tom sito's animation almanac for may 31, 2025

Birthdays: King Manuel I of Portugal 1495, Walt Whitman, Fred Allen, Don Ameche, Prince Ranier, Dr. Norman Vincent Peale, Ranier Werner Fassbinder, Brooke Shields, Joe Namath, Richie Valens, John Kemeny- the co-creator of the computer language BASIC, Tom Berenger, Denholm Elliot, Peter Yarrow, Lea Thompson, John Bonzo Bonham of Led Zepplin, Colin Farrell is 49, Clint Eastwood is 95

 

 

1837 - Joseph Grimaldi, England’s greatest clown (king of pantomime), died at 57. On stage since the age of 3 at Sadler-Wells, he never appeared in a circus ring. Instead, his

act was stage pantomime. In tribute to him, English circus clowns are known as a “Joey’.

 

 

1894- Happy Birthday Kellogg’s Corn Flakes! Dr. John Harvey Kellogg of Battle Creek Michigan patents "flaked cereal and the process for making same." Dr. Kellogg ran a health clinic where he felt whole foods like Corn Flakes could help Victorian people curb their sexual urges. 

 

 

 

1928- The song “Old Man River “sung by Paul Robeson came out as a single.

 

1929- Steamboat Willie was the first Mickey Mouse sound cartoon, but Mickey didn’t speak much. He just whistled, yelped and laughed. In the cartoon released this day “the Carnival Kid” Mickey spoke his first words “Hot Dogs!” The voice was musician Carl Stalling. Later Walt Disney decided to voice the mouse himself.

 

1935- Twentieth Century Pictures and Fox Pictures merged to become Twentieth Century Fox. In 2017 Walt Disney Company purchased 20^th Cent Fox and in the Summer of 2020 phased out the brand.

 

1958 - Dick Dale invented "surf music" with "Let's Go Trippin".

 

1969- John Lennon and Yoko Ono recorded "Give Peace a Chance." at the Queen Elizabeth Hotel in downtown Montreal. It became the theme song of the Anti-Vietnam War movement. Because of this song and Lennon’s support of the Hippie protesters the Nixon White House kept a file on him. Lennon spent most of 1972-73 under a constant threat of 60-day deportation from the US. 

 

1984- Martial arts movie star Steven Segal married soap opera star Adrienne LaRussa. But what Adrienne didn’t know was he already had a wife named Miyako Fujetani and two kids waiting for him in Japan. A few months after this he fell for another actress named Kelly LeBrock.

 

1985- John Sculley was a former exec from Pepsi brought in by Apple Computer founders Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak to help run the company. This day his solution to help the company run better was to fire Steve Jobs. Wozniak retired and Sculley eventually moved on. Before his death, Steve Jobs came back to Apple and make it the world’s most profitable company, as well as run Pixar, and be on the board of the Walt Disney Company.

 

1989- "Skinhead Day at the Magic Kingdom" Disneyland refused to admit a rally of skinheads, Nazis and Klansmen. 

 

1990- Television sitcom Seinfeld premiered based on a TV special about the standup comedian called the Seinfeld Chronicles. No Soup for You!

 

2000- The first Survivor show premiered, shepherding in the era in America of TV Reality shows.

 

2004- Peppa Pig created by Astley Baker-Davies debuted on British TV.

 

2008- The space shuttle Discovery brought a Buzz Lightyear doll up to the International Space Station.

 

 

tom sito's animation almanac for may 30, 2025

Birthdays: Czar Peter the Great, Benny Goodman, Mel Blanc, Stepin Fetchit, Boris Pasternak, Irving Thalberg, Milt Neil, Howard Hawks, Gale Sayers, Agnes Varda, Michael J. Pollard, Wynonna, Keir Dullea is 88, Ceelo Green is 49, Idina Menzel is 53

 

 

1821 - James Boyd patents the Rubber Fire Hose.

 

1848- William Young patents the ice cream freezer.

 

1930- The Lockheed Terminal was rededicated as Burbank Airport.

 

 

1935 - Babe Ruth's last game. He went hitless for the Boston Braves against Phillies.

 

1936- Mickey short “Through the Mirror” opened.

 

1950- Charles Schulz introduced the character Schroeder into his Peanuts comic strip. The little boy obsessed with playing Beethoven on his toy piano.

 

1962- Benjamin Britten’s War Requiem had its first performance.

 

1972- Director choreographer Bob Fosse filmed a live performance of Liza Minelli’s one-woman show Liza with a Z. It was telecast in Sept. and became a sensation.

 

1994 - Death of Baron Marcel Bich, Italian-born French engineer and industrialist who created an empire of disposable BIC pens, lighters and razors.

 

2003- Pixar’s Finding Nemo opened in general release. 

 

tom sito's animation almanac for May 29, 2025

History for 5/29/2025
Birthdays: John F. Kennedy, King Charles II (the "Merry Monarch"), Bob Hope, G. K. Chesterton, Patrick Henry, Oswald Spengler, T.H. White, Erich Wolfgang Korngold, Josef Von Sternberg, LaToya Jackson, John Hinckley Jr., Al Unser Jr., Beatrice Lilly, Danny Elfman, Annette Benning is 67, Melissa Etheridge is 64, Rupert Everett is 67

 

 

1941-THE GREAT WALT DISNEY CARTOONISTS STRIKE. The picket line and campsite went up across the street where St. Joseph's Hospital is today. Chef's from nearby Toluca Lake restaurants would cook for the strikers on their off time and the aircraft mechanics of Lockheed promised muscle if any ruff stuff was threatened.   

Picketers included Hank Ketcham (Dennis the Menace), Walt Kelly and Margaret Selby (later Kelly) (Pogo), Bill Melendez (A Charlie Brown Christmas), Steve Bosustow and John Hubley (Mr. Magoo), Maurice Noble and Chuck Jones (What's Opera Doc?), George Baker (Sad Sack), Dick Swift ("the Parent Trap") Frank Tashlin (Cinderfella) Ade Woolery (Playhouse), and four hundred others. Animators from Warner Bros. MGM and Walter Lantz marched with their Disney brothers and sisters, because they knew this was where the fate of their entire industry would be settled. Celebrities like Dorothy Parker, Frank Morgan, and John Garfield gave speeches. The studio claimed no one of importance was on strike. 

The strike was eventually settled by Federal arbitration and a little arm twisting by the Bank of America. Many of the artists who left the studio afterwards set up U.P.A. and pioneered the modern 1950's style.

 

1942- Bing Crosby recorded "White Christmas," debatably the best selling record of all time.

 

1952- Edmund Hillary and Sherpa guide Tenzing Norga became first men to reach the top of Mt. Everest. The tallest mountain on the Earth.

 

1954- New York Police raided the studio of Irving Klaw, the photographer of the Betty Page kinky pin-up photos. Klaw tried to appeal to the Supreme Court but couldn’t get a hearing.

 

1956- Hollywood director James Whale (Frankenstein, The Invisible Man) drowned himself in his pool. His career was over and his health was deteriorating from a series of strokes. Bruises were found on his head and at first the police suspected foul play. It wasn’t until 1989 his partner made his suicide note public. His head had struck the pool’s bottom as he jumped in causing the bruise. A bio film was done of him called “ Gods and Monsters.”

 

1973 - Columbia Records fired President Clive Davis for misappropriating

$100, 000 in funds, So Davis went on and founded Arista records.

 

1977 - Janet Guthrie becomes 1st woman to drive in Indy 500.

 

1978 - Bob Crane, (Hogan-Hogan's Heroes), died at 49 under mysterious circumstances. He was found in a Tucson hotel room surrounded by pornography, bludgeoned to death by a camera tripod.  The murder was never solved.

 

1987 –pop singer Michael Jackson attempted to buy the XIX century remains of Joseph Meredith a.k.a. the Elephant Man.

 

1999- Hikers in a Malibu ravine discovered the remains of Phillip Taylor Kramer, the bass guitar player of the 1960’s band Iron Butterfly. The musician had disappeared four years before. Now his skeleton was found sitting in his Ford Aerostar at the bottom of a steep ravine.

  

 

2007- Apple sold it’s first iPhone.

 

Tom Sito's animation almanac for May 28, 2025

Birthdays: Solomon 970 BC, Noah Webster, Dr. Joseph Guillotine, William Pitt the Younger, General Pierre Beauregard, Ian Fleming, Jim Thorpe, The Dion Identical Quintuplets 1930, Gladys Knight, Jerry West, Dietrich Fisher-Deiskau, Sandra Locke, T-Bone Walker, Taffy Abel (one of the first professional hockey stars), John Fogarty is 80, Carey Mulligan is 40, Carol Baker.

 

 

1892- The Sierra Club formed. 

 

1929 - 1st all color talking picture, "On With the Show" exhibited (NYC).

 

1935- Tortilla Flat published. The first novel by John Steinbeck.

 

1941- THE WALT DISNEY STRIKE- Labor pressures had been building in the Magic Kingdom since promises made to artists over the success of Snow White were reneged on, and Walt Disney’s lawyer Gunther Lessing encouraged a hard line with his employees. The union claimed they had a majority of employee rep-cards signed, which Walt Refused to acknowledge. On this day, in defiance of the federal Wagner Act, Walt Disney fired animator Art Babbitt, the creator of Goofy, and thirteen other cartoonists for demanding a union. Babbitt had emerged as the union movements’ leader.  Studio security officers escorted him off the lot. “Would you mind if I collect my pencils?” 

That night in an emergency meeting of the Cartoonists Guild at Hollywood Legion Hall, Art’s assistant Bill Hurtz, made a motion to strike, and it was unanimously accepted. Bill Hurtz will later go on to direct award-winning cartoons like UPA’s "Unicorn in the Garden". Picket lines go up next day in Hollywood animation’s own version of the Civil War.

 

  Walt Disney nearly had a nervous breakdown over the strike, and a federal mediator was sent by Washington to arbitrate. In later years, Uncle Walt blamed the studio’s labor ills on Communists. The studio unionized completely, but the hard feelings remained for their rest of their lives.

 

1951- The Goon Show premiered on BBC Radio. It made stars out of comedians like Peter Sellers and Spike Milligan. Creator Spike Milligan loved Popeye cartoons and named it for the E.C. Segar character Alice the Goon. The Goon Show pioneered the type of irreverent anarchist sketch comedy later done by Monty Python’s Flying Circus, The Royal Canadian Air Farce and SNL. 

1953-Disney released its first 3D film a short, titled Melody (Adventure in Music). Written by Dick Heumer and co-directed by Ward Kimball.

 

1954- Alfred Hitchcock’s Dial M for Murder in 3D premiered.

 

1957- The National League Baseball owners voted to allow the Brooklyn Dodgers and NY Giants to move west to California. 

 

1960- George Zucco 74, a character actor who specialized in horror movies like Blood from the Mummies Hand, died. One version says he died of fright in a mental hospital in San Gabriel California. He was convinced that H.P. Lovecraft's Great God Cthulu was after him. He actually died of natural causes in a nursing home.

 

1966- the It’s a Small World exhibit, which had been created for the 1964 NY Worlds Fair, reopened at Disneyland, California. Designed by Mary Blair and Alice Davis. Song by the Sherman Brothers.

 

1977- George Lucas film Star Wars opened in wide release across the country.

 

 

1983- “What a Feeling” the theme from the film Flashdance by Irene Cara and Giorgio Moroder reached the top of the pop charts. Everyone began dancing with leg warmers and baggy sweaters torn at the neck. Interesting that all the stylish dancing in the film was really done by Jennifer Beals stand in, Marine Jahan, but she got no credit on the film. 

 

 

1998- After a dinner at Buca di Beppo restaurant in Encino, Saturday Night Live comedian Phil Hartman was shot to death by his wife Brynne as he slept. She was a heavy drinker and pill user. At 6:00am as the LAPD were knocking Brynne turned the gun on herself. Hartman’s last role was doing the English dub of Jiji the cat in Miyazaki’s Kiki’s Delivery Service.

 

2004- Lorenzo, animated short came out with the Disney film Raising Helen. Directed by Mike Gabriel, from an idea created decades ago by 95 year old storyman Joe Grant.

 

  

tom sito's animation almanac for may 27,2025

Birthdays: James 'Wild Bill' Hickock, Julia Ward Howe, Aemelia Jenks-Bloomer, Dashell Hammett, Leopold Goldowsky (the inventor of Kodachrome film), Hubert H. Humphrey, Herman Wouk, Harlan Ellison, Joseph Feines, Vincent Price, Christopher Lee, Dr. Henry Kissinger, Richard Schiff is 70, Peri Gilpin, Paul Bettany is 54

 

1874- Prostitution was outlawed in Los Angeles central business district.

 

1895 - British inventor Burt Acres patented a film camera/projector

 

1930- HAPPY BIRTHDAY SCOTCH TAPE -Chemist Richard Drew of Saint Paul Minnesota invented cellophane tape, marketed by the Minnesota Mining &Manufacturing or 3M Company. It was called Scotch after the stereotype perception that Scottish people are frugal, so it’s a good value. Three years later Drew invented Masking Tape as a way for car manufacturers to paint cars two tone.

 

1933- Disney’s cartoon “The Three Little Pigs” premiered, whose song “Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf” became a national anthem of recovery from the Great Depression. 

Director of the short Burt Gillette left Disney afterwards to run the Van Beuren Studio in New York. 

 

 

1948- Walt Disney feature Melody Time released, featuring Pecos Bill. 

 

1949- Actress Rita Hayworth married playboy Prince Aly Khan. Prince Aly Khan, 1911-1960, was born in Italy a son of dispossessed Pakistani royalty to the Aga Khan II. He lived his life as an international playboy, socialite and sportsman, making love to women from actress Rita Hayworth to Winston Churchill’s daughter-in-law Pamela Churchill-Harriman. Cole Porter wrote him into a song. He died when he crashed his sportscar in France.

 

1961 – The first black light is sold.

 

1969 – Construction on Walt Disney World Florida began.

 

 

1977- Punk band The Sex Pistols release their hit God Save the Queen, the Fascist Regime, in time for the Queen’s Jubilee year. Her Majesty herself preferred the Beatles’ All You Need is Love.

 

 

2005- Dreamworks animated feature Madagascar opened. Directed by Tom McGrath and Eric Darnell.

 

tom sito's animation almanac for may 26, 2025

Birthdays: The Duke of Marlborough, Pope Clement VII the Medici Fox-1478, Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin 1759- early feminist writer and mother of Mary Shelley, Alexander Pushkin, Isadora Duncan, Norma Talmadge, Paul Lukas, Dorothea Lange, John Wesley Hardin the shootist, John Wayne, Al Jolson, Jay Silverheels (Tonto), Peter Cushing, Robert Morley, Peggy Lee, Sally Ride, Pam Grier is 77, Helen Bonham Carter is 59, Bobcat Goldthwaite is 66, Matt Stone the co-creator of South Park

 

1897- A novel by a London theatre manager named Abraham “Bram” Stoker appeared in bookstores.  It was titled Dracula. 

 

1913- Actors Equity formed.

 

1933- Jimmy Rogers "the Singing Brakeman", the father of modern country music, died of tuberculosis at age 31. Shortly before his death he recorded a song called "TB Blues". 

 

1962- The Isley Brothers single “Twist & Shout” released.

 

1967- The Beatles album Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band released in the UK.

 

1969- John Lennon and Yoko Ono have their "Bed-In for Peace" news conference in New York.  One of the testiest exchanges was one Lennon had with Lil' Abner cartoonist Al Capp.

 

1969- Actor Jeffrey Hunter had been in movies like King of Kings and The Longest Day. He was considered first for the role of Captain Kirk in Star Trek. This day he was walking down some stairs in his Van Nuys home when he suffered an intercranial hemorrhage. He fell and fractured his skull. He was taken to Valley Presbyterian Hospital, where he died the next day. He was 42. 

 

 

1994- Singer Michael Jackson married Elvis’ daughter Lisa Marie Presley in the Dominican Republic. They keep the wedding a secret for six weeks, then divorced 18 months later.

 

1995- Looney Tunes director Friz Freleng died at age 89.

 

1995- In a memo to Microsoft, founder Bill Gates declared the Internet the “most important single development” since the personal computer.

 

2006- The World Premiere of Pixar’s Cars, held at the NASCAR speedway in Charlotte NC.

 

tom sito's animation almanac for may 25, 2025

History for 5/25/2025
Birthdays: Miles Davis, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Josef Broz Tito, Igor Sikorsky, Pontormo, Bennett Cerf, Claude Akins, Leslie Uggams, Bill Bojangles Robinson, Frank Oz (Richard Frank Oznowicz), Beverly Sills, Robert Ludlum, Anne Heche, Irwin Winkler, Mike Myers is 62, Ray Stevenson, Ian McKellen is 86

 

 

1906- Putting on the Ritz! Swiss hotelier Cesar Ritz opened London’s Ritz Hotel. The first hotel to feature unheard of luxuries like a telephone and an indoor toilet in every suite!

 

 

1911- Thomas Mann visited Venice Italy. On the Lido Beach he was inspired to write A Death in Venice.

 

1932- Mickey’s Revue, the first Disney cartoon that featured the character that would eventually be called Goofy.

 

1935- Babe Ruth hit his final home runs. The Bambino was in his last year, working out his contract with the Boston Braves. This day in Pittsburgh, the Babe showed his old form when he hit three home runs and a single. His record of 714 home runs held for over sixty years.

 

1942- First day shooting on the film “Casablanca”.

 

 

1946- Chuck Jones cartoon Hare Raising Hare, where Bugs meets a large shaggy monster originally named Rudolf, later Gossamer, “Monsters are such interesting people…”

 

 

1957- Sid Caesar's Your Show of Shows ended after nearly a decade. The show built a legendary writers room, employing future star writers like Mel Brooks, Carl Reiner, Woody Allen and Neil Simon.  The show also pioneered the executive strategy of producer Sylvester “Pat” Weaver to not let the show be owned by an entire sponsor, but the network would produce the show and would sell the sponsor commercial time in 30 second chunks. Pat Weaver’s daughter is Sigourney Weaver. Your Show of Shows was finally bested in the ratings by The Lawrence Welk Show.

 

1961- THE SPACE RACE- The United States had been chafing about how far ahead the Soviet Union seemed to be in the exploration of space. In an address to Congress this day President John F. Kennedy pledged the wealth and resources of the U.S. to beating the Soviets to the Moon. "Our pledge is within the next ten years to send a man to the moon and return him safely to Earth… We choose to go to the Moon not because it will be easy but because it is hard!"The Moon landing was achieved in 1969. Today it is acknowledged that without the motivation of the Cold War the conquest of the Moon would have happened much more slowly. 

 

1965- The Saint Louis Gateway Arch dedicated.

 

1968- The Rolling Stones released the song Jumping Jack Flash. 

 

1969- John Schlesinger’s film Midnight Cowboy premiered. The first X-rated film to ever win the Oscar for Best Film. This is the film where Dustin Hoffman yells “Hey! I’m walking here!”

 

1977- The opening of George Lucas’ movie Star Wars. Today called A New Hope. The movie opened wide on the 28^th.  After Universal and Disney passed, Twentieth Century Fox picked up the distribution but let the backend profits go to Lucas. First because they had taken a loss with the failure of Dr. Doolittle, and second because they didn't think the film would do any serious business. Even George Lucas didn’t expect the film to break even. Fox's market research department told studio head Alan Ladd Jr:  1). don't make this movie; no one will go see a science fiction movie; and 2). change the title; no one will go see a movie with "War" in the title.  Fox executives had predicted the studios hit for that summer would be "Smokey and the Bandit" with Burt Reynolds. 

Star Wars was a monster hit. It was like there were no other movies playing that summer. It sold out Grauman’s Chinese in Hollywood 50 weeks in a row. George Lucas became a seriously rich man and developed THX sound, digital animation and Industrial Light and Magic special effects. The film’s popularity ran so ahead of expectations, that at Christmas when you purchased a Star Wars figurines you got an empty box with a pink IOU note in it pledging to get you the figures when they made more. 

 

1979- Ridley Scott's sci-fi classic Alien opened. It featured the exotic designs of Swiss artist H.R. Giger, and John Hurt with a classic case of chest pains!

  

1983- Return of the Jedi opened. It was originally Revenge of the Jedi, but George Lucas changed the name just a month before. Featuring Carrie Fisher in the slave bikini that inspired a generation of young males. 

 

1986- Hands Across America stunt to help hunger has 7 million people at one time holding hands at noon.

 

1994- First International Conference on the World Wide Web. Tim Berners-Lee and CERN talked on how to unify existing internet systems into one big World Wide Web.

 

Tom Sito's Animation Almanac for May 24, 2025

Birthdays: Jean Paul Marat, Queen Victoria, Walt Whitman, Emmanuel Leutze, Tina Turner, Priscilla Presley, Patti LaBelle, Tommy Chong of Cheech & Chong is 87, Peter Ellenshaw, Gary Burghoff, Kristin Scott Thomas is 65, Alfred Molina is 71, Jim Broadbent is 76, John C. Reilly is 62, Bob Dylan is 84, animator James Baxter, animator Art Leonardi is 93.

 

1883- The Brooklyn Bridge Opened. After 14 years building it and 27 deaths, including the architect John Roebling, and the crippling of his son Washington Roebling, President Chester Allen Arthur and the Mayor of New York Franklin Edison walked out on to the span to be met at the middle by Mayor Seth Low of Brooklyn. Washington Roebling’s wife Emily Roebling was the first person to cross the bridge.  At this time the Brooklyn Bridge was the tallest structure in the world. 

 

1899 - 1st auto repair shop and car garage opened. The Back Bay Cycle and Motor Company of Boston.

 

1929- The Marx Brothers first movie comedy” The Coconuts” premiered.

 

1935- The first Baseball night game- Reds vs. Phillies.

 

1941- Paramount Pictures seized direct control of the Fleischer Studio in Miami. They allowed Max and Dave Fleischer another 26 weeks to complete their projects in house but as Paramount employees. They had to sign “resignations in blank” to be exercised at Paramount’s discretion when the 26 weeks were up. Soon Dave quit and Max was fired that December. The studio was re-organized as Famous Studio under Max’s son-in-law Seymour Kneitel and moved back to New York in Jan 1943. 

 

1941- The German battleship Bismarck sunk the largest warship in the British Navy, HMS Hood, when a lucky shot exploded her internal ammunition stockpile. The news shocked a world accustomed to the invincibility of the British Navy. One of the only survivors was a Petty Officer John Pertwee who was transferred to officer school just two days before the battle. Pertwee not only survived the sinking, but he also became the third Dr. Who on TV 1970-1974.

 

1950- Married movie star Ingrid Bergman shocked American morality by having an open love affair with neorealist film director Roberto Rosselini. This day they were finally married but the outcry of conservatives about this “Apostle of Degradation” was such that her image needed a makeover. So, she played Saint Joan of Arc.

 

1954 - IBM announces vacuum tube "electronic" brain, a computer that could perform 10

million operations an hour.

 

1958 – United Press & International News Service merge into United Press International.

 

1976 - 1st commercial SST Concorde flight to North America -London to Wash DC.

 

1989- In Los Angeles, a spectacular fire destroyed the Art-Deco-Moderne all-wood landmark, the Pan Pacific Auditorium. .

 

1991- Ridley Scott’s Thelma & Louise opened. 

 

1991- Ron Howard’s Backdraft opened.

 

1999- Tim Sweeny invented the animation/vfx software Unreal Engine.

Tom Sito's animation almanac for may 23, 2025

Birthdays: Douglas Fairbanks Sr., Scatman Crothers, Rosemary Clooney, Artie Shaw, Alicia de Larrocha, Marvelous Marvin Hagler, Melissa McBride, Frank McHugh, Drew Carey, Joan Collins is 92

 .

 

1785- Ben Franklin invented bifocal glasses.

 

1911- President Taft dedicated the central branch of the New York Public Library.

 

1931- In Max Fleischer's Silly Scandals, the girl character first seen in Dizzy Dishes is first called by name Betty Boop.

 

1969- The Who released their rock opera Tommy.

 

1980- Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining opened.

 

2007- The documentary Dream-On, Silly Dreamer premiered at the Alex Theater in Glendale Ca. The film was made and financed by Walt Disney career traditional animation artists who lost their jobs when the studio laid them off.

 

 

 

tom sito's animation almanac for May 22, 2025

Birthdays: Sir Lawrence Olivier, Mary Cassatt, Richard Wagner, Sir Arthur Conan-Doyle, T. Bone Pickens, Herge’ (Tintin), Irene Pappas, Paul Winfield, Richard Benjamin, Susan Strassberg, George Baker (Sad Sack), Paul Winchell, Tommy John, Naomi Cambell, Dr. Robert Moog –inventor of the music synthesizer, Ginnifer Goodwin is 47

 

 

1922-The U.S. Supreme Court rules Baseball is not a monopoly but a sport. 

 

1925- First day of shooting on Fritz Lang’s film Metropolis.

 

1954- Bob Dylan’s Bar Mitzvah. 

 

1954- Chuck Jones “Claws for Alarm” with Porky and Sylvester.

 

1955-The Golden Age of Radio ended when after 22 years the Jack Benny show was canceled. Once the top broadcast show in the nation, Benny went into television.

  

 

1966- Bill Cosby became the first African-American to win an Emmy Award for starring in a television series- I-Spy.

 

1967- T.V. children's show Mr. Roger's Neighborhood debuted.

 

 

1973- Scientist Bob Metcalfe of Xerox PARC patented the Ethernet.

 

1985- Top Disney animation director Wolfgang "Woolie" Reitherman, who directed the Jungle Book among other films, died in a car crash following lunch at the Smoke House in Burbank. He was 75. 

 

1992- The film Encino Man premiered, with Brendan Frazier and Pauly Shore. Aaoooh!

 

2001- Ted Turner and Jane Fonda divorced. 

 

tom sito's animation almanac for may 21, 2025

Birthdays: Plato, Fats Waller, Albrecht Durer, Andre Sakharov, Armand Hammer, Raymond Burr, John Hubley, Dennis Day, Al Franken, Harold Robbins, Judge Reinhold, Larry Terro called Mr. T. is 75

 

 

1892- Leoncavallo's opera "I Pagliacci" debuted at La Scala in Milan.

 

1908 - 1st horror movie “Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde” premiered in Chicago.

 

1922- On the Road to Moscow, the first political cartoon to win a Pulitzer prize. The cartoonist Rollin Kirby, was passionate about Prohibition. He had a regular character to extol temperance named Mr. Dry. When Prohibition was repealed in 1933 Kirby killed off Mr. Dry in print.

 

 

1933- 23 year old Woolie Reitherman’s first day at Walt Disney Studio.

 

 

1952- Actor John Garfield died. Some say he died in the midst of wild fornications; in truth he died in his sleep of heart failure aggravated by stress and alcoholism. He was 39. The matinee idol of “The Postman Rings Twice” and “Kid Galahad” was too politically left for the conservative postwar age. When a young stage actor he had run guns to the IRA, later he supported progressive union movements, anti-fascism and desegregation. His outspoken politics got him blacklisted in Hollywood, his friends deserted him, and he was ruined.

 

 

1954- The Disney short Pigs is Pigs, directed by Jack Kinney, released.

 

1971- Marvin Gaye’s song “ What’s Going On?” Released.

 

1972- A lunatic shouting I am Jesus Christ, attacked Michelangelo’s statue La Pieta with a hammer. He is the reason why today we can only enjoy this beautiful sculpture from behind 3 inch thick bulletproof glass.

 

1979 - Elton John becomes the first western rocker to perform live in USSR.

 

1980 – Star Wars “The Empire Strikes Back" premiered. We meet Yoda, Lando Calrissian and find out who Luke's papa is.

 

1983 - David Bowie's "Let's Dance," single goes #1. The tracks featured a then little-known guitarist named Stevie-Ray Vaughn.

 

 

1992- Tonight Show host Johnny Carson did his last show “I bid you a very heartfelt goodnight.” Johnny spent his remaining years in privacy, even refusing an invitation to appear at the NBC 75th anniversary special.

 

2017- In Nassau County NY was the final performance of Ringling Bros, Barnum & Bailey Circus. The Greatest Show on Earth had been a tradition for 146 years. 

tom sito's animation almanac for may 20, 2025

Birthdays: Honore Balzac, Jimmy Stewart, Leon Schlesinger, William Fargo of Wells Fargo, William Hewlett of Hewlett-Packard, Moshe Dayan, Henri Rousseau, Dave Thomas, Ted Bessell (Donald to Marlo Thomas’ “That Girl”), Japanese baseball great Sadaharu Oh, Antony Zerbe, Bronson Pichot, Joe Cocker, Busta Rhymes, Cher is 79

 

 

1609- Shakespeare’s sonnets first published.

 

1830 - D Hyde patented the fountain pen, replacing the goose quill. Recently archaeologists found a bronze pen in Roman Pompeii, but it’s probably not to write in ink, but scratch on wax or bronze tables.

 

1891- Thomas Edison demonstrated an early prototype of kinetoscope- a motion picture machine- to his wife's friends at a party. The footage was of engineer W.K.L. Dickson and his associates dancing. That night Edison wrote a letter about his movie machine to photographer Eadweard Muybridge: " I doubt it will ever have any commercial value...”

 

1892- J.P. Morgan created the General Electric Company.

 

1892 - George Sampson patents the electric clothes dryer.

 

1916- Artist Norman Rockwell sold his first painting for a Saturday Evening Post cover.

 

1926 - Thomas Edison says Americans prefer silent movies over talking pictures. 

 

 

1937-The Cinema Editor's Guild started.

 

1937- Bob Clampett promoted to director at Leon Schlesinger’s Looney Tunes Studio. Clampett’s mother hand-sewed the first Mickey Mouse dolls for Walt Disney.

 

 

50th anniversary 1975- In a small warehouse in Sherman Oaks California, George Lucas assembled an effects crew to create the film Star Wars. It is the birth of Industrial Light & Magic, or ILM. 

 

1979- The last Saturday Night Live show done by the original cast. Many of them had their 5 year contracts up and they wanted to do something else. Plus, producer Lorne Michaels was feuding with NBC chairman Fred Silverman and wanted to leave. So goodbye Lorne Michaels, Gilda Radner, Lorraine Newman, Garret Morris, Bill Murray and Al Franken. Hello Jean Doumainian and Joe Piscopo! Lorne Michaels came back to the show a few years later and has produced it ever since.

 

1984- Hanna Barbera’s “The Smurfic Games”.

 

1988- George Lucas film Willow premiered.

 

1993 - Max Klein, the inventor of Paint by Numbers sets, died at 77. President Eisenhower once passed out paint-by-numbers sets to his senior cabinet so their paintings could adorn the West Wing offices. Imagine seeing on your wall an original canvas by Richard Nixon or a Gen. Curtis LeMay! 

 

1994- Walt Disney released Aladdin II, the Return of Jaffar. Done overseas at ¼ the budget of the original, it nevertheless success spawned the industry of Disney direct-to-video sequels, called “cheapquels” by some animators. 

 

2003- In 1977, when Walt Disney's the Rescuers was being completed, the artists for a joke added a Playboy picture into a pan shot. Going by at 1/24th a second, they were confident nobody would ever spot it. Later in the 1990s, when Rescuers went to VHS video, they edited out the controversial frame. But when it was time in 2003 to rerelease on DVD, the Studio apparatchik’s went to the original 1977 negative, without ever bothering to consult any of the artists. We could have warned them, but noooo. So, on May 20, 2003, nine million copies of the Rescuers DVD hit the stores with the naughty picture, with all the ensuing out cry, firestorm, and embarrassed apologies you can imagine.

 

2005- Rolie-Polie-Olie, one of the first TV cartoon series to be animated all on computer, was awarded a special award at the Daytime Emmys.

 

Tom Sito's Animation Almanac for May 19, 2025

Birthdays: Malcolm X- born Malcolm Little, Ho Chi Minh- born Ngyun Tat Tanth- Ho Chi Minh means the Enlightener, Giovanni Della Robbia, John Hopkins, Lord Waldorf Astor, Dame Nelly Melba, Frank Capra, Wilson Mizner, Elena Poniatowska, Jim Lehrer, Nora Ephron, Grace Jones, Peter Mahew, Nancy Kwan, Pete Townshend, Joey Ramone, Andre the Giant, Polly Walker, and Tom Sito, aka me, your author is 69.

 

1924- A comedy revue opened at the Casino Theater on Broadway named I’ll Say She Is!” It was written by the Johnstone Brothers, but the real breakout stars of the show were an itinerant vaudeville troupe called The Marx Brothers. Groucho, Chico, Harpo and Zeppo. 

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1934- Mickey Mouse short cartoon Gulliver Mickey.

 

1956- Cecil B. de Milles film " The Ten Commandments" premiered. Charlton Heston, Yul Brynner, Anne Baxter and Edward G, Robinson.

 

1956- The Disney film Pollyana debuted, making a star of Haley Mills.

 

1958- The film,” The Attack of the 50 Ft Woman” premiered. A drive-in favorite.

 

1960 - DJ Alan Freed is accused of bribery in the radio payola scandal, the first scandal to hit the new world of Rock & Roll.

 

1962- Giant birthday party and rally held for President John F. Kennedy in New York's Madison Square Garden (his birthday was actually the following week). What made it memorable was Marilyn Monroe in a dress so tight she had to be sewn into it, singing her sexy version of the Happy Birthday song.  'Happy (exhale) Burth- Day, Mister - Prezz- a -dent (sigh), Happy, etc. "

  

 

1991- Willy T. Ribbs became the first African American racecar driver to qualify for the Indianapolis 500.

 

1992- The completion bond company Allied Filmmakers seized Richard Williams’ unfinished masterpiece Cobbler and the Thief. Producer Jack Eberts had the film’s remaining sequences completed by another studio (Fred Calvert, and one sequence subcontracted to Don Bluth) and released as Arabian Nights. A year later I asked Dick how he was doing? He replied, “Well, contrary to everyone’s best wishes, I am NOT suicidal.” 

 

1997- Matthew Broderick married Sarah Jessica Parker. 

 

1999- George Lucas’ much anticipated film Star Wars Episode One the Phantom Menace premiered, the first Star Wars sequel in over a decade. It was the first major film premiere to be projected digitally. Only two theaters in New York and two in Hollywood could do digital projection then. It featured Jarr Jarr Binks, a character so annoying, that web sites like www. I Want Jarr-Jarr to Die-Die.com soon racked up tens of thousands of hits.

 

2000- Walt Disney first all CG animated film Dinosaur opened.

 

2005- Star Wars: The Revenge of the Sith premiered.

 

2006- Dreamwork’s animated film ‘Over the Hedge’ premiered.

building, etc. (thanks FG)

 

 

tom sito's animation almanac for may 18, 2025

Birthdays: Pope St. John Paul II, Grover Cleveland, Ezio Pinza, Czar Nicholas II, Omar Khayam, Walter Gropius, Reggie Jackson, Margot Fonteyn, Robert Morse, Perry Como, Dwayne Hickman, Big Joe Turner, Richard Brooks, Mad artist Don Martin, Miriam Margolyes, Chow Yung Fat is 70, Tina Fey is 55

 

 

1911- Composer Gustav Mahler died of heart disease shortly before his 51^st birthday. He had completed his Ninth Symphony with dread, because he knew Beethoven, Schubert and Bruckner had never lived beyond their ninth symphony.  On his table were preliminary sketches for his tenth.

 

 

1927- Sid Grauman's Chinese Theater in Hollywood opened. The first show was the premiere of Cecil B. DeMille’s King of Kings. Ushers and doormen were dressed in imported Mandarin robes, and wall hangings were painted by young artist/actor Key Luke. Sid Grauman was the showman who also invented the Hollywood premiere with spotlights and limo's pulling up to red carpets, etc. He made other themed theaters like The Egyptian and the Mayan, but the Chinese was the most famous.

 

1940- John Halas & Joy Batchelor founded Halas & Batchelor, for many years one of the best animation studios in England.

 

 

1976- The filming of Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now was disrupted when the Philippines was hit by a major typhoon. Francis rode out the storm cooking pasta, smoking pot and listening to recordings of La Boheme.

 

1995- Elizabeth Montgomery, the star of Bewitched, died of colon cancer at age 62.

 

2001- Dreamworks animated SHREK opened. The voice of Shrek was originally planned to be Chris Farley but the big comedian died of a drug overdose and was replaced by Mike Myers. I’m serving Waffles! Shrek was awarded the first ever Academy Award for Best Animated Feature.

 

2003 Pixar’s Finding Nemo opened.