Monday, May 6, 2024

Tom Sito's Animation Almanac for May 6, 2024


Birthdays: Maximillien Robespierre, Sigmund Freud, Rudolph Valentino, Orson Welles, Robert Peary, Willie Mays, Stewart Granger*, Bob Seger, Toots Schoor, Weeb Ewbank, Adriana Caselotti- the voice of Snow White, Ruben Hurricane Carter, Christian Clavier, Roy Nesbit.

Tony Blair, George Clooney is 63. 


*English actor Stewart Granger (1913-1993) had to change his name to get into Hollywood movies. His real name was Jimmy Stewart. A nice name, but already taken


1840- Britain issued the Penny-Blacks, the first perforated adhesive postage stamps.


1862- Writer Henry David Thoreau died at age 44. When his sister asked him :"Have you made your peace with God?" Thoreau replied:" I was unaware that we had ever quarreled."

1903-A bronze plaque was attached to the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty. On it was a poem The New Colossus by a young Jewish immigrant woman named Emma Lazarus. She was disturbed by the Anti-Semitic violence in Russia and wrote this inspired by the symbol of the Statue. “Give Me your Tired, Your Poor..” The French creators had intended the Statue of Liberty to symbolize political liberty, but Lazarus’s poem had confirmed the Lady Liberty as “The Mother of Exiles ”.


1915- Babe Ruth hits his first home run. He was a Boston Red Sox pitcher at the time. He will finish his career with 714 home runs, a record that held for decades until Hank Aaron.


1919- Wizard of Oz creator L. Frank Baum died of heart disease at 62. He was trying at the time to buy real estate in Los Angeles for an Oz- theme amusement park.



1937- THE FLEISCHER STRIKE-Cartoonists voted to strike Max Fleischer’s Studio after Max fired 13 animators for union activity and complaining about their 6 day work week.

  The strike was settled several months later when parent company Paramount forced Max to concede. Strikers sang "We're Popeye the Union Man! We're Popeye the Union Man! We'll Fight to the Finish, Cause We Can't Live on Spinach!...etc."


1937- The Society of Motion Picture Art Directors formed.


1946- Curly Howard, was the most outrageous of the comedy troupe The Three Stooges. 

While people laughed at his antics, he lived a wild Hollywood life, lots of clubs, drinking, smoking and girls. This day while filming the short Halfwits Holiday, he suffered a massive stroke. He was only 42. He survived 6 more years in debilitated health, moved from hospital to hospital by his brothers. He died in 1952 at age 48.


1949- In Cambridge University England, The computer EDSAC ran its’ first calculations. The first computer that could store data in its memory.


1954- Oxford student Roger Bannister ran the first Four Minute Mile. His time was 3:59.04.


2001- Variety reported that the Walt Disney Company in promoting their upcoming summer film Pearl Harbor, had canceled plans for Pearl Harbor Happy Meals at McDonalds, as being in bad taste. 


2003- A tornado destroyed the factory in Jackson, Tennessee that produced most of the world’s supply of Pringles Potato Chips.


2005- Senior Walt Disney storyboard artist Joe Grant died a few days before his 97 birthday. Joe had worked on Disney films from Snow White to The Incredibles. He died quietly at his desk while drawing. He finished the drawing.



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