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Recently my mother gave me a pile of yellowing papers from my childhood. Among them were some grade school report cards. It was a kick seeing these fossilized remains of my academic upbringing. I was an average student with a good attitude, dreadful in math, especially adding fractions. But I found amusing the teachers comments about my character: From my Fourth Grade Teacher in 1964, when I was 8 years old-

"Thomas is reading many history books. Perhaps something on the lighter side would broaden his interests..."

"Thomas is not as sure of himself as he should be when speaking in front of an audience. We are working on improving this." Whatever she did, it worked. Now you can't shut me up.

Thomas sometimes has trouble expressing himself in an original way on paper." I know some script editors who'd say I still do!

It's fun to look where we've come from, to better understand why we are who we are. And I still can't add and subtract fractions for shoot!
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B-Days: Georgia O'Keefe, Daniel Barenboim, George Bolet, William Pitt the Earl of Cheatham, Veronica Lake, Beverly D'Angelo- actress and former Scooby-Doo cel painter, Mantovanni, Ed Asner, Sam Waterson, Otis Armstrong, Petula Clark

1754- First use of the modern trombone. It was played at a child's funeral.

1828- Author Victor Hugo signs contracts with Gosselin's Publishing House to write a story about the cathedral of Notre Dame du Paris. He was paid 4,000 francs in advance, The HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE DAME was the result.

1881- The American Federation of Labor AF of L formed under the leadership of former cigar-maker Samuel Gompers. In 1951 they merged with the CIO.

1907- The comic strip Mutt & Jeff debuted. The strip was so popular that it’s creator Harry “Bud “ Fisher became a celebrity and negotiated the first large backend deals.

1920- The League of Nations held it’s first meeting in Geneva.

1926- FIRST NETWORK BROADCAST- NBC hooks up 20 cities for a radio program "The Steinway Hour" with Arthur Rubinstein playing concert piano from the Steinway building penthouse on 57th St. in Manhattan.

1934- Animator Bill Tytla moved out west from New York and starts at Walt Disney's on a trial basis for $150 a week. He would create Grumpy the Dwarf, The Devil in Fantasia and Dumbo.

1979- ABC news announced they would broadcast a daily update of the Iranian Hostage Crisis. The late night show became Nightline.

1989- Disney's The Little Mermaid debuted. When it opened in Copenhagen, director John Musker and Ron Clements attended a gala and sat next to the Queen of Denmark. They agonized over what would be her reaction to the reworking of the unhappy ending in this great Danish work, but the Queen's reaction was "It's beautiful! Hans Christian Andersen never could write a decent ending..."

1990- It was revealed that the Grammy winning pop group Milli Vanilli didn’t sing on their own album but lip synced to the music.

Birthdays: Robert Fulton, Sen. Joseph McCarthy, Claude Monet, Aaron Copeland, McClean Stevenson, Jarahwahal Nehru, Mamie Eisenhower, Brian Keith, Louise Brooks the It Girl, Ellis Marsalis, Harrison Salisbury, P.J. O'Rourke, George Petrovic' called KaraGeorge "Black George" Serbian nationalist -1762, Astrid Lungren the creator of Pippi Longstockings, Prince Charles is 59, Laura Giancomo, Zhang zhi Miou, Patrick Wahrburton, Dr. Condoleeza Rice is 52, Yanni

1883- London’s World newspaper printed an exchange of telegrams between writer Oscar Wilde and painter James MacNeil Whistler. “ When you and I are together we never talk about anything but ourselves.”-Wilde. Whistler:” No, no, Oscar. When you and I are together we never talk about anything except me.”

1889- Inspired by Jules Verne's book Around the World in Eighty Days, New York World reporter Nellie Bly real name Elizabeth Cochrane, set out to travel the world in the declared time. She did it in 72 days. Bly was considered by Victorian society scandalously independent, she was a war correspondent, she had herself committed to a lunatic asylum to report on mistreatment of the mentally ill, she went up in a balloon and was the first woman to go down in a diving bell- bathosphere.

1922- the BBC- British Broadcasting Companies first regular radio service 2LO goes on the air with general election results.

1937- SPAM introduced! Spiced-Ham for short.

1957-The Supreme Court refused to review the challenge to government obscenity laws brought by Irving Klaw and his wife, producers of the Betty Page kinky pinup photos.

1960- Anthony Mann began shooting the film El Cid with Charlton Heston and Sophia Loren with her pre-collagen Lips.

1967- Jack Warner, the last surviving Warner Brother, sells out his stake of Warner Bros and it’s huge film library to a Canadian company called Seven Arts. He becomes the last of the original Hollywood Moguls to step down.

1998- Colorful and eccentric NBA basketball star Dennis Rodman married beautiful supermodel Carmen Electra. There was some doubt at first as to the validity of the story as Rodman admitted he was blind drunk throughout and didn’t remember the ceremony. They divorced shortly after.

New York animation producer Mike Sporn has posted some fun photos from 1976 when we all worked on the musical the Adventures of Raggedy Ann & Andy. It was fun to see myself once more with dark hair, and a 32" waistline! Check it out. http://michaelspornanimation.com

I had a fun time in San Diego at the SCCS Southern California Cartoonists Society. Cartoonist like Gregg Evans (Luann)Joe Schmidt, Bat Lash ( Supernatural Law) and Jacky Estrada, Karyl Miller (writer on the Cosby Show) made me feel welcome and we had a nice evening swapping stories of ToonTown. It was interesitng to stay near the convention center without a Comicon going on. No waiting at the bar and always a parking space in the garage. The SCCS website is http://www.sccs-online.com

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Birthdays: Saint Augustine 354 AD,Robert Louis Stephenson, Edwin Booth, Oskar Werner, Jean Seberg, Whoopi Goldberg- real name Karen Johnson, Erte', Jack Elam, Alexander Scourby, Eugene Ionesco, Garry Marshall,Joe Mantegna,

In Ancient Rome, today was Epulium Jovis, or the Feast of Jupiter Reclining.

1842- Lewis Carroll noted in his diary today:" Began writing the fairy tale of Alice. Hope to be done by Christmas.." His real name was Charles Dodgson, The Oxford mathematics don invented the nom de plume as a fictional Renaissance writer Ludovicus Carolus, or Lewis Carroll.

1868- Giacomo Rossini died at 68. He retired at 31 from active life and lived on royalties. It was said he became so lazy he laid about in bed all day. One day when writing a concerto his score dropped to the floor as he leaned over to fill his glass. Rather than bend down to pick it up he took a fresh sheet and wrote a sonata.

1874 -At the sesquicentennial celebrations of the University of Pennsylvania Robert Green invented the Ice Cream Soda.

1914- Clothing designer Carez Crosby took two handkerchiefs and some ribbon off some baby bonnets and invented the Brassiere.

1921- Premiere of the silent classic "The Sheik" introducing young actor Rudolph Valentino. Valentino’s wife Alla Nazimova made sure his image was pure male sex appeal. " Rudy looks best when he’s naked."

1940- Walt Disney's 'Fantasia' opened. as Walt put it, "this'll make Beethoven!" Frank Lloyd Wright's opinion was 'I love the visuals, but why did you use all that old music?"
Walt going over boards with Stokowski and Deems Taylor.

1953- An Indiana Judge ordered his local school district to remove any school books with references to the character Robin Hood. All the "take from the rich and give to the poor" it was obvious to the judge that the medieval rogue of Sherwood Forest was a Communist.

1971- ABC TV. movie "the Duel" premiered. It starred Dennis Weaver as a hapless motorist on a lonely freeway menaced by an unseen truck driver . The film first brought fame to a young director named Steven Speilberg.

1978- Mickey Mouse gets his star on Hollywood Blvd.

1986- John Huston and Woody Allen denounced the fad of computer colorizing classic Black & White films like the Maltese Falcon. Supposedly one of the last things Orson Welles said on his deathbed was "Keep Ted Turner and his crayons away from my movies!"

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

Today is the 98th anniversary of the birth of my old mentor and friend Shamus Culhane. Have you ever heard of him?

Shamus (1908-1996)began as a errand boy at the Bray Studio in 1924, became an animator when sound came in, was a mainstay at Max Fleischers, went to Disney and animated Pluto, then did the Hi-Ho March of the Dwarves in Snow White, and some Honest John in Pinnochio. He also worked at Lantz, Schlesingers, Al Seeger. He had his own studio Shamus Culhane Productions, where he hired artists hiding from the Hollywood Blacklist. He did some of the earliest animated TV commercials. He was married several times, including the daughter of Chico of the Marx Brothers. He had a full life and loved sharing his experiences with others. He died in 1996.

Shamus took me under his wing and trained me not only in animation but in enjoying life. He liked mentoring young people and his life lessons are with me still.

Even with all the wonderful schools teaching animation, and I have taught in a lot of them, you should try at one time or another to apprentice under a master animator. Its a great way to learn not only the finar points of technique, but the oral traditions of our business and lessons in professional ettiquette and career discipline. And if you are an older artist, consider taking a young newcomer under your wing and pass on what you have learned. Someone took the time to show you, it feels great when you can pay it forward.

Otto Englander, young Shamus and Al Eugster, courtesy of Mark Mayerson and the Al Eugster collection.

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Birthdays: Auguste Rodin, Dr. Sun Yat Sen, Bahi-ullah 1817 founder of the Bahii faith, Elizabeth Cadie -Stanton, Cecil B. DeMille, Edward G. Robinson-real name Emanuel Goldenberg, Jack Oakie, Kim Hunter, Shamus Culhane, Charles Manson, Neil Young, Edvard Munch, Nadia Comenici, Tanya Harding, Dave Brain

1859- The first trapeze act was demonstrated at the Cirque Napoleon in Paris. The show caused such a sensation that the daredevil was immortalized by his tights becoming a fashion named in his honor- Jules Leotard.

1927- The Holland Tunnel completed. It runs under the Hudson River connecting New York and New Jersey. It’s not named for the Netherlands, but for the engineer Clifford Holland, who died shortly before it’s completion.

1933- Hugh Gray of the British Aluminum Company takes the first photographs of what he claimed was a monster in Loch Ness. He would be the first of many in modern times to have claimed to have seen Nessie.

1946- Disney's "Song of the South" with William Baskett as Uncle Remus. Despite hiring Jewish-Socialist screenwriter Maurice Rapf as PC protection, the film was still declared racist by the NAACP. Shame, because the character animation in it are still quite good.

1955- This is the date Marty McFly returns to in the film Back to the Future and Back to the Future II.

1975- Portland Oregon had a large dead gray whale on it’s beach. It decided it would be easier to dispose if they blew it up. As an audience watched they stuffed it with half a ton of dynamite. The explosion drew cheers from the audience, then everyone ran for cover as they were showered by chunks of smelly blubber and guts.

Got mentioned today in the Hollywood Reporter discussing the various animated feature films chances for Oscar gold this year. http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/content_display/film/features/e3ieS%2F5i28d8%2FvLhllFrZWIvg%3D%3D


Friday Filmmaker Kevin Bash and his family came to the house to interview me for his film about the Hotel Norconian near Palm Springs. The Hotel was one of those grand art deco palace resort hotels, like something out of the Shining. Since it opened in 1929 it hosted many celebrities like Johnny Weismuller, Buster Crabbe and Marge and Gower Champion. They came to talk to me about the famous Walt Disney crew party in June 1938. Many stories were told of the young Disney artists running wild, partying hardy and scandalising the Old Man. One drunken animator brought a horse up to the second floor and galloped down the hallways.




Walt and Lillian Disney checking in

In later years the Hotel Norconian was a military hospital, a Navy weapons stash and now a prison! You can still see the art deco frescos and guilt under the institutional grey paint. Although the building has been declared a monument, no attempt so far has been made at restoration.

Kevin Bash is on a one man crusade to bring attention to this lost piece of Hollywood history by making a documentary and book about the hotel. We wish him all the luck. If you know anything about the Norconian or have any anecdotes about it or the Disney party, please contact me and I'll pass it on to Kevin.
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Birthdays: Abigail Adams, Alexander Borodin, Fyodor Doestoyevsky, Gen.George “Blood & Guts” Patton, Pat O’Brien, Kurt Vonnengut, Rene Clair, Carlos Fuentes, Jonathan Winters, Stubby Kay, Calista Flockhart, Stanley Tucci, Demi Moore is 44, Leonard DiCaprio is 32

Today in the Middles Ages this was "Martinmass" the feast of St. Martin of Tours, patron saint of France.

1918- ARMISTICE DAY- World War One ended. The eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month the guns of the Great War fall silent. It sounds poetic but it was just a coincidence, the opposing sides had been negotiating since the 8th.In a strange kind of salute when the word went down the battlelines that the ceasefire would take effect at 11:00AM, one minute before thousands of cannons on both sides fired one last round simultaneously. One German machine gunner fired his last belt of ammunition at the allied trenches, stood up in front of everyone, bowed like an actor, then turned and walked away.

This also marks the turning point of the old world into the Twentieth Century: ethnic republics and socialist states arose out of dying monarchies. The British and French colonial empires were fatally wounded. Independence desires stirred in 3rd world colonies and the United States became a major global power and world financier. Soldiers came home speaking of Screaming Mimies, shellshock and wearing trenchcoats, as Thomas Burberry’s rainproof overcoat became known in the trenches. Meteorologists would from now on refer to large weather patterns as Fronts, from the days when weather predictions effected military planning.

1925- Louis “Sachmo” Armstrong did the first recordings of his band the Hot Five. These records lift him from a local talent in Chicago and New Orleans to international stardom.

1926- Route 66, the first interstate highway built for automobiles in the U.S. is started. (it will get finished in 1932) The World's first road exclusively for automobiles was opened in 1927, the Via Fiore Imperiale in Rome.

1938- The first day of shooting on the film 'The Wizard of Oz". Judy Garland met 125 little people hired to be the Munchkins. Judy's energy was fading under the heavy work schedule so L.B. Mayer ordered her put on Benzadrine (speed) every morning and Valium pills to sleep. June Alysson, another young MGM actress at the time said: "The studio nurse would give it to you and tell you it was vitamins." Judy Garland became a heavy drug addict and died of an overdose in 1969 at 47 years old.

1940- The Birth of the Jeep. The army introduces its first General Purpose vehicle-G.P. or Jeep, a name coinciding with a character in E.C. Segar's Popeye cartoons.



1941- On the night before mobster Abe Reles, alias Kid Twist, was due to testify what he knew of the Mafia, he was thrown out of a Coney Island hotel window to his death. He was under Federal protection but, in 1962, Joe Valachi testified mobster Frank Costello had raised $100,000 to bribe the cops to do the deed themselves. A popular toast around Brooklyn those days was: “ Here’s to Abe Reles, a canary who could sing but not fly.”

1978- The renovated Hollywood Sign is unveiled. The second O was paid for by rock star Alice Cooper in memory of his idol Groucho Marx.

1980- 'Heaven's Gate" Michael Cimino's $44 million dollar flop opened. Cimino originally said he could do the film for $8 million. Critic Pauline Kael said: "It's the kind of movie you want to deface. You want to draw mustaches all over it."