Animation Fun Facts for June 9, 2021

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 60, Johnny Depp is 58, Natalie Portman is 40

1860- DIME NOVELS & PULP FICTION.  Mr. Erastus Beadle (don’t you love 19^th century names?) 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 and also trying to stifle the release of Orson Welles’ film Citizen Kane. 

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.

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 leftist writers with a smile and said: "Hi Ya, Hollywood Kids!”

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

1972- Rapid City, South Dakota destroyed by a flash flood. 280 died.

1973- The thoroughbred horse Secretariat ridden by Ron Turcott won the Belmont Stakes, taking the first Triple Crown since Citation did it in 1948.  He won it by an amazing 31 lengths!  

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!”

Animation Fun Facts for June 8, 2021

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, Joan Rivers, Kanye West, Keenan Ivory Wayans is 63, Scott Adams (Dilbert) is 63. Gary Trousdale is 61

1786- A New York newspaper advertised that a Mr. Hall of Chatham was currently selling the new Italian confection called Iced Cream. First reference to Ice Cream in the Americas.

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 records "Silent Night".

1942- In a private meeting at the White House, President Franklin Roosevelt asked movie mogul Jack Warner to please make a movie showing our new ally the Soviet Union to the American people in a positive light. The movie “MISSION TO MOSCOW” starring Walter Huston put a rosy spin on Stalin’s regime and even made excuses for his genocidal political purges. After the war and FDR’s death, angry conservative politicians conducting the House un-American Activities Committee went after Warner Bros over MISSION TO MOSCOW. Everyone who worked on the film got in trouble with HUAC and had to apologize.

1946- Bob Clampett's cartoon 'Kitty Kornered' premiered, one of the earliest of Sylvester the Cat. 

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

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 mentor of Steven Spielberg.

1954- During the Army-McCarthy Anti-Communist hearings, in front of a live television audience, attorney Joseph Walsh takes apart Senator Joseph McCarthy for stooping to accuse a junior law partner in Walsh’s office for once belonging to a socialist organization. Walsh’s dramatic cry gained national prominence “ Finally Senator, have you no shred of decency?” McCarthy was censured by Congress, stripped of his chairmanships, and was politically finished. 

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 airs. 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 chief Bill Paley to complain, the show was yanked.  When writer/singer Mason Williams learned the Smothers Brothers Show was canceled, he planned to make an enormous pie to throw at the eye logo on the CBS building, but they threatened to sue him for trespassing if he actually staged the stunt...

1969 - Rolling Stones guitarist Mick Taylor replaces Brian Jones.

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. 

2018- John Lasseter, creative director of Walt Disney, Pixar, and director of hit movies like Toy Story, stepped down from the leadership of Pixar and Walt Disney Animation due to “Me-To” harassment complaints made against him. 

Animation Fun Facts for June 7, 2021

Birthdays: Pope Gregory XIII, Beau Brummel, Paul Gauguin, Chick Corea, George Szell, Watergate congressman Peter Rodino, Tom Jones, Jessica Tandy, James Ivory, Virginia McKenna, Prince, Mike Pence, Liam Neeson is 69

1860- Workmen in San Francisco began laying track on Market Street for a light rail system, the famous Cable Cars. 

1927- A daredevil named Alvin “Shipwreck” Kelly climbed on top of a flagpole on top of a bank in Newark, New Jersey, and sat there for eight days straight. This stunt was covered by the media almost as much as Charles Lindbergh’s flight. It made the 1930s national craze for flagpole-sitting.

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 that 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.

Animation Fun Fact for June 6, 2021

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, Sandra Bernhard is 66, Paul Giamatti is 54, Aaron Sorkin is 60

1929- Luis Bunuel and Salvador Dali’ surrealist masterpiece Un Chien Andalou ( The Andalusian Dog) at the Teatre des Ursulines in Paris. All the modernist artists were present like Picasso, Andre Breton and 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 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.

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 the assault 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. 

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

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

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. 

1991 - NBC announced Jay Leno would replace retiring Johnny Carson, winning out over David Letterman. Letterman moved to CBS.

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.

Animation Fun Facts for June 5, 2021

Birthdays: Socrates, Pancho Villa, Thomas Chippendale -furniture maker, not the male strip club owner, Igor Stravinsky, Little archduchess Anastasia Romanov, Frederico Garcia Lorca, Dean Acheson, Bill Moyers is 87, Hopalong Cassidy, Tony Richardson, Lancelot Ware the founder of Mensa, Kenny G., Spaulding Gray, Ron Livingston is 54, Mark Wahlberg is 50

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

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, and doing a mock impersonation of Il Duce.

1964 - Davie Jones & King Bees debut "I Can't Help Thinking About Me," The group disbanded but Davie Jones went on to success after changing his name to David Bowie.

40th Anniv 1981- The U.S. Center for Disease Control published the findings of scientist Michael Gottlieb on the pneumonias of five L.A. gay men to be something new called Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome or AIDS. Cases had been reported as early as 1975 and there is an ongoing argument whether Gottlieb or a French team at the Pasteur Institute discovered the disease first. One of the lead researchers at CDC was Dr. Fauci.

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

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.

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 hanging in the Louvre. 

Animation Fun Facts for June 4, 2021

Quiz: Which one NEVER became U.S. President? Thomas Jefferson, Franklin Pierce, Henry Clay, Benjamin Harrison.

Yesterday’s Question answered below:Why are cans for carrying extra gasoline called Jerricans?

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History for 6/4/2021

Birthdays: King George III, Alvah Bessie, Rosalind Russell, Gene Barry, Dennis Weaver, Robert Merrill, Bruce Dern, Andrea Jaeger, Dr Ruth Westheimer, Freddy Fender, Rachael Griffiths, Noah Wylie is 50, Russell Brand is 46, Angelina Jolie is 46

Happy Saint John the Baptist Day.

1070- THE BIRTHDAY OF ROCQUEFORT CHEESE. Legend has it on this day in the town of Roquefort, a shepherd found in a cave some cheese he had been saving but had forgotten about. He noticed it was covered with mold but he was hungry and ate it anyway. And lo and behold, it tasted much better than before...

1249- King Louis IX of France (St. Louis) arrived in the HolyLand on Crusade.

1259- Kublai Khan, the grandson of the Genghis Khan, was elected the Great Khan of the Mongol Empire. Kublai broke with Mongol custom by dividing their huge empire into three pieces. His uncle Kaidu would rule the Mongolian homeland and Uncle Batu the Western section (the Golden Horde in the Crimea) while Kublai preferred to rule China as it's emperor. In doing this he was acknowledging the reality that the master plan of Genghis for world conquest was unfeasible. The empire, which extended from Korea to Budapest to Baghdad was unmanageable and would break up anyway. Kublai Khan's Yuan Dynasty in China would last. He was the Chinese Emperor who met Marco Polo.

1615- Osaka Castle fell to the forces of Shogun Ieyasu Tokugawa.

1647- English troops storm into St. James Palace and arrest King Charles I. While the king had been gently stalling peace negotiations with Oliver Cromwell and the victorious Parliamentary army encamped at Putney, he was in secret talks with the Vatican Nuncio. King Charles promised toleration for Roman Catholicism in the British Isles if they would lend him an Irish army to beat Cromwell. At almost the same time he was promising the Scots that he would make all of England Presbyterian if they lent him an army. His attempts to restart the English Civil War was what labeled him "That Man of Blood" and got him beheaded.

1666- Moliere’s play "Le Misanthrope" premiered.

1717- FREEMASONS- The Grand Lodge of England was inaugurated in London on St John the Baptist Day. This is considered by some the birth of Freemasonry, but many alleged histories claim the practices of the Brotherhood of the Craft go back to ancient Egypt and was brought to England by the Knights Templar in the 1300’s. There is some validity to the reports of independent Lodges already existing in the 1630’s in England and earlier in Scotland. The Freemason movement spread throughout Europe and became an alternative to Christianity for many intellectuals in the 1700’s. Mozart, Haydn, George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Casanova, Voltaire and many more were members. 

1789- King Louis XVI was a kindly but weak king who never made a decision without consulting his beautiful Queen Marie Antoinette. But as the storm clouds of the French Revolution began to cover the land the Queen was taken out of the strategic decision making. Her sickly boy the Dauphin had died leaving her broken with grief. 

1797- English officers in India fighting the Maharatta rajahs pause to celebrate King George III's birthday in their words "with a most ripe debauch."

1798- While Europe was convulsed by revolutions and Napoleon, the elderly ladies man Giacomo Casanova died of old age. He had accepted the retirement post of librarian for a Czech nobleman.

1844- The last Great Auk killed by hunters.

1863- Robert E. Lee launches his divisions from their encampment at Culpepper, Virginia northwards towards Pennsylvania for the campaign that will climax at Gettysburg. 

1896-Henry Ford tests out his automobile with headlights in a nighttime drive around Detroit.

1912-The first minimum wage law passed, in the state of Massachusetts.

1916-THE HERO PIGEON OF VERDUN- During the horrific battle of Verdun the Germans had surrounded the French strongpoint of Fort Vaux. The fighting in the underground 15 foot high concrete tunnels of the fort was ghastly, men killed each other with hand grenades and flamethrowers at close quarters while groping through the blackness and gagging at the stench of rotting corpses. The French commander Captain Reynal, his telephone communications cut, sent his last carrier pigeon to get help. The pigeon, despite being badly gassed and perching on the roof of the fort for a little while, got through to the high command. Delivering his message, he then fell over dead.  Help never got through, and Captain Reynal had to surrender, but the dead pigeon was awarded the medal of the Legion d'Honneur. 

1916 - Mildred J Hill, one of the two Hill sisters who composed the song Happy Birthday To You, died at 56.

1919- The Women's Suffrage Act passed the Senate by one vote. A chorus of women in the visitor's gallery break into: "Praise God from Whom all Blessings Flow".  The deciding vote was cast by a Utah senator who wanted to please his mother.

1938- Date of the famous Walt Disney Studio Norconian crew party to celebrate the success of Snow White. The young, mostly single artists (average age 26), released of tension and filled with free booze, swapped bedrooms and galloped horses through the Hotel Norconian sending Walt and Roy fleeing the scene for fear of bad publicity. Walt picked the resort because when he first held a party at the studio, the crew trashed the place. One animator drunkenly fell out of a window. It was a first floor window, so he was unhurt.

1942- Capitol Records opened for business.

1947- The film "A Miracle on 34th St." opened. Starring Maureen O’Hara, Edmund Gwen and 8 year old Natalie Wood.

1951- The Supreme Court upholds the anti-Communist Smith Act. This act stated you could be fired from your job or jailed even on a suspicion that you were a communist, no proof required.

1951- Tony Curtis married Janet Leigh. The result was to produce Jamie Leigh-Curtis. 

1965- The Rolling Stones release the single "Satisfaction".

1967- The television show "The Monkees" win the Emmy award for Best Comedy.

go figure... The producers of the Pre-Fab Four raised enough money to fund later projects like the hit movie Easy Rider. This same ceremony saw Bill Cosby become the first African-American to win an Emmy, this for his role in the series I-Spy.

1977- The Apple II went on sale. 

1982- The film Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, premiered. Besides Ricardo Montalban as the badguy with the great pectorals, it features the Genesis Effect. This one minute sequence was a landmark of computer graphics effects. Done by the Lucas Graphics Group, who four years later would break off and become Pixar.

2003- Martha Stewart, the self-made millionaire leader of a home recipe empire, was indicted for insider trading. 

Animation Fun Facts for June 3, 2021

Birthdays: John Paul Jones, Jefferson Davis, Josephine Baker, King George V, Henry Shrapnel, Allen Ginsburg, Collen Dewhurst, Alain Renais, Curtis Mayfield, Paulette Goddard, Maurice Evans, Jack Oakey, Jan Peerce, Zoltan Korda, John Dykstra, Tom Arnold, Hale Irwin, Chuck Barris, Tony Curtis

1888-The poem: "Casey at the Bat" by Edward Lawrence Thayer published in the San Francisco Examiner.

1924- Writer Franz Kafka died in Kierling Austria. He left instructions to

Friends to burn all his unfinished manuscripts including The Trial, but

Fortunately, his friends did not.

1929- Movie stars Douglas Fairbanks Jr married Joan Crawford.

1939- Movie director Alexander Korda married movie star Merle Oberon.

1943- First Day of the ZOOT SUIT RIOTS- In Los Angeles, Navy and Marine servicemen awaiting embarkation to the Pacific battlegrounds clashed with Hispanic gangs. Truckloads of off-duty servicemen drove up from San Pedro Harbor to enlarge the fight. The servicemen would choose whom to beat up based on whether they were wearing a fashionable zoot-suit. They beat up two 13 year olds sitting in a theater watching a movie. Downtown L.A. became an urban war zone for several days.

1946- A consumer study finds there are only 10,000 television sets in America.

 A follow up study five years later finds the number at 12 million.

1949 - Dragnet is 1st broadcast on radio (KFI in Los Angeles ). Creator Jack Webb wanted to capture the dry, non-theatrical delivery he heard real cops use. He ordered his actors to “stop acting, just read the lines”.  Webb wrote the scripts from real LAPD cases and starred as well.

1967 - Aretha Franklin's "Respect" reaches #1. Sockittome, sockittome, sockittome.

1968- Artist Andy Warhol was shot in the gut three times by Valerie Solanas, author of the "SCUM Manifesto". Warhol barely lived. Solanas was institutionalized.

1975- The Bob Fosse-Gwen Verdon musical Chicago opened on Broadway. Written by Kander and Ebb, based on a 1926 play Roxie Hart.

1976 –Galileo-Galileo Fig-a-ro!  Queen's single "Bohemian Rhapsody" goes gold.

1980- President Jimmy Carter announced the United States would boycott the 1980 summer Olympic Games in Moscow because of the Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan. The Russians boycotted the LA Olympics in 1984. 

20 Years Ago 2001- Disney’s Atlantis the Lost Empire opened in theaters.