Monday, April 15, 2024

Tom Sito's Animation ALmanac for April 15, 2024

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Birthdays: Leonardo DaVinci, composer Domenico Gabrieli, Nanak I the founder of the Sikh religion 1469, Charles Wilson Peale, Theodore Rousseau, Henry James, Bessie Smith, Heinrich Klee, Kim Il Sung, Claudia Cardinale is 85, Roy Clark, Emma Thompson is 63, Hans Conried, Olympic runner Evelyn Ashford, Alice Braga is 39, Seth Rogen is 41, Emma Watson is 33


1874- THE IMPRESSIONISTS. In Paris, a group of young modernist painters, fed up with being rejected by mainstream galleries and salons, banded together to mount their own show, Le Societie Anonyme Artistes, at photographer Nadar’s old studio. One franc, and a one flight walk up allowed you to see works by Cezanne, Degas, Pizarro and Monet. The critics hated it. One writer Louis Leroy said,” These people are not real artists, they are just Impressionists.” The name stuck.

1912- The Titanic sank by 2:20AM.  At 4:30 AM, The S.S Carpathia finally reached the Titanic disaster site to rescue 705 survivors in the bobbing lifeboats. The Titanic death toll is now estimated at around 1,522 out of 2,200. Early reports of the disaster mentioned that the Titanic had struck an iceberg but that all was well. That morning's Wall Street Journal noted the incident "proved a triumph of modern technology!" 

1924- The Rand McNally Company published the first automobile road atlas or North America.

1925- Ford introduced the first pickup truck. Up to now farmers had cut the backs off Model T cars and welded boxes on, to make a light-load vehicle. There was also an earlier pickup truck called the International, but it had limited distribution.

1927- First Hollywood star's footprints in cement ceremony at Grauman's Chinese theater. Called Hollywood's most enduring publicity stunt. Norma Talmadge, Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks and Sid Grauman himself are the first to leave their prints. Grauman also invented the classic Hollywood premiere with spotlights, red carpet runways and chauffeured limousines.

1933- Chief of production Darryl F. Zanuck quit Warner Bros. over an argument about employee salary cuts, to take over a struggling little movie studio called Twentieth Century Fox, which he turned into a giant.

1935- Kodachrome film developed. First as motion picture film, later for home photography.


1938- Donald’s Nephews, the first appearance of Huey, Duey and Louie. All voiced by Clarence Nash.  Written by Carl Barks and Jack Hannah.

1938- Walt Disney received his first honorary degree, a Master of Science from USC.


1947- Jackie Robinson took the field with the Brooklyn Dodgers. 

1950- Chuck Jones short The Hypo-chondri-Cat.


1953- Famed illustrator Charles R. Knight died peacefully in a Manhattan hospital. The man who first us all showed us what dinosaurs might have looked like and inspired the lush look of such films as 1933 King Kong. His last words were to his daughter Lucy, “Don’t let anything happen to my drawings.”

1955- The First McDonald's Restaurant franchise opened in Des Plaines, Ill.  Ray Kroc, a traveling milkshake machine salesman, buys into a franchise restaurant idea cooked up in 1948 by two brothers named McDonald from Santa Bernadino. He urged the brothers to go national with their pre-prepared food system, but the brothers wanted to stay local. So, he offered them 1 million bucks for their idea and name, (would you go to" Kroc’s?”). The rest is history. 

1962- AUNTIE EM! 80 yar old actress Clara Blandick, the Auntie Em of the Wizard of Oz, took an overdose of sleeping pills and tied a plastic bag around her head.
She had been retired for several years and was suffering from bad arthritis and failing eyesight. 
She said,” It is time to embark on The Great Adventure.” She left out on a table her resume and press clippings so the newspapers would get her obituary right. 

1964- Walt Disney sent attorney Robert Foster to Orlando Florida to quietly start buying up land for a planned new Disneyland Park.


1983- Tokyo Disneyland opens.


1990- Kennan Ivory Wayans comedy show In Living Color premiered on FOX TV. The show made stars of Marlon Wayans, Damon Wayans, Jamie Fox, Jim Carrey and the Fly-Girls, Jennifer Lopez and Rosie Perez.

1994- English ice skater John Curry who created the concept of Ice Dancing, died of HIV/AIDS at age 44.


2019- A terrible fire gutted Notre Dame Cathedral, which had stood for 856 years.



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