Animation Fun Facts for Jan 7, 2017

Birthdays: Jacques Montgolfier, Joseph Bonaparte- Napoleons older brother, St. Bernadette of Lourdes, Revolutionary War General Israel Putnam, Francois Poulenc, Butterfly McQueen, Adolph Zukor, Charles Adams, E.L. Doctorow, Jean Pierre Rampal, Millard Filmore, Katie Couric, William Peter Blatty the author of Jaws, David Caruso, Nicholas Cage- originally Nicolo Coppola, is 53

1839- Frenchman Louis Daguerre announces the invention of Photography (Just three weeks later on the 31st William Fox Talbot will say HE invented photography first). Despite the controversy of credit, the Daguerrotype photographic process becomes the popular system worldwide in the nineteenth century. The image of Lincoln on the five dollar bill is from a daguerreotype.

1894-" The Sneeze" The first motion picture film to be copyrighted by Thomas Edison and his engineer W.K.L. Dickson

1922-THE IRISH CIVIL WAR.  After a furious debate the Irish Dail’ ( parliament ) voted by just seven votes to approve the Anglo-Irish Treaty negotiated by IRA chief Michael Collins and  Sinn Fein founder John Griffiths. This was the take-it-or-war deal offered by David Lloyd George that allowed for an Irish Free State but not a republic and with six counties of Northern Island sliced off to remain part of Britain. Irish President Eamon De Valera angrily took his partisans out of the Dail and the street fighting broke out shortly afterwards.  Griffiths died of a heart attack and Collins was assassinated. The Irish Republic declared in 1932 but the Northern Irish question is still a problem.

1924- George Gershwin completed his Rhapsody for Piano and Jazz Orchestra, popularly called the Rhapsody in Blue. Ira Gershwin came up with the name after seeing a museum show of Whistler paintings with names like "Composition in Grey, Nocturne in Green," etc.

1926- George Burns married Gracie Allen.

1929-With the approval of Edgar Rice Burroughs, artist Hal Foster began drawing the Tarzan comic strip.

1934 –The First Buck Rogers adventures.

1935- Roger Sherwood’s play the Petrified Forrest opened to smash revues at the Broadhurst Theater on Broadway. Leslie Howard got great notices, but the real find was an obscure hard drinking actor with sad eyes playing the gangster Duke Mantee – Humphrey Bogart. In the audience was Jack Warner of Warner Bros, who decided Mr. Bogart might just make it in motion pictures.

1943- Nicholas Tesla died. The inventor of AC current, rotary field motors and the Tesla coil. In his last years he had been experimenting with telegraphy, and trying to develop a death ray for the US Army.

1943- Walt Disney released the propaganda short The Spirit of ’43, commissioned by the Treasury Dept. Donald Duck explained that the best way to win the war was to pay your taxes!

1961- In Providence Rhode Island a bunch of kids were stopped by police for driving a round a neighborhood store suspiciously carrying guns and masks. One 21 year old who did three days in jail for carrying a concealed weapon later became a pretty good actor- Al Pacino..

1966- A hippie group from what would become Silicon Valley, called the Grateful Dead, got their first gig playing a club called the Matrix. They would be one of the most successful rock bands in history, only breaking up after the death of their leader, Jerry Garcia in 1995.

2015- CHARLIE HEBDO- In Paris, Muslim extremists shot up the offices of the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo for making disrespectful cartoons of the prophet Mohammad. 12 people were murdered, including the editor and four of France’s most loved cartoonists.  Their editor in chief Stephane “Charb” Charbonnier, when he saw the gun pointed at him, stood and defiantly gave his killer the finger before being killed.

Animation Fun Facts for Jan 6, 2016

Birthdays: St. Joan of Arc, Khalil Gibran, Mountain man Jedediah Smith, Tom Mix, Alexander Scriabin, Gustav Dore', Loretta Young, Earl Skruggs. Carl Sandburg, Danny Thomas, Nancy Lopez, John DeLorean, Alan Watts, John Singleton, Rowan Atkinson is 62, Anthony Minghella

1849- the first cartoon cover of Punch Magazine.

1945- First Pepe Le Pew cartoon, "Odorable Kitty". When the Warners producer who replaced Leon Schlesinger, Eddie Selzer, heard the plans to do a short about a skunk he thundered: "Absolutely Not! Nobody will like a cartoon skunk!" Chuck Jones recalled: "As soon as he said no, I knew we just had to do it." Selzer's final opinion:" Nobody'll laugh at that sh*t!" Pepe went on to become one of Warners most beloved characters.

1949- Composer Leonard Bernstein noted in his diary that  “JR (Jerome Robbins) called today with a novel idea- a modern version of Romeo and Juliet set in the slums.” At first the musical was going to be called East Side Story, then GangWay, finally West Side Story.

1956- Prince Rainier of Monaco announced his engagement to movie star Grace Kelly.

1962- Bob Clampett's Beany and Cecil the Sea-Sick Sea Serpent. This was the animated version of his popular puppet show.“So Long Kids, Wind Up Your Lids, We’ll look for You Real Soooooon.”

1975-“ Ease on Down the Road.-“ The musical The Wiz premiered on Broadway.

1993- Ballet star Rudolf Nureyev, the most famous male dancer since Nijinsky, died of HIV/AIDS.

Animation Fun Facts for Jan 5, 2016

Birthdays: Zebulon Pike, Stephen Decatur, Alven Ailey, James Stuart Blackton (the first American animator, born in Lincolnshire, England ), W.D. Snodgrass, Jack Norworth -composer of " Take Me out to the Ballgame' , Konrad Adenauer, Astrologist Jean Dixon, Umberto Ecco, Yves Tanguy, Walter Mondale, George Reeves,  Roger Spottiswoode, Hiyao Miyazaki is 76, Robert Duval is 86, Dianne Keaton is 71, Spanish King Juan Carlos, Marilyn Manson is 48, January Jones is 36, Bradley Cooper is 42.


1896- Josef Pulitzers’ New York World began printing the Sunday Yellow Kid comic strip with a yellow color on his shirt. The strip gave the name to the sensationalist tabloid press 'Yellow Journalism".

1914- The Ford Motor Company shocked the captains of American Industry by raising it¹s wage rates for work shift from $2.40 a day to $5.00 a day and voluntarily adopting the new 8 hour work day. Henry Ford’s idea was “When workers have more money they buy cars”. The idea worked and sales of cars quadrupled and the economic climate of Detroit boomed.

1953- Samuel Beckett¹s play Waiting for Godot (En attendant Godot ) first premiered in Paris.

1959- Buddy Holly released his last single, It Doesn’t Matter Anymore.

1959- The first Bozo the Clown TV show premiered on TV. Larry Harmon played the famous children’s clown.

1961- “Hello Wilbur” Mr Ed the Talking Horse appeared on TV for the first time.

1962- After a holiday break, shooting resumed on Cleopatra. This was the first time stars Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton worked together, and the first signs of their love affair. Their tempestuous relationship was one of the great affairs of 1960s Hollywood.

1970- Soap opera “All My Children” premiered.

1979- EMI Records ended their contracts with the punk band the Sex Pistols. They felt their outrageous behavior had gone just too far.

1980- The first Hewlett Packard Personal Computer, or PC, goes on the market.

1998-At the Heavenly Valley Ski Resort former pop singer turned Republican  Congressman Sonny Bono died, when he skied headlong into a tree.

Animation Fun Facts for Jan 4, 2016

Burthdaze: Sir Issac Newton, Emile Cohl, Louis Braille, General Tom Thumb, Jane Wyman, Jacob Grimm of the Brothers Grimm, Sterling Holloway the voice of Winnie the Pooh, Francois Rude, Dyan Cannon is 80, Floyd Patterson, Don Shula, Barbara Rush, Doris Kearns Goodwin, Julia Ormond is 49

1881- The Academic Festival Overture of Brahms premiered in Breslau.

1936- Mickey’s Polo Team, directed by Dave Hand.

1946- Terrytoons "The Talking Magpies" the first Heckle and Jeckyl cartoons.

1954- Young truck driver Elvis Presley went into Sun Records recording studio in Memphis. He plunked down $4 to record two demos for his mothers’ birthday. " Casual Love Affair" and "I’ll Never Stand in your Way". The studio technician was impressed enough to play the demo for his manager who called back Presley for an audition.

1956- In the Peanuts comic strip Charles Schulz made Snoopy first stand up on two legs.

1956- Walt Disney had lunch with his old nemesis Max Fleischer, now retired. The meeting was arranged by Max’s son Richard Fleischer, who was working for Disney directing Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea. Although everyone had a nice time, Richard later admitted he found the event depressing. Seeing his dad humbled:” It was like seeing David vanquished by Goliath..”

1957- The Dodgers are the first baseball team to buy an airplane to travel around in.

1958- the TV show Seahunt premiered. It made a star out of Lloyd Bridges, the father of Jeff and Beau.

1960- Writer Albert Camus was killed in a car accident. He was 46.

Animation Fun Facts for Jan 3, 2017

Birthdays: Marcus Tullius Cicero, John Paul Jones, Victor Borge, Zazu Pitts, Sergio Leone, Hank Stramm, Bobby Hull, Robert Loggia, Maxine Andrews of the Andrews Sisters, Ray Milland, Anna Mae Wong, Steven Stills, J.R.R. Tolkein, Victoria Principal is 67, Dabney Coleman is 86, Mel Gibson is 61. Thelma Schoonmacher is 77

1933- MGM Louis B. Mayer hired his son-in-law David O. Selznick to produce movies. At the same time he was begging his filmworkers to take 20% paycuts because of the Depression, Mayer set his salary at $4,000 a week.

Newspapers joked “The Son-In-Law Also Rises”

1952-The T.V. series DRAGNET premiered today. “The story you have seen is true, the names have been changed to protect the innocent.” Star Jack Webb produced and wrote most of the scripts and oversaw the deadpan acting style.” Just the facts, Mam..”

1958- Howard Rushmore was the editor of Confidential, one of the most ruthless scandal magazines in show business. This day for reasons never explained Rushmore murdered his wife, then shot himself in the back of a NYC taxicab.

1977- Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak and Ron Wayne file papers to form the Apple Computer Company. Within two weeks Ron Wayne sold his share of the company to Jobs and Woz for $800. The only real businessman of the group, he felt these kids would stick him with the bills when their little business went belly up.

2004- The first of two Mars Rovers, Pathfinder and Sojourner, landed safely on Mars and began transmitting. JPL Mission leader announced "We're Back...We're on Mars.." Only supposed to last 90 days, the rovers are still transmitting today.

2004- After partying hard all New Years in Las Vegas, 22 year old pop star Britney Spears woke up and realized she had married her friend Jay Alexander for a laugh.  Today she annulled it. Alexander, who listed himself as unemployed, was soon seen driving around rural Louisiana in a $90,000 BMW.

Animation Fun Facts for Jan 2, 2017

Birthdays: Turkish Sultan Mehmed IV-1642, Frederic Opper the cartoonist of Happy Hooligan, Phillip Freneau, Roger Miller, Issac Asimov, Julius LaRosa, Tito Schipa, Renata Tebaldi, Tex Ritter, Dick Huemer, Cuba Gooding Jr, is 49, Tia Carrere, Kate Bosworth is 34

1843- Richard Wagner’s opera The Flying Dutchman premiered in Dresden.

1897- Young writer Stephen Crane survived a shipwreck when the good ship SS Commodore went down off the coast of Florida. He went on to write The Open Boat and The Red Badge of Courage.

1937- Hollywood actor Ross Alexander had hit on tough times. He had been in a few movies like Captain Blood and A Midsummer Night’s Dream but his career seemed to be stalled, he was in debt, and his wife committed suicide. This day the 29 year old went into the barn behind his Valley ranch home and shot himself. The Warner Bros. Studio looked around for a replacement to refill their roster of male leads. They replaced Alexander with an Illinois college sportscaster named “Dutch”- Ronald Reagan.

1975- In a letter to MITS, college kids Bill Gates and Paul Allen offered their computer language adaptation of BASIC for the new Altair personal computer. They called themselves Micro-Soft.

1984- The Zenith Corporation announced it would stop selling video recorders in Betamax format and go over wholly to VHS. Other electronics giants followed suit and VHS won out over the higher quality Beta system.

2000- Larry Saunders had a conversation with his friend Jimmy Wales about writing data entries for collaborative websites called wikis. Saunders conceived of an open on-line encyclopedia encompassing all knowledge. He called it Wikipedia.

ANIMATION FUN FACTS FOR JAN 1, 2017

HAPPY NEW YEAR 2017

Birthdays: Lorenzo De Medici” the Magnificent”, Pope Alexander VI Borgia, Paul Revere, Betsy Ross, Mad Anthony Wayne, E.M. Forrester, J. Edgar Hoover, Alfred Steiglitz, Xavier Cugat, Frank Langella is 78, Barry Goldwater, Kuniyoshi Utagawa, Dana Andrews, Idi Amin, Kliban, Verne Troyer (Mini-Me).

1677- Racines greatest play “Phedre” premiered at the Theatre du Bourgogne in Paris. Phedre is the role all French actresses aspire to, the way English speaking actors dream of doing Shakespeares Hamlet.

1881- Eastman Kodak Company formed. Kodak supposedly was named from the sound of the snapping camera shutter. Ko-DAK!

1890- The First Tournament of Roses Parade in Pasadena California.

1914- The Archbishop of Paris threatens with excommunication young people who dance the Tango. "It's lascivious nature offends morality."

1939- Vladimir Zworkin patented the Iconoscope (the eye of a TV camera) and Kinescope. The television process evolved over so many years -there were experimental TV stations in 1923 and the Berlin Olympics of 1936 were televised. So you can't really point to one Tom Edison type inventor, although Zworkin, Englishman James Logie Baird in 1924, Philo Farnsworth, and Dr. Lee DeForest all at one time tried to take the full credit.

1943- Walt Disney's Donald Duck cartoon Der Fuehrer's Face premiered.

1953- 29 year old country music star Hank Williams had spent the night drinking whiskey and doing chloral hydrate. When a West Virginia policeman pulled over his car, he remarked to the driver that Williams looked dead. The driver said he was just sleeping and drove on. He was dead.  Hank Williams last song was “I’ll Never get out of this World Alive.”

1959- The Chipmunk Song by David Seville (aka Ross Bagdassarian) tops the pop charts..

1960- The Radio and Television Director's Guild merge with the Screen Directors Guild to form the DGA.

1963- Tetsuwan Atomu or Atom Boy, an animated television show by Osamu Tezuka premiered on Japanese TV. As Astro Boy it became the first Japanese anime show to break into the mainstream American market.

1966- Ailing Walt Disney served as Grand Marshal for the Tournament of Roses Parade. Standing in the crowd on the curb with his mother was 8 year old John Lasseter.

1976- Potheads sneak up to the Hollywood Sign and change the two “O’s to “E’s so the sign read HOLLYWEED.