Tom Sito's animation almanac for May 17, 2025

Birthdays: Sandro Botticelli, Eric Satie, Ayatollah Khomeni, Edmond Jenner, Archibald Cox, Sugar Ray Leonard, Maureen O'Sullivan, Howard Ashman, Craig Ferguson, Bill Paxton, Ralph Wright- the original voice of Eeyore, Alan Kay-inventor of the laptop computer, Dennis Hopper, Enya is 63- born Eithne Patricia Ni’ Bhraonain

 

 

1826- Artist-Naturalist John James Audubon departed for England” in deep sorrow” because he could find no publisher in America for his masterpiece the “Birds of North America”.

 

1845 - Rubber bands were patented by Stephen Perry of Mssrs Perry & Co, vulcanized rubber manufacturers of London.

 

1875 –The First Kentucky Derby. Winning horse was Aristides.

 

1890 - Comic Cuts, 1st weekly comic newspaper, published in London.

 

1924- Marcus Loew of the Loew's theater chain bought Metro Pictures and combined them with Louis B. Mayer’s studios to form Metro Goldwyn Mayer. Five years ago Amazon bought MGM for $8 billion.

 

 

1938 - Radio quiz show "Information Please!" debuts on NBC Blue Network.

 

 

1940- Donald Duck cartoon BillPosters.

 

1941- The Looney Toon Lockout. Producer Leon Schlesinger tried to forestall the unionization of his Bugs Bunny cartoonists by locking them out. After a week he relented and signed a contract with the cartoonist guild. Chuck Jones called it “our own little six-day war.”

 

 

1965- At a hotel in lower Manhattan, Stanley Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke shook hands and agreed to write a sci-fi movie, with an accompanying novel. 

First called How the Solar System was Won, because How the West Was Won was a popular film then. Then Journey Beyond the Stars, the title finally became- 2001: A Space Odyssey.

 

1967 – Bob Dylan's 1965 UK Tour is released as film "Don't Look Back"

 

1970 - Thor Heyerdahl crossed the Atlantic on reed boat Ra, proving the ancient Egyptians could have reached South America.

 

1971 - Stephen Schwartz' musical Godspell premiered off-Broadway.

 

1973 - Stevie Wonder released "You are the Sunshine of my Love"

 

tom sito's animation almanac for may 16, 2025

Birthdays: Tamara de Lempicka, Lily Pons, Richard Tauber, Henry Fonda, Liberace- real name Wladziu Valentine Liberace, Jan Kiepura, Edmund Kirby-Smith, Gabriela Sabbatini, Thurman Thomas, Margaret Sullivan, Olga Korbut- the original adorable little Olympic Gold Medal gymnast, Debra Winger is 71, Tori Spelling, Janet Jackson, Woody Herman, Studs Terkel, Ivan Sutherland is 87, Danny Trejo is 71, Pierce Brosnan is 71.

 

1879- Dvorak’s Slavonic Dances premiered.

1929- The First Academy Awards ceremony at the Rose Ballroom of the Roosevelt Hotel. Douglas Fairbanks was the first emcee. They gave out two best picture winners. One was to William Wellman’s “Wings”. The second for “unique and artistic merit” went to F. W. Murnau’s Sunrise. The Academy originally wanted to give the Best Actor Oscar to the dog Rin Tin Tin, but they reconsidered when reminded about what kind of message that would send. So, they gave it to Emil Jannings. Janet Gaynor got the first Best Actress. The ceremony was originally a dinner party with some industry business conducted. About 270 attendees who paid $5 each. The ceremony took about 15 minutes. 

 

1946- the musical Annie Get Your Gun starring Ethel Merman premiered on Broadway.

 

1957- in a town in Pennsylvania, a failing small time businessman who had been drinking heavily, died of a heart attack at age 54. Ironically, he had just completed the first draft of a memoir about his days as a young Treasury Agent in Roaring Twenties Chicago. His name was Elliot Ness. The book - The Untouchables- became a national best seller and Hollywood turned it into a hit television series, films. Elliot Ness became the most famous lawman since Wyatt Earp.

 

1963- Gordo Cooper orbited the Earth in the last flight of Project Mercury.

 

1965 – the birthday of Spaghetti-O's later known as Spaghettios.

 

1972- Hollywood Cartoonists local# 839 voted to expel Business Agent Larry Kilty for misappropriation of funds. They called him Guilty-Kilty.

 

1975- Japanese climber Junko Tabei became the first woman to climb Mt. Everest.

 

1975 - Wings release "Listen to What the Man Said" in UK

 

1979- Shooting wraps on Steven Spielberg’s movie 1941.

 

1980 - Brian May of rock group Queen collapsed on stage with hepatitis.

 

1980 - Paul McCartney releases "McCartney II" album.

 

1981 - "Bette Davis Eyes" by Kim Carnes hits #1 for next 9 weeks. The elderly movie legend was not impressed,” Kim Carnes does not have eyes like me!” quote Bette.

 

1985 - Michael Jordan named NBA Rookie of Year.

 

1986 – "Top Gun," directed by Tony Scott and starring Tom Cruise and Kelly McGillis premiered.

 

1990- Jim Henson died of viral pneumonia at Bellevue Hospital in NYC. He was 53. 

 

1996- One of the lamest moments in TV writing. On Dallas, Pam Ewing encounters her husband Bobby Ewing in the shower although he had been dead for one year. The incident meant the entire previous season had only been a bad dream.

 

2009- Pixar’s film UP premiered.

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Tom SIto's animation almanac for May 15, 2025

Birthdays: Lyman Frank Baum, Claudio Monteverdi, Richard Avedon, James Mason, Joseph Cotten, George Brett, Jasper Johns, Anna Maria Alberghetti, Jean Renoir, Chicago Mayor Richard Daley, Trini Lopez, Charles Lamont, director of Abbott & Costello Go to Mars, country singer Eddy Arnold, Chaz Palmintieri, Lainie Kazan, Disney artist Joe Grant

 

1703- Charles Perrault died. Perrault 1628-1703 was a retired minister to French King Louis XIV, who wrote stories for children under the pseudonym Mother Goose. He created Little Red Riding Hood, Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella and Puss in Boots. 

 

1927- The Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel opened for business. Named in honor of Teddy Roosevelt.

 

1928- Walt Disney held a private sneak preview screening of his completed cartoon Plane Crazy, featuring his new star Mickey Mouse, imitating hero Charles Lindbergh. But it was a silent cartoon, and Walt had recently been impressed by the new Talking Pictures. So, he decided to hold back the release of this cartoon and push ahead with his first sound cartoon Steamboat Willie. After the wild success of Steamboat Willie, Plane Crazy was refitted with a soundtrack and released as the 4^th Mickey Mouse cartoon in 1929.

 

 

1940- The first Nylon stockings go on sale in the US.

 

 

1942- The U.S. initiated a program of wartime gas rationing. Slogans like “Is this Trip Really Necessary?” and a system of ratings vehicles with A, B & C cards pop up in a lot of gas stations for the duration. C meant a war-essential worker and you went to the head of the line to get gas. B was for police, firemen and municipal workers. A cards was the lowest status i.e. the rest of us. 

 

1946- The first Tommy’s Burger stand opened in Los Angeles.

 

1952- A big fire destroyed several stages on the Warner Bros studio lot.

 

1953- Rocky Marciano defeated Jersey Joe Walcott for the Heavyweight Championship.

 

 

1957- MGM officially closed its animation dept. laying off Hanna & Barbera and all their team. Fred Quimby retired.

 

1963 – Folk group Peter, Paul & Mary won their first Grammy for, “If I Had a Hammer”.

 

1967- Paul McCartney first met his first wife Linda Eastman.

 

1968 - Paul McCartney & John Lennon appear on the Johnny Carson Show to promote

Apple records, Joe Garagiola was the substitute host. 

 

 

1970 – A month after their breakup, The Beatles' last album, "Let It Be," is released in US.

 

2019- The Sci-Fi animated series Love, Death and Robots premiered.

tom sito's animation almanac for May 14, 2025

Birthdays: Thomas Gainsborough, Thomas Wedgewood, Francesca Annis, David Byrne, Jack Bruce, Bobby Darin, Mark Zuckerberg is 40, Tim Roth is 66, Robert Zemeckis is 73, Kate Blanchett is 55, George Lucas is 81

 

 

1787- Shortly before returning to America, the Marquis de Lafayette wrote his friend George Washington about his sponsorship of the famous quack Dr. Anton Mesmer, for whom Mesmerism is known. "Before leaving I shall obtain permission to tell Dr Mesmer’s great secrets on Animal Magnetism to you, for it is a great philosophical discovery."

 

 

1842 - 1st edition of London Illustrated News.

 

1860- The first delegation of diplomats from Japan arrived in the U.S bringing greetings from the Shogun.

 

 

1935- Griffith Park Observatory above Hollywood first opened to the public. It is featured in the James Dean movie Rebel Without a Cause.

 

1942- Walt Disney composer Frank Churchill, who wrote "Who’s afraid of the Big Bad Wolf", Whistle While you Work”, shot himself at his piano at home. He was 40. He left a suicide note that said, “Dear Caroline: My nerves have completely left me. Please forgive this awful act. It seems the only way I can cure myself. Frank.”

 

1944- In the comic strip Dick Tracy, the longtime nemesis Flattop Jones was killed.

 

1951 - Ernie Kovacs Show, debuted on NBC TV. Kovacs was a great pioneer in the video medium who created uniquely surreal images and pantomime blackout skits.

 

1955- Kepler’s Books in Menlo Park Cal, today’s Silicon Valley, was founded by peace activist Roy Kepler. Keplers’ books was a hangout for Stanford computer scientists, Hippies, and creators of the Whole Earth Catalog. The Grateful Dead and Joan Baez played there, Prof. Douglas Englebart the inventor of the computer mouse, would pop in for coffee, and kids like Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak would ride their bikes over to check out the new computer books.

 

 

1976- Keith Relf of the rock group the Yardbirds, was electrocuted while playing his guitar in his bathtub.

 

1968 - Beatles announce formation of Apple Records.

 

 

1998 - Last episode of sitcom Seinfeld on NBC. Elderly singer Frank Sinatra died shortly after watching it.

 

2016- The Disneyland Parks stopped selling Disney Dollars

tom sito's animation almanac for May 13, 2025

Birthdays: St. Sergius of Radonez 1314, Sir Arthur Sullivan, Cyrus McCormick, Stevie Wonder, George Braque, Daphne DuMaurier, Joe Louis, Richie Valens, Gil Evans, Beatrice Arthur, Dennis Rodman, Clive Barnes, animator Burnett “Burny” Mattinson, Steven Colbert is 60, Harvey Keitel is 84

 

1913- In Saint Petersburg, Igor Sikorsky invented the first airplane toilet. Later he would move to the US and invent the helicopter. Without a toilet though.

 

 

1956- Actor Montgomery Clift was disfigured in a car crash. He had to have his jaw wired until it could heal.

  

 

1963- The English adventure comic Modesty Blaise, by Peter O’Donnell and Jim Holdaway debuted.

 

1963- Marvel published the first X-Men comic book.

 

60^th Anniv.1965 - Rolling Stones recorded "Satisfaction".

 

1965- In a DC nightclub, the Ramsey Lewis Trio recorded live “The In Crowd”, one of the last jazz singles to crossover and become a hit pop song. 

 

1966 - Rolling Stones released "Paint it Black"

 

 

1971 - Grace Slick of Jefferson Airplane seriously injured in a car accident

 

1988- Legendary jazz trumpeter Chet Baker “The Prince of Cool” died when he fell off a window ledge of the Hotel Prinz Hendrik in Amsterdam. He frequently locked himself out of his room and trying to climb in a window. Heroin and cocaine were found in his system. He was 58.

 

1992- Police arrest the manager of Comic Book Heaven in Sarasota Florida on seven counts of "displaying materiel harmful to minors", i.e., comic books.

 

2006- Disney’s The Little Match Girl, directed by Roger Allers was released.

tom sito's animation almanac for May 12, 2025

Birthdays: Dolly Madison, Dante Rossetti, Frank Stella, Florence Nightingale, Tom Snyder, George Carlin, Wilfred Hyde-White, Emilio Estevez, Ron Zeigler, Farley Mowat, Ving Rhames, Bruce Boxleitner, Katherine Hepburn, Yogi Berra, Joy Batchelor

 

1934- Winnie, a Canadian black bear who had been living at the London Zoo, passed away at the ripe old age of 20. She had been at the Zoo since 1915. She was a favorite of young Christopher Robin Milne, the son of author a.a. milne. Winnie was the inspiration for Winnie the Pooh.

 

1938- “The Adventures of Robin Hood” starring Errol Flynn, Basil Rathbone, Olivia DeHaviland, Claude Rains and Eugene Paulette premiered. The swashbuckling film then cost a whopping $2 million dollars to make! The light brown mare Maid Marion rode in the movie was later bought by singing cowboy Roy Rogers and renamed Trigger.

 

1962- First day shooting on Frederico Fellini’s film 8 1/2. When screened for American Producer Joe Levine, Levine took the cigar from his mouth and growled-” Frederigo, what da hell did that movie mean? ” Fellini shrugged, “I don’t know”.

 

1963- Folksinger Bob Dylan walked out of a taping on the Ed Sullivan Show. He objected to CBS censors wanting to cut his number making fun of extra Right-Wing extremists like the John Birch Society.

 

1971 - Rolling Stone Mick Jagger weds Bianca Macias at St Tropez Town Hall.

They later divorced and Bianca became a famous habitue’ of trendy discos and fashion magazines.

 

1971- Tor Johnson died of a heart attack at age 68. Swedish wrestler turned actor, Tor’s best known role was of the bald eyeless zombie in classics like Plan Nine from Outer Space and Bride of the Monster.

 

1977- A small Westchester radio station WENW hired a thin, gawky, college grad as a DJ- Howard Stern. US radio would never be the same.

 

1995- the movie Crimson Tide opened. Directed by Tony Scott, with Denzel Washington and Gene Hackman.

 

tom sito's animation almanac for may 11, 2025

Birthdays: Salvador Dali', Jean Jerome, Chang and Eng Bunker-the original Siamese Twins-1811, Baron Munchausen, Irving Berlin, King Oliver, Martha Graham, Dr. Richard Fenyman, Mort Sahl, Foster Brooks, Denver Pyle, Henry Morgenthau, Doug McClure, Randy Quaid, Natasha Richardson, Albert Hurter, Margaret Kerry the model for Walt Disney’s Tinkerbell is 96

 

Happy Mothers Day (US) 1908. The holiday was inspiration of a West Virginia social activist named Anna Jarvis. She had 13 children herself, 4 of whom died of childhood diseases, and 5 died in the Civil War. Mrs. Jarvis had spent her life mobilizing mothers to care for their children and she wanted mothers' work to be recognized. "I hope and pray that someone, sometime, will found a memorial mothers' day commemorating her for the matchless service she renders to humanity in every field of life." She began organizing Mother’s Day Clubs as early as 1858. After her death, her daughter Anna Maria Jarvis took up the cause. She celebrated The First Mother's Day on the anniversary of her mothers passing in 1908; it became a national holiday in 1914. Mrs, Jarvis insisted the holiday idea not be commercially exploited. She hated the commercialization of Mother’s Day so much that in 1943 she circulated a petition trying to get the holiday rescinded. It failed. In 1948 Anna Maria Jarvis died broke and surrounded by store-made Mother’s Day cards and candy from fans.

 

1831- French writer Alexis De Tocqueville visited the United States.

 

 

1934- The Howard Hawks screwball comedy Twentieth Century premiered with John Barrymore and Carol Lombard. 

 

1935- Disney Silly Symphony Water Babies, directed by Wilfried Jackson.

 

 

1968 - Actor Richard Harris attempted a singing career, releasing the song "MacArthur Park".

 

1972 -On the Dick Cavett talk show rock star and peace activist John Lennon said his phone had been tapped by FBI. It turns out it was, but at the time we all thought he was just paranoid from too many drugs.

 

1981- The musical play CATS opened in London.

 

1981- Bob Marley died of brain cancer at age 36. Marley and his group the Wailers, made Jamaican Reggae mainstream in pop music. 

 

tom sito's animation almanac for may 10, 2025

Birthdays: Fred Astaire, Phil Silvers, Nancy Walker, French royal minister Turgot, Marshal Jean Lannes, Marshal Nicolas Davout, John Wilkes Booth (assassin of Lincoln) Mark David Chapman (assassin of John Lennon), David O. Selznick, Mother Maybelle Carter, Ariel Durant, Jim Abrahams, Nancy Walker, Donovan, Homer Simpson, Bono, Kenan Thompson is 47, Paige O’Hara the voice of Belle in Beauty & the Beast.

 

 

1893- The U.S. Agriculture Dept. declared the tomato was officially a vegetable and not a fruit.

 

1908- The First Mother's Day celebrated; it became a national holiday in 1914. The holiday was inspiration of a social activist named Anna Jarvis, who spent the rest of her life trying to keep it from being commercially exploited. She died broke and surrounded by store-made mother’s day cards sent from well-wishers.

 

1908- An article in the New York Times advised women to wash their hair every two weeks. The norm then was every three months! 

 

1928- General Electric started up WG4 Schenectady, the first T.V. Station.

 

1929- Yankee slugger Babe Ruth signed new contract that paid him more money than President Herbert Hoover. Babe replied, "Well, I had a better year than he had.”

 

1929- Walt Disney’s short Skeleton Dance premiered. Animated mostly by Mickey Mouse designer Ub Iwerks, it was a breakthrough in tightly done musical sync animation.

 

 

1962-Happy Birthday Hulk! The first Incredible Hulk comic book.

 

1963- On the advice of George Harrison and Little Richard, Decca Records signed a new teen band called the Rolling Stones to a recording contract.

 

1977- Joan Crawford died of cancer and a heart attack. Once the most beautiful woman in Hollywood, now a neglected old recluse. She was 74. Soon after her daughter Christine published the memoir Mommy Dearest, in which she alleged years of abuse and neglect. Her last words were when she saw her nurse and maid were praying, she said,” Damn it! Don’t you dare ask God to save me!”

 

tom sito's animation almanac for may 9, 2025

Birthdays: John Brown, James M. Barrie the creator of Peter Pan, Henry J. Kaiser of Kaiser Aluminum, Pedro Armendariz, Frank Frazetta, Glenda Jackson, Billy Joel, Candice Bergen is 79, Mike Wallace, Pancho Gonzales, James L. Brooks, Rosario Dawson, John Corbett, Albert Finney

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1662- London diarist Samuel Pepys noted today he first saw a Punch & Judy puppet show in Convent Garden.

 

1887- Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show did its first performance in Europe. In London the English public, several European kings and writer Oscar Wilde thrilled to displays of trick riding, real red Indians, cowboys and little Annie Oakley the trick shooter. 

 

1896 – The first horseless carriage show in London. It featured 10 models.

 

1914- An Italian immigrant cook arrived at Ellis Island named Ettori (Hector) Boiardi. He joined the kitchen staff at The Plaza Hotel and quickly rose to become head chef.  In the 1920s Boiardi and his brother opened a restaurant and catering service in Cleveland. The soon expanded to selling pre-cooked Italian food in cans to groceries and markets. He even figured how to get pasta with meatballs into a can. It was marketed under his name Chef Boyardee. A joke on people trying to pronounce his name. During WWII he was awarded a medal for creating rations for Allied troops. After the war tens of thousands of servicemen and women went home to raise families, and they remembered Chef Boyardee in a can.

 

 

1919- Harlem bandleader James Europe had toured Europe while in uniform for World War I and had made the Old World wild for jazz. Europe was doing a triumphal tour of America with his doughboy band when his career was tragically cut short. In Boston, he argued with one hotheaded musician who stabbed him in the neck. He quickly bled to death. Had he lived, James Europe might have been as famous in Jazz history as Louis Armstrong or Duke Ellington.

 

 

1932 – London’s Piccadilly Circus first lit by electricity.

 

1935- The First Belch heard on nationwide radio. Melvin Purvis (the FBI man who killed John Dillinger) was doing an ad for Fleischmann’s Yeast when he committed the offense, which was dubbed “The Burp Heard Round the World”.

 

 

1937- Burne Hogarth began drawing the Tarzan comic strip. Hal Foster had been in contract negotiations with the syndicate over money and the right to his originals. He had created Prince Valiant as a bargaining chip when the syndicate called his bluff by giving the Tarzan job to Hogarth. Foster went on to greater glory with Prince Valiant, but never forgave Burne.

 

 

1942- Chuck Jones’ wartime comedy short “ The Draft Horse” premiered. 

 

 

1955- Washington D.C. station WRC TV put on a young Univ of Maryland grad named Jim Henson as filler before the TODAY Show. First called Sam & Friends, Henson antics with his puppets, including a green frog called Kermit, fashioned from fabric cut out from one of his mother’s old green coats. The Muppets were born.

 

1960- Dr. Gregory Pincus introduced the Birth Control Pill Enovid-10, aka The Pill.

 

1961- John F. Kennedy's newly appointed head of the FCC, Newton Minow, did his first major address to a luncheon of top television executives. In his speech he blasted them for TV’s mindless content and violence. He called television: " A Vast Wasteland."

 What makes it historic is it's the first time anybody had noticed just how lousy TV is and how badly we are all addicted to it. Minnow did a lot to build up PBS and Sesame Street. In the show Gilligan’s Island, the boat they were on was named the Minnow for Newton Minnow.

 

1973- Soylent Green opened in general release. Starring Charlton Heston and Edward G. Robinson in his last movie role. Soylent Green took place in the year 2022.

 

1995- The Center of Disease Control published findings on a new deadly strain of virus appearing near Kinshasha Zaire. They called it the Ebola Virus.

 

 

2016- The TV comedy Upstart Crow debuted in the UK.

tom sito's animation fun facts for may 8, 2025

Birthdays: Harry Truman, Roberto Rossellini, Leopold Bakunin, Louis Gottschalk, Oscar Hammerstein, Ted Sorenson, Sonny Liston, Toni Tennille, Ricky Nelson, Peter Benchley, Thomas Pinchon, Arthur Q. Bryan the voice of Elmer Fudd, Keith Jarrett, Alex Van Halen, Melissa Gilbert, French illustrator Jean Giraud aka Moebius, Enrique Inglesias, animator Bob Clampett, Don Rickles, film graphic designer Saul Bass, Sir David Attenborough is 99.

1874- Massachusetts adopted a ten-hour workday for women, down from 12-14 hours.

 

1878- David Hughes invented the Microphone while trying to get over bronchitis.

 

1910- Russian-Jewish glove salesman Shmuel Kelpfish married Blanche Lasky, the daughter of vaudeville performer Jesse Lasky. Kelpfish later changed his name to Sam Goldfish, then Sam Goldwyn. He and his father-in-law Jesse Lasky went into the new flicker business and started the Jesse L. Lasky Feature Play Company. They soon moved to Hollywood where he became the Goldwyn in MGM (Metro Goldwyn Mayer).  He was famous for his pithy comments “Goldwynisms.” Like, “If people don’t want to go see a picture, nothing can stop them!” and “ I want this picture to begin with a volcanic eruption, then build to a shuttering climax!”

 

1912- The movie studio Famous Players Lasky born. In 1914 they changed their name to Paramount Pictures. 

 

1927- When Charles Lindbergh flew solo across the Atlantic, there were other aviators who attempted the same feat. This day French daredevils Charles Nungesser & Francois Coli took off from Paris to fly to New York in their plane L’Oiseau Blanc. The White Bird. They were never seen again, and their remains have never been recovered. Later that year, authorities noticed that the $30,000.00 in prize money that crooked NY Mayor Jimmy Walker was supposed to present them with had mysteriously disappeared as well…

 

1933- When the Rockefellers were building their huge office complex Rockefeller Center in New York City they decided to get one of the greatest living Mexican painters Diego Rivera to design the murals for the interior of the atrium ’Man at the Crossroads". This, despite the fact that Rivera was well known to be a radical communist.  

Soon Nelson Rockefeller noticed Rivera was painting in the center of the mural a huge portrait of Lenin stepping on his father John D. Rockefeller’s face! Over Rivera’s protests Rockefeller ordered the mural painted over and no record of it’s existence ever kept. But on the night before the painting was to be destroyed Swiss art student Lucienne Bloch slipped a camera into her shirt. While Frida Kahlo distracted the guards, she took the only photos of the mural for posterity. 

 

1943- Tex Avery's "Red Hot Riding Hood"- Ooohh Wolfy!

 

80 year Anniv 1945- V.E. Day. Grand Admiral Doenitz, the successor to Adolf Hitler, officially surrendered the Third Reich to the allies. They repeated the ceremony to the Russians next day.  Admiral Doenitz said after the signing:" I feel we shall not see our flag fly over a prosperous Germany in our lifetime."  Well, not really….

Nazi's repeat the surrender signing done for Eisenhower, now for the Russians in Berlin. The announcements were made, V-E day celebrations broke out around the world.

 

1945- As thousands of people mobbed Trafalgar Sq. and the Mall in London to celebrate the end of the war, 19 year old future Queen Elizabeth II slipped out a side gate of Buckingham Palace.  She and her girlfriends mingled in the crowds, dancing with boys and snatching sailor’s caps. For that one night she was not princess, she was just 2^nd Subaltern Ordinary Elizabeth Windsor. 

 

1947- Department store mogul Harry Gordon Selfridge died in poverty in Putney, a suburb of London. He was 89. Even though his store Selfridges made millions, in his old age he wasted so much money on gambling and women, his exec board stripped him of his power.  In 1943 he was arrested for vagrancy for loitering in front of his own store. 

 

 

1962-"A Funny thing Happened to Me on the Way to the Forum" opened on Broadway.

 

1962- Director Joe Mankiewicz shot the climactic spectacle scene of Cleopatra –Elizabeth Taylor, entering Rome through the Arch of Titus on a mobile sphinx surrounded by thousands of extras. The shot had been delayed six months after a stunt woman fell off an elephant, and then the light in the Forum had not been right. When Elizabeth Taylor appeared in the scene, the Italian extras were supposed to shout "Hail Cleopatra!, but instead they all shouted "Liz! Liz!"

 

1962- An MIT lab open house that year featured a new idea created by grad students Slugg Russell and Adam Kotok for the college’s PDP-1 mainframe computer. An interactive game called Spacewar! Scientists had been adapting chess and checkers to be played on a computer, but this was the first original game. A spaceship shoot-em-up. The company that leased PDP-1s gave out Spacewar! as a perk and soon around the country scientists were playing away into the night.

 

 

tom sito's animation almanac for May 7, 2025

Birthday: Johannes Brahms, Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Gary Cooper, Anne Baxter, Gabby Hayes, Ichiro Honda, Robert Browning, Marcus Loew of Loews Theater chain, Darin McGavin, Edward Land (inventor of the Polaroid lens and camera), Totie Fields, Amy Heckerling, Traci Lords, Disney director Jun Falkenstein 

 

1901- The actions of Thornton Wilder’s play Our Town, takes place this day. 

 

1904 - Flexible Flyer trademark registered

 

1928- Construction began of UCLA on a plot of ground west of Beverly Hills called the Beverly Site, but today we call Westwood.

 

1941-Glen Miller records the "Chattanooga Choo-Choo" for RCA. the first gold record million seller.

 

1942- Battle of the Coral Sea-The U.S. Navy, suffering only defeats up till then, stopped a Japanese task force. This is the first engagement in which the two fleets never saw each other but fought long distance with carrier launched airplanes. Veterans commented that one of the sadder losses was when the aircraft carrier USS Lexington went down, she took the fleet's supply of 6 Bugs Bunny cartoons down with her. War is Hell.

 

1945- Director Bob Clampett left Looney Tunes, now called Warner Bros Cartoons, to strike out on his own.

1950- The Carolwood Pacific Railroad. Walt Disney had grown up around and loved trains. Animator Ward Kimball got him interested in collecting model trains. Walt grew so enamored he built a miniature steam train big enough to take children on rides. The tracks ran all around the back of his Holmby Hills home. This day was the first running of his new hobby. The germ of his idea for Disneyland began here. After the home was sold, in the 1990s the Carolwood Barn and trains were moved to Griffith Park.

 

1966- “Monday Monday” by the Mammas and the Poppas becomes #1 in the pop charts.

 

1989- Police in Buenos Aires discovered the body of actor Guy Williams (Zorro, Lost In Space) He had died of a brain aneurysm in his apartment. He was 65.

 

1996- Comedian Martin Lawrence went berserk and ran down a main intersection in Van Nuys Cal. raving and waving a pistol. When asked to explain himself, Lawrence blamed it on “Dehydration.”

 

1998- Apple Computers introduced the iMac.

 

2020- Due to the Coronavirus quarantine the U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments on the social networking program Zoom. One of the justices excused himself but did not leave on the mute button. So, at one point the proceedings were interrupted by the sound of a toilet flushing. 

 

Tom Sito's Animation Almanac for May 6, 2025

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 64. 

 

*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

 

 

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 great Zeppelin Graf HINDENBURG EXPLODED while landing in Lakehurst New Jersey. Despite the horrible film images 63 of the 90 passengers and crew escaped. 

   People to this day aren’t sure what happened, from an igniting from static electricity to an anti-nazi saboteur firing a flare gun into the hydrogen gas-bags. The explosion originated behind the large swastika on the tail. 

The previous year a visit from a German luxury liner the S.S. Bremen caused a riot on the New York City docks as demonstrators fought police to tear the hated Nazi flag down.   It was possible at that time to fly a dirigible with non flammable helium, but it was much more expensive than hydrogen and the worlds chief supplier of helium, the United States, was reluctant to sell Hitler that much of the strategic chemical. 

The American ground crew wanted to give a gift to the German captain who was dying of 3rd degree burns, so they presented him with an engraved cigarette lighter! My grandfather told me they drove out to see the wreckage with a huge crowd. Even though it was still smoldering, people were prying chunks off for souvenirs.

   Zeppelins were once supposed to be moored to the top of the Empire State Building but that never came about. By 1939 Air Marshal Herman Goring ordered all remaining zeppelins and hangers scrapped for their valuable materials.

 

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 compelled 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.

tom sito's animation almanac for may 5, 2025

Birthdays: Tyrone Power, Karl Marx, Elizabeth Cochrane called Nellie Bly, Soren Kierkegard, Alice Faye, James Beard, Jim Kelly, Pat Carroll, Patrick Ewing, Jack Pierce (Hollywood makeup man who designed Frankenstein), John Rhys Davies is 81, Lance Henriksen is 85, Brian Williams, Floyd Gottfredson, Michael Palin is 82

 

In Japan this is a holiday known as Children's Day.

 

National Teacher's Day.

 

National Cartoonist's Day as set by the National Cartoonists Society.

 

 

1862- CINCO DE MAYO- Battle of Puebla-Mexican Juarista army under Zaragosa defeated a French invasion force sent by Napoleon III. One of the heroes of the battle was a soldier named Porfiro Diaz. After Benito Juarez’s presidency Diaz made himself dictator and reigned 38 years until being ousted in the Mexican Revolution in 1910. 

 

 

1889- THE PARIS WORLD EXHIBITION opened. This exposition was what the Eiffel Tower was built for: it was the centerpiece of this World's Fair to mark the centennial of the French Revolution. 

Americans remembered it as the event where American painting first stood out on the world stage, despite being given a small gallery space between Bosnia and Denmark. The judging of the artwork was controversial. Here they are trying to show the world the uniqueness of American painting, yet with not a single Copley, Bierstadt, Thomas Eakins, or Winslow Homer was accepted. 

James McNeill Whistler considered himself American although he lived most of the time in London. When the show was announced, he patriotically entered a dozen paintings, but the American judges rejected them all. He angrily re-submitted them as a British artist and won a gold medal.

 

1891-Carnegie Hall in New York opened. One old musician told me the acoustics are so perfect that you can fart in the trumpet section, and you'll be heard in the second balcony.

 

 

1932- Charles Revson founded the Revlon Cosmetics Company.

 

1934-Actress-singer Helen Kane sued Max Fleischer and Paramount Pictures over Betty Boop. Ms. Kane claimed the Fleischers copied her to create Betty’s distinctive “Boop-oop-a-doop”. This day she lost the case after the Fleischers proved Ms. Kane had herself taken the idea from a African-American singer named Baby Esther. 

1945- Happy Birthday Yosemite Sam! Hare Trigger, the first cartoon to feature the red mustachioed desperado premiered.

 

1953- Broadway Director Jerome Robbins was riding high after directing hits like On the Town and King & I, when he was labeled a Communist. To save his career, this day he testified before Joseph McCarthy’s House UnAmerican Activities Committee. He admitted he had been a communist party member and named names. One actress he finked on, Margaret Lee said,” I’ve just been stabbed by a wicked fairy”. Ironically, Jerome Robbins went on to direct two of his biggest hits “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum and the Fiddler on the Roof using Zero Mostel, Beatrice Arthur and Jack Gilford, blacklisted actors who all hated him. During a break in rehearsal on Fiddler, one actor said, “I’d like to kick Jerry in the balls!” Beatrice Arthur replied, “Jerry has no balls.”

The famed actor/director Orson Wells observed that “Friend informed on friend not to save their lives but to save their swimming pools.”

 

1975- Anne Rice’s novel The Interview with The Vampire first published.

 

1984- Cartoonists Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird were sitting around one night. Over beers they tried to conceive the most ridiculous superheroes mag they could think of. Something with Ninjas, Mutants, and Teenagers. They had just enough from Peter’s tax refund to print one limited edition. This day at a regional Comicon in Portsmouth New Hampshire, the first edition of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles appeared and sold out in only two hours. It became a monster hit and spawned TV series and movies.

 

2006- Walt Disney Company formally acquired Pixar Studio.

tom sito's animation almanac for May 4, 2025

Birthdays: Bartolomeo Christofori'- inventor of the piano, Alice Liddel 1852- the inspiration of Alice in Wonderland, Audrey Hepburn –real name Edda van Heemstra Hepburn-Rusten, Roberta Peters, Maynard Ferguson, Pia Zadora is 71, Howard Da Silva, Tammy Wynette, Randy Travis, Hosni Mubarak, George Will, Richard Jenkins

 

1891 –THE DEATH OF SHERLOCK HOLMES According to Sir Arthur Conan-Doyle, this was the day Sherlock Holmes perished at the Reichenbach Falls grappling with sinister Prof. Moriarity- The Napoleon of Crime.  Conan Doyle had tired of his eccentric detective and wanted to get on to other types of novels. But fans were horrified he had killed off the great sleuth. Conan-Doyle couldn’t take a walk down the street without someone stopping him:” Sir, How could you?!” When touring the U.S.A. he wanted to lecture about historical subjects and spiritualism, but Americans only asked about Holmes & Watson. Finally, after a decade, Arthur Conan-Doyle gave in and began a new series called The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes.

 

1897- In Paris during a charity cinematograph show the nitrate film catches fire and 200 die. Movie film before the 1940’s was made from a very unstable nitrate mixture and could explode from the slightest contact with flame. 

 

 1927- The Motion Picture Academy of Arts & Sciences formed. Studio heads Irving Thalberg and Louis B. Mayer originally conceived the Academy as an arbiter where studio artists could air grievances without fear of retaliation, thereby sidetracking any calls for union representation. It didn't work. After the stock market crash the Academy supported the studio heads enforced salary cuts. Soon all ideas as an ombudsman were abandoned and AMPAS focused on being the award of artistic achievement.

Screenwriter Dorothy Parker commented: "Going to the Academy with your problems is like trying to get laid in your mother's house. Someone's always peeking through the curtains"

 

1943- 303^rd Bomber Group and the 41^st Combat wing bombed an enemy aircraft assembly plant near Antwerp. One B-17 called 8 Ball contained top gunner Clark Gable the movie star. His first time in action. Gable would be decorated for his bravery and promoted to captain. Hitler actually posted a reward if Gable could be shot down and captured alive. He was a fan.

 

1948- Norman Mailor's first novel published: "the Naked and the Dead".

 

1953 – The Pulitzer prize was awarded to Ernest Hemingway for The Old Man & The Sea.

 

1957 - Alan Freed hosts "Rock n' Roll Show" 1st prime-time network rock music show.

 

1963- Nelson Rockefeller married Margaret Fitzler-Murphy, called Happy Rockefeller. 

 

1967- The Big Mac hamburger is invented by Jim Delligatti at his MacDonalds franchise restaurant in Pittsburgh. Steelworkers weren’t coming to his McDonald’s. They often ate one big meal a day after double shifts and the tiny burgers at McDonald’s weren’t going to cut it. They preferred the hearty burgers and meal sizes sandwiched at Eat’n Park or Primanti Bro’s. So the only way he could compete was to double his burgers! 

 

1975- Moe Howard died, the last of the original Three Stooges.

 

1991- Bing Crosby’s son Dennis Crosby put a shotgun to his head and ended his life. In 1989 his younger brother Lindsay had committed suicide in a similar fashion.

 

2000- Pixar announced Iron Giant writer-director Brad Bird has joined them to direct.

 

2000- The Love Bug Computer virus ravaged the worlds commerce through Microsoft Outlook causing $10 billion dollars in damage and shutting down temporarily the e-commerce of large firms like Reebok. It was launched by a Philippine grad student as part of his thesis.

 

2001- Bonnie Lee Blakely, the wife of actor Robert Blake, was found in her car dead of a gunshot wound to the head outside of Vitello’s Restaurant in Studio City, Ca. They had just had dinner, and Mr. Blake had returned into the restaurant to retrieve a gun he had left at his table. In 2005 the actor was acquitted of his wife’s murder but lost a wrongful death suit to Blakely’s family. Robert Blake died in 2023 at age 89. No other suspect was ever identified. 

 

2008- Fredric Bauer, died at age 89. The organic chemist was the inventor of Pringles potato chips. When he died his ashes were buried in an original recipe Pringles can.

2012- Marvel's The Avengers, directed by Josh Whedon, opened.