Tom Sito's Animation Almanac for Jan 30, 2024

Birthdays: Barbara Tuchman, Walt “Moose” Dropo, Olaf Palme, Dick Martin, Louis S. Rukeyser, Dorothy Malone, Boris Spassky, John Ireland, Douglas Englebart, Phil Collins, Vanessa Redgrave is 87, Gene Hackman is 94, Christian Bale is 50, Former VP Dick Cheney is 84

1931- The Premiere of Charlie Chaplin’s City Lights at the Los Angeles Theater.  Albert Einstein came as his guest. Later at a dance at the Biltmore Hotel, writer Herman Mankiewicz (Citizen Kane, Duck Soup) got into a drunken fistfight with producer David O. Selznick (Gone With the Wind, Rebecca). You’ll never eat turtle-soup in this town again!

1933- HI-YO SILVER!! The Lone Ranger debuted on radio. The Masked Man was invented by the WXYZ Detroit station owner George Trendle and writer Fran Striker with absolutely no experience of cowboys or Indians. They just wanted a hero like Zorro with a strict moral code. He was later voiced by actor William Conrad who did the Rocky & Bullwinkle narration and the TV detective series Cannon.

1934- Artist Salvador Dali married Gala.

1946- The first US dimes with Franklin Roosevelt on the head were issued.

1956- Elvis Presley recorded Blue Suede Shoes.

1958- Britain’s House of Lords admitted women for the first time.

1961-Hanna-Barbera’s The Yogi Bear Show premiered. The other sections were Snagglepuss and Yakky Doodle.

1963- MIT grad student Ivan Sutherland published his thesis Sketchpad, the first animation software.  For the first time, a computer could draw lines instead of just numbers. When students at the University of Utah like Ed Catmull, Nolan Bushnell and Jim Blinn were learning about CGI. The first thing they were asked to read was Sutherland’s Sketchpad. Everything from Woody & Buzz, Avatar, Groot and Mortal Combat results.

1969- The Beatles last public appearance as a group. They tried to do a free concert in the London streets but were banned by police for fear of congestion and noise complaints. So they withdrew to a rooftop above their recording studio at 3. Savile RD. and played anyway. John Lennon ended the concert by saying: ‘Thank you very much on behalf of the band and myself, and I hope we passed the audition.”