FUN FACT

(Dates and information generously provided by Dave Hogan)

January

JANUARY 4TH

1946 - Terrytoons "The Talking Magpies" the first Heckle and Jeckle cartoon, premieres.

JANUARY 5TH

1875 - James Stuart Blackton born. The first animation artist, the founder of Vitagraph Studios and the creator of the first movie fanzine.

JANUARY 6TH

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 shit!" The short won an Oscar. Selzer later went on into network T.V.
1962- Bob Clampett's Beany and Cecil the Sea-Sick Sea Serpent premiered.

JANUARY 12TH

1960 - "Scent of Mystery", the first film in Smell-O-Vision, premiered.

JANUARY 12TH

1995 - Steven Spielberg, Jeffrey Katzenberg and David Geffen announce their new studio would be called Dreamworks SKG.

JANUARY 18TH

1952 - The Motion Picture Screen Cartoonist's Union (Local 839) chartered.

JANUARY 21ST

1991- Disney's 'Beauty and the Beast' became the first animated film ever nominated for a Best Picture Oscar.

JANUARY 24TH

1961 - Looney Tunes voice actor Mel Blanc has a major auto wreck. After three weeks in a coma the doctor brings him around by asking "Hey,Bugs Bunny! How are you feeling today?" to which Blanc replied in character: "Ehhh, Fine, doc."

JANUARY 28TH

1930 - Leon Schlesinger, a producer at Pacific Art and Title, picked up a group of unemployed former Disney cartoonists and makes a deal with Warner Bros. to produce cartoon shorts. Bugs, Daffy and Elmer and the Looney Tunes will result.

JANUARY 30TH

1961- The "Yogi Bear Show" debuts.

February

FEBRUARY 1ST

1887- HAPPY BIRTHDAY, TINSELTOWN! - Henry Wilcox filed a deed for his new ranch he calls "Hollywood". His wife Daeida heared the name on a trip she had recently taken when a fellow passenger described her east coast estate.
1893 - THE FIRST MOTION PICTURE STUDIO- Thomas Edison and his engineer W. K. Dickson build the first movie studio in New Jersey. It was covered with black tar paper and nicknamed"The Black Mariah" because that was the nickname of police paddy wagons that it resembled. It's debateable how much of the inventing effort was more Dickson than Edison. Edison was only marginally interested in the movie company, at the time he was more concerned with how to extract iron ore from rocks using magnets. Dickson worked himself into the hospital to make the studio work, and later in disgust started experimenting on his own. When Edison found out he fired him and considered him a traitor thereafter.
1905- George Pal, animator and director, born. Best remembered for his "Puppetoon" creations and films like "The Time Machine".

FEBRUARY 2ND

1922-Walt Disney founds Newman's Laff-O-Grams in Kansas City.
1989- L'Oreal/Nestle company shuts down Filmation Studios in Canoga Park, the last L.A. Saturday morning animation studio doing all its work in town.

FEBRUARY 3RD

1930- Roy Disney signed a deal with M. George Borgfeldt Co. of New York to sell figurines of Mickey and Minnie Mouse. Disney merchandising is born!

FEBRUARY 5TH

1953- Walt Disney's "Peter Pan" premiered.

FEBRUARY 10TH

1940- MGM's "Puss Gets the Boot" premiered. It was the first Tom & Jerry cartoon, and the first cartoon directed by the team of Hanna & Barbera.

FEBRUARY 15

1984- Touchstone Pictures created, so Disney could release non-"G" rated films.

FEBRUARY 18

1953- "B'wana Devil" starring Robert Stack, the first 3-d movie.

March

MARCH 1ST

1930 - Ub Iwerks, master animator and designer of Mickey Mouse, left his friend Walt Disney to set up his own studio.

MARCH 2ND

1886- Willis O'Brien born, the animator of King Kong.
1904 - Ted Geisel, cartoonist, animation director and Dr.Suess, born.
1933 - "King Kong" premiered.

MARCH 3RD

1950 - Paramount's "Quack-A-Doodle-Doo", the birth of Baby Huey.

MARCH 9TH

1907 - J. Stuart Blackton starts The Moving Picture World, the first movie fanzine.
1918 - Jules Engel, graphic designer, teacher ,born.

MARCH 12TH

1932 - Disney's cartoon "Mickey's Review" debuts, introducing Goofy.

MARCH 14TH

1932 - George Eastman, the inventor of roll film and founder of Kodak, shoots himself. His suicide note reads, "My work here is done.Why wait?"

MARCH 15TH

1915 - Universal Studios moves over the hill from Hollywood to the San Fernando Valley and becomes one of the largest studio facilities in the world.
1950 - Disney's "Cinderella" the studios return to fairy tale stories and the first voice work of June Foray premieres.

MARCH 17TH

1895 - Stooge Shemp Howard born.

MARCH 19TH

1914 - A fire in a New Jersey film negative vault destroyed all the American work of Frenchman Emile Cohl, the first true animator.

MARCH 20TH

1943 - MGM's "Dumb-Hounded", the first Droopy Cartoon.

MARCH 22ND

1909 - Milt Kahl, Disney animator born.

MARCH 22ND

1931- William Shatner born.
1957 - Art Clokey's "Gumby" debuted.
1985 - Disney animation director Wolfgang "Woolie" Reitherman died in an auto accident driving home from lunch at the SmokeHouse.

MARCH 24TH

1901 - Ub Iwerks, animator and designer of Mickey Mouse, born.
1911 - Joe Barbera, MGM cartoon director, born.
1943 - Japanese wartime animated feature "Momotaro's Sea Eagles" debuted.

MARCH 29TH

1989 - As part of the Oscar ceremony, Rob Lowe perfomed a song and dance number with a Las Vegas showgirl dressed as Snow White. The Disney Company threatened a lawsuit and the Academy apologized.

MARCH 30TH

1913 - Marc Davis, Disney animator, born.
1918 - Thomas Edison gives up on movie making and trying to make New Jersey the film capitol of the world.
1968 - Two children in the Bowery come across the body of a homeless drug addict later identified as Bobby Driscol, 31, the voice of Disney's "Peter Pan".

MARCH 31ST


1930 - THE HAYS OFFICE OPENS FOR BUSINESS - Movie Studios adopt the Motion Picture Production Code. A watchdog committee is formed to be chaired by former Republican party chairman Will Hays. By 1935 the code will enforce a moral code on pictures- Kisses no longer than ten seconds and never lips apart. When couple is seen in bed, the man must keep one foot on the floor, etc.

April

APRIL 1ST

1915 - Hans Conried born, actor and the voice of Disney's Captain Hook.
1944 - Tex Avery's cartoon "Screwball Squirrel"

APRIL 2ND

1943 - Disney's "Private Pluto", the first Chip & Dale cartoon

APRIL 4TH

1968 - MY GOD, IT'S FULL OF STARS - Stanley Kubrick's epic film "2001: A Space Odyssey" premiered. The N.Y. Times review said it was " Somewhere between hypnotic and boring". Pauline Kael called it "monumentally unimaginative!" Despite this, "2001" became a classic of American cinema and one of the best known cautionary tales of technology run amok. No doubt, part of the film's initial success can be attributed to it's "head trip value" - almost everyone that was into that scene has a story about someone dropping acid and freaking out during a screening. The film's surrealistic imagery and lines of dialogue have become pop culture mainstays - from the monkeys and the Monolith to the HAL9000's disturbingly apathetic voice droning, "I'm sorry. I can't do that, Dave". In a recent interview, screenwriter Arthur C. Clarke said HAL the computer was not a coded reference to IBM (using the letters preceding I, B, and M) as was widely thought. At the Oscars for that year, Clarke and Kubrick lost the best screenplay award to Mel Brooks for "The Producers" A highlight of the film is the stunning visual effects, most of which were done with traditional 2-D animation.

APRIL 11TH

1955- WABD in New York and KTLA in Los Angeles begin to run pre 1948- Warner Bros. cartoons in a half-hour format. Saturday Morning Cartoons are born!

APRIL 15TH

1927- the first footprints in cement ceremony at Grauman's Chinese Theater.
1935 - Kodakchrome movie film invented.

APRIL 16TH

1947 - The Zoom Lens patented.
1983 - The Disney Channel debuts.

APRIL 17TH

1937 - "Porky's Duck Hunt" premieres, introducing Daffy Duck.

APRIL 19TH

1970 - The first Broom Hilda comic strip.

APRIL 21ST

1992 - Kroyer Films' "Ferngully - The Last Rainforest" opened.

APRIL 22ND

1996 - Christopher Robin Milne died. He was the son and inspiration of the author of the "Winnie the Pooh" stories.

APRIL 23RD

1867- William Lincoln patended the Zoetrope.
1896- First Projection of Edison Kinetoscope film by means of Thomas Arnat's Vitascope at Koster & Bials Music Hall in New York City.

APRIL 25TH

1972- actor George Sanders,the voice of Disney's Shere Khan in "The Jungle Book", commits suicide leaving a note saying he was bored with it all and not looking forward to old age.

APRIL 28th

1956- the first Godzilla movie is released.

May

MAY 4TH

1927- The Motion Picture Academy of Arts and Sciences created.
1975- Moe Howard, last survivor of the original Three Stooges, died of cancer at 78.

MAY 6TH

1919- "Wizard of Oz" creator L.Frank Baum died of heart disease at 62. He had been buying Los Angeles real estate for an Oz-themed amusement park. It likely would have been the first theme park.

MAY 7TH

1913- Bob Clampett, classic Warner Bros. cartoon director and creator of Beany and Cecil, born.

MAY 13TH

1944- George Lucas born.

MAY 14TH

1942- Frank Churchill, the composer of Whistle While You Work and Some Day My Prince Will Come, shoots himself over a piano.

MAY 15TH

1856- L.Frank Baum, author of "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz", born.

MAY 16TH

1929- The First Academy Awards Ceremony. It was originally a dinner ceremony, lasting about 45 minutes.

MAY 16TH

1990- Muppet creator Jim Henson suddenly died at 53 of a massive viral infection.

MAY 19TH

1927- Grauman's Chinese Theater opened. It featured ushers in Mandarin robes brought from China and silk wall hangings painted by future actor Key Luke.

MAY 22ND

1985- Wolfgang Reitherman, Disney director of films like The Jungle Book and The Aristocats, drove his car into a tree at Olive and Kenneth in Burbank and died.

MAY 29TH

1941- THE DISNEY STUDIO STRIKE - Picketers included Art Babbitt (Goofy), Bill Tytla (Dumbo), John Hubley (Mr. Magoo), Chuck Jones & Maurice Noble (Bugs Bunny), Bill Melendez (Charlie Brown), Bill Hurtz ( Rocky & Bullwinkle), Hank Ketchum (Dennis the Menace), Walt and Selby Kelly (Pogo). The crowd was catered by Toluca Lake restaurant cooks and was addressed by actor John Garfield and writer Dorothy Parker. Aircraft mechanics from Lockheed were on hand in case of rough stuff. The strike was finally ended by federal mediation and the Bank of America making Uncle Walt give in to the union's demands.

June

JUNE 1ST

1931 - Swiss artist Albert Hurter joined the Disney staff, giving the look of cartoons like Snow White a more Germanic storybook look.
1939 - SUPERDEAL FOR DC - Joe Seigel and Jerry Shuster, two aspiring cartoonists, create in High School a character called "Superman". Jewish kids, they had read about the Nazis racial concept of the Aryan Superman and they wanted to show a Superman could be on the American side. On this day they sell all the rights to Detective Comics (D.C.) for $130. When the first megabudget Superman movie was being made in the 1976 - the National Cartoonist's Society pointed out that Seigel and Schuster were now blind indigents who never shared a nickel of the multi-millions their creation had made. Jeannie Schuster, the model for Lois Lane told the National CartooistÕs Society in 1998 "Artists have to stick together, because only then will you have power!"

JUNE 5TH

1967 - The American Film Institute formed.

JUNE 8TH

1912 - Carl Laemmele starts Universal Pictures.
1946 - Bob Clampett's Kitty Kornered, the first Sylvester cartoon.

JUNE 9TH

1934 - Walt Disney's The Wise Little Hen, the first Donald Duck cartoon.

JUNE 10TH

1910 - George Herriman's comic strip Krazy Kat debuted.
1957 - The Tom Terrific cartoon debuted on The Captain Kangaroo Show.
1995 - 110,000 people attend the premiere of Disney's Pocahontas in Central Park New York, the largest ever opening for an animated film.

JUNE 11TH

1984 - The Disney Company paid 32 million dollars in greenmail to corporate raider Saul Steinberg to make him go away.

JUNE 13TH

1956 - CBS Cartoon Theater premiered.

JUNE 14TH

1939 - The Motion Picture Mothers, Inc., formed by the mothers of movie stars.

JUNE 16TH

1890 - Stan Laurel, skinny half of Laurel and Hardy, born
1910 - Pete Burness, Disney animator born.

JUNE 17TH

1964 - The first Universal Studios tram tour.

JUNE 20TH

1941 - The Hollywood Premiere of Walt Disney's The Reluctant Dragon was disrupted by a mob of his striking cartoonists. The police actually cordoned off Hollywood Blvd. around the Pantages Theater for fear of what the rampaging cartoonists might do.

JUNE 22ND

1933 - Max Fleischer promoted Lillian Friedman to be the first woman animator in American theatrical films.

JUNE 24TH

1904 - Phil Harris , cartoon voice actor and bandleader, born.

JUNE 27th

1984 - Hollywood introduced the PG-13 rating for the film "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom."

JUNE 29TH

1935 - Disney's short Who Killed Cock Robin?

July

JULY 1ST

1941 - TEX AVERY QUITS AT WARNER BROS. - Famed animation director Tex Avery stormed out of Looney Tunes Studio when Jack Warner ordered cuts in the first Bugs Bunny cartoon, "A Wild Hare." Boss Leon Schlesinger put him on a four week suspension without pay, but Avery had already lined up a gig at MGM
1970- Hanna Barbera's primetime animated series "Where's Huddles?

JULY 3RD

1989 - Jim Backus, best known as Thurston Howell on TVs "Gilligan's Island" dies. Backus, also the voice of toon Mr. Magoo, played many dramatic roles, including the part of James Dean's dad in "Rebel Without a Cause"

JULY 6TH

1928 - The film "The Lights of New York" premiered at the Strand theater on Broadway. It used an early sound on film technique but failed to capture the public's imagination the way "The Jazz Singer" would do in four more months
1933 - Max Fleischer introduced Popeye the Sailor in a Betty Boop short of the same name
1957 - Chuck Jones short "Whats Opera, Doc?" debuts. " Kill da wa-bitt, kill da wa-bitt..."

JULY 7TH

2000 - June Foray, performer of numerous cartoon voices, best known for Rocky the Flying Squirrel receives her star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

JULY 8TH

1982 - Walt Disney's "Tron", the first film attempting to be made chiefly with computer graphics, premiered. It's poor box office performance earned Ron Miller, then Disney CEO and Walt's son-in-law, the unaffectionate nickname of "Tron" Miller.

JULY 9TH

1993 - ILM GOES DIGITAL - George Lucas' Industrial Light Magic completes it's transition to digital technology by shutting down it's Anderson Optical Printer. The optical printer system of mattes had been the way motion picture visual effects had been done since Melies in 1909, but the Digital Revolution changed everything.

JULY 13TH

1925 - Walt and Lillian Disney marry.

JULY 14TH

1933 - HAPPY BOITHDAY, POPEYE! - "Well Blow Me Down"- Fleischer's first "Popeye the Sailor" cartoon debuted. Vaudvillian Red Pepper Sam provided his salty mumbles throughout the post-sync track. When Sam asked for more money than Max Fleischer thought he was worth, he replaced him with assistant Jack Mercer, who was the voice ever after.

JULY 16TH

1954 - Groundbreaking for the construction of Disneyland.

JULY 17TH

1955 - DISNEYLAND OPENS - Disneyland opens with live television coverage. The television coverage somehow missed certain aspects of Disneyland on opening day, such as the still-soft asphalt of Main Street U.S.A laid only the night before, the lack of drinking fountains due to a plumber's strike, and the near capsizing of the overloaded Mark Twain paddle boat. Art Linkletter and Ronald Reagan host the televised gala.
1964 - Warner Brothers "A False Hare", the last Bugs Bunny theatrical short until the late 1980's.

JULY 21ST

1893 - Ernst Shuftan born. He was the inventor of the 'Shuftan Effect', a cheap way to imitate matte technique using mirrors that was used in all those Cesar Romero vs. the giant iguana movies.

JULY 24TH

1984 - Walt Disney's "The Black Cauldron" premiered.

JULY 27TH

1940 - Happy Birthday Bugs! Warners Brother's short "A Wild Hare" premiered.

JULY 30TH

1930 -THE FIRST COLOR CARTOON -Walt Disney's "Flowers and Trees" the first Technicolor cartoon. Disney had worked out a deal with Technicolor creator Herbert Kalmus to use his technique exclusively for two years to show larger Hollywood studios its quality.
1943 - "The Secret Agent", the last Max Fleischer Spurperman cartoon short. The series was discontinued because their were too expensive to make.

August

AUGUST 1ST

1950 - Crusader Rabbit", the first limited animation television show,premiered.

AUGUST 6TH

1926 - Warner Bros. announced the motion picture sound-on-disc system.
1970 - Hippies and Radical Yippies try to take over Disneyland. 750 infiltrate the park, take over the Wilderness fort, raise the Vietcong flag and pass reefers out to passersby. Later, when the radicals marched in a Main Street parade, they sang thier own lyrics to Zipadee Doo Dah ("Ho, Ho, HoChi Mihn is going to win..."). More conservative park guests tried to drown them out by singing America the Beautiful. Suddenly, as the confrontation heated up toward a flash point, a platoon of Anahiem Police officers in full riot gear poured into the park from backstage areas. A riot was adverted,and for many years afterward Disneyland selectively enforced a "dress code" at the park, occasionally refusing admission to "long-haired hippies". The 1970 incident is the only time an outside security force dmade a full-blown public appearance in The Happiest Place on Earth.

AUGUST 9TH

1930 - Max Fleischer's short "Dizzy Dishes" introducing BettyBoop.

AUGUST 10TH

1889 - O.B. Brown patented a "projecting device" combining amagic lantern and a phenakistiscope. The first true movie projector.

AUGUST 13TH

1941 - James Stuart Blackton, the first American animator, top cartoonist,founder of Vitagraph, and publisher of the first true movie fanzine MotionPicture World, is hit by a bus on Pico Blvd.
1942 - Disney's "Bambi"premiered.

AUGUST 17TH

1941 - Walt Disney, his studio paralysed by a cartoonist's strike, goeson goodwill tour of South America (underwritten by a $70,000 governmentgrant.). The film "Saludos Amigos" and "The Three Caballeros"result. Federal mediators later settle the strike.

AUGUST 20TH

1907 - Alan Reed, the voice of Fred Flintstone, born.

AUGUST 21ST

1906 - Friz Freleng, Warner Bros. Animation director, born.

AUGUST 22ND

1880 - George Herriman- cartoonist creator of Krazy Kat and longtime L.A.resident, born.

AUGUST 24TH

1997 - According to the film "Terminator II", the Skynet computer defense system becomes self-aware and launches the War of the Day of Judgement.

AUGUST 26TH

1873 - Dr. Lee Deforrest, part inventor of wireless radio and television,born.
1980 - Fred 'Tex' Avery, master cartoon director, died in the parking lot of Hanna/Barbera Studios.

AUGUST 27TH

1968 - Disney rejects the final attempt of master animator Bill Tytla,creator of Grumpy, Dumbo and the Devil on Bald Mountain, to get his old job back. Tytla even offered to work on spec on a test to get back in. Tytla died later that year.

AUGUST 29TH

1953 - Warner's "Cat Tails for Two" introducing Speedy Gonzales. Speedy Gonzales was a real man. Artist Frank Gonzales got the nickname 'Speedy'for his ability to complete his daily quota of drawings faster than anyone else. The name was later matched to the character.

AUGUST 30TH

1887 - Thomas Edison received a patent for the Kinetoscope

September

SEPTEMBER 2ND

1919 - Pat Sullivan's "Feline Follies" cartoon staring Felix the Cat. Felix is the first true animated star, not depended on a previous newspaper strip. His body prototype, a black peanutshape with four fingers, will be the standard for years to come and copied for characters like Oswald and Mickey Mouse. Lindbergh had a Felix doll in his plane and it has been speculated that Groucho Marx copied his famous strut. The first television image broadcast by scientists in 1926 was of a Felix doll. By 1926 he was the most popular star in Hollywood after Chaplin and Valentino.
1928 - Paul Terry premiered his sound cartoon RCA Photophone system for a short called "Dinner Time". Young studio head Walt Disney came by train out from Los Angeles to see it. He telephoned his studio back in L.A." My gosh, terrible!" reported Walt, " A lot of racket and nothing else!" He said they could continue to complete their first sound cartoon "Steamboat Willie".
1939 - THE FIRST CANNES FILM FESTIVAL- The premiere film event in Europe had been the Venice film festival but western democracies tired of the bias of the judges for Fascist and Nazi films. ( for example Walt Disney was annoyed his "Snow White", the box office and critical champ of 1938, lost out to Leni Reifenstahl's "Olympia" ). So the little French Riviera city was chosen as the site for a new festival. Two days after opening World War Two was declared and the festival shut down until 1946.

SEPTEMBER 3RD

1939 - British Prime Minister Chamberlain's War announcement interrupts a Disney Cartoon "Mickey's Gala Premiere" showing on the fledgling BBC television service. Television shuts down for the duration.
1946 - After the War, the BBC television service resumes and an announcer says:"Well now, where were we?" They continue the Mickey cartoon from where it was interrupted in 1939.
1960 - The Hanna-Barbera show "Lippy the Lion and Hardy-Harr-Harr" premiered.

SEPTEMBER 7TH

1911 - Fred Moore- master Disney animator born.
1963 - Japanese cartoon "Astro Boy" premiered in the U.S.

SEPTEMBER 9TH

1908 - Thomas Edison, Charles Pathe and other bigshots form the Motion Picture Patents Company, called 'the Trust'. Their attempt to monopolize film production became a major factor in driving filmmakers from the east coast to Hollywood.
1967 - Jay Ward's "George of the Jungle" 'toon hits the airwaves.

SEPTEMBER 10TH

1968 - Hanna Barbera's "Space Ghost" and "Dino-Boy" premiered.

SEPTEMBER 11TH

1971 - The "Jackson Five" Saturday morning cartoon show premieres.

SEPTEMBER 12TH

1941 - The Disney animation strike ended by federal mediators.

SEPTEMBER13TH

1979 - Animator Don Bluth leads one third of the young Disney artists in mass resignation to set up their own studio.

SEPTEMBER 14TH

1912 - Disney master animator Frank Thomas born.

SEPTEMBER 16TH

1949 - Chuck Jones' "Fast and Furry-ous" released. It was the first Roadrunner vs. Wile E. Coyote cartoon.

SEPTEMBER 21ST

1912 - Chuck Jones born.
1920 - Rocky and Bullwinkle creator Jay Ward born.

SEPTEMBER 26TH

1983 - Filmation's "He Man and the Masters of the Universe" premiered.

SEPTEMBER 29TH

1988 - Cartoonist Charles Addams, creator of "The Addams Family", died of a heart attack.

SEPTEMBER 30TH

1960 - Hanna Barbera's "The Flintstones" debuts in prime time.

October

OCTOBER 1ST

1945 - Looney Tunes director Frank Tashlin left animation to work full time at Paramount doing live action movies. He wrote for the Marx Brothers and later directed the Dean Martin Jerry Lewis comedies.
1992 - The Cartoon Network cable channel starts.

OCTOBER 2ND

1950 - THE BIRTH OF "PEANUTS" - Charles Schulz's "Peanuts" comic strip debuts. Good ol' Charlie Brown was the name of a fellow post office worker all the guy's liked to play jokes on. Schulz's idea 'little folks' was initially rejected by all the major comic syndicates. Three months before the strip was accepted his girlfriend broke off their engagement. He had left his job at the postoffice and she was convinced he would never amount to anything. Today Charles Schulz has mountains on the moon named for his characters and is arguably the richest artist on earth.
1958 - "The Huckleberry Hound Show" premieres.

OCTOBER 4TH

1955 - "The Mickey Mouse Club" TV show debuts.

OCTOBER 6TH

1927 - JOLSON SPEAKS! "The Jazz Singer" brings in the era of Talking Pictures. Although not the first talkie, it was the first sound movie to be really successful. The first sound film appeared in 1924, and in 1926 a film called "Footlights of New York" was released with sound. But it was the combination of Al Jolson and a Hollywood-style premeire at the Egyptian Theater on Hollywood Blvd that marks the begining of the sound era.

OCTOBER 12TH

1937 - Under pressure from Paramount, Max Fleischer signs the first animation union contract and settles the Cartoonist strike begun May 8th.
1994 - Steven Spielberg, Jeffrey Katzenberg and David Geffen announce their new partnership in a studio later to be called Dreamworks SKG.

OCTOBER 13TH

1978 - Mickey Mouse is awarded a star on Hollywood Blvd's Walk of Fame.

OCTOBER 16TH

1923 - Walt and Roy Disney sign a contract with M.J. Winkler for six Alice in Cartoonland shorts. The Walt Disney Studio is born.
1982 - Citywide animation strike is defeated and producers send most Saturday morning cartoons to be done overseas.

OCTOBER 17TH

1954 - The "Disneyland" television show premiered. Disney became the first major Hollywood studio to break ranks with the studios boycotting television production.

OCTOBER 24TH

1947 - UNCLE WALT GOES TO WASHINGTON - Walt Disney headed a list of "friendly" witnesses testifying to the first House Un-American Activities Committee investigation on Communist subversion in Hollywood. Others that week included Gary Cooper, Robert Taylor and Ginger Rodgers mother. Disney accused reds in the cartoonists union and the League of Women Voters with trying to "subvert the spirit of Mickey Mouse."
*just a note: Is this where the term "rat bastard" got started ?

OCTOBER 30TH

1938 - THE WAR OF THE WORLDS PANIC - Orson Welles' "War of the Worlds" radio broadcast panicked American radio listeners who thought that it was actually happening. Welles adapted H.G. Wells' story to radio by presenting it as a live news broadcast of the unfolding alien invasion from Mars. His favorite story was when John Barrymore heard the broadcast, he boozily opened up his kennels and let all his prize racing greyhounds go, saying "Fend for yourselves!

November

NOVEMBER 1ST

1895 - Emil and Max Skladowsky set up a Bioscope Projector in Berlin's Wintergarden. The birth of German Cinema.
1920 - The first issue of American Cinematographer
1968 - The Motion Picture ratings system is introduced- G,M, (Later PG, PG-13 introduced in 1984) R and X (now NC-17)

NOVEMBER 3RD

1977 - Disney's "Pete's Dragon" opened.

NOVEMBER 11TH

1980 - Michael Cimino's $44 million dollar fiasco"Heaven's Gate" opened. The film has become a synonym for Hollywood failure.

NOVEMBER 13TH

1940 - THE FIRST STEREO MOVIE -Walt Disney's "Fantasia" opened. "This'll make Beethoven!" quoted Walt. Frank Lloyd Wright's opinion: "I like the visuals, but why did you haveta use all that musty old music?" The first film with a stereo soundtrack, the film toured like a road show to facilitate installing the "FantaSound" system at each theatre. The film did poorly at the US box office and was cut off from foriegn markets by World War Two. The film didn't turn a profit until it was re-released in the late 60s (after Walt's death), when it became a head-trip movie like Kubrick's "2001: A Space Oddysey". Far out, man!

NOVEMBER 15TH

1954 - Beverly D'Angelo, actress and former Scooby-Doo cel painter, born.

NOVEMBER 16TH

1916 - Daws Butler born, the voice of Huckleberry Hound and Yogi Bear.

NOVEMBER 18TH

1928 - "Steamboat Willie", the first sound cartoon premieres and introduces Mickey Mouse.

NOVEMBER 19TH

1959 - Jay Ward's "Rocky and His Friends" debuts.

NOVEMBER 20TH

1969 - University of Southern California scientists working for the Defense Dept. hook up five computers using long distance phone lines. The Internet is born.

NOVEMBER 23RD

1952 - Fred Moore, master Disney animator of Mickey Mouse in "The Sorcerer's Apprentice", died in a car accident in Tujunga Canyon.
1960 - The Hollywood Walk of Fame dedicated. It began with 1500 names, but not Charlie Chaplin who was banned because of his political views.

NOVEMBER 26TH

1939 - Walter Lantz's "Knock Knock" cartoon premiered - the first Woody Woodpecker cartoon.

NOVEMBER 29TH

1943 - St. Joseph's Medical Center ,across the street from the Disney Studio in Burbank dedicated. Walt had designed his buildings like hospital wards, so in the event he went bankrupt he figured he could sell the property to the hospital.

December

DECEMBER 3RD

1924 - Actor Jim Backus born - best remembered as the voice of TV 'toon Mr. Magoo and as Thurston Howell III on "Gilligan's Island".

DECEMBER 5TH

1901 - Walt Disney born.

DECEMBER 6TH

1964 - Rankin-Bass' puppet holiday special "Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer" debuts.

DECEMBER 9TH

1965 - T.V. special 'A Charlie Brown Christmas" airs and becomes a TV holiday tradition.
1994 - Disney animators move into their Riverside Drive building designed by Daniel Stern. A prominent feature is the large conical "sorcerer's hat" at the fromt entrance. The building becomes known as "The Hat Building".

DECEMBER 13TH

1940 - Fleischer Popeye cartoon "Eugene the Jeep" .The Thimble Theater character would give its name to the new army General Purpose vehicle- G.P. or "Jeep".

DECEMBER 14TH

1913 - Cartoonist Johnny Gruelle entertained his dying daughter by making up stories involving her rag dollies. After her passing friends urged Gruelle to publish them. The RAGGEDY ANN & ANDY stories are born.
1957 - "Ruff and Reddy", Hanna Barbera's first TV show, debuts.

DECEMBER 15TH

1900 - THE FIRST AMERICAN ANIMATED FILM "ENCHANTED DRAWINGS" - J. Stuart Blackton was a New York World cartoonist who used to do a vaudeville act in drag. He came to do an article on Thomas Edison then Edison put him on the payroll. He created this and several other trickfilms. Later he started the first movie fanzine Motion Picture World, faked an eyewittness newsreel of the Battle of Manila Bay using toy boats, cigar smoke and sparklers, started Vitagraph Pictures, made a fortune, lost it, and was finally hit by a bus on Pico blvd. in 1940. In his memoirs he never bothered to mention he invented animation.
1966 - WALT DISNEY DIES - Suffering from wide-spread lung cancer, and having already endured surgery to remove one lung, Walt Disney quietly died of acute circulatory collapse early in the morning of this day. His last visitor to his room at St. Joseph's Hospital in Burbank was his brother Roy. The two discussed plans for Walt's last project which would later become Florida's EPCOT center and Walt Disney World. The fact that Walt was actually dying was kept from him, but all-too-well known to his brother, and his wife and children. Roy says to it that all the lights in the Disney studio, across the street and visible from the window of Walt's hospital room, were kept on at all times to comfort his dying brother. When the news of Walt's death reached Disneyland in Anahiem, consideration was given to closing the park for the day, but instead it was kept open (as Walt would have wanted), but the flags on Main Street USA were lowered to half-mast. Within 24 hours, Walt was cremated and interred in an underground vault at Forest Lawn in Glendale, with a very private service attended only by immediate family. Walt's sudden death and quick disposition gave rise to rumors that he had been cryogenically suspended (a technology that he had a passing interest in) as well as other rumors that he was buried under California Institute of the Arts in Valencia or had been stuffed and was now appearing as "Mr. Lincoln" at Disneyland.

DECEMBER 18TH

1966 - Chuck Jones' holiday classic, "How the Grinch Stole Christmas", first aired.

DECEMBER 21ST

1937 - THE BIRTH OF FEATURE ANIMATION - Disney's "Snow White and the Seven Dwarves" premieres. It is the first feature-length cartoon and becomes the critical and box office champ of 1937.