tom sito's animation almanac for July 31, 2025

Birthdays: Liberace, General George H. Thomas the "Rock of Chickamagua", Sebastian Sperling Kresge the founder of S.S. Kresge stores, Milton Friedman, Sherry Lansing, Geraldine Chaplin, Kurt Gowdy, Dean Cain, Leon “ Bull “Durham, Primo Levi, Fred Quimby, animator Ken Harris, Ted Cassidy who played Lurch in the Adams Family, Wesley Snipes is 63, and according to J.K. Rowling, today is the birthday of Harry Potter. George Jetson (see below), The Disney animator twin brothers Tony and Tom Bancroft are 57.

 

1703- In London, writer Daniel Defoe (Robinson Crusoe) was made to stand in the public pillory for writing critical satires of the Her Majesties government and Church. 

 

1922- Ralph Samuelson invented water skis.

 

1930- Radio mystery show “The Shadow” premiered. “Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? The Shadow knows…heh, heh, heh.” Orson Welles did the voice of the crime fighting Shadow for a year in 1937 for $185 a week.

 

1931- Mickey short The Karnival Kid, directed by Walt Disney. Mickey spoke his first words, “ Hot Dogs!”

 

1948- President Truman dedicated New York City’s second major airport Idlewild Field. In 1963 it was renamed JFK Airport.

 

1954- Steve Allen married Jayne Meadows.

 

1966- Birmingham Alabama held a massed rally to burn Beatles records after John Lennon casually joked that the Beatles had become more popular than Jesus.

 

 

1968- In the wake of the assassination of Dr Martin Luther King, a schoolteacher named Harriet Glickman wrote Charles Schulz that he needed to add a black child to his Peanuts characters. This day Charles Schulz introduced Franklin, the first black character into his Peanuts comic strip.

 

1970- Black Tot Day- The British Navy officially ended its centuries old custom of giving a ships crew a ration (tot) of rum. 

 

1971- Apollo 15 astronaut went for a drive on the surface of the moon in their land-rover.

 

1992- Bebe’s Kids released, the first animated feature directed by an African American animator, Bruce W. Smith.

 

1992- The Robert Zemeckis’ comedy Death Becomes Her opened. With Meryl Streep, Goldie Hawn and Bruce Willis. It is the first film that widely used the new digital matte technique to replace traditional optical printing.

1995- The Walt Disney Company bought the ABC Network, the Discovery Channel and ESPN.

 

1999- Premiere of Brad Bird’s movie The Iron Giant.

 

2020- The Twitter accounts of famous people like former Pres Obama, Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates and Elon Musk were hacked for a sophisticated bitcoin scam. The person arrested was not a foreign agent or terrorist, but a 17 year old High School student from Tampa, Fla., named Graham Clark.

 

2022- George Jetson of the 1960s TV show The Jetsons was born. The show is set in the year 2062, when George was age 40. 

 

tom sito's animation almanac for July 30, 2025

Birthdays: Georgio Vasari, Henry Ford, Emily Bronte', Casey Stengel, Roy Williams, Vladimir Zworykin, Arnold Schwarzenegger is 78, Ed "Kookie" Byrnes, Peter Bogdanovich, Delta Burke, Henry Moore, Anita Hill, Lawrence Fishburne is 64, Jean Reno is 77, Hilary Swank is 51, Christopher Nolan is 55, Lisa Kudrow is 62

1889- Start of the Sherlock Holmes mystery, the Naval Treaty.

1929 -The Hollywood Bowl musicians go on strike.

1932-Walt Disney’s “Flowers and Trees” the first Technicolor Cartoon. Disney had worked out a deal with Technicolor creator Dr. Herbert Kalmus to use his technique exclusively for two years to demonstrate larger Hollywood studios its quality. The short premiered at Grauman's Chinese with the feature film Strange Interlude".

1932- The first Los Angeles hosting of the Olympic Games in their brand spanking new Coliseum. Gold medalists in swimming Larry Buster Crabbe and Johnny Weissmuller, who later became movie stars. Another medalist, the Hawaiian Duke Kahanamoku, began to teach the Californians about a new sport- surfing!

1935- The first paperback book. Andre Maurois 'Ariel, a Life of Shelley', published in this new form by Penguin Books of London.

1936- Producer David O. Selznick bought the movie rights to the best-selling novel “Gone With The Wind” from an ailing Irving Thalberg. The "boy genius" Thalberg was hoping that Selznick would ruin himself in the process of making this film. Thalberg was convinced that GWTW would prove to be a massive flop because "Costume dramas are box office poison." It was a blockbuster hit.

1942- Walt Disney war time short "Out of the Frying Pan and into The Firing Line." Minnie Mouse is told to recycle bacon grease to be turned into glycerine for the war effort.

1948 - Professional wrestling premieres on prime-time network TV (DuMont)

1954 - Elvis Presley joins Local 71, the Memphis Federation of Musicians. 

1966 - BATMAN: THE MOVIE, and based on the 1966 BATMAN television series, opened. Directed by Leslie H. Martinson and starring Adam West, Burt Ward, Lee Meriwether, Cesar Romero, Burgess Meredith, Frank Gorshin, 

 

1972- John Boorman’s thriller Deliverance, with Burt Reynolds and Ned Beatty.

 

1974- Flesh Gordon, the x-rated spoof of Flash Gordon adventure serials. Directed by Howard Zeim and Michael Beneviste.

1986- Walt Disney released “Flight of the Navigator”, directed by Randal Kleiser, featuring early photo-real CG VFX done by Canadian studio Omnibus. 

1988- The last Playboy Club in America closed. It was in Lansing, Mich. In 2006 Hugh Hefner opened a Playboy Club themed casino in Las Vegas.

1999- The Blair Witch Project opened in theaters. The low-budget indy became a huge hit due to an on-line grass roots campaign claiming that the footage of teenager encountering the supernatural was genuine. The first successful on-line publicity campaign. 

 

tom sito's animation almanac for July 29, 2025

Birthdays: Alex de Tocqueville, Benito Mussolini, Clara Bow, Sig Romberg, William Cameron Menzies, Natalie Wood, Paul Taylor, Dag Hammarskjold, Peter Jennings, Michael Spinks, Maria Ouspenskaya, Dave Stevens creator of the Rocketeer, Booth Tarkington, David Warner, Steven Dorff, Professor Irwin Corey, William Cameron-Menzies, Peter Jennings, William Powell, Ken Burns is 71, Will Wheaton is 53

1920 - 1st transcontinental airmail flight from NY to SF.

1922- In Kansas City, Walt Disney released his first Laugh-o-Gram short- Little Red Riding Hood, animated by Rudy Ising. 

1938- Three Missing Links- a Three Stooges comedy with the boys as cave men and Ray "Crash" Corrigan in a gorilla suit.

1942- Orson Welles left Rio De Janiero after RKO fired him and stopped production of "It's All True". RKO also had “the Magnificent Ambersons” re-cut to a more acceptable 90 minutes and fired the executive producer who brought Welles out to Hollywood.

1948- Former Disney assistant-animator Hank Ketcham’s comic strip "Dennis the Menace," 1st appeared.

1957-Happy Birthday NASA! President Eisenhower signed the bill creating the National Aeronautics and Space Agency, or NASA to oversee the space program, separate from the military. 

1957- The Tonight Show with Jack Paar as host premiered. 

1962- The film “Dr No” premiered, introducing the world to the suave spy James Bond 007.  They first considered Cary Grant, David Niven, Patrick McGoohan, and James Mason, who all turned them down. So, the producers chose young Scots actor Sean Connery. Ian Fleming wrote of the choice, “Disaster!!” Fleming always imagined Bond would resemble band-leader Hoagy Carmichael. Sean Connery had just starred as the villain in a Tarzan film, and the producers wanted him to film the sequel. He asked for a time off to go do, “a little spy picture.”

1965 - Beatles movie "Help" had its Royal World premiere at the London Pavilion in the West End. Princess Margaret and Lord Snowdon in attendance. The film actually opened a month later. People said the movie was filmed “in a haze of marijuana smoke” and most people on the film didn’t know what was next as they were writing it as they went along. 

1974- Mamas and the Papa's  singer Mama Cass Eliot died of a stroke, not as was widely believed from choking on a sandwich. She was 32.

1981- Prince Charles of England married Lady Diana Spencer.  The ill-fated fairy tale wedding was seen around the world on live television. Unknown to Di at the time was Prince Charles was already romantically involved with Mrs. Camilla Parker-Bowles.

1989- Miyazaki’s film Kiki’s Delivery Service premiered in Japan.

tom sito's animation almanac for July 28, 2025

Birthdays: Beatrix Potter, Jacqueline Kennedy, Richard Rogers, Ibn al’ Arabi- philosopher 1165, Marcel Duchamp, Rudy Vallee. Sally Struthers, Peter Duchin, Vida Blue, Joe E. Brown, Jim Davis the creator of Garfield, Frankie Yankovic the Polka King, Elizabeth Berkley, Earl Tupper the inventor of Tupperware, Hugo Chavez

 

 

1841- The body of Mary Cecilia Rogers was pulled out of New York Harbor. The sensational murder of the “Beautiful Cigar Girl” inspired Edgar Allen Poe to write “The Mystery of Marie Roget.”

 

1858- The French photographer Nadar went up in a balloon and took the first aerial photograph.

 

 

1896- Happy Birthday Miami! The City of Miami incorporated.

 

1932- The movie White Zombie with Bela Lugosi opened. 

 

 

1933- The first singing telegram. It was delivered to singer Rudy Valee by Western Union operator appropriately named Lucille Lipps.

 

1945-A B-25 Mitchell bomber flying in thick fog struck the 78th floor of the Empire State Building in New York City. It killed a dozen people, including some when one of its 1,500 lb. engines shot through the building and down onto 33rd street. One woman in an elevator had the cables cut and fell 80 stories at 200 miles an hour to the basement. Miraculously she lived. 

Despite the devastation, the building did not collapse but stayed sound. As a result, US and World air traffic control standards were stiffened, air traffic controllers finally got the power to order planes down, and large planes are kept away from flying over large urban areas.  

 

1948- In honor of the death of D.W. Griffith, all Hollywood studios observed three minutes of silence.

 

1948- The Premiere of " Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein" For you hardcore film trivia fans this film is the only other time than the original Tod Browning movie that Bela Lugosi played Count Dracula on film. 

 

1954- The film On The Waterfront opened. Producer Sam Spiegel originally wanted Frank Sinatra and Grace Kelly as the leads. But Kelly took Hitchcock’s Rear Window instead, and Marlon Brando and Eva Marie-Saint became available, much to the annoyance of Sinatra.

 

1958- HAPPY LEGO! Danish toymaker Gotfried Kirk Christiansen patented the interlocking plastic bricks. His company had been working on the idea in wood since the 1930s. The LEGO empire began. Lego is from the Danish phrase leg godt, meaning "play well."

1971- Photographer Diane Arbus probed increasingly darker subject matter, circus freaks, severe birth defects. This day she committed suicide by swallowing a bottle of sleeping pills, then slitting her wrists.

 

1978- National Lampoons Animal House directed by John Landis opened. 

 

1987- Disney's Oilspot and Lipstick premiered at Siggraph Anaheim. Directed by Michael Cedeno. It was an early experimental all CGI film.

 

1998- In Afghanistan the Taliban ordered mass destruction of television sets.  They also forbade the Internet and shaved the heads of their national soccer team for daring to wear shorts.

 

2061- The next predicted appearance of Halley’s Comet.

tom sito's animation almanac for July 27, 2025

Birthdays: Confucius, Alexander Dumas fils, Enrique Granados, Hillaire Belloc, Maureen McGovern, Keenan Wynn, Leo Durocher, Peggy Fleming, Bobby Gentry, Jerry Van Dyke, Vincent Canby, Betty Thomas, Ilya Salkind, David Swift –director of the Haley Mills Disney films like The Parent Trap, Maya Rudolph is 53, Jonathan Rhys Meyers is 48, Norman Lear 

 

 

1921- Two Toronto scientists, Frederick Banting and Charles Best isolate the hormone Insulin to treat diabetes.

 

1921- SHAKESPEARE & CO. opened in Paris. The English language bookshop on the Seine owned by Sylvia Beach was the most famous hangout for the U.S. expatriate intellectuals. Shakespeare & Co. championed writers like James Joyce, F. Scott Fitzgerald, John Dos Passos, Carlos Santayanna, Gertrude Stein, Alice B. Toklas, Sherwood Anderson and more. 

During the liberation in 1944, the shop was liberated personally by Ernest Hemingway who shot snipers off its roof. After paying his respects to Sylvia, Hemingway and his G.I. buddies went on to liberate the Ritz hotel and its famous wine cellar.

Happy 85 Birthday BUGS BUNNY. 1940 Tex Avery’s short-"A Wild Hare”-There were several earlier prototypes of the famous rabbit, white with a different voice, but this is the short that is generally accepted as his birthday. 

In the late 30s, a fashion among some animators in LA was to spend the weekend up in the High Sierras hunting. Most of them were terrible at it, and when they came back with nothing, got a lot of razzing from their buddies. At Looney Tunes, a few guys did gag drawings of designer Ben Hardaway fruitlessly hunting a rabbit. His nickname was Bugs, because he originated from Chicago, like gangster Bugs Moran. Being Bugs or Bugsy was also slang then for crazy. The gag drawings were of Hardaway and " Bug's Bunny". Bob Givens created the first official model sheet of the character. 

In this short Bugs says “Whats Up Doc?” for the first time, co-opting a line uttered by Clark Gable while chewing a carrot in the 1934 Frank Capra hit “It Happened One Night”. 
Interestingly, voice actor Mel Blanc was allergic to carrots, and kept a bucket nearby to spit them out after chewing. He experimented with chewing other vegetables, but he claimed nothing sounded as good as raw carrots.

 

1946- Writer Gertrude Stein died at age 72. Her last words to Alice B. Toklas were:" What is the Answer?" When Alice said nothing, Gertrude said:" Well then, what is the Question?"

 

1953- THE KOREAN WAR ENDS- The Treaty of Panmunjom. After 170,000 Americans casualties and millions of Koreans & Chinese killed, the treaty fixed the border basically where it was in 1950. The South Korean Government was outraged and considered it a betrayal, because it accepted the permanent division of Korea in to two parts. South Koreans weren’t even allowed at the negotiations. But America and China were tired of the endless death and stalemate and wanted out.

Before the treaty went into effect, South Korean President Sygmun Ree opened all POW camps and let all the North Korean troops who didn’t want to return home, run free. South Korea never signed the treaty, so it is still technically at war with the North. 

 

1953- The Tonight Show debuted on NBC. Its first host was Steve Allen.

 

1965- The U.S. Government forced cigarette companies to print warning labels on their packages about the hazards of smoking. 

 

1977- John Lennon got his green card. Richard Nixon considered him a dangerous radical. Several times he was under 60-day notice to leave the country.

 

1977- Allegro Non Troppo opened in American theaters. Italian animator Bruno Bozzetto’s homage to Walt Disney’s Fantasia.

 

1986- Gregg Lemond became the first American to win the Tour de France bicycle race. 

 

1993- IBM announced it would eliminate 35,000 white-collar jobs. Downsizing becomes a popular sport in corporate America. The more workers laid off, the higher your stock rose. The chairman of General Electric Jack Welch, was nicknamed “Neutron Jack” after the neutron bomb that kills off people but leaves buildings intact. He was lionized as a hero in corporate America. He wrote op-eds in the NY Times defending his practice of outsourcing American jobs. 

 

1996- A bomb packed with nails goes off during Olympic celebrations in Atlanta Georgia. One woman was killed, and dozens injured. While hunting the bomber, the media decided to focus on Richard Jewel, an overweight security guard who lived with his mom. Ironically Jewel was the one who first alerted police to the suspicious package, and tried to evacuate the area, otherwise more people would have been killed. After weeks of humiliating hounding by the press, the FBI declared Richard Jewel completely innocent. In 2003 the police finally caught the real culprit, abortion clinic bomber Eric Rudolph.

 

2007- The Simpson’s Movie debuted.

 

 

 

tom sito's animation almanac for July 25, 2025

Birthdays: Bishop Theitmar of Merseberg- 975AD, Arthur Balfour, Thomas Eakins, Maxfield Parrish, Stuart K. Hine 1899 missionary who wrote the hymn "How Great Thou Art", Woody Strode, Walter Payton, Walter Brennan, David Belasco, Adnan Khashoggi, Imam, Jack Gilford, Illena Douglas, Estelle Getty, Matt LeBlanc, Louise Brown the first "test-tube" baby-conceived by invitro-fertilization is 47

1871- Samuel Colt patented his first revolver in 1836. Today he patented the "peacemaker", his most iconic Western sixgun.  Gunfighters filed off the barrel sight so it wouldn't catch on your clothes during a quickdraw, and carried it “5 beans in the wheel" meaning while walking they kept it set at the one empty chamber, so it doesn't accidentally go off in the holster and shoot you in the foot, which was embarrassing. Most gunfighters carried it in their belts or a waist high holster. Wild Bill Hickock carried his 1860 Navy Colts backwards in a red sash. The familiar low-on-the-hip two gun holsters didn't become common until cowboys saw them in the Buffalo Bill Wild West Show in the 1880’s.  

   Colonel Colt got very rich from his invention and had an annoying habit of shooting his guns off in courtrooms and restaurants like Yosemite Sam. Yee-Hah!

1871- The electric carousel was patented by Wilhelm Schneider, Davenport, Iowa 

1897- Young writer Jack London went to the Klondike to look for gold. He didn’t find much gold but did get material for a lot of good stories.

1936- Orchard Beach opened in the North Bronx.

1935- Mickey Mouse short Alpine Climbers released.

1940- In Nazi occupied Paris, a Gestapo agent walked into the French offices of MGM studios and confiscated the six prints of "Gone With The Wind" sent from America. They were taken to Berlin for a screening for top Nazi officials. Gone with the Wind was one of Adolf Hitler’s favorite movies. For the entire period of the Occupation, Henri Langlois, founder of the Cinémathèque Française, hid a surviving print of Gone With The Wind under his bed. The day Paris was liberated, the Cinémathèque was reopened with the first public screening.

1943 - Benito Mussolini was overthrown as leader of Italy and imprisoned, while the Italian government tried to open negotiations with the allies. Hitler responded by sending commandos to rescue Mussolini, and militarily occupying Italy.

1944- Operation Cobra- The Allies break out of the Normandy beachheads and unleash Patton's fresh Third army into the French interior countryside. Between now and the Battle of the Bulge, the German Army can do little more than fall back to the Rhine.

1946- MARTIN & LEWIS- Singer Dean Martin had met young comedian Jerry Lewis the year before at a club in New York City. This day in Atlantic City’s 500 Club they debuted as a team when Lewis suggested to the club owner that Martin would be a good replacement for a singer who called in sick. They became a major sensation, with movies, records and TV shows. They hired young writer Norman Lear and Ed Simmons to write for them.

1951- CBS conducted the first television broadcast in color. NBC made color TV popular in the mid 1960's.

1953- Chuck Jones’ "Duck Dodgers in the 24 and 1/2 Century".

 

1953- New York City subway fares rise from 10 cents to 15 cents. Subway tokens were issued for the first time.

1956- Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis performed for the last time as a duo at NY’s Copacabana. Exactly ten years from their first appearance together.

1958- Jack Warner cheated his two surviving brothers Harry and Al out of their share of Warner Bros Studios. The three had agreed to all retire together and sell to an investor group led by a man named Sememenko. But by a pre-arranged deal with Sememenko, Jack then bought him out and named himself President of Warner Bros. When brother Harry read the news in Variety the next day, it gave him a heart attack. He lingered for a week then died this day. The family never spoke to their brother Jack again. His wife Rhea said “He didn’t die. Jack killed him.”

1959-"The Kitchen Debates" Vice President Richard Nixon traded catty comments with Soviet Premier Nikita Khruschev at the American kitchen of the future exhibit in a Moscow Trade Show.    

1965- Folk Music star Bob Dylan was booed off stage at the Newport Folk Festival for using an electric guitar. Alan Lomax, the great Smithsonian Folk Music historian got into a fistfight over it, and Pete Seeger threatened to pull the electric plugs.

1975 - "A Chorus Line" premiered.

1984- Cosmonaut Svetlana Savitskaya became 1st woman to walk in space.

1984- The groundbreaking CGI film The Adventures of Andre and Wally-B premiered at the Siggraph convention in Minneapolis. Directed by Alvy Ray Amith and the computer designers who would eventually form Pixar. They were aided by new hire John Lasseter, who brought his traditional Disney animation skills to forming credible character animation on computer.

1985- Movie star Rock Hudson publicly acknowledged that he had AIDS. He had collapsed in France and he made the announcement while being treated at a French clinic. He was the first major public figure to acknowledge he had the mysterious new disease. People then were so afraid of AIDS and how it was transferred, everyone’s initial response was to shun the sufferer. The French-American hospital insisted Hudson leave, so he called his friends Pres. Ronald and Nancy Reagan for an airlift to a U.S. military hospital. They ignored him. Rock Hudson had to pay out of his own pocket to hire a 747 airliner to fly him directly home to LA. 

1989- Steve Rubell, the owner of Studio 54 died of HIVAIDS. He was 45.

1990 - Roseanne Barr sang the National Anthem at a San Diego Padre game. As a joke she impersonated ball players by spitting, grabbing her crotch and screeching during her rendition. It didn’t go over well with the more patriotically minded in that very conservative town.

2000- An Air France Concord supersonic jetliner exploded on takeoff, killing everyone on board. The investigation proved a piece of metal debris that fell off the previous Continental jetliner exploded one of the Concords tires and the resultant wreckage was sucked into the plane’s engine. Both Britain and France suspended SST flights for over a year and in 2003 discontinued them forever as being too expensive.

===============================

Tom Sito's animation almanac for July 24, 2025

Birthdays: Simon Bolivar, Amelia Earhart, Alexander Dumas fils, Ambrose Bierce, Robert Graves, Pat Oliphant, Bela Abzug, Zelda Fitzgerald, Ruth Buzzi, Lynda Carter is 73, Chief Dan George, Robert Hays, Gus Van Sant, Anna Paquin, Patty Jenkins, Elizabeth Moss, J-Lo Jennifer Lopez is 55

  

1824- The Harrisburg Pennsylvanian published the results of the first ever US public opinion poll- a clear lead for Andrew Jackson for president.

 

1847 -Rotary-type printing press patented by Richard March Hoe, of New York.

 

1901- William Porter, also known as O. Henry, was released from jail after doing time for embezzlement. While in jail, he discovered he had a talent for writing.

 

1934- Cecil B. DeMille’s epic film Cleopatra premiered. 

 

1938 - Instant coffee invented.

 

1948- Warner's "Haredevil Hare" featuring the first Marvin the Martian.  Now where did I put my Pew Illudium Q 36 Explosive Space Modulator? 

 

1965- Bob Dylan released the song “Like a Rolling Stone”.

 

1966- Actor Montgomery Clift died of a heart attack at age 45. When his private nurse Lorenzo James said goodnight to him at 1:00AM, he asked him if he wanted to watch his old movie The Misfits on TV. Clift’s last words were, “Absolutely Not!” 

 

 

1969- After successfully landing on the moon and returning to Earth, Apollo 11 safely splashed down in the ocean.

 

1980- In London’s Dorchester Hotel, comedian and actor Peter Sellers died of a heart attack. He was 54. 

 

1983- George Brett of the Kansas City Royals had a second homerun he hit nullified after Yankee manager Billy Martin complains he had too much pine tar on his bat.

 

1985- Walt Disney's "The Black Cauldron" premiered. Billed as Walt Disney’s greatest animation feature in decades, its first week it came in third to PeeWee’s Big Adventure, and The Care Bears Movie. It’s failure almost ended Disney animation.

 

1998- Steven Spielberg’s Saving Private Ryan opened.

 

2005- American Lance Armstrong won the Tour du France bicycle race for an unprecedented 7^th time, even after surviving testicular cancer that had spread to his spine and brain. Steroids or not, it was still one hell of an achievement. After he confessed to juicing (using performance enhancing drugs like steroids), all his medals were taken away.

Tom Sito's Animation Almanac for July 23, 2025

Birthdays: Ethiopian Emperor Rastafari Halie Selassie "the Lion of Judah", Raymond Chandler, Jackson Beck the voice of Bluto, Raymond Booth, Don Drysdale, Gloria DeHaven, Arthur Treacher, Pee Wee Reese, Bob Fosse, Harry Cohn, Don Imus, Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Slash, Marlon Wayans, Woody Harrelson is 65, Edie McClurg, Daniel Radcliffe is 37

Happy Bluto Day! Jackson Beck, the voice of Bluto 1912-2004.

Today is the Ancient Roman Festival of Neptune, God of the Sea. In Greek Poseidon

1599- Michel Caravaggio received his first commission for a painting.

1866- The Cincinnati Reds Baseball club formed. The oldest continuous professional sports team in the U.S.

1886- This was the day Bowery saloonkeeper Steve Brodie claimed he jumped off the Brooklyn Bridge and lived to talk about it. 

1888 - John Boyd Dunlop patented the pneumatic rubber tire.

1904 – The Ice Cream Cone created by Charles E. Menches during the St. Louis World’s Fair. Another claimant to the creation was Syrian waffle vendor Ernest Samwi. The city of Los Angeles claims the creation also.  Also introduced there was a new drink called Dr. Pepper.

1932-The Birthday of Fritos. Texas ice cream maker Elmer Doolin bought a recipe for corn chips from a Mexican fry cook for $100 dollars and started the Frito-Lay Company.

1951-Thelonius Monk recorded the seminal jazz album Straight, No Chaser.

1966- The comedy song "They're Coming to Take Me Away, Ha, Ha!" released. The singer was Napoleon XIV.

1968- Fred Blasie won an unprecedented fifth World Wrestling Championship belt. Blasie later gained more fame for recording the comedy song "Pencil Necked Geeks" and beating up comedian Andy Kaufman in the ring for calling wrestling a hoax..

1982- Actor Vic Morrow and two children were killed by a stunt helicopter crash while filming "Twilight Zone, the movie". The last scripted line before his death was "I’ll Keep you safe kids, I swear to God!" The children were being worked into the early morning hours without a caretaker supervisor in defiance of the Coogan Laws. Director John Landis was investigated but exonerated. 

1999- The Inspector Gadget Movie starring Matthew Broderick opened.

2004- Two armed men entered the Munch Museum in Norway and stole Edvard Munch’s masterpiece The Scream at gunpoint. It was recovered with some water damage three years later.

2011- Singer Amy Winehouse died of alcohol poisoning. They found two empty bottles of vodka next to her body. She was 27. She joined the infamous 27 Club like Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin. Jim Morrison and Kurt Kobain.

Tom Sito's animation almanac for July 22, 2025

Birthdays: Emma Lazarus, Eduard Hopper, Gregor Mendel, Alexander Calder, James Whale, Oscar De La Renta, Rose Kennedy, Vaughn Bode, Ruthie Thompson, Stephen Vincent Benet, Jason Robards, Bob Dole, David Spade is 62, Terence Stamp is 88, Danny Glover is 80, Alex Trebek, Bobby Sherman, Don Henley, Alan Mencken is 76, Irene Bedard, William Dafoe is 70, John Leguizamo, Selena Gomez, Albert Brooks is 78- born Albert Einstein, a nice name, but already taken.

1598- This day William Shakespeare listed on the Stationers Register, a sort of copyright service, his new play called The Merchant of Venice.

1893 –In Colorado, Katharine L. Bates wrote the song "America the Beautiful".

1894- The first true automobile race- from Paris to Rouen.

1921- Artist Man Ray arrived in Paris determined to go Dada!

1958- Plan 9 From Outer Space directed by Ed Wood, opened. It has the reputation as the worst movie ever made. Wood coaxed elderly movie star Bela Lugosi to star in it, but halfway though the film he died. Wood shot the remainder of Lugosi’s scenes with his chiropracter wrapped in a cape covering his face. 

1965- Cary Grant married Dyan Cannon.

1967- Jimi Hendrix quit as the opening act for the Monkees.

1977- Walt Disney’s film "The Rescuers" featuring the last work of Disney master animator Milt Kahl.

1989- Nintendo released in America the Gameboy. Designer Gunpei Yokoi designed it and the unique cross shaped directional fingerpad to replace a joystick control. Nintendo loaded Tetris on to it and it became a worldwide phenomenon. 

1996- The Daily Show premiered on Comedy Central. John Stewart replaced Craig Kilborn in 1999 and made it famous. 

tom sito's animation almanac for July 20, 2025

Birthdays: Petrarch, Sir Edmund Hilary, Lord Elgin, Quaker Anne Hutchinson, Natalie Wood, Theda Bara, Diana Rigg, Dick Lucas, Carlos Santana, Lord Reith- the first Director General of the BBC. Gus Arriola, Carlos Alarzaqui, Giselle Bunchen is 45, Sandra Oh is 54, Harrison Ellenshaw is 80 

1946-Bob Clampett's cartoon"the Great Piggy Bank Robbery" with Daffy Duck as Duck Tracy. "I'm gonna rrrrrrrrrrrubbb ya out, see!"

1964 –The first surfing record to go #1-Jan & Dean's "Surf City"

1968 - Iron Butterfly's "In a-Gadda-da-Vida", reached #4 in the pop charts. Then it was called Psychedelic Rock, today it is considered the first Metal hit. The song was written as “In the Garden of Eden” but singer Doug Ingle was so drunk and stoned, In a Gadda Da Vida was all he could mumble out. 

1969- Tranquility Base- The Eagle has Landed. Apollo 11’s Lunar Module the LEM first landed humans on the Moon. Eight hours later Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin stepped out onto the surface of the Moon, “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for Mankind.”  

1973- Bruce Lee died of cerebral edema one month before his last film Enter the Dragon premiered. He was 33.  The handsome Hong Kong movie star single-handedly made Chinese martial arts a worldwide craze, and the Kung Fu genre film a standard genre in world movie theaters. He was buried in his Enter The Dragon costume. 

1976- Warner\Lambert, makers of Trident sugarless gum, comes out with their famous slogan "Sugarless gum is recommended by four out of five dentists who chew gum". When people asked what gum the fifth dentist recommended, they were brushed. 

1984 - Jim Fixx, creator of the Jogging craze through his hit book Running, died at 52 of a heart attack. He was out for a run. 

2001- Hayao Miyazaki’s Spirited Away premiered in Japan. The first Japanese anime to win an Oscar.

tom sito's animation fun facts for July 19, 2025

Birthdays: Edgar Degas, Samuel Colt, Charles Mayo of the Mayo Clinic, Bert Kwouk, Vladimir Mayakovsky, Vicki Carr, Max Fleischer, animator Brenda Banks, Lizzie Borden, Ille Nastase, George McGovern, Brian Harold May of Queen, Atom Egoyan, Anthony Edwards, Campbell Scott, Dal McKennon- the voice of Gumby, Ben Franklin in Ben and Me, and Archie in the Archies, Benedict Cumberbatch is 49

 

1879- Doc Holiday had opened a saloon with a partner in Las Vegas, New Mexico. A drunken army scout named Mike Gordon got mad at one of his dance hall girls, went out into the street and started bellowing threats and firing his pistol wildly at the windows of the saloon. Doc Holiday came out of the swinging doors, drilled Gordon dead with one bullet, then walked back in and calmly resumed his poker game.

 

1899- “The Newsies Strike” Hundreds of poor children in NYC who survived by selling penny newspapers, banded together and went on strike against William Randolph Hearst and Josef Pulitzers newspaper empires. Despite lots of drama and threatened violence, Hearst and Pulitzer both gave in to their demands.

 

1900- The first line of the Paris Metro underground dedicated. Ligne 1 Porte Vincennes.

 

1913 - Billboard Magazine publishes earliest known "Last Week's 10 Best Sellers among

Popular Songs" Malinda's Wedding Day is #1

 

1932- writer Daphne du Maurier married General Frederick Browning.

 

1934- The Walt Disney studio signed a deal with the Lionel toy train company to produce a Mickey and Minnie wind up handcar. The sales were so good it actually saved the Lionel toy company from going bankrupt. 

 

1939 – Dr. Roy P Scholz is the first surgeon to use fiberglass sutures, replacing cat’s intestines and wool thread.

 

1941 - British PM Winston Churchill launched his "V for Victory" campaign.  V in French for Victoire, in Dutch Vrijheid (Liberty). By coincidence the letter "V" in morse code corresponded with the opening notes of Beethoven ‘s 5th symphony "Dit-Dit-Dit Daaah." making it the musical theme of the BBC overseas radio service war news. 

 

 

1942- Actor Stirling Holloway, who did Disney character voices like Winnie the Pooh, enlisted in the army. He was 37. They didn’t send him to fight, but used him in Special Services raising money and public relations.

 

1952- Several UFOs appeared on the radar of Washington DC’s National Airport (Today its Reagan Airport). So many alarming reports and phone calls came in, that the Air Force was obliged to hold a news conference to calm public fears. They explained the lights were temperature inversions. Uh, huh…

 

 

1957- The film “I Was a Teenage Werewolf” starring Michael Landon premiered. 

 

1966- Frank Sinatra (50) married Mia Farrow (21). Frankie’s ex Ava Gardner commented:” Hah! I always knew Frank would one day wind up in bed with a little boy.” Two years later when Mia Farrow was offered the lead role in Roman Polanski’s film “Rosemary’s Baby” Frank gave her an ultimatum "Baby, it's either me or your career”. She took the part and he served her with a divorce papers on the set. Mia got an Oscar nomination and went on to a full career as an actor, and Frank recorded “Strangers in the Night”. 

 

  

Tom Sito's Animation Almanac for July 18, 2025

Birthdays: William Makepeace Thackeray, Chill Wills, Nelson Mandela, James Brolin, Elizabeth McGovern, Screaming Jay Hawkins, Hume Cronyn, Red Skelton, Hunter H. Thompson, Clifford Odets, Paul Verhoeven, John Glenn, Syd Mead, Vin Diesel is 58, George Griffin is 82.

Happy Ancient Egyptian New Year! The day when Sirius the Dog Star is seen in the Southern skies, which heralds the coming of the Nile’s flood.  In modern times we call it the Dog Days of Summer. If you are counting, today is the first day of the month of Thoth, 6265.    

1877- Thomas Edison first recorded sound on tin foil cylinder `Mary Had a Little Lamb'

1936-“I Love to Singa” Looney Tune by Tex Avery. A sendup of Al Jolson’s The Jazz Singer.

1939- MGM tried a sneak preview of the film The Wizard of Oz. Afterward they debated cutting the song Somewhere Over the Rainbow as slowing down the story. Finally, they decided to leave it in. The film debuted in August to wild success and acclaim.

1939- RKO pictures signed Orson Welles to direct movies in Hollywood. That Hollywood signed a 24 year old radio star who never made a single film and gave him complete freedom and final cut was an amazing deal.

1964- Bob McKimson’s "A False Hare", the last Bugs Bunny theatrical short for Warner Bros for twenty years, until 1985.

1966- Bobby Fuller who made the hit song "I fought the Law and the Law Won" was found in LA in his mother’s Oldsmobile, beaten and dead from "forcible inhalation of gasoline"- huffing.

1968- Engineer Bob Noyce quit Fairchild Semiconductor and founded a new company in Santa Clara California named Intel. His partners were Andy Grove and Gordon Moore, he of Moore’s Law. It sold a new thing called microprocessors. In 1980 Intel would invent the silicon chip.

1975- Famed underground cartoonist Vaughn Bode’ experimented with breath control while doing hallucinogenic drugs. This day the creator of Cheech Wizard died of auto-asphyxiation while high. His last words were to his son, “ Mark, I’ve seen God four times, and I am going to see him again soon.” He was 33. 

1986- Aliens, the sequel directed by James Cameron, premiered. Game over, man!

1998- The movie Pokemon the First was released in Japan, stoking a Pokemon craze.

2019- A demented man set the Kyoto Animation Studio ablaze with gasoline and attacked people with a knife. 34 people died in the blaze. Many were young women for whom it was their first job.

Tom Sito's Animation Almanac for July 17, 2025

Birthdays: James Cagney, John Jacob Astor I, Hyacinth Rigaud, Bernice Abbott, Chill Wills, Brian Trottier, Phoebe Snow, Daryl Lamonica, Prof. Peter Schickele a.k.a. PDQ Bach, Earl Stanley Gardner the creator of Perry Mason, Art Linkletter, Phyllis Diller, Diane Carroll, Donald Sutherland, animator Willie Ito is 92, David Hasslehoff is 74

 

 

1717- British King George I held a procession by boat from Whitehall Palace to Chelsea and back. To add color to the event, he had his composer George Friedrich Handel compose a suite to be played by a boatload of musicians. Handel’s Water Music. King George enjoyed the Water Music so much he made the exhausted musicians play the entire suite three times during the outing. 

 

 

1841 - British humor magazine Punch first published.

 

 

1879 - 1st railroad opens in Hawaii.

 

1893- Representatives of fourteen stage unions meet to form IATSE, the International Alliance of Theatrical & Screen Engineers of the U.S. & Canada.

 

 

1928- Mexican President-elect Alvaro Obregon was at a large banquet for former veterans of the Mexican Revolution. Part of the party was having a cartoonist stroll about making caricatures of the guests. Obregon said to cartoonist Leon Toral: "Make sure you make me look good." Toral responded "Oh, I will.." and pulled a gun and shot the President to death. An assassin but still a professional artist, Toral actually completed the drawing before reaching for his pistol. Gotta watch them cartoonists….

 

1935 - Variety's famous headline "Sticks Nix Hix Pix" meaning audiences in rural areas were not attending movies with rustic themes.

 

70 Anniv 1955- DISNEYLAND dedicated- Walt Disney's dream of a perfect family amusement park, called 'The Happiest Place on Earth" was declared open with celebrities like Ronald Reagan, Art Linkletter and the Mouseketeers in attendance. It opened to the public the next day. Walt hoped to get 1,000 visitors that first day.  He got 28,000. Facilities broke down from the huge crowds and the haste with which the park was built.  Concrete pavement which was poured the night before was still soft under people's feet, there were no working water fountains and the car parking was a nightmare. To the Disneyland workers opening day was nicknamed 'Black Sunday". But despite all, Disneyland became a huge success.

 

1955 - Arco, Idaho becomes 1st US city lit by nuclear power.

 

1959- Singer Billie Holiday, called Lady Day, died of heart and liver failure, and cirrhosis in Metropolitan hospital in NY. She was 44. Hounded by federal authorities for twenty years, Feds were trying to arrest her for drug possession even as she lay dying. 

 

1959- Alfred Hitchcock’s classic North by Northwest premiered.

 

1967– The Monkees performed at Forest Hills NY, Jimi Hendrix was their opening act.

 

 

1968- The Beatles musical cartoon feature The Yellow Submarine premiered in London’s Piccadilly Circus. Look Out! It’s the Blue Meanies!!

 

1969- The first Vampirella comic, created by Forrest Ackerman and Trina Robbins. Cover Art by Frank Frazetta. Trina was one of the first women cartoonists in underground comics. 

 

1975-The first Apollo-Soyuz space linkup. A second linkup would not happen until 1995.

 

2004- Katsuhiro Otomo’s film Steamboy premiered. Japanese interest in the idea of SteamPunk began to spread worldwide.

 

 

Tom Sito's Animation Almanac for July 16, 2025

Birthdays: Andrea Del Sarto, Sir Joshua Reynolds, Ginger Rogers, Pinchas Zukerman,

Orville Redenbacher, Roald Amundsen, Sunny Tufts, Barbera Stanwyck, Reuben Blades, Mary Baker-Eddy the founder of Christian Science, Phoebe Cates, Will Farrell is 59

1932- Cecil B. DeMille shot the scene in his film Sign of the Cross where Claudette Colbert as Messalina took a bath in asses milk. Legend has it that DeMille insisted on real milk in the bath and that by the second day the hot studio lights had curdled it to a smelly cheese. But production notes show the scene was all shot in one day. DeMille always got away with sexy semi-nude scenes by putting them in biblical settings. After all, who would criticize a morality tale from the Good Book? 

1935- The first parking meter set up in Oklahoma City.

1936 - 1st x-ray photo of arterial circulation, Rochester, NY

1951- J.D. Salinger's "Catcher in the Rye" published.

1953- The story begins of a murder confessed by insurance investigator Walter Neff into a Dictaphone in the 1944 movie Double Indemnity. 

1954- Groundbreaking for the construction of Disneyland.

1956 –The last time Ringling Bros, Barnum & Bailey Circus performed under a canvas circus tent.

1963- Cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova became the first woman in space aboard Vostok 6. 

1969- Congress passed Title 14, Section 1211 of the Code of Federal Regulations. It makes it illegal for U.S. citizens to have any contact with extraterrestrials or their spacecraft.

1969- Apollo 11 blasted off for the Moon.

1976- Shooting wrapped on George Lucas’ film Star Wars, today called A New Hope.

1994- Comet Schoendacher-Levy 6 impacted with the Planet Jupiter, giving scientists a spectacular ringside seat to the processes of the creation of the Universe.

1988- Katsuhiro Otomo’s classic film Akira premiered in Tokyo. It opened in America a year later. It was the first Japanese Anime film to go beyond the domestic and its niche fan base (Otaku), to appeal to a global audience. 

Tom Sito's Animation Almanac for July 15, 2024

Birthdays: Rembrandt van Rijn, Inigo Jones, Sir Thomas Bullfinch, Mother Cabrini, Rev. Clemont Moore, Julian Bream, Linda Rondstadt is 79, Alex Karras, Jan Michael Vincent, Lola Davidovich, Forrest Whitaker is 64, Brigette Neilsen, Jesse Ventura is 73, Terry O’ Quinn is 73

St. Swithun's Day in England. St. Swithun was Bishop of Winchester (852). Swithun to whom one should pray in the event of drought. He is a patron saint of Umbrella makers.

1938- Max Fleischer Popeye cartoon "With the Jeep" introduced Eugene the Jeep. The character was created in the Thimble Theater comic strip two years earlier. The funny little character later gave its name to the army’s new General Purpose Vehicle, the G.P. or Jeep.

1941- President Franklin Roosevelt sent federal mediator Stanley White to try and solve the labor strike between Walt Disney and his cartoonists.

1953- The film Gentlemen Prefer Blondes premiered starring Marylyn Monroe and Jane Russell.

1971- Producer Steve Krantz announced the production of the first X-rated cartoon, Fritz the Cat, based on the popular underground comic by Robert Crumb. It would be directed by Ralph Bakshi.

1980- Several nations including the U.S. were experimenting with a public internet service. Today France Telecom jumped ahead when they started up a domestic internet called Minitel. Subscribers could shop, order tickets check stock prices and chat online. The first on-line banking. Eventually it was supplanted by the World Wide Web in 1989 and discontinued in 2012. 

1982-Coca-Cola introduced Diet Coke. Coke officials are proud of the fact that within a year it's sales top that of Tab, but Tab was owned by Coke as well. (duh..?)

1994- James Cameron’s movie True Lies opens. With Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jamie Lee Curtis.

1996- MSNBC channel went on the air. It struggled to find an identity early on, until host Keith Olbermann in 2005 proved there was a huge underserved audience of politically liberal viewers who craved an alternative to Fox News blatant right wing partisanship. Even after Olbermann left in 2011, MSNBC kept up its progressive credentials with hosts like Rachel Maddow and Lawrence O'Donell.

1997- Famed clothing designer Gianni Versace was murdered outside his Miami mansion by a deranged serial killer on a spree since leaving Minnesota.  The killer, Andrew Cunanan, was later found in a houseboat with a self-inflicted bullet in his head.

2011- Disney’s last hand-drawn feature film Winnie the Pooh, and short the Ballad of Nessie opened in theaters. Two years later CEO Bob Iger said there were no more 2-D projects in development and laid off most remaining traditional artists. 

Tom Sito's animation almanac for July 13, 2025

Birthdays: French Admiral Bailly de Suffren, Cheech Marin, Father Flannagan, Bob Crane, Cameron Crowe, Woye Solenka, Dave Garroway, Chef Paul Prudhomme, Michael Spinks, Film special effects artist Jim Danforth, Dr. Erno Rubik inventor of the Rubik’s Cube, Computer artist Lillian Schwartz, Harrison Ford is 83, Tom Kenny the voice of Spongebob Squarepants is 64, Mike Ploog is 83, Patrick Stewart is 85

 

 

1798- Poet William Wordsworth visited Tinturn Abbey and was inspired to write his famous elegy on the ruins.

 

1923- While digging in the Gobi Desert, paleontologist George Olsen discovered the first fossilized dinosaur eggs.

 

1925- Walt Disney and Lillian Bounds marry. She was one of Disney’s first employees hired. Lillian was one of the first female animation ink & paint artists. She would also cover the secretaries front desk on occasion. After Walt’s death she was central to the creation of the Walt Disney Concert Hall downtown and the Disney Family Museum in SF.

 

 

1930 – David Sarnoff the head of the NBC radio network said in the NY Times," The new invention of Television would be a theater in every home". Sounded crazy back then. Critics said it would require one room of the house be darkened, and they doubted people would just sit still that long. Held back first by the Depression, then the world war, television did not to really catch on until twenty years later.

 

1939- Frank Sinatra recorded his first album, this one with the Harry James Orchestra.

 

1949- Hollywood Studio exec David O. Selznick left his first wife Esther, the daughter of Louis B. Mayer, to marry actress Jennifer Jones.

 

 

1953- Chuck Jones first day at the Disney Studio. Warner Bros laid him off with most of the animation staff when they attempted to go into all 3D production. Walt Disney hired Jones and this day showed him around the studio. Walt asked him, “ Well, where do you see yourself fitting in?” Chuck replied, “Well to be honest, the only job here I would really like is yours.” Walt laughed,” Well, that’s taken.” Chuck worked in story for 4 months, then returned to Warners when they realized their mistake and reconstituted their team. 

 

1981- Terry Gilliam’s Time Bandits opened.

 

1984- The film The Last Starfighter with Robert Preston opened. Pitched as, “The Music Man in Outer Space” because it was Robert Preston’s last film. The first movie where all the spaceships and effects were done with CGI, instead of miniatures and models. Their computers had a total combined memory of 25 MGB.

 

1985- Boomtown Rats vocalist Bob Geldorf organized a massive live concert called LIVE AID. Televised and seen by 1.5 billion people, it raised money for African famine relief. Madonna, Santanna, Paul McCartney, The Beach Boys and reunions of Crosby, Stills and Nash, The Who and Led Zeppelin.

 

tom sito's animation almanac for july 12, 2025

Birthdays: Gaius Julius Caesar, Henry David Thoreau, Impressionist painter Eugene Boudin, Oscar Hammerstein, Kirsten Flagstad, Andrew Wyeth, Pablo Neruda, George Eastman, Milton Berle, Cheryl Ladd, Van Cliburn, Richard Buckminster Fuller, George Washington Carver, Josiah Wedgewood- of Wedgewood china and pottery, Michelle Rodriguez, Richard Simmons, Krysty Yamaguchi, Brian Grazer is 73, Bill Cosby is 88, Ben Burt- George Lucas’ sound effects guru who created the sounds of Darth Vader and R2D2, is 77.

 

1870- Celluloid film patented. Invented by John Carbutt, Hannibal Godwin and George Eastman. They had been trying to invent a substitute for ivory billiard balls. Inventor George Eastman later perfected the sprocket and hole system of roll film for cameras, replacing the large glass plates. Celluloid film would be the standard for photographs and movies until the Digital Revolution of the 1990s.

1876- Gunfighter Wild Bill Hickok arrived in Deadwood South Dakota to prospect for gold, see some old friends like Calamity Jane, and play a little poker. 

1901 – Baseball pitcher Cy Young won his 300th game.

1914 – Young reform school graduate Babe Ruth made his baseball debut, as a pitcher for the Boston Red Sox.

1928 - 1st televised tennis match.

1937- The US Government passed the Marijuana Licensing Act, the first of many laws to try and regulate and eventually eliminate marijuana growing. The act was ruled unconstitutional in 1969, but by then marijuana was top on the list of illegal substances.

1960: The first Etch-a-Sketch goes on sale.  Frenchman Andre’ Cassagnes invented it. He was the son of a Parisian baker born allergic to flour. Getting a job as an electrician, he noticed the properties of aluminum powder sticking to a glass. (he called it Telecran’, or L’Ecran Magique, or “The Magic Screen”). His first corporate sponsor had their accountant Arthur Granjean do the paperwork for the invention. Granjean wrote his own name in instead of Cassagnes, so in many books he gets the credit as the inventor. After failing to get some of the bigger toy companies to bite, They sold the invention to the Ohio Art Company.

1962 – The Rolling Stones first performance at the Marquee Club, London. One band member named Elmo Lewis, changed his name to Brian Jones.

1979- Disco Demolition Night. Disc jockey Steve Dahl of WLUP created an event where Chicago fans could get into Comisky Park for 98 cents if they each brought a Disco record to burn. Instead of the usual crowd of 5,000, they got 50,000 who rushed the field. Thousands of records were thrown at the players like Frisbees while they were trying to play, and the field torn up when they dropped a crate of records on the pitcher’s mound. The Chicago White Sox were forced to forfeit the game to the Detroit Tigers. 

1990- TV series Northern Exposure premiered.

2015- In Disney World Florida the exhibit The Magic of Disney Animation was closed down.