Bronny Barry and Joe Campana sent me this link to an old U-Tube clip of the production of the Flintstones in the heyday of Hanna & Barbera.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hg1PWkN-51E

The artist seen drawing Fred is assistant Ron Westlund, funny to think the H&B building had to be preserved as an LA historic landmark!

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QUIZ: Name the Three Kings. Los Tres Reyes.

Yesterday¹s Quiz answered below: Why are a group of artillery pieces called a battery?
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History for 1/5/2009
Birthdays: Zebulon Pike, Stephen Decatur, Alven Ailey,J. 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, Robert Duval is 78, Dianne Keaton is 63, Spanish King Juan Carlos

1463- French poet Francois Villon was kicked out of Paris.

1477- THE BATTLE OF NANCY- The Duke of Burgundy Charles the Rash dreamed of turning his duchy between France and Germany into one of the great powers of Europe. In the process he managed to annoy just about all his neighbors with his constant wars. This day Charles found out why the Swiss are left alone by most European powers. Upon invading Switzerland his army was cut to pieces. His body was found naked in a ditch with his head stuck fast in a puddle of ice. two spears were sticking out of his butt. These were seen as being for insults sake.

1825- Writer Alexander Dumas fought a duel with the Chevalier Saint George, a black duelist from Martinique, who played violin so well he helped Beethoven write his Violin Concerto. Neither man was seriously hurt and Dumas went on to write the Three Musketeers. Saint George also once fought a duel with the enigmatic Monsieur d¹Eon, a transvestite who fought his duels in a womens¹ ballgown.

1896- A Vienna newspaper announced the invention by Dr. Wilhelm Roentgen of a machine that produces "X-Rays" to see inside the body. In England, scientist Lord Kelvin, who invented the Celsius temperature scales, declared x-rays a " ridiculous hoax "

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 adopting the new 8 hour work day. Henry Ford¹s idea was ³when workers have more money they buy cars². The idea worked and sales of cars quadrupled and the economic climate of Detroit boomed.

I wonder what Henry Ford would have thought of today¹s companies who lay off thousands of workers and move plants overseas to make their stock rise, then seem perplexed by the stagnant rate of consumer spending?

1921- Famous Antarctic explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton was preparing one last expedition to the South Pole. This day on his ship anchored in South Georgian Island Bay, he complained he felt ill. He said to his doctor ³Oh, what do you want me to give up now?² then he fell over dead of a heart attack. He was 47.

1924- William Chrysler introduced his first automobile featuring an all steel chassis frame instead of wood. He created it for the failing Maxwell Car Company and in 1925 changed the name to the Chrysler Car Company.

1925- Nellie Taylor Ross was inaugurated as the Governor of Wyoming, the first woman to hold such an office.

1933- First day of construction on San Francisco¹s Golden Gate Bridge.

1933- Calvin Coolidge died peacefully. The laconic Coolidge was so low key and stand offish that he was a favorite target for political writers. H.L.Mencken said "Being fanatical for Coolidge is like being fanatical for double entry Bookkeeping". Will Rogers said:" The convention nominating Coolidge was so dull there was a call to open up the Churches early to liven things up". Dorothy Parker had the final word. When told that Coolidge had died she replied:" How could you tell?"

1934- Both the American and National Baseball Leagues agreed upon a standard size for a baseball.

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

1959- Buddy Holly released his last single, It Doesn¹t Matter Anymore.

1959- The first Bozo the Clown TV show premiered on TV. Larry Harmon invented and played the famous children¹s clown.

1961- “Hello Wilbur” Mr Ed the Talking Horse appeared on TV for the first time.
Veteran Western actor Chill Wills provided the voice.

1968- A Boston grand jury indicted famous baby doctor Benjamin Spock for conspiring to abet violation of draft laws. The great scientist had come out as a vocal opponent of U.S. participation in the Vietnam War. "I helped them be born. I'm not going to abandon them now."

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 Neocon Congressman Sonny Bono died, when he skied headlong into a tree.
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Yesterday¹s Quiz: Why are a group of artillery pieces called a battery?

Answer: The original purpose of cannons were to batter down castle walls and fortress gates. The French term Batterie became the term for a unit of cannon, anywhere from 3 to 6.

Quiz: Why are a group of artillery pieces called a battery?

Yesterdays Quiz answered below: Which space mission won the Space Race, between the U.S. and Soviet Union? Apollo 8, Apollo 13, Apollo 11, Gemini 1…?
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History for 1/4/2009
Burthdaze: Sir Issac Newton, Emile Cohl the first animator, Louis Braille, General Tom Thumb, Jane Wyman, Jacob Grimm of the Brothers Grimm, Sterling Holloway the voice of Winnie the Pooh and Kaa, Francios Rude, Dyan Cannon is 72, Floyd Patterson, Don Shula, Barbara Rush, Doris Kearns Goodwin, Julia Ormond is 41

1642-English King Charles Ist, egged on by his pushy French queen Hennrietta Maria, attempts to squash his uppity Puritan enemies in Parliament with one stroke. He personally marched troops into the House of Commons and demanded the arrest of five ringleaders, John Pym, Sir Arthur Hazelrig and others. They had already fled. When he ordered the Speaker of the House to identify the men, the speaker bowed and politely refused: "Sire, I have neither eyes to see nor lips to speak say as this House biddeth me". The King left empty-handed and the people of London raining garbage and abuse down on him. He quit London to travel north and raise troops. The English Civil War is recorded as beginning in September, but from this moment on King Charles considered no other remedy but force.

1725- American colonist Benjamin Franklin first arrived in London.

1861- As the Civil War was breaking out, Missouri inaugurated it’s new Governor, Claiborne Jackson. Gov. Jackson in his inaugural speech declared Missouri would stand by her sister slaveholding states in the Confederacy, but the city dwelling people of Missouri had a different idea. They were for the Union. The farming population were pro Dixie. Already wracked by years of violence Missouri would collapse into an anarchy of roving paramilitary gangs robbing, hanging and shooting the innocent. Bushwhackers and Redlegs. Missouri suffered more than any state in the US. One tenth of the population would die or move away.

1881- Johannes Brahms Academic Festival Overture premiered in Breslau. Modern audiences would recognize it as the theme song to National Lampoons Animal House.

1885- The first appendectomy operation.

1904- The Supreme Court ruled that Puerto Ricans are not aliens but American citizens. Full citizenship rights were still delayed until 1917.

1904, Thomas Edison's movie crew filmed the electrocution of an elephant. Topsy, was being destroyed by its owners after she killed three men in as many years. (The third was a man who fed her a lit cigarette.) The event was a public spectacle to a paying audience of 1500 people at Coney Island, where the elephant had actually helped build the attraction. Edison was the consultant chosen to arrange the electrocution after feeding Topsy cyanide-laced carrots had failed to kill her.

1943- Josef Stalin named Time Magazines Man of the Year.

1946- Terrytoons "The Talking Magpies" the first Heckle and Jeckle 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 first had Snoopy 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. Although everyone had a nice time, Richard later admitted he found the whole event depressing. Seeing his dad humbled:” It was like seeing David vanquished by Goliath..”

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

1964- The Boston Strangler murdered his last victim, 19 year old Mary Sullivan. The family of Albert DeSalvo, the man who confessed and was convicted as the Strangler, still claim today that he was innocent because the pattern of this killing didn’t match the others.

1973- In San Francisco scientists from several top food companies like Proctor & Gamble, Heinz and Del Monte began work inventing the Universal Product Code, or the Bar Code now seen on everything you buy. The first product to sport the bar code was Wrigley’s Spearmint Gum.

1973- President Nixon informs the Senate committee investigating the Watergate break-in that he refuses to yield to them his taped conversations, citing "executive privilege".

1995- Georgia Republican Newt Gingrich became Speaker of the House of Representatives. In the Washington atmosphere of congenial deal making, Gingrich was the philosopher of the scorched earth, no-compromise style of politics. Even after he stepped down, and Obama is calling for reaching-across-the-aisle, this philosophy is still very much in politics today.

1997- Spoon bending psychic Uri Geller predicted a UFO would land in Tel Aviv. Israelis watched the skies, but in the end, nothing appeared.
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Yesterday’s Quiz: Which space mission won the Space Race, between the U.S. and Soviet Union? Apollo 8, Apollo 13, Apollo 11, Gemini 1…?

Answer: This was a bit of a tricky one. Apollo 11 did indeed land on the Moon, but Apollo 8 was the first manned craft to reach the moon. It was the one that orbited but didn't land and Jim Lowell read from Genesis on Christmas Night. After Apollo 8, the Russians admitted defeat, and announced they were shifting their efforts to unmanned probes of Mars.
So Apollo 8 is actually considered the mission that won the Space Race.

Karl Cohen of ASIFA/San Francisco sent me an amusing website.

Instead of Walk Like an Egyptian, try this link and Draw Like John Whitney.



http://www.zefrank.com/shelda/

John Whitney Sr(1917-1995)was considered the Father of Computer Animation. His experiments with WWII army surplus gunsights in the 1950s became the forerunner of the tools we use today to make Shrek, Wall-E and Kung Fu Panda.

I'm not sure if this person was aware he was channeling Whitney, but the kaleidoscope images are reminiscent of Whitney's CATALOG (1961), and James Whitney's LAPIS(1975). It's a bit fast, but amusing.

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Quiz: Which space mission won the Space Race, between the U.S. and Soviet Union?
Apollo 8, Apollo 13, Apollo 11, Gemini 1…?

Yesterdays question answered below: In Chuck Jone’s cartoon Inky and the Mynah Bird, composer Carl Stalling gave the birds a theme from a famous piece of classical music. What is it?
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History for 1/3/2009
Birthdays: Marcus Tullius Cicero, John Paul Jones, Victor Borge, Zazu Pitts, Sergio Leone, Hank Stramm, Bobby Hull, Robert Loggia, Maxene Andrews of the Andrews Sisters, Ray Milland, Anna Mae Wong, Steven Stills, J.R.R. Tolkein, Victoria Principal, Mel Gibson is 54.

1777- BATTLE OF PRINCETON- After the Christmas victory at Trenton George Washington’s little army gives the main British army the slip, wheels around behind them and surprise attacks another redcoat regiment at Princeton New Jersey. Years before young student Alexander Hamilton had failed the entrance requirements to study at Princeton University and instead went to Kings College, later renamed Columbia. Now artillery major Hamilton had a pleasure rare among rejected college applicants- that of being allowed to fire a few cannon rounds into the college’s admissions building.

1868- the MEIJI RESTORATION- In Japan the Tokugawa family had ruled as Shoguns since winning Japans internal civil wars in1603, keeping the Emperor as a figurehead. On this date a revolution occurred when radical samurai seized Kyoto Palace and overthrew the Shogunate. Japan would be under the direct control of the Emperor and Japan would now end her enforced isolation and modernize her society. The Emperor Meiji would also move the capitol from Kyoto to Yedo, already being called Tokyo.

1871- Henry Bradley patents Oleomargerine in the U.S.. It had been demonstrated in the Paris Exhibition of 1867 as a butter that didn't spoil, so it could be used by armies in the field.

1899- An editorial in the New York Times refers to the horseless carriage as an “Automobile”. This is the earliest known use of the word.

1925-Italian Prime Minister Benito Mussolini suspended democracy and his black shirted followers declared him Il Duce, or the leader. He became dictator of Italy.

1926- General Motors introduced the Pontiac brand of automobile.

1933- MGM hired producer David O. Selznick to produce movies. His father-in-law Louis B. Mayer set his salary at $4000 a week. Newspapers joked “The Son-In-Law Also Rises”

1946- Lord Haw-Haw ,William Joyce, the English voice of Nazi radio propaganda broadcast from Berlin, was hanged for treason. English Fascist Joyce was actually born in Brooklyn but moved to England at an early age. He was nicknamed Lord Haw-Haw because of his stuffy upper class accent.

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 took his own life in the back of a NYC taxicab. Today Howard Rushmore would probably be considered a serious journalist.

1959-FIFTY YEARS AGO- Alaska became the 50th state.

1967- Jack Ruby, real name Jacob Rubenstein, the murderer of Lee Harvey Oswald, died of lung cancer in prison. To the end he was refused a meeting with Congress where he claimed he could discuss his patriotic motives for killing Oswald. Retired Mafia don Bill Bonano said Ruby being Jewish and not Sicilian, was the type of hood the mob used for clean-up jobs. That he was a soldier for Chicago boss Sam Giancana. Others say Ruby was just a two bit hood who claimed he was more important than he actually was.

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

2004- After partying hard all New Years in Las Vegas, 22 year old pop singer Britney Spears married friend Jay Alexander for a laugh. Later after she woke up, she realized the jokes on her. Because the marriage was legal. She annulled it a day later. Alexander, who listed himself as unemployed, was soon seen driving around rural Louisiana in a $90,000 BMW.
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Yesterdays question answered below: In Chuck Jone’s cartoon Inky and the Mynah Bird, composer Carl Stalling gave the birds a theme from a famous piece of classical music. What is it?

ANSWER: Fingal’s Cave by Felix Mendelssohn.

Tom Sito's Winners for 2008.

The turn of a New Year makes one want to review the Winners and Losers of the previous year. I won’t list all the losers from 2008, because the weight of the file would crash the Web. So I’ll mention who I thought were Winners in the World of Animation in 2008. ( in no particular order of preference. )

Jennifer Yuh Nelson- Jenny storyboarded a lot of the opening 2D sequence for KUNG FU PANDA. I worked with her on SPIRIT. It was great to finally see the energy of her work really come through on the screen. I hear she is now tapped to direct the sequel. Good choice.

courtesy of Dreamworks Animation

James Baxter- With ENCHANTED and the 2d animation in KUNG FU PANDA and SECRETS OF THE FURIOUS FIVE, James has managed to lift up the worn battle-flag of 2D hand drawn Animation. He has become the champion of all of us who still might want to occasionally use a pencil to draw cartoons.

Seth McFarland- Bringing FAMILY GUY back from Cancellation Land, selling THE CLEVELAND SHOW and a 100 kazillion buck development deal with Fox, Seth has become one of the most successful “creatives” ( the word suits use for artists) in ToonTown.

Raul Garcia- Former Disney/Bluth animator Raul has spend the last few years scrimping, saving and hustling around the world taking meetings to launch his idea of a Spanish-language based animation production. At last, in cooperation with Antonio Banderas and Placido Domingo, Raul’s first feature THE MISSING LYNX has opened in Madrid to great acclaim and has been nominated for the Spanish Oscar. I look forward to seeing it here en Eengleesh.

Francis Glebas for his well done book DIRECTING FOR ANIMATION.

Eric Goldberg for revealing his deepest darkest secrets on making animation- Focal Press’ CHARACTER ANIMATION CRASH COURSE.

Nancy Beiman has a new steady teaching gig at Sheridan College and her PREPARE TO BOARD has been approved for a second printing.

PIXAR for making yet another &%#$ hit movie, WALL-E. I don’t know how they do it.

Simon Tofield of Simon’s Cat, a very clever and well animated web-toon that has established a following for the young Brit, getting him almost as many downloads as porn.

June Foray, the voice of Rocky the Flying Squirrel and Natasha, took a bad fall and busted her hip, which at age 90, can be something that is tough to recover from. But two months later she was out of hospital, partying with the best of us and driving her Jaguar around town.

Ari Folmen of WALTZING WITH BASHIR, for suddenly making Israel an animation filmmaking power.

John Stevenson and Mark Osborne the directors of KUNG FU PANDA, Jimmy Hayward and Steve Martino the directors of HORTON HEARS A WHO.

For me old Roger Rabbit mates Rob Stevenhagen and David Bowers, for getting the direction bug.

For me other old Roger buddies Roger Chiasson, Chuck Gamage, Uli Meyer and Ken Duncan for opening animation studios and keeping them open through a tough year.

To Rob Davies and the gang at Atomic Cartoons for some fun times working together.

To all my students who have entered the business, especially my USC grad Shih Ting who’s film VIOLA won a Student Academy Award, and was featured on the cover of the MP Academy Bulletin.

The FJIORG! student CGI competition at Siggraph. Pat Beckman, Becky Weible and Arno through their energy have made it a Siggraph tradition.

All my animation friends from other lands who became American Citizens just so they could vote in the Presidential Election. They all picked the winner.

I could think of more, but these are my picks so far. You notice, I am talking about people instead of films. If you’ve ever read my writings, I consider animation a PERFORMANCE, I celebrate the animator as an INDIVIDUAL, not a magician or elf in a tree, but a working pro who works for a paycheck and figures out how to pay taxes too. And I leave film crit to the film critics.


A New Years Toast to all my animation Kameraden!May we have a good year this year!
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Quiz: In Chuck Jones shorts of Inky and the Mynah Bird, whenever the strange bird appeared, composer Carl Stalling gave him a signature tune. What piece of classical music is that tune based on?

Yesterday: No quiz yesterday, because I was too hung over and you probably were too!
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History for 1/2/2009
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, Cuba Gooding Jr, is 41, Tia Carrere

1492- Sultan Abu-Abdallah called Boabdil surrendered the Emirate of Grenada, the last stronghold of the Moslem Moors in Spain to Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile. Boabdil's mother, the Sultana Ayeesha, scolded him for weeping while surrendering the keys of the city. " I should have smothered you as an infant, rather than watch you live like a degenerate and surrender like a whore...!" Thanks Mom…

1496- Did Leonardo da Vinci try to fly? Leonardo studied the motor actions of birds and sketched numerous flying machines. In one of his notebooks Leonardo had written:” On the second day of January, I will make the attempt.” When one of his aides Antonio broke his leg it was said he broke it trying to pilot one of his masters flying machines.

1522- Adrian VI, a Dutchman was elected Pope. He was the first non Italian since 1378 and the last non-Italian until John Paul II in 1978. He really tried to be a true Christian spiritual guide and agreed with Martin Luther that the church was too corrupt and sinful in it’s ways. He demanded he and his cardinals live on only one ducat a day, about $12.50, he walled up the Belvedere Palace and it’s collection of ancient Greek and Roman art as pagan idolatry. Poets and artists were furious that this Pope cancelled all their rich contracts. The unemployed poet Aretino called the cardinals “miserable rabble” and that they should all be buried alive for electing this lousy pope. After three months Adrian died. This time the cardinals elected a Medici Pope who loved art, music and parties. The people of Rome sent flowers to Adrian’s doctor to congratulate him for losing his patient.

1611-THE BLOOD COUNTESS- Beautiful Transylvanian Countess Elizabeth Bathory was indicted for the murder of 610 people. She apparently believed that bathing in the blood of virgin girls would keep her skin beautiful- remember Oil of Olay wasn’t invented yet. The crimes of the Medieval nobility were often winked at until like Count Giles de Rais-Bluebeard in France they become so outrageous they couldn’t be ignored any longer. When peasant girls kept disappearing around Csejthe Castle word got back to her big uncle King Sigmund Bathory of Poland, the nemesis of Ivan the Terrible. When King Sigmund discovered the full horror of her story he had Elizabeth walled up alive in her chamber. Daily food passed through a slit in the wall. When after a few years the empty dishes stopped being passed through that slit was bricked up as well.

1757- British redcoats first march into Calcutta. They don't leave until 1947.

1785- Austrian Emperor Joseph II ordered the Jews throughout his empire to adopt family names. A similar law was passed in the rest of Germany ten years later. Most Jews created surnames out of their profession. This was when someone like Ystchak the diamond dealer became Issac Diamondstein and Jakob the butcher became Jacob Fleischman.

1837- It was the custom at New Years for the Mayor of New York to hold an open house. Average citizens could pay a call, have a glass of sherry and pound cake and express good wishes for the New Year. But Mayor Cornelius Lawrence was a Tammany politician who had been elected with the help of hooligans from the Bowery and Five Points. When he held an open house this day all these gang toughs stormed in, got drunk, wiped their fingers on the curtains and pocketed the silverware. It quickly became bedlam. In desperation Mayor Lawrence got the police and militia troops to push the mob out and lock the doors.

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

1873- Richard Connolly becomes the first American to embezzle a million dollars -he actually embezzled four million. He was the financial controller for the City of New York under Boss Tweed. Together the Tweed ring bilked New York City out of $60 million dollars. Today he fled abroad ahead of the police. Tweed was nabbed and died in jail but Slippery Dick Connolly lived in Europe happily ever after.

1878- Farmer John Martin thought he saw something shiny flying in the sky above Denizen Texas. He is the first person to describe it as a “flying saucer.”

1882- John D. Rockefeller’s Standard Oil company controlled almost 90% of the U.S. crude oil output but the government seemed poised to hit it with anti-monopoly laws. So anticipating this move he reorganized Standard Oil into a Trust with himself as chief Trustee. Standard Oil later became ESSO (S-O) then EXXON.

1904- The Russians surrender their big Pacific base of Port Arthur to the Japanese after a one year siege. During the boredom of the siege the game Russian Roulette was invented- of putting a six shooter to your head with one bullet in a spun chamber. When their men kept dying for no reason the Stavka-High Command were at a loss how to stop it. When they caught men playing this lethal game they courts martialed them for illegal use of government property- i.e. the bullets.

1909- Aimie Semple MacPherson was given her ordination by the Evangelical community of Chicago to go preach the Good News! MacPherson moved to California and became one of the first great broadcast evangelists, entertaining millions with salvation and sin, while keeping toy-boys and popping pills on the side.

1937- Hollywood actor Ross Alexander had hit on tough times. He had been in a few movies like Captain Blood and Max Reinhardt’s A Midsummer Nights’s Dream but his career seemed to be stalled and he was deeply in debt. 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 a Illinois college sportscaster named “Dutch”- Ronald Reagan.

1960- Young Mass. Senator John F. Kennedy announced he was a candidate for president. When asked why do you want to be president? Kennedy replied:” Because it’s the best job there is.”

1971- Israeli archaeologists in Jerusalem discovered the 2000 year old remains of a crucified man. No, they didn’t think it was You-Know-Who. But it did provide the first physical proof that Romans really used that method of execution.

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. A week ago the largest maker of blank VHS cassettes announced they were ceasing production, since everyone is doing DVDs.

1995- Washington D.C. Mayor Marion Barry was inaugurated for a second term after winning election despite his conviction of smoking crack cocaine. As comedian Chris Rock said: “Who ran against him? Who was such a bad choice that he lost to a crackhead? “

Well, we survived 2008 somehow, and we enter 2009 with a new President , a new spirit, and the worst economic collapse since the Great Depression. Every New Year’s Day, all of us non-jocks can pretend for a little while we actually care about watching football. And, while the rest of North America shivers in the winter that came on much too fast, here in Southern Cal have our own curious custom for New Year’s. The Rose Parade.

courtesy calonlinearchives.com

The Rose Parade is the annual event where all those whose families who came to LA from little towns can pretend for a day, that we don’t live in a major cosmopolitan megalopolis, but we’re still the little Podunk train crossing in the bean fields that those East Coast movie folk scouted out in 1913. For a day, we forget that David Hockney, Arnold Schoenberg, F.Scott Fitzgerald, Raymond Chandler, and Charles Bukowski all lived here once.

No, we camp out all night, so next day we get a good spot on the curb to applaud the Chairman of the Pasadena Chamber of Commerce driving by, followed by Miss City of Industry, the owner of a dental clinic decked out in Western attire from Nudies riding a Palomino that costs more than your Honda, all covered in plastic rhinestones, The Fighting Manatees All Varsity Marching Band and a representation of Shrek done in thousands of hand-glued chick peas and yellow dwarf rose petals.

I’ve lived in LA for 25 years now, and I still don’t quite get all the fuss. Back in New York City, parades, since the Irish marched St Patty’s Day in 1765, were all about one ethnic group getting together to drink a lot and march down the street giving a big one- fingered-salute to the rest of their city. Hah, Look how many of us there are! Look at the power of numbers of all the Irish, or Poles, or Puerto Ricans, or Gays & Lesbians, whatever.

Maybe the Rose Parade is the Small-Town LA giving the finger to the big cultured Metropolis LA.

If any of you animation folk happen to be watching, this year’s parade will feature two floats designed by Iron Giant artist John Ramirez and a Warner Bros Anim tribute Float that Chuck Jones daughter, Producer Linda Jones Clough will be riding.

Anyway, I gotta go. USC-Penn State is about to kick off and I have to go get more Doritos Smoky Barbeque flavored chips and Coors Lite. Happy New Year!
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Jan. 1st 2009 A.D. or 2009 of the Common Era- New Year's Day
It’s also the Hebrew year 5,767 AM or Year of the World Anno Mundane ,
in the Moslem calendar 1430 A.H. or Al Hajira –since the Haj,
And the Year 1387 in the Zoroastrian Calendar
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Yesterday’s Quiz question: Why is December the twelfth month when Decembrius means number ten in old Latin? For the answer look at 45 BC.
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Happy Last Day of Kwanza

Birthdays: Duke Lorenzo”the Magnificent” De Medici, Pope Alexander VI Borgia, Paul Revere, Betsy Ross, Mad Anthony Wayne, E.M. Forrester, J.Edgar Hoover, Xavier Cugat, Frank Langella is 70, Barry Goldwater, Kuniyoshi Utagawa, Dana Andrews, Idi Amin Dada, Kliban, Verne Troyer (Mini-Me) is 39

Welcome to the month January from IANUARIUS, the old Roman god Janus, the two faced god of doorways and portals who looks forward and back, symbolizing new beginnings. Not to be confused of course with Terminus the god of boundaries and borders.


Janus’ temple was dominated by a large doorway in the Roman Forum. Whenever the temple doors were closed, it meant Rome was at peace with the world. Unfortunately, this was hardly ever the case.

45 BC.- By edict of Julius Caesar the Roman Empire adopts the 12 month 366 day calendar Caesar ordered developed by the Alexandrian scientist Sosigenes. This was an improvement from the ten month, ten day week system. The ten month system is why December, which means ten, is counted as the twelfth month. The system had become so lopsided that the Roman civil service had to open a special office just to tell you what day it was! In order to pull the calendar back in line with the solar seasonal year Caesar decreed the last year of the old system 46 b.c. would have to be 445 days long! He called it Ultimus Annus Confusionis. Roman merchants, bankers and shippers called it the Year of Confusion.

Happy Feast of the Holy Circumcision, when baby Jesus had his…well,…you know…..

69AD- The Roman legion at the Rhine frontier fort of Mainz rose in rebellion under their general Marius Vindex. This is the first act of defiance that would overthrow the Emperor Nero. By years end four men would be Emperor until only one –Vespasian, remained.

1525- Despite the pleadings of Hernando Cortez to respect Aztec institutions, twelve Franciscan missionaries began to close down Aztec temples, and conducted mass baptisms of Indians at gunpoint.

1531- French King Louis XII died of sexual exhaustion from too many evenings spent with his new English queen, the sister of Henry VIII. His nephew Francis was next in line. The dying king lamented. “That big nosed boy will ruin everything we tried to accomplish!” Actually, Francis Ist turned out to be one of France’s best kings.

1776- The first U.S. invasion of Canada is defeated, Benedict Arnold and William Montgomery's colonial army attacks Quebec City in a snowstorm and are repulsed. Montgomery is killed and Arnold takes a bullet severing his thigh bone. Aware of the Puritan New Englanders contempt for Roman Catholics most French Canadians did not rise up as expected to help 'Les Bostonnais', as they called the minutemen.

1788- THE LONDON TIMES is born. Daily newspapers had appeared in Europe in the early 1600s. Publisher John Walters had started a small one sheet in 1785 called the Daily Universal Register. In 1788 he changed the name to the simpler "The Times" and created the format for newspapers around the world for centuries to come. The Walters family ran the newspaper for 125 years and Walters even had to edit it for two years while serving a prison term for libel.

1801- Toussaint L’Overture and Jean-Jacques Dessalines declare the Republic of Haiti, only the second independent republic in the Americas.

1831- William Lloyd Garrison first began publishing his newspaper The Liberator, openly calling for the end to black slavery in the U.S. ‘ I will not Equivocate, I will not Retreat, and I Will Be Heard!”

1850- The TaiPing Rebellion began in China. Hung tsu Tsuan listened to a Christian Missionary. Later he decided he was the son of Jesus Christ come to Earth to right all wrongs. He led millions, until he was crushed by the Manchu Emperor’s foreign led army- the Ever Victorious Army.

1863- Poet Walt Whitman visited Washington D.C., but skipped a chance to meet Abraham Lincoln. Whitman was looking for his brother, and the New Years reception line in front of the White House was just too long to bother. Lincoln is young and there will be plenty of other occasions to meet him....

1876- The first Mummers Parade in Philadelphia. Philadelphia created a fusion of Swedish custom of celebrating New Years with masquerade and noisemaking with a British custom of mummery- reciting doggerel and ribald songs in exchange for cakes and ale. George Washington received mummers when the US capitol was in Philadelphia in 1790. The large Mummers parade that continues to this date began to welcome the US Centennial year in 1876.

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

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

1909- London astronomers say they had detected signs of a planet further out than Neptune, the furthest known planet in our little solar system. The theoretical body was called Planet -X until in 1930 an amateur astronomer named Clyde Tumbaugh found it and named it Pluto.

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

1939-ANOTHER BIRTHDAY OF T.V.. Vladimir Zworkin patented the Iconoscope ( the eye of a TV camera ) and the Kinescope. The television process evolved over 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.

1942-Young French Resistance leader Jean Moulin parachuted back into Nazi-occupied France to unify the scattered resistance groups under DeGaulle.

1942- Because of the fear of a Japanese attack on the California coastline, the Rose Bowl that year was played in North Carolina.

1943- Walt Disney's wartime Donald Duck cartoon- Der Fuehrer's Face, premiered. Working title- Donald Duck in Naziland, it was changed when they decided to include the hit song by comedy band Spike Jones.

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, he was. The driver said Hank was just sleeping it off, and drove on. Williams last song was “I’ll Never get out of this World Alive.”

1959- As Fidel Castro’s guerillas roll into Havana, Cubans celebrate the fall of dictator Fulgensio Batista. Fidel is proclaimed the leader of Cuba.

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

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

1966- An ailing Walt Disney was the Grand Marshal for that years Rose Parade. Standing in the crowd with his mother was a little kid named John Lasseter.

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

1984- By court order, the phone system AT&T also called the Bell System which had dominated telephone communication exclusively since Alexander Graham Bell spilled carbolic acid on his lap, was ordered broken up into 22 regional companies, the Baby Bells. The explosion of telecommunications, portable phones and bigger phone bills result.

1998- Michael Kennedy, a son of Robert F. Kennedy was killed in Aspen Colorado during a freak skiing accident. He was playing ski-football and while handling a video camera he struck a tree.
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For the Trivia Answer look above at 45BC, and have a Happy New Year!

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