tom sito's animation almanac for June 15, 2025

Question: What is the difference between a spark and an ember?

 

Yesterday’s Question answered below: : What famous singer had a guitar inscribed "This Machine Kills Fascists."?

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History for 6/16/2025

Birthdays: Stan Laurel, Willy Boskovsky, Joyce Carol Oates, Nelson Doubleday, Brian Eno, animator Pete Burness, Martha Graham, Erich Segal, Jack Albertson, Helen Traubel, Ron LeFlore, Tupac Shakur, Laurie Metcalf, Sonia Braga is 76, John Cho is 53.

 

 

1858- Abe Lincoln said in a speech “ A house divided against itself cannot stand.” 

 

1884 - On Coney Island Amusement Pier the Switchback Railway, the country’s first roller coaster began operating.

 

1902- A musical play of L Frank Baum’s fantasy story The Wizard of Oz premiered at Chicago’s Grand Opera House. Like Jules Verne’s Around the World in Eighty Days, the play was a bigger success than the original book. The shows director had heavily rewritten the story for the stage, but its success made Baum philosophical. “ The audience decides what it wants.”

 

1903 –Caleb Bradham, a pharmacist in New Bern North Carolina, created a new drink at his soda fountain. A cola drink with additional sugar and vanilla. Called at first “Brad’s Drink”, he later changed to Pepsi-Cola, because he claimed it cured stomach aches, or dyspepsia, and had cola flavor. After big sales, he bought a factory. This day The Pepsi Cola Company was formed.

 

1904- "Blume's Day" all the actions in James Joyce's "Ulysses" takes place on this one day in Dublin. This day Dubliners dress up as characters from the book and do readings.

 

1920- International Telephone and Telegraph incorporates- IT&T.

 

1932- Broadway star Mae West heads west for Hollywood to make movies.

 

 

1943- 54 year old actor Charlie Chaplin married his fourth wife, 18 year old Oona O’Neill. She was the daughter of playwright Eugene O’Neill. In Hollywood, Chaplin’s nickname in was “Chickenhawk Charlie” for his fondness for younger women. Oona did remain his wife until the end of his life in 1971.

 

1947 –The 1st regular broadcast network news show began-Dumont's "News from Washington”. Other networks did brief headline reports, but this was the first all-news program,

 

1951- Chuck Jones short, “Chow Hound”. Don’t forget the gravy.

 

1952- The CBS television comedy My Little Margie premiered. It starred Gale Storm and Charlie Farrell. 

 

70th Anniv 1955- Disney’s Lady and the Tramp premiered.

 

 

1959- Actor George Reeves, who played the 1950s television Superman, went upstairs after a dinner party and shot himself with a Luger pistol.  Actor Gig Young, who was a friend of Reeves, said the actor 's career was going well, he was getting his first directing jobs, and his love life was fine. He never believed the actor would shoot himself. Gig Young shot himself in 1981. 

Many of Reeves friends also wonder if it was a suicide because Reeves had been dating a socialite named Toni Mannix whose husband Eddie Mannix, VP of MGM had mob connections. Another story has Toni Mannix counting among her boyfriend’s Lucky Lucciano, the head of the NY Mafia. The bullet entrance in George Reeves body didn’t have the customary powder burns of a suicide and there were other bullet holes in the floor and ceiling. The gun in Reeves hand had been wiped clean of fingerprints. 

 

1960- Alfred Hitchcock's thriller "Psycho" premiered. Based on a novel by Robert Bloch. A fan told Bloch that since she’s seen the film, she hasn’t been able to take a shower. Bloch smiled, “ Well, then it’s a good thing I didn’t have her killed on the toilet.” 

 

1963- Cosmonaut Valentina Tereschkova was the first woman to go into space.

 

 

1967- The film “The Dirty Dozen” debuted. 

 

1987- Italian porn star Ciccolina announced that since all politicians were whores and she was a whore, she would run for office. This made sense to Italians, who this day elected her overwhelmingly to a seat in Parliament.

 

 

2018- Brad Birds’ The Incredibles 2 opened in theaters.

tom sito's animation almanac for June 15, 2025


Birthdays: Edward the Black Prince of England, Rachael Donelson Jackson- Andy Jackson’s First Lady, Edvard Grieg, Saul Steinburg, Mario Cuomo, Jim Varney, Wade Boggs, Waylon Jennings, Xaviera Hollander the Happy Hooker, Jim Belushi, Neil Adams, Roger Chiasson, Michael Barrier, Dale Baer, Ice Cube is 56, Neil Patrick Harris is 52, Courtenay Cox is 61, Helen Hunt is 62, Lang Lang is 43

 

Happy Father's Day- It was organized by the Spokane Washington members of the local YMCA and Spokane Ministerial Assoc. Father’s Day was celebrated for 1st time in 1910

 

1300- Poet Dante Alighieri got a job as one of the governing priors of Florence, sort of a city council. We don’t know if it says something about his abilities at municipal governing, but he was run out of town in 1302.

 

 

1916- The Boy Scouts of America founded.

 

1938- The Fair Labor Standards Act passed. 

 

1945- Judy Garland married director Vincente Minnelli. Lisa Minnelli was the result.

 

1948- Abbott & Costello meet Frankenstein premiered.

 

1951- Comedian Lenny Bruce married a stripper named Honey Stuart.

 

1969- The country music comedy TV show Hee-Haw premiered as a summer replacement for the  Smothers Brothers Hour. Hee Haw ran with high ratings but CBS cancelled the show anyway. This was because CBS chief Bill Paley disliked country music.  CBS had so many shows like Mayberry RFD, Beverly Hillbillies, Green Acres and Hee-Haw, that insiders joked that CBS stood for the Country Broadcasting System. Hee-Haw had the last laugh, going on to a successful syndication run for decades. 

 

1977- Everybody Disco! KC and the Sunshine band release “I’m your Boogie Man”.

 

1983- Rowan Atkinson’s The Black Adder TV comedy premiered on BBC.

 

40th anniv 1985 Studio Ghibli was founded, headed by the directors Hayao Miyazaki and Isao Takahata and producer Toshio Suzuki. The studio was founded after the success of the 1984 film NAUSICAA OF THE VALLEY OF THE WIND written and directed by Miyazaki for Topcraft and distributed by Toei Company. The name Ghibli was coined by Hayao Miyazaki in reference to the Caproni Ca.309 Ghibli airplane. The Italian noun "ghibli" is based on the Arabic name for the sirocco, or Mediterranean wind, the idea being the studio would "blow a new wind through the anime industry".

 

1990- Warren Beatty’s movie version of Dick Tracy opened. Accompanied by the second Roger Rabbit short Roller Coaster Rabbit. Directed by Rob Minkoff.

 

 

1994- Walt Disney’s The Lion King premiered. 

 

 

2002- Mick Jagger of the Rolling Stones was knighted.

tom sito's animation almanac for June 14, 2025

Birthdays: Tomaso Albinioni, Fighting Bob LaFollette, Margaret Bourke-White, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Sam Wanamaker, Cliff Edwards the voice of Jiminy Cricket, Dorothy McGuire, Burl Ives, Gene Barry, Jerzy Kosinski, Diablo Cody is 46, Donald Trump is 79.

 

 

1816- Writers Percy Shelley, Lord Byron and Mary Shelley were spending the summer at the Villa Deodati on Lake Geneva. This day among the revels, drinking, partner swapping and opium taking, Byron suggested they all write a ghost story. Byron told a tale of a vampire, Polidori. But the real winner was Shelley’s wife, 19-year-old Mary. She invented a story of a Swiss scientist who created an artificial man. She called it Frankenstein. It was published in 1819.

 

1865- A group of Englishmen climbed the Materhorn Mountain in Switzerland, inventing the sport of mountain climbing. 

 

1951- Univac I, built by John W, Mauchly and J. Prosper Eckert Jr. of the Remington Rand Company to be the first U.S. commercial built electronic computer, went online for the census bureau in Philadelphia.

 

 

1959- Three new rides are debuted at Disneyland in Anaheim. The first monorail the Disneyland-Alweg Monorail System, Matterhorn Mountain, and the Submarine Voyage. (the submarine ride had been running since June 5). Disney publicity declared Disneyland now has the third largest submarine fleet in the world!

 

 

1966- The Vatican abolished the Index of Forbidden Books. 

 

1977- Skinny Carnaby Street fashion model Twiggy got married to Michael Whitney.

 

1983- The Pioneer 10 space probe left its orbit around Jupiter and headed off into deep space. NASA lost all contact in 1997. Pioneer 10 is expected to reach the solar system of the star Ross 246 in the Constellation Taurus in the year 34,600 AD. 

 

1989- Elderly actress Zsa Zsa Gabor was arrested for slapping a Beverly Hills policeman who was writing her a traffic ticket.

 

1990- Warren Beatty’s film Dick Tracy premiered at Disneyworld. And opened generally the next day.

 

1995- MP3.  The researchers at Fraunhofer Institute for Integrated Circuits decided to use "mp3" as the file name extension for their new audio coding technology. Development on this technology started in 1987. By 1992 it was considered far ahead of its time. MP3 became the generally accepted acronym as the popular standard for digital music on the on the Internet.

 

2001- The Oxford English Dictionary admitted the slang expletive of Homer Simpson "D’OH!" into its august pages.

 

2024- Pope Francis met with American comedians Stephen Colbert, Chris Rock, Jimmy Fallon and Jim Gaffigan.

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tom sito's animation almanac for June 13, 2025

Birthdays: Gnaeus Agricola- 40AD, Harriet Beecher Stowe, W.B. Yeats, Red Grange, Basil Rathbone, Dorothy Sayers, Ralph Edwards, Paul Lynde, Tim Allen is 72, Darla Hood, Ally Sheedy, Simon Callow is 73, Christo, Ralph McQuarrie, Malcolm McDowell is 82, Stellan Skarsgard is 74, the Olsen Twins are 39, Chris Evans is 44.

 

1858- THE BIG STINK- The population of metropolitan London had been outgrowing its sewage system. The Thames was London’s main sewer, as well as its source of drinking water. But nobody realized how bad it was until the unusually hot summer of 1858. Today the temperature reached the 90f, and the stink from the river got so bad it broke up a meeting of the Prime Minister’s cabinet. Ministers ran out of Parliament holding handkerchiefs to their noses. 

 

 

1920-The US Government ruled Americans cannot mail their children through the Parcel Post System.

 

1941-The American Federation of Labor declared a nationwide boycott of all Disney products and films. This was to support the Disney Cartoonists strike.

 

1953 “ The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms “ hit theaters. Great monster effects by Ray Harryhausen.

 

1958- Frank Zappa graduated Antelope Valley High School.

 

 

1978- Ford fired Lee Iacocca from the Ford Corporation. The creator of the Ford Mustang would later move on to run Chrysler. When asked why, Henry Ford II said: “Sometimes you just don’t like somebody.”

 

1982- Bill the Cat first appeared in the comic strip Bloom County.

 

1991- Boris Yeltsin became the first and so far only popularly elected leader of Russia.

 

1997- Disney's animated film Hercules opened in theaters.

 

2010- Pixar’s Toy Story 3 premiered.

tom sito's animation almanac for June 12, 2025

Birthdays: Egon Scheile, John Roebling the builder of the Brooklyn Bridge, Uta Hagen, Chick Corea, Sir Anthony Eden, Jim Nabors, Vic Damone, David Rockefeller, Irwin Allen, Marv Albert, Arthur Fellig- better known as Weegee, Sherry Stringfield, George Herbert Walker Bush, Anne Frank, Clyde “Jerry” Geronimi, Richard Sherman of the Sherman Bros

 

 

1616- Pocahontas, now called Lady Rebecca Rolfe, landed in England with her husband and son Thomas. 

 

1912- Archaeologist Ludwig Borchardt uncovered the bust of queen Nefertiti, the beauty icon, and the wife of King Akhenaten more than 3,300 years ago. It was created by the artist Thutmose of Amarna around 1345 B.C. Ludwig Borchardt did not have permission to take it to Berlin. He downplayed its importance to Egyptian authorities, then smuggled it out of the country. 

 

1942- On her birthday, Anne Frank was given a diary.

 

1949- The first LA parking ticket.

 

1952- Chief auto designer for Chevrolet Maurice Olley completed work on a sports car originally code-named the Opel, but later released as the Corvette.

 

1956- Singer/activist Paul Robeson testified to The House UnAmerican Activities Committee. He was called in after he refused to sign an affidavit that he was not a Communist.  Robeson told the committee,” My father was a slave and my people died to build this country, and I am going to stay here and have a part of it, just like you. And no Fascist-minded people, just like you, will drive me from it. Is that clear?” They had earlier asked baseball star Jackie Robinson to denounce Robeson, but instead he denounced Jim Crow laws.

 

1962- In Modesto California, a teenage film student named George Lucas was almost killed in a car accident.

 

1963- Twentieth Century Fox premiered the Elizabeth Taylor -Richard Burton epic CLEOPATRA. Costing $44 million, $400 million in modern money, four times more than the average film, it remains in comparable dollars the costliest disaster in movie history. The cast was put up at the swankiest hotels in Rome for months of shooting, and Liz Taylor had to have her chili from Chasens restaurant in Beverly Hills flown in. Director Joe Mankewicz said "Cleopatra was the toughest three pictures I ever made!" When Liz Taylor saw the finished film, she threw up. 

Fox had to cut 2,000 jobs and almost went bankrupt. The area of LA known as Century City with its huge shopping mall used to be the Fox backlot before Cleopatra. On the plus side, Andy Warhol said Cleopatra was the most influential movie of the 1960s because suddenly every woman had to have heavy black eyeliner, light lipstick and Egyptian style straight bobbed hair and bangs.

 

 

1981- Steven Spielberg’s movie Raiders of the Lost Ark premiered.

 

1987- President Ronald Reagan did his famous Cold War speech in Berlin “Mr. Gorbachov, tear down this wall!” 

 

 

1999- Disney’s Tarzan premiered. Directed by Chris Buck and Kevin Lima.

 

 

 

tom sito's animation almanac for June 11, 2025

Birthdays: Ben Johnson, Richard Strauss, Jacques Cousteau, Nelson Mandela, Bartolomeo Vanzetti, Joe Montana, John Constable, Gustav Courbet, Vince Lombardi, Adrienne Barbeau, William Styron, Chad Everett, Shia LeBoeuf, race car driver Jackie Stewart, Gene Wilder, Hugh Laurie is 66, Peter Dinklage is 56

 

 

1878- At a small track at the Palo Alto Stock Farm, English photographer Edweard Muybridge did the first of his Animal Motion Studies. He lined up 25 cameras and filmed California Governor Leyland Stanford’s favorite mare Sallie Gardner at a full gallop. He invited the press, so none could accuse him of doctoring the photos later. They proved that when a horse was in full gallop, all four hooves leave the ground. 

 

 

1927- Charles Lindbergh Day. After his historic flight, the young aviator was welcomed home to America by President Coolidge and huge throngs of well-wishers at Washington’s Navy Yard. Battleships boomed, bands blared and two dirigibles floated overhead. The radio announcer covering the event did one of the very first coast-to-coast broadcasts. He reached thirty million people. 

 

1928 - Alfred Hitchcock's 1st film, "The Case of Jonathan Drew," is released

 

1934- the first Mandrake the Magician comic strip.

 

1936- Shy, quiet, 30 year old Texas writer Robert E. Howard had created the powerful warriors Conan the Barbarian, Kull and single-handedly defined the genre we call Sword & Sorcery. This day after he learned his mother was dying and would never regain consciousness, he went into his garage and blew his brains out. Some say he had an Oedipa09`-0l fixation, others that he always intended to end his life and was waiting to spare his mother the pain. On his typewriter he left a short message: "All fled, all done, so lift me upon the pyre. The feast is over and let the lamps expire."

 

1937 –" Getta’ yu tutsie-frutsie Ice Cream!" the Marx Brothers' "A Day at The Races" premiered.

 

1939 – President Franklin Roosevelt hosted King George VI and Queen Elizabeth at the White House. There, the rulers of the British Empire ate hot dogs for the first time. 

 

1955- The deadliest day at Le Mans. During this running of the famous 24 hour car race a Mercedes crashed into an Austin Healy at high speed and the cars disintegrated, spewing flaming metal debris into the dense crowd of spectators. 85 died and 100 more were hurt.

 

1959 – The US Postmaster General banned D H Lawrence's novel Lady Chatterley's Lover as pornography. He was overruled by US Court of Appeals in March 1960. 

 

 

1964 - Chicago police break up a Rolling Stones press conference.

 

1964 - Manfred Mann recorded Do Wah Diddy Diddy.

 

1966 - "Paint It, Black" by The Rolling Stones peaked at #1 in the pop charts.

 

1966 - Janis Joplin played her 1st gig in San Francisco.

  

 

1977 - Main Street Electrical Parade premiered at Disneyland.

 

1979- John Wayne died after a long struggle with cancer. He was 73. Many believed his condition began as a result of filming the movie "The Conqueror" near the Nevada Atomic Test site. Half the crew of that film including all the stars and director died of cancer.  When Wayne made a final appearance at the Academy Awards two months earlier, he purchased a small size tuxedo to hide his emaciated frame, but he was still too thin even then. So, he filled it out by wearing a scuba wetsuit underneath. 

 

1984- In the freewheeling economy of the 1980’s tycoons conducted hostile takeovers of companies by buying most of their stock on margin. When Wall Street corporate raider Saul Steinberg announced he intended to target the ailing Walt Disney Company for takeover, CEO Ron Miller paid him $23 million just to make him go away. The Disney shareholders are outraged at this payment of "greenmail’ and demanded Miller’s resignation, which some say was exactly what Roy Disney had planned.

 

1987- Britain noted the first outbreak of Mad Cow Disease.

 

1993 –Steven Spielberg’s "Jurassic Park" opened. The film set a box office record of $931 million. It was begun with modelers and puppeteers about to do the dinosaurs with go-motion and clay. But after seeing tests using the new 3D CGI –computer graphic imaging software, Steven ordered all of ILM to do it digitally. Jurassic Park was the Jazz Singer-type event that clinched the digital takeover of Hollywood and set the standard for all future special effects films.

 

2002- Fox TV’s show American Idol premiered.

 

2002- Lilo & Stitch premiered. Ohana means family.

 

Tom Sito's animation almanac for June 10, 2025

Birthdays: Charles James Stuart “The Old Pretender”, Prince Phillip Duke of Edinburgh, 

Yamaoka Tesshu (1832- Japanese swordsman), Judy Garland, Saul Bellow, Hattie McDaniel, Frederick Loew (of Lerner & Loew), Madeleine Lebeau (Cabaret singer in Casablanca), Howlin’ Wolf, Maurice Sendak, animator Dorse Lanpher, animator Harald Sieperman, Gina Gershon is 63, Leilee Sobieski is 42, Jean Triplehorn is 62, Jurgen Prochnow, Elizabeth Hurley is 59.

 

 

1776- The great English actor David Garrick went on stage for the last time, playing in a benefit for The Decayed Actor’s Fund.

 

1847 –The Chicago Tribune begins publishing

 

 

1865- Wagners opera Tristan und Isolde premiered in Munich. 

 

1902 - Patent for the window envelope granted to H F Callahan.

 

1910- The first Krazy Kat comic strip- Cartoonist George Herriman was doing a strip for Hearst called "The Family Upstairs". He was amused at the idea of a friendship between a cat and a mouse. So, Herriman put them in the corner playing marbles while the family quarreled. First an office boy and later editor Arthur Brisbane suggested they have their own strip. The immortality of the denizens of Coconino County follows, loved by the likes of H.L. Mencken, e.e.cummings, and Jacques Kerouac. Krazy herself explains:" It's wot's behind me that I am."

 

1921- Babe Ruth became top HR champ with #120 runs passing then champ Gavy Cravath. But the Bambino was just getting warmed up. 

 

1926- Artist Antonio Gaudi was run over by a streetcar while crossing in front of his famous cathedral in Barcelona. Construction begun in 1886, The Cathedral Sagrada Familia is still scheduled for completion in 2026.

 

1939 - Barney Bear, cartoon character by MGM, debuted.

 

1944- A USO troop was entertaining soldiers in Normandy from the back of a truck but they lacked a piano player. They called out to the G.I. audience if anyone could play. A shy cattle rancher’s son from Modesto California came up and played. He did so well his colonel ordered him out of the line and told him to form his own G.I. band. Dave Brubeck’s jazz career began.

 

1957- “Tom Terrific and Manfred the Wonder Dog” cartoon debuted on the Captain Kangaroo show.

 

1967- A week after finishing shooting the film Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, Spencer Tracy sat in his kitchen one morning making himself a cup of coffee. He then had a heart attack and fell over stone dead. He was 67. His partner Katherine Hepburn found his body. She was so upset she was not able to watch the movie Guess Who’s Coming for years after.

 

1980- Comedian Richard Pryor had been doing so much cocaine even his dealers were worried about him. This day, while trying to freebase he exploded, and ran screaming down his street on fire. Another version of the story said he tried to commit suicide by pouring tequila on himself and setting it alight. During his long recovery in the Sherman Oaks burn unit, his nurse once put on the news and he watched CBS news anchor Walter Cronkite report his death. `He thought to himself: "If Walter Cronkite said I died, it must be true! Ahhh!" He recovered but suffered from Muscular Dystrophy until he died in 2005.

 

1995-110,000 people jam Central Park in New York to see Disney's Pocahontas, up to then the largest audience ever to attend an animated movie premiere. 

 

 

Tom Sito's Animation Almanac for June 9, 2025

Birthdays: Ernesto "Che" Guevara, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Cole Porter, John Bartlett of Bartletts Familiar Quotations, Boy George O’Dowd, Les Paul, Burl Ives, Lash LaRue, Happy Rockefeller, Robert MacNamara, Major Bowes, Carl Neilsen, Jerzy Kosinski, Pierre Salinger, Steffy Graff, Marvin Kalb, Charles-Augustin de Coulomb, physicist who formulated Coulomb's Law, Dr. Alois Alzheimer, Michael J. Fox is 64, Johnny Depp is 62, Natalie Portman (born Neta-Lee Hershlag) is 44

1860- DIME NOVELS & PULP FICTION.  Mr. Erastus Beadle published the first dime novel, Maleska, Indian Wife of the White Hunter by Anna Stephens. Sometimes called the Penny Dreadfuls, pocket-sized stories printed on cheap pulp paper became popular reading. They fantasized the West, extolling two-gun chivalry and virtuous maidens, roaring desperadoes and wild savages. This early form of mass media made celebrities out of characters like Buffalo Bill, Wild Bill Hickok, Black Bart, Billy the Kid and Belle Starr.

 

1918- Louella Parsons began her Hollywood Gossip column. Louella became one of the most powerful and widely read columnists in Hollywood’s golden age. Stories say Louella got as much pull as she did in the Hearst newspaper empire for helping cover up the killing of director Thomas Ince as well as trying to stifle the release of Orson Welles’ film Citizen Kane. There is a story that Disney animator Frank Thomas spotted her being mean to a waitress while holding court at the Brown Derby. That inspired him to make her the model of the Queen of Hearts in Alice in Wonderland.

 

 

1934- Happy Birthday Donald Duck! Walt Disney's short cartoon "The Little Wise Hen". 

 

1934- The film The Thin Man with William Powell. Myrna Loy and Asta the dog went into general release.

 

1938 - Dorothy Lathrop wins the 1st Caldecott Medal for outstanding children’s books.

 

1941- First day shooting on the film, the Maltese Falcon. It was John Huston’s first directorial effort. The story had already been made into a movie twice before, so nobody had high hopes for it. The studio budget was so low, Humphrey Bogart had to wear his own suits on camera.

 

 

1942 - Anne Frank began her diary.

 

1943- The Internal Revenue Service introduced the Pay-As-You-Go system of tax collection, or today we know it as tax withholding from your paycheck.

 

1950- After all appeals fail the first of the Hollywood Ten, screenwriters Dalton Trumbo, Philip Dunne, Alvah Bessie, Waldo Salt, Edward Dymytrk, David Ogden Stewart, Ring Lardner and John Howard Lawson are sentenced to prison. In the L.A. Municipal Jail one felon greeted the writers with a smile and said: "Hi Ya, Hollywood Kids!”

 

1953 - Elvis Presley graduates from L.C. Humes High School in Memphis, Tennessee.

 

1973- The thoroughbred horse Secretariat ridden by Ron Turcott won the Belmont Stakes, taking the first Triple Crown since Citation did it in 1948.  

 

1976 – Chuck Barris’ the" Gong Show" premiered. Where’s Jean-Jean the Dancing Machine?

 

2006- Pixar film Cars released.

 

2160 - Montgomery Edward Scott, called Scotty or Mr. Scott, born in Aberdeen, Scotland, the engineer of the Starship Enterprise in Star Trek. “ Cap’n, Ah dunna know how much more the engines can take!”

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tom sito's animation almanac for June 8, 2025

Birthdays: Robert Schumann, Frank Lloyd Wright, Barbara Bush, Admiral David Dixon Porter, Leroy Neiman, Emmanuel Ax, Alexis Smith, Nancy Sinatra, Boz Scaggs, Jerry Stiller, Dana Wynter, British cricketeer Ray Illingsworth, Juliana Margulies, Kanye West, Joan Rivers, Keenan Ivory Wayans is 67. animator Gary Trousdale is 65

 

 

1889 –The Red Car cable car began service in LA.

 

1889 - Start of the Sherlock Holmes Adventure "Boscombe Valley Mystery"

 

 

1900 - Start of Sherlock Holmes story the "Adventure of 6 Napoleons"

 

1912- Carl Laemmle formed Universal Pictures Studio.

 

 

1942 - Bing Crosby recorded "Silent Night".

 

 

 

1946- Bob Clampett's cartoon 'Kitty Kornered' premiered, one of the earliest of Sylvester the Cat. “ I like cheese…” SMACK! 

 

1948 - "Milton Berle Show" Uncle Miltie- premiered on NBC TV.

 

1949- During the Hollywood Blacklist, today an FBI report named actors Paul Muni, Frederick March, Edward G. Robinson, Paul Robeson and Dorothy Parker as reds. They had no proof, mostly anonymous accusers.  Robinson was blacklisted, but never called upon to testify before the committee to clear his name. He said, “It’s like I was accused of being a rabbit. I am not a rabbit, but how do we know if you cannot prove you’re not a rabbit?” 

 

1950- Universal pictures released 'Winchester '73', the first film in which the star James Stewart negotiated for a backend percentage of the profits. Stewart's agent was Lew Wasserman, the head of MCA and later a mentor of Steven Spielberg.

 

1962- Twentieth Century Fox fired Marilyn Monroe for her erratic, druggy behavior on the set of “Something’s Got to Give” and cancelled the picture. Monroe went into a tailspin that would lead to her suicide four weeks later. Even after her death, Fox sued her estate for $80,000. 

 

1966- The American football leagues NFL and AFL announce their merger.

 

1968 - Rolling Stones release "Jumpin' Jack Flash".

 

 

1969- "The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour," last aired. The show was canceled by CBS, not for bad ratings, but because its format highlighted liberal and anti-Vietnam War performers like Buffy Saint-Marie, Bob Dylan and Pete Seeger.  Producer Tommy Smothers was constantly battling nervous network executives to let Seeger sing songs like “Big Muddy”, a direct criticism of U.S. war policy. Finally, when former President Lyndon Johnson personally called CBS chairman Bill Paley to complain, the show was yanked.  Ratings or not.

 

1969 - Rolling Stones guitarist Mick Taylor replaces Brian Jones.

 

1982- Legendary Negro League Pitcher Satchel Paige dies at 79.  I once talked to a Disney security guard named Mitchel Carter who saw Paige pitch a game in the Detroit Negro league. Mitch said Satchel was so hot he loaded the bases, then ordered the fielders into the dugout because he felt like striking out the whole side, which he proceeded to do. When the Major League color barrier was broken in 1947 Paige started his new career at 42. He pitched a World Series game for Cleveland 1948 and in 1965 was stilling pitching shutout innings in major league games at age 59!

 

1983- The films "Trading Places," & "Gremlins," premiered.

 

1984-Ivan Reitmans’ film "Ghostbusters" premiered. Who you gonna call..?

 

1984- Donald Duck officially became a member of the Screen Actors Guild- SAG.

 

1986- NBC was bought by General Electric. David Letterman joked about now having to interview toaster ovens on his show. 

 

2002- Forest Service ranger Terri Barton was trying to burn a letter from her estranged husband. The blaze she started became the Hayman Fire, the worst forest fire in Colorado history. The fire destroyed 103,000 acres, and almost burned down the city of Denver. 

 

 

tom sito's animation almanac for June 7, 2025

Birthdays: Pope Gregory XIII, Beau Brummel, Paul Gauguin, Chick Corea, George Szell, Tom Jones, Jessica Tandy, James Ivory, Virginia McKenna, Prince, Kendall O’Connor, Liam Neeson is 73, Bill Hader, Dean DeBlois. 

 

 

1930- Mines Field was rededicated as Los Angeles Municipal Airport. (LAX)

 

 

1937- Screen goddess Jean Harlow, the original Platinum Blonde, died of kidney failure. She was only 26.

 

1946- In 1939 the BBC had begun broadcasting on the new medium of television. On Sept 3^rd, they interrupted a broadcast of the 1933 Walt Disney cartoon Mickey’s Gala Premiere to announce the declaration of war with Germany, WW2. They shut down for the duration. Seven years later, on this day, BBC-1 television restarted back up with this announcement. “ Good Afternoon. Well now, where were we?” And they started by running the same Mickey cartoon again.

 

1954- Scientist Alan Turing helped break the WWII German Enigma Code and is considered one of the fathers of the computer. Some people referred to early computers as Turing Machines. He predicted one day computers would be able to think like humans, and one day we would play games on our computers. But when Turing was revealed to be gay, he lost his top security clearance and was sentenced to a mental institution to undergo chemical castration. He was convicted with the same law used to jail Oscar Wilde in 1895. Alan Turing was a fan of the Disney film Snow White. This day he laced an apple with cyanide and bit into it. He was 42.

 

1955- The TV quiz show, The $64,000 Question premiered.

 

1975- This day Sony announced the first home videotape playing system, the Betamax. They were about $25,000 each, but we were promised as they became more popular the price would come down. 

 

1993- Rockstar Prince celebrated his birthday by changing his name to a funny symbol no keyboard can reproduce and no one can say. He did it because of a dispute with Warner Records who said because of his contract he could not issue recordings under his own name. In 2000 he switched back to Prince.

 

2002 –Kim Possible premiered on TV.

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tom sito's animation almanac for June 6, 2025

Birthdays: Diego Velasquez, Pierre Corneille. Alexandre Pushkin, Nathan Hale, John Trumbull, Thomas Mann, The Dalai Lama, Klaus Tennestedt, Bjorn Borg, Richard Crane, Dr. Karl Braun, Walter Chrysler, Isaiah Berlin, Aram Khachaturian, Jason Issacs, Angelo Moriondo 1851, inventor of the expresso machine, Sam Simon (Simpsons Producer), Sandra Bernhard is 70, Paul Giamatti is 58, Aaron Sorkin is 64

 

 

1683- The world’s first public museum, the Ashmolean, was opened. English archaeologist Elias Ashmole donated his collection of curiosities to Oxford University for the students to study. A building was commissioned from Christopher Wren and the museum opened to the public this day.

 

 

1884- Nikola Tesla arrived in the United States. 

 

1929- Luis Bunuel and Salvador Dali’ surrealist masterpiece Un Chien Andalou ( The Andalusian Dog) premiered at the Teatre des Ursulines in Paris. All the modernist artists were present like Picasso, Andre Breton and Jean Cocteau. Bunuel had filled his pockets with rocks, in case the crowd hated the film and he needed to defend himself, but it was warmly received.

 . 

 

1933-The first Drive In movie opened in Camden, New Jersey. 25 cents a car. Richard Hollingshead, a young entrepreneur, devised a way to offer comfortable movie watching to the public by experimenting in his own driveway.

 

1939- Playright Eugene O’Neill had hit a dry spell of no writing and dread of his impending Parkinsons disease. This day he got the inspiration to sketch out outlines for two plays- The Iceman Cometh, and Long Days Journey into Night.

 

1941- Actor George Raft wrote a memo to studio head Jack Warner reminding him of his contractual commitment to send Raft only good quality scripts. The latest he got: " The Maltese Falcon" he thought was “a lousy substandard idea, that has no chance." Humphrey Bogart did the film instead.

 

1942 –Adeline Grey does the first nylon parachute jump in Hartford Conn.

 

1944- D-DAY, the NORMANDY INVASION- General Dwight Eisenhower launched 6,000 ships, 14,000 planes and 156,000 troops on the shores of Nazi occupied France with the order: "Okay. Let's go."  In Moscow,

 In the assault from Animation were voiceover actor Paul Frees, Disney key assistant Dale Oliver, Marvel cartoonist Jack Kirby, and Disney/Warner development artist Victor Haboush. Peanuts creator Charles Schulz was in the second wave to Utah Beach. Ernest Hemingway was in a landing craft among other war correspondents. James Doohan (Scotty in Star Trek) was a Canadian officer and was wounded and Alec Guinness was in the Royal Navy. 

 

1949- Comic strip character Joe Palooka gets married to Ann Howe.

 

1949- BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING- George Orwell's book about technological tyranny -1984 was first published. Orwell's working title was "The Last Free Man", but the publisher thought it too depressing to sell. So, Orwell picked the date 1984, who's only significance was that it was the year he was writing 1948- reversed.

 

1952- Disney short Susie, the Little Blue Coupe, directed by Clyde Geronimi. From a story by Bill Peet. The anthropomorphized cars became the inspiration for Pixar’s Cars movies.

 

1955 - Bill Haley & Comets, "Rock Around the Clock" hits #1.

 

1959-The Submarine Voyage attraction opened in Disneyland's updated Tomorrowland. The 8 vessels are named Nautilus, Seawolf, Skate, Skipjack, Triton, George Washington, Patrick Henry, and Ethan Allen.  Originally painted to look like USN nuclear subs, after the VietNam war they repainted them a less militaristic explorer yellow.

 

1972 - David Bowie released "Rise & Fall of Ziggy Stardust"

 

1976- The Glendale Galleria shopping mall in Glendale Cal. opened.

 

1984- In Moscow, 29-year-old mathematics Professor Alexey Pajitnov invented the game Tetris. Unlike Erno Rubik of Rubik's cube, Pajitnov was able to register a copyright as the Soviet Union was collapsing, so he saw some money for his invention. Especially when Nintendo bought it for their Gameboy.

 

 

2007- The Mighty Ducks of Anaheim California, named for a Walt Disney comedy movie, won the Stanley Cup after defeating the Ottawa Senators. It is the first Stanley Cup won by a west coast team since 1925.

 

2015- American Pharaoh won the first Triple Crown horse race in 37 years.

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tom sito's animation almanac for June 5, 2025

Birthdays: Socrates, Pancho Villa, Thomas Chippendale -furniture maker, Igor Stravinsky, Little archduchess Anastasia Romanov, Frederico Garcia Lorca, Dean Acheson, Bill Moyers is 91, Hopalong Cassidy (born William Boyd 1995), Tony Richardson, Lancelot Ware the founder of Mensa, Jimmy Murakami, Harold Whitaker, Kenny G., Spaulding Gray, Ron Livingston is 58, Mark Wahlberg is 54

 

221BC - The Chinese poet Chu Yuan drowned himself as a protest of an unjust Emperor. His memory is remembered by the annual Dragon Boat Festival. People decorate boats like dragons and drop dumplings into the river to dissuade fish from eating the remains of the poet.

 

1876- At the Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition, Americans first discovered an exotic new food- Bananas.

 

1940- The synthetic rubber tire invented.

 

1944- As the Allies celebrated the liberation of Rome, A NY animator turned G.I. named Johnny Vita solicited laughs from the troops by appearing on Mussolini’s balcony on the Via Del Corso,  doing a mock impersonation of Il Duce.

 

 

1946- THE BIKINI went on sale. Two-piece bathing suits had been around since the 1930s. (In Pompeian art, it goes back to Rome). Parisian designer Louis Reard invented our modern concept. Named the Bikini for the Atomic test in the Bikini islands, Diana Vreeland said it would "hit the fashion world like an atomic bomb". The first model to wear it was an exotic dancer, because the regular fashion models refused to parade around in “Reard's flimsy straps”. The fashion at first was banned on some beaches. It didn't really enter the mainstream until the 1960s when Brigitte Bardot and Raquel Welch popularized them.

 

1964 - Davie Jones & King Bees debut "I Can't Help Thinking About Me," The group disbanded but Davie Jones went on to success after chan

 

1989- Toronto’s Skydome Stadium opened. Home team Blue Jays lose to the Milwaukee Brewers 5-3.

 

1998- Walt Disney’s Mulan premiered at the Hollywood Bowl. Directed by Barry Cook and Tony Bancroft.

 

1998- Reuters and ABC News erroneously reported the death of 96 year old Bob Hope. Arizona Congressman Robert Stump announced the comedian’s death on the floor of the Congress, to the great surprise of Bob Hope, who was eating breakfast while watching TV at the time.  Bob Hope lived four more years, dying at age 100.

 

2000- Pixar oscar winning short “For the Birds” designed and directed by Ralph Eggleston, premiered at the Annecy Festival in France.

 

2010- The Dr. Who episode where the Doctor (Matt Smith) takes Vincent van Gogh in the Tardis to the present day to see his paintings now hanging in the Louvre.