This was a weekend of studio Holiday Parties. Saw a lot of old friends and made a number of new ones.


matte painting from the Wizard of Oz-1939

Monday night the Motion Picture Academy Science and Technology Council had a wonderful evening entitled FANTASTIC REALITY: THE MAGIC AND MYSTERY OF MOVIE MATTE PAINTING. It was an all star evening of the greatest living practioners matte painting and art direction. Craig Barron, who himself painted scenes for Empire Strikes, Back, to Batman Returns to Zodiac went through the history of the art from the earliest days to the present with panelists,
Harrison Ellenshaw, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea (1954) Star Wars (1977)
Chris Evans- ET (1982) Dragonslayer( 1981) Jurassic Park (1993) The Ring (2002)
John Knoll Star Wars Phantom Menace (1999), both Pirates of the Caribbean movies and he co-created with his brother a little program you may have heard of called PHOTOSHOP.
Bill Taylor- Effects great since John Carpenter’s Dark Star, and a founder of the Visual Effects Society.
Matthew Yuricich, who since 1950 worked on Forbidden Planet (1956), North By Northwest (1959), Ben Hur (1959) and Close Encounters of the Third Kind(1977)

Harrison Ellenshaw told a great story about how for the movie Spartacus, his father Peter Ellenshaw executed a brilliant establishing shot of Imperial Rome. The temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus atop the Capitoline Hill with bustling crowds in the Forum, all in perfect detail. But the producers worried if the audiences would get it, so they printed over the center of the painting a huge white khyron (title) reading ROME. Ellenshaw was more than annoyed when he saw the final:" Where the heck else do you think it is..?!"

On hand in the audience was Bob Boyle, Alfred Hitchcock’s art director on the Birds (1963) was there and a wonderful display of easels, paints and matte paintings from Spartacus, Forbidden Planet and the Wicked Witch of the West’s Castle in the Wizard of Oz (1939).

Matthew Yuricich told many wonderful anecdotes of the older eccentric department heads at MGM and Selznick. One artist used to wipe his brushes on the bald head of his cameraman, another used to pee in a film can so he didn’t need to take a break. He mentioned on Ben Hur he had to paint his paintings “Squeezed”, meaning he had to take into account that the wide screen lens would stretch out his paintings to football field size. So he painted them by eye, accounting for the distortion.

A lot of top artists from Dreamworks and Disney were there to see their heroes speak.
My compliments to Andy and all the Sci-Tech gang for another great show. It was a fun evening paying tribute to artists who rarely get recognized for their amazing technique. After all, as Harrison Ellenshaw said: “ If someone compliments your paintings, it meant you failed. The best work is invisible.”


Craig Barron wrote a great book called THE INVISIBLE ART richly illustrated with all these great works. A great Xmas present for all the budding filmmakers out there. After uh…. You buy MY book of course…

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Quiz: Did Vikings wear horned helmets?

Answer to yesterday's question below: Hitler’s Germany called itself the Third Reich. What were the first two?

History for 12/11/2007
Birthdays: Sir David Brewster,1781- inventor of the kaleidoscope, Fiorello LaGuardia, Robert Koch, conquerer of tuberculosis, Alexander Solzhenitsin, Carlo Ponti, Gilbert Roland, Big Mama Mabel Thornton, Jean Marais, Jean Louis Tritignant, Tom Hayden, Jermaine Jackson, McCoy Tyner- John Coltrane's pianist, singer Brenda Lee, Rita Moreno, Teri Garr

711AD- death of Byzantine Emperor Justinian II Rhino-Nose.

1785-French artist Jean Baptiste Greuze was well known for making popular paintings of simple scenes like Young Girl Weeping For Her Dead Bird. This day he went to the Paris police prefect and accused his wife Gabriele Babuti of “Persistently receiving lovers into his home over his protests, stealing large sums of his money and trying to batter in his head with a chamber pot.”He was granted a legal separation.

1793- Last July when the French Revolutionary Convention heard of the assassination of their great radical leader Jean Paul Marat one delegate called out “David ! We Need You!” This day Jacques David unveiled his painting THE DEATH OF MARAT for the first time.

1816- Indiana admitted to the union.

1882- The Bijou Theater in Boston presented Gilbert and Sullivan’s Iolanthe in the first show completely illuminated by electric light bulbs.

1926- Josephine Baker performed her banana dance in Amsterdam.

1927- THE LADY VANISHES- 35 year old mystery writer Agatha Christie caused a mystery herself when she disappeared, leaving her car abandoned by a local brook. The search for the body sensationalized the London press, even knocking the death of Eduard Manet off the front page. Sir Arthur Conan-Doyle employed the first use of a police psychic. Finally after a week Mrs Christie turned up at a health spa in Yorkshire. She was depressed when she earned her husband Sir Archibald Christie of the Guards was having an affair with a younger lady. She ran off and registered in the hotel using her younger rivals name as her alias- Mrs Neal.

1929- Frenchman Charles Cros patented a searchlight he declared he would use to signal civilizations on Mars and Venus. Nobody's returned the call yet.

1936- In a dramatic speech broadcast on radio British King Edward VIII abdicated his throne to be with "The Woman I Love" - to marry the American divorcee' Wallace Simpson. He had been king of the British Empire for 325 days. His brother George became George VI, the father of the present Elizabeth II. He and Wallace later became Duke and Duchess of Windsor and lived outside of England for the rest of their lives.
The Nazis had planned after they had conquered England to put Edward back on the throne as a puppet. Edward Windsor never quite dismissed the rumors that he secretly sympathized with Nazis ideology and while governor of Bermuda had many parties and dinners with socialites who were known Nazi intelligence agents. After the Windsors died their French chateau was purchased by Mohammed Al Fayed, the father of Princess Diana’s boyfriend Dodie Al Fayed.

1941- Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy declared war on the United States, honoring their Tripartite axis pact with Japan. Hermann Goering protested to Hitler that the Japanese had so far not been of any help to them, they refused to declare war on Russia. Why invite another mighty foe? Hitler sniffed:’ The Americans will be our enemies eventually, why wait?”

1946- UNICEF formed.

1957- Rock and Roll singer Jerry Lee Lewis secretly married his 13 year old cousin Myra Gail Brown, while still married to his second wife, who he divorced her when the press broke the story the following April. The incident shot down his meteoric career. Great Balls of Fire!

1964- Soul music star Sam Cooke was shot to death in an argument with a lady who ran an L.A. motel he had brought his girlfriend to.( "Darling you send meee...")

1967- The Concorde SST passenger plane is unveiled in Toulouse. It was a joint venture between England and France. The American SST project was scrapped as too expensive.

1968- Just point your browser and click! Dr. Douglas Englehardt invented the computer Mouse.

1970- Walt Disney's the 'Aristocats'.

1978- THE LUFTHANSA HEIST.- Some small time Brooklyn Mafiosi slipped into the Lufthansa cargo terminal at Kennedy Airport and stole $8 million in unmarked bills and jewelry, most from European money exchange booths. As the FBI moved in on the gang it’s members tended to wind up dead, thirteen bodies in all. The money was never recovered and the reputed mastermind Jimmy the Gent Burke died in prison on an unrelated murder charge in 1991. The incident was dramatized in the Martin Scorcese film “Goodfellas”.

1985- A Sacramento computer rental store owner named Hugh Scrutton became the first to get a mail bomb from the Unibomber. MIT advanced mathematics major Ted Kusczynski slowly became mentally unbalanced and blamed rampant technology for ruining the world. His campaign of mailing explosives terrorized the academic world for a decade until he was turned in by his own brother.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Yesterday's question: Hitler’s Germany called itself the Third Reich. What were the first two?

Answer: In 954AD, Otto Von Hohenstaufen was crowned by the Pope Holy Roman Emperor of the German Nation. This loosely knit collection of German elector states was considered the First Reich. By Napoleon's time is existed barely on paper and disappeared in 1807. In 1871 When Wilhelm Ist was crowned Kaiser, that was the Second. That empire collapsed in the German defeat in the Great War in 1918.

Pat and I went to a number of Holiday Parties over the weekend. I noticed I am still asked if I am a member of the coop known as Gang of Seven Animation, or whether my CarTalk Show is being done by Gang of Seven Animation. It is not and I am no longer a partner there. I have not been associated with them since 2006.
-------------------------------------------------------
Quiz: Hitler’s Germany called itself the Third Reich. What were the first two?

answer to yesterdays’question below: For all of you who were In Country, during Vietnam. What does boocoo mean? As in boocoo bucks?

History for 12/10/200 7
Birthdays: English King Edward VII “Bertie”, Emile Dickinson, Chet Huntley, Morton Gould, Victor McLaghlin, Dan Blocker, Tommy Kirk, Fionnula Flanagan, Kenneth Branaugh is 47, Dorothy Lamour, Susan Dey, Michael Clarke Duncan

Happy World Freedom Day. I wish it was.

1041- Byzantine Michael IV the Paphlagonian died. Before his death he had his sickbed moved to the Monastery of Saint Demetrios and changed his golden robes for monks rags and had a tonsure shaved on his head.


1513- Former Florentine politician Niccolo Macciavelli was living in a small town after being thrown out of power and even twisted on a torture rack. Still missing his life in power he declared today to a friend he was writing a book on political theory to present to the Medici duke of Florence. He hoped by doing so he’d be called back to office. It didn’t work but his book THE PRINCE became one of the great works of political philosophy, the handbook of unscrupulous politicians everywhere. Napoleon was defeated at Waterloo British troops found in his tent his personal copy of Macciavelli’s the Prince, folded back and covered with footnotes in pencil.

1607- In Virginia Captain John Smith left the Jamestown camp with two men to find food. They were captured by the Indians who killed the other men and dragged Smith before chief Powhatan. He ordered Smith’s head to be placed on a flat stone and bashed in with a war club. But Powhatan’s favorite daughter Pocahontas threw herself over Smith and protected him. Smith could speak no Algonquin and the Indians no English and neither could sing any Broadway tunes. Was this an execution prevented or a ritual of admission into the tribe? Powhatan was known to extend his rule through dynastic alliances with other tribal leaders, and he was well aware of the white strangers, wiping out a Spanish attempt to land on his beach in 1600. Maybe this was his way of wanting to bring the white mans powers to his side. No one knows for sure. Smith didn’t write of this incident until back in England 14 years later.


1864- Sherman’s army reaches the sea at the Georgia coast near Savannah.

1898- Spain and the U.S. make peace ending the Spanish American War. Secretary of State John Hay who was once Abe Lincoln’s secretary called it “A Splendid Little War.” Critics Mark Twain and Ambrose Bierce called it the Yanko-Spanko War. The United States becomes a global power with colonies in Puerto Rico, Guam, Samoa, and the Philippines. The Philippinos, who were fighting for independence under their leaders like Aquinaldo, suddenly discover they were now American property. The U.S. declared they fought for their freedom from Spain yet never officially recognized their national independence movements. The Philippines gained its full independence in 1946 and the last American base Subic Bay wasn’t removed until the 1990s.

1899- Battle of Magersfontein (more Boer-Woer). Our post-Apartheid opinion of white South Africans was not very high, but in 1899 most of Europe and America sympathized with their isolated stand against the awesome might of the British Empire. The Queen of Holland begged the German Kaiser to help them (the Boers were ethnically Dutch-German). Crowds in Paris and Brussels would jeer the visiting Prince of Wales with the cry "Vive les Boers!" When a delegation of German-Americans ask Vice President Teddy Roosevelt to intervene, Roosevelt replied:" It is right and natural for stronger nations to dominate weaker ones." Britons were hurt and confused by all the anger. They felt it was just because they were top nation, very similar to the way Americans in Red States today are confused by all the hate in the world directed against the US.

1901- The First Nobel Prize is given. Alfred Nobel made millions by inventing dynamite and nitro-glycerine. But as much as his discoveries were used for constructive purposes they also made it possible for armies to blow each other up much more efficiently. He felt guilty and after an accident with the stuff killed his own brother he resolved to create something positive from his fortune. Hence the Nobel Prize. Nobel died on Dec 10th 1896 and the awards are given each year on the anniversary. President Teddy Roosevelt won the first Peace Prize in 1910 for mediating an end to the Russo-Japanese War. In 1950 Dr. Ralph Bunche was the first African-American to receive a Nobel.

1905- O. Henry’s short story “ A gift from the Magi” first published.

1915- President Woodrow Wilson married Edith Bolling Galt in a ceremony in the White House.

1938- To make the film "Gone With the Wind" Producer David Selznick and director Victor Fleming shot the massive "Burning of Atlanta" in Culver City, California. The sequence was storyboarded and designed by William Cameron-Menzies, who designed the sets for Intolerance for D.W. Griffith. Selznick used the opportunity to clean the studios backlot storage, destroying sets from King Kong, Little Lord Fauntelroy and Last of the Mohicans in the inferno. They shot the scenes with three Rhett Butler stand ins.

1941-The Hollywood Victory Committee formed. Top Hollywood agents like Abe Lastfogel, Lou Wasserman and Myron Selznick (David's brother) start signing up movie stars for bond drives and touring shows for the troops.
The committee later created the Hollywood Canteen, a nightclub for servicemen on Ivar near Sunset. A soldier or sailor could come in for a free meal served by Tyrone Power or Red Skelton and have a dance with celebrities like Rita Hayworth or Dina Shore.
One animation painter who worked in the kitchen told me the only celebrity who would stay until closing, even mopping and washing coffee cups was Marlene Deitrich.

1941- The New York Metropolitan Opera announced that in light of the Pearl Harbor attack they were suspending any further performances of Madame Butterfly. Other opera companies also stopped doing Gilbert & Sullivan’s The Mikado.

1948- The United Nations adopts Article XIX, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The committee spending months drafting the resolution was chaired by the American delegate Eleanor Roosevelt . By this act she debuted not just as a former first lady and widow of FDR but as a stateswoman and diplomat in her own right.

1966- The Beach Boys “Good Vibrations” hit #1 in pop charts.

1967- R&B star Otis Redding and four of his band the Bar Kays were killed in a small plane crash near Madison Wisconsin. Redding had recorded his hit “Sitting on the Dock of the Bay” just three days earlier.

1974- Powerful Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee Congressman Wilbur Mills resigned in disgrace after revelations emerged about his being busted by the DC police for getting drunk with a stripper named Fanne Fox and taking her for a 2:00 AM skinny dip in the Tidal Basin near the Jefferson Memorial. Fanne was later christened the “Tidal Basin Bombshell.”

1995- Worst recorded snowstorm in Buffalo, NY history. 37.9 inches in just 24 hours!
---------------------------------------------------------
answer to yesterdays’question below: For all of you who were In Country, during Vietnam. What does boocoo mean? As in boocoo bucks?

Answer: From the Colonial French- beaucoup- very much. Boocoo bucks, a lot of money,

Quiz: For all of you who were In Country, during Vietnam. What does boocoo mean? As in boocoo bucks?

Quiz. Where there ever Liberal Republicans, or lefty Republicans?
-----------------------------------------------
history for 12/9/2007
Birthdays: Sappho, John Milton,Elzie Segar the creator of Popeye, Hermoinie Gingold, Dalton Trumbo, John Cassavettes, Broderick Crawford, Dick Butkus, Kirk Douglas is 91, Red Foxx, Cesar Franck, John Malkovich is 54, Douglas Fairbanks Jr., Buck Henry is 79, Felicity Huffman, Judy Dench,Star Trek’s Mr Worff- 2340 AD

536- The Byzantine legions of General Belisarius captured the city of Rome from the Ostrogoths.

1658- The Dutch occupy the Indian harbor of Quilon-Coilan, beginning the European interference in India that would last until 1947.

1783- First executions began at England’s Newgate Prison, replacing the traditional public hanging, drawing, quartering, branding, beheading place of Tyburn Hill- approximately where London’s Marble Arch is today..

1803- Congress passed the Twelfth Amendment calling for the President and Vice President to be of the same party and defining the order of succession: President-Vice President, Secretary of State. Speaker of the House, Senate Leader Pro-Tem. In 1945 this system was amended once more to exclude the Secretary of State, who is not an elected official. Before this the system was the Vice President was the loser of the presidential election, thus the people’s second choice. But trying to govern with your political enemy standing next to you proved clumsy. Imagine Al Gore standing behind G. W. Bush.

1824- Battle of Ayacucho- Simon Bolivar defeated the last Spanish Army in the Americas.

1825- THE LATIN AMERICAN BUBBLE- The London Stock Exchange crashed over rampant stock speculation in the potential wealth in the new emerging Latin American republics. Financier Nathan Rothschild became a national figure when he lent the Bank of England millions to stay solvent. Thanks to new communications and international investment for the first time the London panic reached across national borders and caused the U.S. Stock Exchange and the Paris Bourse to also crash. This kind of speculation in futures caused the South Sea Bubble in France and the Tulip craze a century earlier. We’ve seen it in our own times with the High Tech Stocks crash of 2001.

1835- First battle of San Antonio de Bexar. Angry Texas citizens forced Mexican General Cos to abandon a post in an old mission called the Alamo and give up a store of valuable cannon. This was the inciting incident that provoked President Santa Anna into attacking the following Spring.

1840- Dr. David Livingstone set sail for Africa to do missionary work. He met Stanley in 1871.

1854- Albert Tennyson's poem "The Charge of the Light Brigade" published.

1861- The first ever government oversight committee formed. The Joint Congressional Committee on the Conduct of the War. It was created because Congressmen were afraid President Lincoln was a naïve hillbilly lawyer who was ruining the country and losing the Civil War. All they succeeded in doing was give Lincoln more stress and at one point they even accused First Lady Mary Todd Lincoln of being a Confederate spy. Hmm.. a congressional committee investigation during wartime….?

1889- The Chicago Auditorium dedicated. The landmark building’s architect Louis Sullivan had hired a new assistant to help with the drawings-Frank Lloyd Wright.

1899- BLACK WEEK-Battle of Stormberg Junction. A series of small battles in which British forces were unexpectedly shot up by Boer guerrillas in South Africa. German and Dutch descendant South Africans were called Boers which meant farmer, the British South Africans were called Uitlanders or outsiders.
The commanding British general Sir Redvers Buller, was considered so slow moving that one wag suggested they periodically hold a mirror up to his nostrils to check for signs of life. He was later replaced with the more energetic Lord Roberts of Kandahar.-“Ol’ Bobs”
The tabloid press back in London played up fears of the defeats from information fed to them by war correspondents like H.G. Wells and young Winston Churchill. This was the era of "jingoisim" or militant national pride.
This term derived from the pub song:
"We don't want a war but by jingo if they do..
" We got the lads, we got the ships, we got the money too..."

1905- Richard Strauss’s opera Salome premiered in Dresden. The lead role demands a soprano with big Wagnerian lungs but also a flat stomach to do the strip tease the Dance of the Seven Veils. When the opera debuted in New York old millionaires like J.P. Morgan were shocked at its’ blatant sexuality. They threatened to cut off funding until Sal and her skimpy veils were pulled from the schedule.

1907- the first Christmas Seals go on sale to fight tuberculosis.

1909- Mary Harris a.k.a. Mother Jones speaks at the Thalia Theater in support of the
"The Strike of the 20,000" Immigrant seamstresses in New York's garment district.
"Every strike I have ever been in has been won by women !"

1917- During World War One Field Marshal Allenby and the British army entered Jerusalem while Lawrence of Arabia and the Arab forces headed for Damascus. To promote harmony between Arabs and Jews Allenby decided to build a huge YMCA in the Old City.

1936- The first cookery show appeared on British television.

1937- In the path of advancing Japanese armies, Chinese Generalissimo Chiang Kai Shek and his government abandoned the capitol Nanking and moved to Chunking.

1946- Damon Runyon died ,the writer whose characters the musical "Guys and Dolls' are based. His philosophy: "All life is six to five against."

1948-Actor Ossie Davis married actress Ruby Dee.

1960- The first episode of Coronation Street premiered on British ITV.

1964-John Coltrane recorded his landmark jazz album “The Love Supreme”. Late on foggy nights Trane liked to take his sax out onto the middle of San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge and practice by himself.

1965- Bill Melendez's "A Charlie Brown Christmas" the first Peanuts animated t.v. special, featuring the music of Vince Guaraldi. Peanut’s creator Charles Schulz had heard Guaraldi's jazz combo perform in San Francisco and when he picked him to do the music. He never scored a film before:" How many yards of music do you want?" Vince Guaraldi died a few years later of the various vices jazzmen were prey to but the t.v. special goes on. A Charlie Brown Christmas has run every year for 40 years.

1967- At a Doors concert lead singer Jim Morrison was sprayed with mace and arrested by Miami police for “lewd behavior” on stage, but probably more for referring to the cops in derogatory terms. Diana of Wales.

1994- Disney Animators in California move into their new Animation building designed by Robert Stern.

1967- Nicholas Ceaucescu became dictator of Communist Romania.

1992-Britains Prime Minister John Major announced the separation of Prince Charles and

1994- The Surgeon-General of the United States, Dr Jocelyn Elders, was forced to step down after her statements that sex education in primary schools include masturbation outraged many conservatives.

2004-Mia Hamm and the stars of the Womens National Soccer Team played their last game, defeating Mexico 5-0. Mia Hamm became a role model of women’s sports in the US. Like hundreds of boys who want to be like Michael Jordan or Joe DiMaggio, now scores of little girls want to be like Mia.
---------------------------------------
Quiz. Where there ever Liberal Republicans, or lefty Republicans?

Answer: The Democrat Party of Jefferson were originally called the Republicans. The party of Lincoln began in 1856 as the lefties of American politics. But success in the Civil War and the martyrdom of Lincoln made them the favorites of the Robber Barons of Guilded Age. And so became the party of the rich. Teddy Roosevelt was a great exception who pioneered conservation, and took the progressive wing out of the party when he formed the Bull Moose Party in 1912. Fiorello LaGuardia was the Republican New York Mayor more friendly with FDR than most Democrats. After the Watergate Scandal when the GOP reorganized themselves around Southern Dixicrats and Sun Belt NeoCons, they imposed order by purging the remains of the Taft and Rockefeller left wing of the party. Connecticut Senator Lowell Weiker , who was a star of the Watergate Era, was defeated by Conservative Democrat Joe Leiberman, with the blessing of the RNC.

Yesterday major media outlets reported that the negotiations between the Writers Guild of America and the major Hollywood Studios (AMPTP) broke down in rancor. Both sides are now claiming the other is the cause of the impasse. Among the many issues unresolved is the argument over whether the WGA has jurisdiction over animation writers.

In 1939 when the Hollywood studio workers signed their first contracts, animation writing was done on the storyboards. Storymen like Cal Howard, Bill Peet, Mike Maltese, Joe Barbera drew while they wrote and a script was created after the fact for the voice actors. So that year when the National Labor Relations Board was chartering the guidelines for the industry, they awarded the Screen Cartoonists Guild the right to represent all facets of animated cartoon making from writing to finished art. Only camera, editing, music, track and sound engineers were in separate locals. And all came under the aegis of the International Alliance of Theatrical and Screen Engineers, the IATSE. They represent all the Hollywood backstage, except what are called the Glamour Guilds- WGA, DGA, and SAG/AFTRA.

Animation writers are still represented by the Cartoonists Local 839 to this day. Later in 1960's non-artist writers began to create scripts for TV shows and by the late 1980's with movies like Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, American Tale and the Simpsons, scripts done by big time screenwriters became the norm. When animation began to make serious money from these successes, writers began to complain that they wanted to be part of their WGA with it's better benefits and increased residual package. Any residuals earned in the animation union does not go to the individuals, but into the IATSE health insurance package.

Meantime the studios have been making big profits from DVD sales and new media downloads. Writers and Actors have shared as little as four cents on the dollar for any of these lucrative outlets. Management says it's all still too new to be seen as profitable.

When the membership of the WGA voted in President Patrick Verrone and an activist executive board by a landslide, the message was clear that they wanted a showdown with the producers. A number of the WGA board including Verrone worked in animation ( he was a Futurama writer, I believe). Dreamworks Animation studio owner Jeffrey Katzenberg heads the management negotiating team.

I hope something can be worked out for animation writers also. Speaking as someone who has been in negotiations like this before, I think the animation demand is still on the table only because of the intransigence of the employers to budge on the bigger issues like the internet and new media. To resolve the animation jurisdiction the IATSE would have to be brought in the talks. And they are not likely to give up a jurisdiction for nothing. So there is the problem. I am not sure that the animation issue is the chief stumbling block to a deal, but I am not there in person.

From a distance, I admire the unity of the striking writers. Can you imagine a more solitary and individual job like writing? Yet there they are, shoulder to shoulder, rich celeb show-runners, pool writers for big talk shows, and poor unemployables, all together in the streets. Risking it all for a common purpose. It shows us animators how when we stick together instead of going for ourselves alone, we could shake Hollywood too.

So, here we are. Suffice it to say that what goes on in the negotiation room, and what information is leaked to the public are two very different animals. Both sides immediately puts their spin on the details. But it doesn't sound good for a deal before the New Year. I'm hearing the strike is expected to last until April. It's going to be lean times for Tinseltown in the New Year.

Quiz. Where there ever Liberal Republicans, or lefty Republicans?

Yesterday’s Question answered below: What is the origin of the term- A White Elephant?
_________________________________________
History for 12/8/2007
Birthdays: Horace 65BC,Mary Queen of Scots, King Gustavus Adolphus, Queen Christina Vasa of Sweden 1623, Jean Sibelius, George Melies the father of Motion Picture Special Effects, James Thurber, Eli Whitney, Jim Morrison, Diego Rivera, Emile Reynaud, Sammy Davis Jr, Maximillian Schell, Flip Wilson, Tim Foli, Sam Kinison, Teri Hatcher is 43, Sinead O’Connor is 41, Kim Basinger is 54

1660- Margaret Hughes played Desdemona in Shakespeares’ Othello in London. She was the first woman to appear on an English stage. All during the Elizabethan era boys substituted for women on stage.

1793- MADAME DUBARRY GUILLOTINED. During the French Revolution this day the old kings mistress Madame DuBarry was guillotined. She was originally of humble birth but lived in grand style and was very arrogant. She once dumped the contents of a chamber pot out of a palace window onto Princess Marie Antoinette for a laugh. "Garde du Lou!" Now on her way to the blade she screamed and wept aloud:" Save me good people, for I am one of you!" It didn't help, the executioner hurried his task to shut her up to the laughter of the crowd. Her last words were "Just one more minute, executioner!" Her husband the Comte’ du Barry had not seen her since the day they were married in 1769 for the convenience of the King. Now upon learning the news of his wife’s death he immediately married his mistress.

1813- Ludwig Van Meets Pop Culture. The most well received of all the musical pieces of Ludwig Van Beethoven was not his 5th Symphony or Moonlight Sonata, but a silly piece called the Overture to Wellington’s Victory which premiered this day in Vienna. A calliope designer named Wilhelm Deitzel commissioned the piece to show off his music machines that could recreate orchestra sounds. The music celebrated Wellington’s great victory in Spain over Napoleon’s forces by writing cannon shots and musket volleys into the music score. The overture made Beethoven much more money and popularity than his Seventh Symphony which debuted at the same concert.

1868- According to Jules Verne’s novel Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, tonight is the night Captain Nemo’s fantastic submarine the Nautilus attacked and sank a US warship and captured Professor Aronax and harpooner Ned Land.

1881- RINGSTRASSE THEATER FIRE IN VIENNA Two hundred people were killed when fire broke out during a performance of Offenbach's "Duchess du Gerolstein". Composer Richard Wagner commenting on the tragedy said;"When I hear of a coal mine explosion I'm sickened that men must burrow and die in the bowels of the earth just so we can have lights; but when I hear that people died because they were listening to an Offenbach operetta, I can't help think they got what they deserved !"

1886-The American Federation of Labor (AFL) formed. The first president was former cigar maker Samuel Gompers.

1913- ground broken for the construction of San Francisco’s Palace of Fine Arts.

1891- George O'Brien invented the electric tattooing needle, making modern tattooing possible.

1940- Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo remarry. The two great Mexican artists had been married for ten years but divorced for a year because of their mutual infidelities. Diego also wanted to protect Frida from fallout from his political activities. But after a year apart that decided they couldn’t live without one another and remarried.

1941-DAY OF INFAMY Aftermath- On the day after the Pearl Harbor sneak attack, President Roosevelt did his famous "Day of Infamy" speech. Congress voted almost unanimously to declare war on Japan. Interestingly enough the U.S. did not declare war on Germany along with Japan. Germany and Italy declared war on the U.S. four days later. The only vote against the war was Montana Congresswoman Jeanette Rankin, who had voted against the First World War also in 1917. With the American Fleet sunk or scattered the US Pacific Coast braced for Japanese attack. In California Fourth interceptor Command reported two formations of enemy planes flying from San Francisco to Los Angeles. They turned out to be seagulls. Another panicky report of an approaching Japanese task force turned out to be Monterrey tuna boats. Blackouts began, as did mass arrests of Japanese-Americans. In Hollywood the Paramount Studio baseball team was allowed to finish it's game with the L.A. Nippons 6-3, after which the FBI arrested the entire team. The civil defense command placed anti-aircraft guns on the Walt Disney Studio lot because of it's proximity to the aircraft plant of Lockheed. Walt Disney himself was turned away at the gate for not wearing his identity badge.

1941- Russian immigrant inventor Igor Sikorsky invented the first practical Helicopter.
They were developed too late for World War Two but the "egg-beaters" or "flying windmills" played an important role in the Korean conflict and Vietnam.

1953- The Atoms for Peace Speech. President Eisenhower proposed to the United Nations that nuclear power be developed for peaceful purposes, and not just for bombs. The world builds civilian nuclear power plants, then makes bombs with them.

1958- THIS IS JAZZ- Landmark live CBS television broadcast of jazz greats Billie Holiday, Count Basie, Lester Young , Coleman Hawkins and Thelonius Monk .

1961-"Surfin’" the first record by the Beach Boys started to climb the local LA pop charts.

1963- Frank Sinatra Jr was kidnapped in Lake Tahoe. After four tense days he was released unharmed, partly because he was part of the plot. Dad was not amused.

1980- The Bravo Channel began. Remember when it played only classical concerts, operas and ballets ?

1980- JOHN LENNON SHOT. . As he went in to his apartment building the Dakota in New York City Beatle-Composer John Lennon was stopped by a fan named Mark David Chapman for an autograph. A few hours later Lennon emerged from the building on another errand. Chapman was still there, except this time he pulled out a gun and shot Lennon dead. John Lennon was 40. The area of Central Park across from the apartment was dedicated to him as Strawberry Fields. The National Enquirer tabloid demonstrated it’s sensitivity by publishing on the front page the only photo taken of Lennon in his coffin. The photo was taken by a cousin of Lennon who wanted to make a few extra bucks.
______________________________________________________
Yesterdays’ Question: What is the origin of the term- A White Elephant?

Answer: In the nations of Siam, Burma and Cambodia the White elephant was considered sacred because of their association with the birth of the Buddha. But when the King gave a white elephant to a courtier, it proved both a blessing and a curse. It was extremely expensive to take care of and house, but because it was sacred it could do no work. So today a white elephant denotes something that is very big and expensive but useless.