, Jeanette MacDonald, Bettie Davis, Groucho Marx and Boris Karloff. Earth tremors from the Long Beach Earthquake made the actors move across the street to Graumans Chinese parking lot . 

SAG president Ralph Morgan the brother of Frank Morgan (the Wizard of Oz) was considered politically too left to face FDR, so he stepped down in favor of comedian Eddie Cantor, who had helped Vaudeville acts unionize. Cantor went to the president's retreat at Warm Springs Georgia with the petition, and had the hated articles taken out of the code.

1935- Ozzie Nelson married Harriet.

1945- "Bloody Monday" During a big strike three hundred and fifty armed thugs club their way through picketing Warner Bros. film workers. Similar scenes were happening in front of Fox and MGM.

 

1957- Walter O'Malley announced the move of the Brooklyn Dodgers to Los Angeles.

1957- Jerry Lee Lewis recorded his hit Goodness Gracious, Great Balls of Fire.

1968- The movie Romeo & Juliet premiered. Director Franco Zeffirelli caused a sensation by casting young people to play the young people! Olivia Hussey was barely 16, and Leonard Whiting was 17. In the play she was supposed to be 13. Great score by Nino Rota (the Godfather). Romeo & Juliet was the last time a film version of a Shakespeare play was ever nominated for a Best Picture Oscar. 

1971- John Lennon first released the song Imagine.

2004- Home decorating guru Martha Stewart began serving her 5 month prison term for perjury and insider trading. 

 

Tom Sito's animation almanac for Oct. 7, 2023

Birthdays: Hans Holbein, Heinrich Himmler, Caesar Rodney, Joe Hill, Andy Devine, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Henry Wallace, June Allyson, Al Martino, Neils Bohr, Ameil Buraka, Johnny Cougar Mellencamp, Toni Braxton, Yo Yo Ma, Vladimir Putin is 71. 

1849- Edgar Allen Poe was found sprawled over a barrel in a Baltimore street, dressed in someone else's clothing. He was taken to a hospital where he died raving at the walls. He was 40. It was thought he died from heavy alcohol abuse. Recently scholars theorize he may have died from a brain tumor or diabetes impacted by alcohol sensitivity, which would explain the violent mood swings, and that he drank heavily to deaden the pain. Another scholar also theorized that the symptoms strongly point to rabies. Poe loved cats and there were no rabies shot or test at the time. 

1947- The Actor's Studio opened, teaching the Stanislavski Method, sometimes called Method Acting. The movement later suffered a feud between it’s two top teachers-Lee Strassberg and Stella Adler and Sandy Meisner. Ask any actor if they were with Lee or Sandy, odds were they sided with one and hated the other.

1957-Dick Clark’s T.V. show American Bandstand debuts.

1959- MARIO LANZA . Philadelphia born Italian–American Lanza was a pop icon opera singer long before there were three tenors in concert. With moviestar good looks and a velvety voice, his records and movies sold millions. But he was temperamental and had angered most of the powers that be in Hollywood, climaxing with skipping a $250,000 promise to perform in Las Vegas. This day in Italy he was found dead at age 38. For years there were rumors that he was actually done in by the Mafia for offending Lucky Lucciano, but in the 1990s a forensic investigation by his son proved his brutal regimen of binge eating and furious dieting wore out his heart. He would attempt to drop 50 pounds in three weeks, then put it back just as quickly until it gave him a heart attack. He literally dieted himself to death.

1960- The movie Spartacus opened. Producer/star Kirk Douglas had been using blacklisted screenwriter Dalton Trumbo for the script, smuggling him in and out of the lot for story meetings. Finally Douglas got fed up and ordered Trumbo to be brought out in the open as the movie's true writer. This was considered the official end of the Hollywood Blacklist era, which had been raging on since 1947. After director Anthony Mann left the project, Douglas hired Stanley Kubrick, who had such a hard time he left Hollywood afterward, never to return.

1965- The film, The Agony and the Ecstasy opened in theaters. Sir Carol Reed adapted Irving Stone’s historical novel about the painting of the Sistine Chapel, with Rex Harrison as Pope Julius II, and Charlton Heston as Michelangelo. For the first time movie makers were allowed to film inside the Vatican and Sistine.

1971- Walt Disney’s Bedknobs and Broomsticks premiered at the Odeon Theatre in London. 

1982- London musical 'Cats' opened on Broadway.

1993- Steven Spielberg's "Jurassic Park" earned $ 712 million dollars just in North American box office. 

1994- Tim Burton’s movie Ed Wood opened in wide release..

1996- Rupert Murdoch’s Fox News Channel began.

Tom Sito's Animation Almanac for Oct. 6, 2023

Birthdays: Alfred Lord Tennyson, Jenny Lind, George Westinghouse, Janet Gaynor, Carol Lombard, Karol Szymanowski, Thor Heyderthal, wrestler Bruno Sammartino, Britt Eklund, Le Corbusier, Elizabeth Shue is 60, Sean William Scott, Jeremy Sisto is 49, Ioan Guffrudd is 50

1600- THE BIRTH OF OPERA. This day as part of the celebrations of the marriage of French King Henry IV to Marie de Medici, composers Rinconcini and Caecini premiered a new kind of musical drama where soloists sang without the heavy polyphony of madrigals but more directly in imitation of ancient dramas. It was “Eurydice” and it was the first true opera. Many composers including Claudio Monteverdi took up the form. 

1802- The Heiligenstadt Testament- Composer Ludwig van Beethoven left behind a note found among his papers after his death in 1827. Dated this day it was addressed to his brother Karl and another unspecified relative. It was more of a spiritual Last Will than anything else. In the note Beethoven poured out of his heart confessing his faults and his fears of going deaf. It is an amazing insight into the great man’s soul.

1847- Charlotte Bronte's novel Jane Eyre first published.

1860 First telegraph linking L.A. and San Francisco.

1863- The first Turkish Bath House is opened in Brooklyn.

1880- First classes at University of Southern California or USC. 

1889- Paris' naughty nightclub the Moulin Rouge opened.

1911- The first transpacific telephone conversation, between Tokyo and San Francisco.

1921- In London the society known as PPEN established, for Poets, Playwrights, Editors and Novelists.

1927-"THE JAZZ SINGER" with Al Jolson debuts. Okay, somebody made a sound picture in 1924, and also something called "Footlights of New York" from 1926 but hey, you know what?- who cares!  THIS was the movie that made "Talkies" a reality. The success of this film turned Warner Bros from a minor film company into a major Hollywood studio. Within a year of this opening, only a handful of movie theaters were still showing silent movies. 26 year old Walt Disney was in the audience at that opening day, and it made him realize he needed to put sound in his next cartoon about that mouse.

The Warner Bros were not at the opening because they were mourning their brother Sam, who had worked himself into an early grave to finish the picture.

1959- “Pillow Talk” premiered, the first romantic comedy pairing Doris Day and Rock Hudson. Stanley Shapiro won a best screenplay Oscar for it. The film typified the wink-wink attitude about sex before the 1960’s Sexual Revolution and defined Doris Day’s reputation as the wholesome, girl-next-door archetype. 

1966- California became the first state to officially declare LSD illegal.  Hippies in San Francisco celebrated by rallying in Golden Gate Park in the thousands, and all taking a tab together.

1971- William Freidkin’s gritty cop movie the FRENCH CONNECTION premiered. The film won best picture, director and actor Oscars, made a major star out of Gene Hackman. One unforeseen result was the movie stimulated interest in pursuing the investigation of the real French-Corsican Mafia heroin trafficking in the US. That mob was soon broken up. The two real life detectives the film was based on- Eddie Egan and Sonny Corso, both retired from the NYPD and pursued careers in show biz.

1991- Elizabeth Taylor got married for the 8th and last time, now to construction engineer Larry Fornetsky, at Michael Jackson’s house. They divorced shortly after.

Tom Sito's animation almanac for Oct. 5, 2023

Birthdays: Wendel Wilkie, President Chester Allen Arthur, Ray Kroc the mastermind of MacDonalds restaurants, Louis Lumiere, Vaslav Havel, Larry Fine of the Three Stooges, Bob Geldorf, Mario Lemieux, Josh Logan, Bill Dana "my name Jose Jimenez", Bill Keane, Clive Barker, Glynnis Johns is 100, Donald Pleasance, Maya Lin, Bernie Mac, Karen Allen is 72, Kate Winslet is 48, Guy Pearce is 56, Jesse Eisenberg is 40

According to Mike Mignola, today is the birthday of Hellboy, born in Hell -1617.

1762- Christoph Gluck premiered his opera Orpheo et Eurydice in Vienna.

1880- John J. Loud patented the first ball-point pen. The modern ballpoint was developed by Laszlo Biro in 1938.

1904- According to comedian and playwright Steve Martin, this is the day Pablo Picasso met Albert Einstein at the Cafe Lapin Agile. There was a cafe in Paris called Lapin Agile that Picasso did like to frequent, but he never actually met Einstein.

1905- Happy Birthday T-Rex! Prof. Henry Osborne published a paper on the new bones found in Montana of a sleek hunter-killer dinosaur. He originally called it Dynamosaurus Imperiosis, but changed it to Tyrannosaurus Rex.

1927- Sam Warner, the Warner Brother most responsible for committing the studio to gambling on a talking picture process, died just as the 'Jazz Singer 'opened and made Warner-Vitaphone a major Hollywood power. He literally worked himself into an early grave. Brother Jack Warner had earlier said "Who the heck wants to hear actors talk?"

1927- A play version of the novel Dracula opened on Broadway. It starred a Hungarian immigrant named Bela Lugosi. It became a huge hit and made him a star. When the Hollywood movie version was made, Lugosi and Everett Sloan (Van Helsing) were the only two from the original play. 

1932- Talking pictures now in vogue, MGM Studios fired famed comic Buster Keaton. 

1933- Warner Bros musical Footlight Parade with James Cagney premiered.

1945- The BATTLE OF BURBANK- Three thousand striking union filmworkers (and a few animators) battled the Burbank police in front of Gate 2 of the Warner Bros. Studio lot. chains, bricks, tear gas, firehoses, burning cars. Jack Warner placed sharpshooters behind those large movie billboards on Barham and Pass. One of the strike leaders arrested was a background painter for Tex Avery cartoons. Herb Sorrel, the union leader, was pulled into a car and beaten up by gangsters, then arrested by police for incitement to riot. 

1961- The film Breakfast at Tiffany’s opened, with Audrey Hepburn as Holly Golightly, the song Moon River.

1961- There’s no need to fear, Underdog is here!” The Underdog Show premiered.

1969- Monty Python's Flying Circus debuted on British television BBC-1.

1969- Former First Lady Jackie Kennedy was seen going into a Manhattan cinema to see the Swedish X-rated film I Am Curious Yellow. Jackie-O beat up the photographer who caught her, but her example spawned a fashion among New York high society going to see porn as a Sexual Liberation statement. They called it Porn-Chic. 

2011- Steve Jobs died at age 56 of a pancreatic neuroendocrine tumor (pNET) that spread to his liver. As he faded away, he looked straight ahead as if he was seeing something and murmured "oh wow....oh....wow...."

2017- The Me-Too/Times Up Movement. Harvey Weinstein of Miramax and later the Weinstein Company was one of the most powerful movie producers in Hollywood. This day the NY Times broke the story of his history of sexually abusive conduct towards women. He was first fired from his company, then ejected from the Motion Picture Academy, and committed suicide in prison.  Soon more women and men began to come forward with their stories of sexual abuse. All across Hollywood, celebrities’ dark secrets were exposed and careers collapsed. Louis CK, Garrison Keillor, Les Moonves, Maestro James Levine, opera star Placido Domingo, Roger Ailes, Bill O’Reilly, and more.

Tom Sito's Animation Almanac for Oct. 4, 2023

Birthdays: French King Louis X The Stubborn 1314, Richard Cromwell “Tumbledown Dick, “ Rutherford Hayes, Frederick Remington, Jean Millet, Buster Keaton, Englebert Dolfuss, Charlton Heston, Susan Sarandon is 77, Armand Assante, Damon Runyon, Alvin Tofler author of Future Shock, Anne Rice, Alicia Silverstone is 47, Christoph Waltz is 67, Liev Schreiber is 56, Melissa Benoist is 35.

1798- Lyrical Ballads, a small book of poems published jointly by English poets William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge. The book opened with the Rime of the Ancient Mariner and finished with Wordsworth’s Lines Composed a Few Miles Above Tinturn Abbey.” The book didn’t sell that well. Wordsworth blamed Coleridge’s Ancient Mariner poem for being too long. Some of the best sales of the book were by sea captains who thought The Rime of the Ancient Mariner was a collection of sea shanties. 

1869- Henry J. Heinz began his condiment company, bottling horseradish in a little shop in Pittsburgh. He was later called the Catsup King, -or Ketchup, if you prefer.  Ketchup comes from a Chinese fermented fish sauce called Koe-chiap he adapted. 

1909- St. Louis Missouri was site of the first –and only- airship race in the US. Four dirigibles, the total number in America, ran a course for a purse of $1000 dollars.

1931- Chester Gould's "Dick Tracy" comic strip debuts.

1943- Actor Clark Gable was awarded the Distinguished Flying Medal for flying combat missions over Germany. It was said Gable took these deliberately dangerous missions instead of doing USO shows out of a death-wish he had in grief for his wife Carole Lombard, who was killed in a plane crash the year before. She had been urging Gable to volunteer shortly before her death.  Adolf Hitler offered a cash reward of $5,000 to anyone who could bring Gable in alive. Adolf was a movie-fan and loved Gone With the Wind. 

1950- The first Peanuts comic strip introducing Charlie Brown’s dog Snoopy.

1955- The Brooklyn Dodgers a.k.a. "Da Bums" won the World Series for the first time, and the only time they won it while inhabiting the precincts of Flatbush. The name Dodgers came from the fact that several main trolley car lines intersected in front of Ebbets Field on Atlantic Avenue. To get into the ballpark you had to cross this area dodging the traffic. So they were known as the Brooklyn Trolley-Dodgers, then Dodgers.

1957- SPUTNIK- Russia first shot an object into space orbit and inaugurates the Space Age. A basketball sized satellite called" Sputnik-1". Sputnik means Fellow Traveler and the word spawned pop words like Beatnik, Nudnik and Peacenik. 

1957-"Leave it to Beaver' debuts on CBS.

1961- The Alvin Show premiered.

1969- Diane Linkletter, the daughter of television personality Art Linkletter got high on LSD and leapt out of a window to her death. Her boyfriend snatched at the belt loops of her dress in an attempt to save her, but they tore away. Art Linkletter became a livelong crusader against drug abuse. 

1970- Janis Joplin was found dead of a drug overdose at the Landmark Hotel in Hollywood. Room 105. She was 27. Her song “Me and Bobby McGee” was as yet unreleased but soon topped the pop charts. Joplin left a considerable sum in her will for a party for her friends. The invitation read “ The Drinks are on Pearl”, her nickname.

1998- Rolie Polie Olie premiered on The Disney Channel. The French-Canadian Nelvana production, designed by William Joyce, is today considered one of the earliest animated TV series done entirely on computer.  

Tom Sito's Animation Almanac for Oct. 3, 2023

Birthdays: Gore Vidal, Mikail Lermontov, Harvey Kurtzman, Chubby Checker, James Herriot, Eleanor Duse, Emily Post, Leo McCarey the director of the Marx Brothers classic film Duck Soup, and many Laurel & Hardy shorts, Steven Reich, Tommy Lee, Neve Campbell, Clive Owen is 59

1855- American James McNeill Whistler arrived in Paris to study painting. He had gotten into West Point for a military career, but dropped out after a year. Later, he joking told friends "If I hadn't identified phosphorous as a gas, I'd be a major general by now!'

1895- The Red Badge of Courage first published. Despite being one of the best books on the average soldiers experience, author Stephen Crane was never in the Civil War or any army. He died of tuberculosis at age 26.

1903- Dr Horatio Nelson Jackson, the first man to drive an automobile across the American continent, was given a ticket in his home town for driving faster than 6 miles an hour. 

1910- English comedians Charlie Chaplin and Stan Laurel first arrive in the U.S. with a touring British vaudeville company, the Fred Karno Troupe. Fred’s advice to his comics, “when in doubt, fall on your arse!”

1934- Walt Disney held a story meeting on their planned Snow White movie. They discussed the bed-building sequence, and one where Snow White teaches the Dwarfs how to pray. (both never made)

1941- Warner Bros. THE MALTESE FALCON "premiered. Screenwriter John Huston asked if he could direct an adaptation of this old Dashell Hammett story, which had been already made into movies twice. This version became the most famous. The name was kept despite producer Hal Wallis wanting to change it to THE GENT FROM FRISCO. 

1951- The Shot Heard Round the World- Bobby Thompson's bottom of the ninth, last out, home run which enabled the N.Y. Giants to defeat the Brooklyn Dodgers for the National League Pennant.

1955- 'Good Morning, Captain.' The Captain Kangaroo kid show debuted on television. 

1955- The Mickey Mouse Club TV show premiered. “Who’s the leader of the Band that’s Made for you and me…?”

1957-Walter Lantz's The Woody Woodpecker TV Show debuted.

1957- Jayne Mansfield met Greta Garbo and asked for her autograph.

1961- The Dick Van Dyke Show premiered. It made stars of Van Dyke and Mary Tyler Moore and was written by ex-Sid Caesar writer Carl Reiner and Rocky & Bullwinkle writer Alan Burns. Carl Reiner originally wanted to be the star, but after one show, producer Sheldon Leonard told him, “We’re going to find a better actor to play you.” So in came Dick Van Dyke. The show was a favorite of Orson Welles.

1967- Folksinger and union activist Woodie Guthrie died of Huntington’s Chorea. He was 55. His family scattered his ashes in New York Harbor, then went to Nathans on the Coney Island Boardwalk for hot dogs, Woody’s favorite.

1967- Voice actor and vaudevillian Pinto Colvig died of lung cancer. He was 75. He was the original voice of Disney’s Goofy, Pluto the dog, Grumpy and Sleepy on Snow White, Gabby in Fleischer’s Gulliver’s Travels and the first Bozo the clown.

1992- Bald Irish pop star Sinead O’Connor caused a fuss by tearing up a picture of the Pope on the show Saturday Night Live. She was later booed off stage during a concert at Madison Square Garden.

2003- The Siegfried and Roy magic show in Las Vegas came to an end after a large Bengal Tiger attacked Roy Horn and tore his throat out in front of an audience. Most thought it was part of the act. Roy Horn survived, but they wisely decided to retire. He died in 2020 at age 75 from covid.