I have known Lou Scarborough since he and Dan Haskett dropped in to visit my animation class at the High School of Art & Design in 1971.

Lou is a great animator and designer who is finally getting his stuff up on the blogoshere. Check it out. http://www.scarboropolis.blogspot.com
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Question: Why is a necktie sometimes called a cravat?

Yesterdays Question answered below: What is the origin of the phrase- “At the drop of a hat”?
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History for 6/16/2008
Birthdays: Stan Laurel, Willy Boskovsky, Joyce Carol Oates, Nelson Doubleday, Brian Eno, animator Pete Burness, Martha Graham, Erich Segal, Jack Albertson, Helen Traubel, Ron LeFlore, Laurie Metcalf, Sonia Braga, Yasmine Bleeth, John Cho- Harold of Harold and Kumar, is 36

391 A.D.- Roman Emperor Theodosius Ist sent the Praefect of Egypt orders to close the pagan temples and forbid the any further practice of the worship of Isis, Serapis and Amon-Ra. It was Theodosius' policy to purge the now Christian Empire of the last vestiges of the old pagan religions. Theodosius closed Plato's Academy, silenced the Oracle of Delphi, burned the Sybilline Books and stopped the Olympic Games. Acting on the Imperial nod St. Cyrus of Alexandria whips up a mob of zealots that destroyed the Serapeum and Library of Alexandria, killing the last true Greek philosopher, the lady Hypatia. She was stripped and torn to pieces between the mob's frenzied Hosannas. Theodosius ordered the Senate to stop doing a sacrifice to Mars the Avenger before each session. One bitter Roman historian noted that Rome fell to the Barbarians not twenty years later –410 AD. This ceremony has a descendant -the US Congress always opens it daily session with a religious benediction.

1549- Catherine de Medici entered Paris as the bride of King Henry II of France. Many French noblemen objected to the “That Florentine shopkeepers daughter and her gang of corrupt Italians” but she dominated French politics for decades the way Elizabeth Ist dominated England. She inspired the Saint Batholemew’s Day Massacre which is why there are few French Protestants today. She also brought a brilliant retinue of Italian cooks using new foods like artichokes and parsley. Modern scholars say Catherines influences helped French cuisine break out of the medieval rut of burned meat covered with heavy fruit sauces and begin it’s ascendancy to Haute Cuisine.

1657- First recorded mention in London of chocolate for sale. Cocoa or Tchocoaltl was served to Hernando Cortez by Montezuma in 1517 but it was pretty bitter stuff. The Maya also gave Europeans the first Vanilla beans. They tamed Chocolate with sugar and kept the formula a secret for 100 years. The Dutch figured it out and added milk for Milk Chocolate and Sir John Sloan the British chemist invented a formula as well.

1857-WAR OF THE POLICE DEPARTMENTS-One of the strangest incidents in law enforcement history. The New York City Police Dept. under Mayor Fernando Wood was so unbelievably corrupt that Governor Samuel Tilden built a second police force called the Metropolitan Police Force and ordered it to take over the city and arrest the Mayor. They were stopped on the steps of City Hall by the original NYPD and a fight broke out. While citizens and criminals alike looked on in amazement as hundreds of blue-coated policemen clubbed, battered and shot each other in the street. Washington D.C. negotiated a settlement that if the state police force would disband Mayor Wood would resign. He ran for mayor again and was elected 5 years later in time to start the New York City Draft Riots of 1863.

1884 - On Coney Island Amusement Pier the Switchback Railway, the first roller coaster began operating.

1902- A musical play of L Frank Baum’s fantasy story the Wizard of Oz premiered at Chicago’s Grand Opera House. When Baum was writing down the stories at point he was stuck for a name for the magical kingdom. He looked down at his desk files that were labeled A-N and O-Z. Eureka!

1903 – The Pepsi Cola company forms.

1904- "Blume's Day" all the actions in James Joyce's "Ulysses" takes place on this one day in Dublin. This day Dubliners dress up as characters from the book and do readings.

1920- International Telephone and Telegraph incorporates- ITT.

1932- Broadway star Mae West heads for Hollywood to make movies.

1933-Franklin Roosevelt signs the National Recovery Act (NRA) and the Glass-Steagel Act, which orders big banks to separate commercial bond business from private savings and loans. This way big banks that ruined themselves in the Stock Market Crash couldn’t destroy the savings of average people who never saw a stock or bond. A heavy publicity campaign encouraged Americans to rally under the blue eagle symbol of the NRA. The NRA was struck down as unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in 1937 but Glass-Steagel stayed in effect, much to the chagrin of banking corporations. It was finally rescinded by supposedly liberal President Bill Clinton in 1999.

1939- Bandleader Chick Webb died at age 30. Webb was an unlikely pop star, a hunchbacked, tuberculant dwarf who played drums, but his band the Chick Webb Orchestra pioneered the new Jazz form called Swing Music and inspired the Big Band Sound. One of Webb’s last actions before succumbing to his debilitating health problems was to make a star out of 19-year-old street singer named Ella Fitzgerald.



1943-54 year old actor Charlie Chaplin married his fourth wife, 18 year old Oona O’Neill. In Hollywood Chaplin’s nickname was “Chickenhawk Charlie” for his fondness for dates of barely legal age. Oona did stay his wife until he died in 1977.

1947 –The 1st regular broadcast network news show began-Dumont's "News from Washington".

1952- The CBS television comedy My Little Margie premiered. It starred Gale Storm and Charles Farrell.

1959- Actor George Reeves, who played the first television Superman, went upstairs during a dinner party and shot himself with a German Luger pistol. It was said his show was cancelled and he was in despair. Actor Gig Young, who was a friend of Reeves, said the actor 's career was going fine, and he was getting his first opportunities to direct. He never believed the actor would shoot himself. Gig Young shot himself in 1981. Many of Reeves friends also wonder if it was a suicide because Reeves had been dating a socialite named Toni Mannix who’s husband MGM Production exec Eddie Mannix could call upon mob connections. The bullet entrance wound didn’t have the customary powder burns of a suicide and there were other bullet holes in the floor and ceiling. Also the gun in Reeves hands had been wiped clean of fingerprints.



1961- Alfred Hitchcock's thriller "Psycho" premiered.

1963- Valentina Tereschkova was the first woman to go into space.

1966-YOU HAVE THE RIGHT TO REMAIN SILENT… The Supreme Court handed down the ruling Miranda vs. Arizona, overturning the conviction of an Ernesto Miranda, who was jailed after he was tricked into confessing an assault of a Phoenix woman. This ruling established the famous Miranda Rights, read to every suspect upon arrest. Ernesto Miranda was retired and convicted again and was stabbed in a bar fight in 1972.

1967- The film “The Dirty Dozen” debuted.

1987- Italian porno star Ciccolina announced that since all politicians were whores and she was a whore she would run for office. This made sense to Italians who this day elected her overwhelmingly to a seat in Parliament.
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Yesterdays Question: What is the origin of the phrase- “At the drop of a hat”?

Answer: In the Old West, horse races and prize fights were started by someone waving their hat, usually from a raised high position, then dropped down. So being ready to go at the drop of a hat means ready at a moments notice.

Question: What is the origin of the phrase- “At the drop of a hat”?

Yesterday’s Question answered below: Who was the first cartoon character to appear on television ?
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History for 6/15/2008
Birthdays: Edward the Black Prince of England, Rachael Donelson Jackson- Andy Jackson’s First Lady, Edvard Grieg, Saul Steinburg, Mario Cuomo, Jim Varney, Wade Boggs, Waylon Jennings, Xaviera Hollander the Happy Hooker, Jim Belushi, Ice Cube, Courtenay Cox, Helen Hunt

Happy St. Vitas Day ! "If St. Vitas Day be rainy weather, twill rain for thirty days together."St. Vitus was the patron of epilepsy, and some extreme forms of spasmic seizure (chorea) was called "St. Vitus Dance".

1215- The MAGNA CARTA or the Great Charter SIGNED. On the field of Runymede the rebellious English barons force King John Lackland ( also called John Soft Sword, John the Total Loser, etc. ) to sign a document granting basic rights such as trial by a jury of peers, Habeas Corpus, etc. It basically said for the first time that even a King was not above the law of the land.
After King John agreed he crossed the Channel where he paid off the Pope to absolve him of his oath and then he returned with an army of mercenaries to beat up the barons. Even though he hired such toughs as Victor the Villain and Mauger the Murderer, King John still lost and the Magna Carta became the basis of English Law.
John wasn’t a totally terrible king. He built the first British navy yards at Portsmouth and Southhampton and unlike his older brother Richard Lionheart, John actually preferred speaking English over Norman French.

1300- Poet Dante Alighieri got a job as one of the governing priors of Florence, sort of a city council. We don’t know if it says something about his abilities at municipal governing but he was exiled in 1302.

1775 - The Continental Congress appointed Mr. George Washington, Esq. of Virginia to be commanding general of the new colonial army forming around Boston. John Adams urged Congress to pick a southerner to command the mostly New Englander farmers in the interest of colonial unity. The fact that he was one of the richest men in America didn't hurt either. Plus the 6 foot 2 inch tall plantation owner dropped subtle hints he was interested in the job, like being the only delegate to attend meetings squeezed into his 20 year old militia uniform. They afterwards bought him dinner at Peg Mullen's Beefsteak House. During the meal he turned to Patrick Henry and said with the appropriate 18th Century modesty: " From the date I enter into command of America's Armies I date the fall and ruin of my reputation!"

1776- William Franklin, the pro-British governor of New Jersey is arrested by the Yankee rebels and thrown into a dungeon. He was the illegitimate son of Benjamin Franklin and his cook Deborah Regan, whom Franklin had married out of sympathy for the boy. William had assisted his dad with his flying kite experiment years ago. The New Jersey delegates told Dr. Franklin while the Independence Declaration was being debated and he was 'unmoved'. Truth be told the two men couldn't stand one another. They said they reconciled after the Revolution but that may have been more for public record than reality. When he died Ben Franklin did not leave his son a penny in his will, bitterly stating it's only what William would have left him had the positions been reversed.

1800- US Congress ordered the disbanding of the US Army as a waste of money.

1815-THE WATERLOO BALL- In Brussels Belgium, the Duchess of Richmond hosts a ball for the officers of Wellington’s army before they go to stop Napoleon. Many of the dancers will be dead at Waterloo three days later. The event is dramatized in "Vanity Fair" and" Becky Sharp." While this ball is taking place Napoleon crossed his army into Belgium and placed it inbetween the British and Prussians on the road to Brussels. Napoleon correctly guessed it would take some time for the enemy nations like Russia and Austria to mobilize armies (their target date was July 17) so instead of waiting for the inevitable invasion of France he would attack first, win a big victory then hopefully negotiate a peace from strength.

1844- Mr. Charles Goodyear invents the vulcanization process, that keeps rubber from getting sticky in warm weather and brittle in the cold.

1849-Three months after leaving office President James K. Polk died. The President who fought the War with Mexico to get California and the southwest was a lifelong teetotaler and died of cholera from drinking tainted water. Sam Houston, who was one of the great alcoholic opium addicts of American history, said of Polk's death: " It’s the natural end of all Water-Drinkers!"

1888 -Kaiser Wilhelm II becomes leader of Germany after the death of his father Frederich III, who died of throat cancer after reigning only 100 days. Kaiser Frederich was mild, liberal and had an English wife. He hated German powermongers and abhorred the cruel reputation Germany was getting for militarism. He was determined to alter these policies. The modern world would have been amazingly different had Frederich lived to see 1914 as Kaiser instead of his emotionally disturbed son " Willy ". The first thing Wilhelm did was have troops break into his mother's office and seize some confidential papers in her desk. He and his mother were hardly on speaking terms and he referred to her as "That English Princess who is my mother.." Once when Wilhelm had a nosebleed he refused to stop it because" Now maybe all the English blood will drain out of me !"


1938-Tha Fair Labor Standards Act passed.

1945- Judy Garland married director Vincente Minelli.

1951- Comedian Lenny Bruce married a stripper named Honey Stuart.

1955- DUCK & COVER. The US Government held Operation OPAL, the first nationwide Civil Defense alert drills. Not only did millions of school children have to jump under their desks to avoid imaginary Russian nukes but plans were made for commandos to grab the President, Congressional leaders, Supreme Court and even grab the Declaration of Independence and other valuable documents and whisk them out of endangered Washington D.C. to bunkers in the Blue Ridge Mountains. Top Russian officials said they learned a great deal about US intentions from observing these silly drills. President Eisenhower got a good laugh when the motorcade speeding him through the Virginia countryside was blocked by a heard of pigs. “Well, I guess that means we’re all dead boys!” The president joked.

1969- The country music comedy TV show Hee-Haw premiered as a summer replacement for the Smothers Brothers Hour. Hee Haw ran for two years with high ratings but CBS cancelled the show anyway. This was because CBS chief Bill Paley disliked country music and CBS had so many shows like Mayberry RFD, Beverly Hillbillys and Hee Haw that insiders joked that CBS stood for the Country Broadcasting System. Hee Haw had the last laugh, going on to a successful syndication run until 1997.

1977- Everybody Disco! KC and the Sunshine band release “I’m your Boogie Man”.

1999- In San Diego, Nicholas Vitalich was arrested for slapping his wife with a large tuna.

2002- Mick Jagger of the Rolling Stones was knighted.
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Yesterday’s Question: Who was the first cartoon character to appear on television?

Answer: In 1928, RCA Studios first televised image was of a Felix the Cat doll.

Congrads to my friend, actor CORNELL WOMACK, who is featured in the new M. Knight Shamylan film The HAPPENING! Ooh..scary! Oohh! Cornell also does a voice in Click & Clacks' As the Wrench Turns. Ooh..funny... ohh!

I'm told the first clips from Click & Clack are going up on You-Tube today!

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Question: Who was the first cartoon character to appear on television ?

Yesterday’s Question answered below: Sometimes people describe some controversy as a lot of Sturm Und Drang. What does that mean?
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History for 6/14/2008
Birthdays: Tomaso Albinioni, Senator Fighting Bob LaFollette,, Margaret Bourke-White, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Sam Wanamaker, Dorothy McGuire, Burle Ives, Gene Barry, Jerzy Kosinski, Marla Gibbs

1645- Battle of Naseby- Oliver Cromwell's New Model Army defeated King Charles Ist's army in the decisive battle of the English Civil War. After this the King never again could put a large army in the field. Charles Ist had as one of his generals his German nephew Prince Rupert of the Rhine. Rupert rode into battle with a white poodle under his arm named Bobbie. He made insensitive declarations like: "We will strew the field with English dead !" Considering it was a civil war, that fact seemed unavoidable.

1727- George II of England told by Sir Robert Walpole that his august father George Ist had died and he was now king. George thought it was one of his dad's cruel jokes and said" Dat ist von big lie!"( they had German accents remember). He always resented his dad’s cruel treatment of his mom like having her lover murdered while he himself kept a regular mistress. George Ist didn’t trust his English subjects and was always homesick for his birthplace in Hanover Germany. He was always visiting. So when he died and was buried over there truth be said nobody in England really missed him. While his grandson King George III’s death was cause for national mourning, George I’s death was only casually mentioned in the society newspapers.

Happy Flag Day -in 1777 The Continental Congress orders the Stars and Stripes flag to replace the Cambridge Flag (The Tree and Stripes) and the Snake and Stripes and all those other things silly things and stripes as the U.S. Flag.

1816- Writers Shelley, Lord Byron and Mary Shelley were spending the summer at the Villa Deodati on Lake Geneva. This day among the revels, drinking, partner swapping and opium taking Byron suggested they all write a ghost story. They all tried but failed except for 19 year old Mary who invented the tale of a Swiss scientist who created an artificial man. She called it Frankenstein.

1822- Charles Babbage presented a paper to the Royal Astronomical Society in London proposing to build a "Difference Engine" a machine that could calculate equations and print the results-i.e. a computer. His early machine required 8,000 moving parts. After ten years and a small fortune it never quite comes off.

1865- A group of Englishmen climb the Materhorn Mountain in Switzerland, inventing the sport of mountain climbing. Why? Because it’s there.

1940- The German Army goose-stepped down the Champs Elysees into Paris. The Nazi propaganda that night broadcast from Berlin declared" The decadent, democratic Paris of Jews and Negroes is gone, never to rise again!!" Not quite, Adolph.

1941- President Roosevelt ordered all German and Italian assets in the U.S. frozen.

1951- Univac I, built by Dr John W, Mauchly and J. Prosper Eckert Jr. of the Remington Rand Company to be the first commercial built electronic computer, went on line for the census bureau in Philadelphia.

1964- THE FIRST HIPPY BUS- Ken Kesey, the author of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, bought an old school bus, painted it psychadelic colors, took of troupe of 14 fellow free spirits called the Merry Pranksters and spent the next few months driving across the country taking LSD and staging Happenings in various cities and towns. The Bus’s name was Further and it’s driver was Neil Cassidy, friend of Beatnik author Jack Kerouac. A book documenting the escapades of the "hippy bus" was "The Electric Koolaid Acid Test.". Kesey became interested in LSD when he volunteered for a college program to experiment with the drug, secretly funded by the CIA. The Merry Pranksters were invited in 1969 to be the security for the Woodstock Rock Festival.


1983- The Pioneer 10 space probe left it’s orbit around Jupiter and headed off into deep space. NASA lost all contact in 1997. Pioneer 10 is expected to reach the solar system of the star Ross 246 in the Constellation Taurus in the year 34,600 AD. Oh Boy, I can’t wait!

1989- Retired actress Zsa Zsa Gabor was arrested for slapping a Beverly Hills policeman who was writing her a traffic ticket.

1995, HAPPY BIRTHDAY MP3. The researchers at Fraunhofer Institute for Integrated Circuits IIS decided to use ".mp3" as the file name extension for their new audio coding technology. Development on this technology started in 1987. By 1992 it was considered far ahead of its times. MP3 became the generally accepted acronym as the popular standard for digital music on the on the Internet."

2001- The Oxford English Dictionary admitted the slang expletive of Homer Simpson "DOH!" into its august pages.

2002- An asteroid the size of a football field bypassed the Earth by just 75,000 miles, about one fifth the distance to our moon. If it had hit us, the cataclysm might have rivaled the one that eliminated the Dinosaurs. Little was said about it in the media because it came from the direction of the Sun and was undetectable until almost on top of us. So sleep well tonight, modern science is on guard! Nyaaahhhh!!
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Yesterday’s Question: Sometimes people describe some controversy as a lot of Sturm Und Drang. What does that mean?

Answer: It was a German cultural movement that led into the revolutionary period and romanticism. It literally means Storm and Stress, It’s about strong dramatic emotion in the works of Schiller, Goethe, Beethoven and Schubert. Today Sturm Und Drang means over the top melodrama, a lot of fuss over not much.

In today's mail I just got my first piece of junk-mail about the 2009 Oscars...

Amazing.

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We attended a nice event at a 1926 vintage theater in Hollywood to say goodbye to our friend Robert Nudelman.

As I mentioned in previous posts, Robert was a foot soldier in the cause of preserving the antique heritage of Hollywood. Because of his energy and efforts on behalf of Hollywood Heritage, many buildings were saved that otherwise would be more Footlockers or Starbucks. The list of buildings he helped preserve is too big to all be listed here. But they include the El Capitan Theater, Grauman's Chinese, and Egyptian, the Palladium and the Cinerama Dome. Robert even fought the Kennedy family to protect the old Ambassador Hotel where RFK was killed, from being demolished for a new high school. That last fight he lost, but not for lack of trying.

The theater was packed, and a statement was read from LA's Mayor and several politicos. One thing that impressed us was among the people paying tribute to his memory were three developers, the very kind of people Robert would lock horns with.

Robert's remains will be in Hollywood Forever Cemetery, near where Cecil B. DeMille, D.W. Griffith and Mel Blanc sleep. And part of the forecourt of Grauman's Egyptian Theater will be named the Robert Nudelman Square.

Now, those of you who didn't know him, Robert does not exactly cut a heroic figure at first glance. But in a town famous for being self-interested, Robert worked for something greater than himself, and that was special. I never quite knew what he did for a living, I just knew what an impact he had on all of us.

Robert Nudelman is proof of what one person who gives a damn can accomplish.


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Question: Sometimes people describe some controversy as a lot of Sturm Und Drang. What does that mean?

Yesterday’s Quiz answered below: Who invented television?
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History for 6/13/2008
Birthdays: Gnaeus Agricola-40AD, Harriet Beecher Stowe, W.B.Yeats, Red Grange, Basil Rathbone, Dorothy Sayers, Ralph Edwards, Paul Lynde, Tim Allen, Darla Hood, Malcom McDowell, Ally Sheedy, Simon Callow, Joe Roth, Christo

313 A.D. Constantine, the Roman Emperor of the West and Licinius his colleague the Emperor of the East published a joint edict throughout the Roman Empire granting religious toleration : "All men to worship what Gods they will." This edict lifts the 250 year persecution of Christianity. Constantine later knocked off Licinius and became sole Emperor.

1777- General “Gentleman Johnny” Burgoyne began his invasion down from Canada into New York State to smash the American Revolution. The Hudson was considered by England the jugular of America because it divided militant New England from the moderate Mid-Atlantic and Southern States. Before Burgoyne left London he had wagered politician Charles Fox 20 guineas that he would finish off the Yankees by Christmas. Burgoyne immediately annoyed senior British officers in America. He refused orders from Canadian Governor General Carleton. He declared that his was an independent command and so could not be ordered about by anyone but London. By October, defeated and surrounded by hordes of rebel soldiers at Saratoga he got a letter out to Carleton “requesting instructions”. Carleton understood a lame attempt to shift the blame, so he ignored him, as did Lord Howe in Pennsylvania and General Clinton in New York. Burgoyne surrendered and was exchanged. He did get home by Christmas, just without his army...

1920-The US Government rules Americans cannot mail their children through the Parcel Post System.

1927- Wall St. tickertape parade for Lucky Lindy- Charles Lindbergh.

1941-The American Federation of Labor the AF of L called for a nationwide boycott of all Disney products and films. This was to support the Disney Cartoonists strike.

1942- President Roosevelt by executive order created the Office of Strategic Services or the OSS. Under director Wild Bill Donovan its job was to coordinate espionage and intelligence gathering against the Axis powers in cooperation with its British counterpart , the SOE. On the agencies personnel roster were experts from spymasters Bill Gates and William Casey to tourist book author Eugene Fodor and chef Julia Child. Child recalled the outfit was nicknamed “Oh So Secret!” and “Oh, So-Social” for all the society notables in it. After World War Two the OSS transformed into the CIA.

1944- The first Vengence-1( V-1) Buzz Bombs hit London. The first 21 launched missed most targets and one even spun around and landed near Hitler's western headquarters. This is when the auto-destruct button was conceived. Of the ones that hit England the worst damage was to Bethnel Green tube station. Unlike bombers these rockets were almost impossible to shoot down. By wars end 1,800 would hit London along with 5,000 V-2s and drive a lot of the population into the countryside.

1958- rock & roll great Frank Zappa graduated Antelope Valley High School.

1962- Three convicts, Frank Lee Morris, and the brothers Anglin, escape from Alcatraz with a crude rowboat. They are the only prisoners to have successfully escaped from the Rock. Alcatraz was closed by attorney general Robert Kennedy later that year.

1967- President Lyndon Johnson appointed Thurgood Marshal to the Supreme Court. Marshal was the first African American to sit in the nations highest court and as an attorney successfully pled the 1955 case Brown vs. Board of Education that struck down school segregation.

1978- Henry Ford II fired Lee Iacocca from the Ford Corporation. The creator of the Ford Mustang would later move on to run Chrysler. When asked why Ford said: “Sometimes you just don’t like somebody.”

1991- Boris Yeltsin becomes the first popularly elected leader of Russia.

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Yesterday’s Quiz: Who invented television?

Answer: There is no one single Thomas Edison like inventor of television. Books have been written about just who was the most important. Some say Philo Farnsworth who invented scan lines, Englishmen say John Logie Baird or Edwin Belle, also Lee Deforrest the radio pioneer, or Vladmir Zworkin who invented the cathode ray tube. Although no one is positive who is the final winner, all admit the invention was somewhere in the mid- 1920s. The Depression and World War Two prevented TV from spreading into people’s homes until the late 1940s.