I just got a wonderful letter from a person in Paris, France. With his permission, I want to share it with you.

Dear Tom Sito,

I got your email address through my good friend Didier Ghez with whom I have shared my passion for Disney and animation in general for many years.

I have just finished reading your book, Drawing the Line, and I wanted, not only to congratulate you for it but also to thank you for having opened a whole new field regarding the history of animation. I had always heard only one side of the (in)famous 1941 strike and thought that unionism had had dire consequences for Disney and that, after it, it was never the same. Of course, it was never the same but that was not the strikers' only fault.

As you wrote in your conclusion: "I don't think you can truly understand the evolution of the American animated film without knowing the story of the animated union. [...] I think Herb Sorrell, Bill Littlejohn and Moe Gollub had just as big an impact on the animation industry as Walt Disney and Chuck Jones". How true. And how necessary it was to - at last - present a empathic view of those who dared challenge the big studios and the big bosses.

I do not have lesser respect for Walt Disney (and other animation geniuses) but I gained a greater respect for the animators and artists and technicians who just wanted to be, in Shamus Culhane's words, "somebody".

Thanks again

Cordialement,
Sébastien D.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Birthdays: Steve McQueen, Ferlingetti , Ub Iwerks (the first Disney animator), John Wesley Powell, Harry Houdini aka Eric Weiss, Edward Weston, Roscoe Fatty Arbuckle, Clyde Barrow of Bonnie & Clyde, Bob Mackie, Robert Carradine, Laura Flynn-Boyle, Alyson Hannigan, animator Joe Barbera

1912- Sir Arthur Conan-Doyles adventure novel The Lost World, first published in magazine installments. It set the standard for all the Land-of-the-Dinosaurs stories.

1934-The Major Bowes Original Amateur Hour debuted on radio. It became a national craze to see who could be a future star. Frank Sinatra was among their finds. The show eventually moved to television and later spawned the Ted Mack Amateur Hour, Chuck Barris the Gong Show, Star Search and American Idol.

1939- The film the Hound of the Baskervilles premiered with actors Basil Rathbone as Sherlock Holmes and Nigel Bruce as Dr. Watson . They became the most famous interpreters of the characters and went on to make a dozen more films.

1943 - The first Japanese anime’ feature "Momotaro's Sea Eagles" premiered.

1955- Tennessee William's "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" debuts at Broadway's Marosco Theater. Barbera Bel-Geddes was the first Cat and Burl Ives was " Big Daddy".

1958- Elvis Presley inducted into the Army.- G.I. Blues!

1962- No one had been a more loyal supporter of President John F. Kennedy than Frank Sinatra. The singer got his Ratpack friends to stump for the candidate and even got Mafia money to support a man who’s brother Bobby was busy busting the rackets in Congress. But the President was warned that association with such a known libertine would cost him family values votes one day. So when Kennedy next visited Palm Springs he not only refused an invitation to stay with Sinatra but he did stay with more wholesome singer Bing Crosby, a Republican! Sinatra in a rage took a sledgehammer to the extra guest cottage he was preparing for JFK and broke off his friendship with JFK’s brother-in-law actor Peter Lawford.

1973- In Buffalo a drunk fan bit rock singer Lou Reed on the ass.

2005- A Colorado Rockies baseball game was called off on account of bees. The bee swarms were attracted by the coconut oil in the pitchers hair gel.

FROM THE STRANGE BUT TRUE ANIMATION MAILBAG! New York young trendies lived in Greenwich Village , Soho ( South Houston St, NOHO- North Houston St, Tribeca and points east. But now a friend living in New York today told me she lives in DUMBO- it means Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass. Strange but True.
----------------------------------------------------
Birthdays: US Vice President Schuyler Colfax, Akira Kurosawa, Joan Crawford, Dr Werner Von Braun, Juan Gris, Chaka Khan, Paul Grimault, Sidney Hillman Jack Ruby, Joan Collins, Eric Fromm, Fanny Farmer, Lora Petty

In ancient Rome today was the Tubilustrum, the Festival of the Sacred Trumpets of Minerva. Yes, the word is the origin of the word Tuba, although the modern tuba wasn’t invented until 1835.

1721- Johann Sebastian Bach sent the first copy of his Brandenburg Concertos to the Margrave of Brandenburg. When the Margrave died and an inventory was made of his holdings in Berlin the value placed on each concerto was six groschen, or about $5 each.

1806-After exploring the Pacific coast around the mouth of the Columbia River, Lewis and Clark start back for home.

1857- Stewart's department store in New York installs the first of Mr. Otis's new invention, the elevator. There were earlier steam elevators but the danger frightened off customers. Mr. Otis’ system of brakes and cuttoffs in the event of a cable brake made elevators popular and the age of skyscrapers possible.

1877- the first telephones installed in the White House.

1894- Sherlock Holmes creator Arthur Conan-Doyle was in Davo Switzerland helping his wife recover from tuberculosis at a spa in the Alps. While there the Swiss introduced him to a new sport that he wrote to London about enthusiastically- Ski-Running, or Skiing. Conan-Doyle predicted in the Strand Magazine “Within a generation thousands of English people will be coming to the Alps to ski.” Today there are no statues to Conan-Doyle in England, but there is one of him in Davo, Switzerland.

1945- General George Patton led a group of journalists and photographers out to the center of the Rhine bridgehead. One journalist asked his thoughts now that he was breaching Hitler’s vaunted Seigfried Line and daring to go where no foreign soldier had stepped since Napoleon. As cameras clicked the General undid his fly and took a long healthy piss in the Rhine River. “I waited all morning to do that! Yessir, the pause that refreshes!” My father remembered signal corps photo lab assistants made a brisk business selling copies of the famous incident on left over scraps of enlargement paper. That photo was taken by Tech Sgt. Paul Dougherty of the 737 Tank Battallion.


1957- Art Clokey's "Gumby" Show.

1973-White House attorney John Dean tells President Nixon:" There's a cancer on the Presidency...."

1983- STAR WARS- President Ronald Reagan announced in a nationwide speech the Strategic Defense Initiative, dubbed the Star Wars Program. He said US scientists were going to create a protective umbrella of laser satellites in orbit that would shoot down hostile nuclear missiles. This program would cost trillions and even if it worked it could never stop all the missiles launched in a Soviet first strike. Reagan apologists said that the re-escalation of the cold war arms race drove the Soviets crazy and their inability to keep up with arms spending brought about their economic collapse. Star Wars spent billions of U.S taxpayer dollars before it was stopped. On the day of the 9-11 World Trade Center Attack Dr Condoleeza Rice was scheduled to make a major speech announcing the resuming of Star Wars spending.

1989-COLD FUSION Two physicists named Reynolds & Fleischman make incredible claims that they had discovered a way to make electric power from Cold Fusion. This would mean limitless cheap power that left little waste. It could use nuclear waste as a fuel. After a lot of excitement upon closer scrutiny the formula didn’t work. Oh well.

1990- President George Bush Sr. banned Broccoli from the White House. He joked; "Read My Lips ! I hate Broccoli !"

Birthdays: Sir Anthony Van Dyck, Marcel Marceau, Stephen Sondheim, Karl
Malden, Werner Klemperer- Colonel Klink in Hogans Heroes, George Benson,
James Gavin, Allen Neuharth the founder of USA-Today, Milt Kahl, Fanny
Ardant, Lena Olin, William Shatner

In ancient Rome this day was the Festival of the Entry of the Tree- when the
priestesses of Cybele Goddess of the Harvest would lead a procession through
the streets carrying pine or palm branches. In later times, the Christians
took this custom and made it Palm Sunday.

1894- First Stanley Cup Game- Montreal 3, Ottawa 1.

1913- Jack London (White Fang, The Call of the Wild) wrote fellow writers H.
G. Wells, George Bernard Shaw and Winston Churchill and asked them how much
they get paid. He was unsure what to charge for his stories.

1947- President Truman signed an Executive Order # 9835 ordering background
checks of all government employees and to take an Oath of Loyalty to the
United States. Two million took the oath, only 129 were sacked for refusing.

1958- Hollywood producer Mike Todd was killed in a small plane crash. He
produced hit movies like Around the World in 80 Days and romanced starlets
like Gypsy Rose Lee and Elizabeth Taylor. Taylor and Todd had been married
for one year and she was devastated by the accident. Years and many
marriages later, Taylor said Mike Todd was the only man she actually loved.

1960- Arthur Shawlow and Charles Townes patent the laser beam. Light
Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation or LASER.

1970- The Beatles break up. Paul McCartney filed papers in a London court
for a formal dissolving of the Fab Fours partnership.

1972- The National Commission on Drug Abuse recommends ending all penalties
and laws prohibiting marijuana. No one listens to them.

1972- Congress passed the ERA, the Equal Rights Amendment, forbidding any
discrimination by sex. Women's rights groups first proposed the ERA in 1923.
With the heady atmosphere of Womens Liberation in the early 70s the
amendment seemed a no-brainer, however, the Conservative backlash led by
anti-feminists like Phyllis Schlafly slowly stunted its ability to win over
states for ratification. The ERA died unratified in 1982.

1991- Ivana Trump divorces Donald Trump. A celebrated court case ensued to
see how the huge Trump fortune would be divided. Newspapers cry Ivanna More
Money!

1995- First day of shooting on that utterly classic film Dinosaur Valley
Girls!

Today I was in New York and went to a preview performance of the hotest new play on Broadway, Curtains by Kantor & Ebb.
It was like an old animation reunion because I went backstage afterwards and hung out with stars David Hyde Pierce and Ernie Sabella. Or you toon folks might recall them as Drix from Osmosis Jones an Pumbaa from Lion King. At my casting audtions today we also talked with David Ogden Stiers, or Cogsworth from Beauty and the Beast. The play had a wonderful energy and everyone had a lot of fun. I wish them Break a Leg and a long run. If you get to Noo Yawk, check it out soon!

-----------------------------------------------
Birthdays: Plato, Johann Sebastian Bach, Benito Juarez, Modest Mussorgsky, Fats Waller, Josef Pulitzer, Florenz Zeigfield, Bronco Billy Anderson, Rev Ralph Abernathy, Armand Hammer, Harold Robbins, Matthew Broderick, Gary Oldman, James Coco, Timothy Dalton, Rosie O’Donnell is 46

717 A.D. Battle of Vinciacus- Charles Martel aka Charles the Hammer" defeats Ragenfridus and the Merovingian pretenders and assures the dominance of the Carolingian line on the throne of the Franks ,the French. Hammer don’t hurt’em! Charles grandson was Charlemagne. His great-grandson Pippin was made into a musical by Bob Fosse and Stephen Schwarz in the 1970's. A musical called "Ragenfridus!" just doesn't have the same ring.

1617-Lady Rebecca Rolfe, formerly known as Pocahontas, dies at Gravesend, England after being taken off the homeward bound ship, too ill to continue. She died of the pox at 21. Her children with John Rolfe became the beginnings of one of the largest families in Virginia, with many scions of the Old Dominion tracing their ancestry to Pocahontas.

1740- Composer Antonio Vivaldi - Il Pietro Rosso- the Red Priest conducted his last concert at the Ospedale Della Pietra in Venice. It was a home for orphaned girls so it was an all-girl orchestra. The 64 year old Vivaldi later went to Vienna to see if he could get any commissions from the Austrian Emperor, but caught an illness on the way and died.

1921- Chicago mobster Big Jim Colosimo was rubbed out by a new face in gangsterdom, a hitman for Johnny Torrio named Alfonso “Scarface” Capone. When Al Capone becomes famous he shows his appreciation to Torrio by having him rubbed out.

1935- Persia renamed Iran and Mesopotamia renamed Iraq.

1951- HOLLYWOOD COMMIES- House UnAmerican Acitivities Commitee (HUAC) under Judge J. Parnell Thomas moves from Washington and sets up in Hollywood to continue rooting out Communist subversion in the movies. They began in the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel, and later move to the federal building downtown. Their concerns weren’t total fantasy, actor Sterling Hayden confessed he was ordered by his communist operatives to try and influence the Screen Actor’s Guild. Still the point remains whether the authorities overreaction was justified and whether Congress could get more publicity looking for spies in Tinseltown than the Department of Games and Fisheries. Out of 15,000 people who made a living in the movies and television, only 295 were ever proven or confessed communists. It was an open secret that for $5,000 delivered to the right committee member your dossier would be moved to the bottom of the pile. The hearings stopped in 1956, the blacklist was broken in 1960 and Judge J. Parnell Thomas went to jail himself for embezzlement. Screenwriter Ring Lardner , already convicted of contempt of Congress in the Hollywood Ten trials was sitting in jail with his gangster cellmate listening to all the famous moviestars denounce each other on the radio. The hoodlum turned to Lardner and said:" Hey, if you are one of dem Reds lemme give ya some advice: Any organization wid dat many finks in it can't be any good !"

1952- DJ Alan Freed put on an event of new pop music in Cleveland Ohio. Called the MoonDog Coronation Ball, it was the very first Rock Concert.

1961- The Beatles first perform at the Cavern Club in Hamburg Germany.

1961- based on the success of the first Playboy Club in Chicago, Playboy Clubs with their Bunny waitresses opened in New York, Miami and LA.

1963- On orders from Attorney General Robert Kennedy, Alcatraz Prison was closed.

1963- Barbera Streisand married Elliot Gould.

1976- ASPEN MURDER- Jet setter Claudine Longet, a model who was formerly married to singer Andy Williams, shot and killed her lover Spider Sabich, a Olympic skiing champion. Even though their relationship was foundering she said it was an accident, that the Luger went off in his abdomen when he was showing her how to use it. In the bathroom. Uh Huh. Imagine being in the bathroom shaving and your girlfriend pops in “Honey, I’m having problems with the safety on my Luger..Here darling I’ll just –oops!” She spent 30 days in jail for negligent manslaughter, then married her defense attorney.

1988- the Screen Actor's Guild hits the bricks for the fourth time in twenty years, this time striking Hollywood for residuals for cable and videocassette income.

2014-Asteroid# 2003QQ47 will pass close by the Earth. If the half mile wide rock hits us it will have the effect of 23 Hiroshima bombs and cause drastic climactic convulsions. Right now the odds are 900,000 to one we get hit. Get your catchers mitts out!

Birthday: Roman poet Ovid -43b.c.- who wrote the world's oldest book on how to score with women- the Art of Love, Henryk Ibsen, Lauritz Melchior, Ray Goulding of Bob & Ray, Mr. Rogers, Carl Reiner, Sheldon "Spike" Lee, Sir Michael Redgrave, Edgar Buchanan, Holly Hunter

Happy Vernal Equinox, or Spring, if you will….

1841- Edgar Allen Poe's The Murder's in the Rue Morgue first published in Graham’s Magazine. Called the first true detective novel, Poe's detective C. Auguste Dupin was inspired by a real French sleuth named Jules Vinquoc who used disguises and deductive science to solve crimes the Paris police could not handle. The character was the inspirations for Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes and Agatha Christie’s Inspector Poirot.

1852-Harriet Beecher Stowe's "Uncle Tom's Cabin" first published. It sold one million copies within six months. The book was the first to treat the horrors of slavery directly and portray slave families not as dumb brutes or happy minstrels but victimized human beings. Because of this book, during the Civil War Yankee soldiers referred to Confederates as women-whippers, and baby stealers. Stowe said modestly: “I didn’t write it, God did. I just took dictation.”When she visited the White House President Lincoln met her with:”So here’s the little lady who started the big war.”
Remember in the Looney Tunes when the old black father fends off the whip by pleading-" You may own my body, but my heart belongs to Warner Brothers!"

1899- In Sing-Sing prison Martha Place becomes the first woman in the U.S. to be electrocuted. She had killed her stepdaughter. Because Sing-Sing Prison in Ossining New York was situated up the Hudson River from New York City, the phrase to be” sent up the River” as meaning going to jail, became popular.

1903- Henri Matisse exhibits at the Salon des Independents in Paris.

1931- Cantors Kosher deli opens in Los Angeles.

1942- After a harrowing escape from the Philippines through Japanese lines by pt. boat, submarine and plane General MacArthur arrived at the Australian town of Darwin. His first radio message was to tell the occupied Philippine people “ I Shall Return!” The U.S. State Department later asked MacArthur to amend his message to the more democratic We Shall Return but the imperious general refused.

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

1969-John Lennon married Yoko Ono on the Rock of Gibraltar.

1999- After years of attempts and failures involving millionaires like Richard Branson, Rocky Aoki and Malcom Forbes- Dr Bertrand Picard of Switzerland and Brian Jones of the UK became the first to circumnavigate the Earth in a balloon. It was named the Breitling Orbiter 3. Dr Picard said: “I am with the Angels and completely happy.” Mr Jones said: First thing I’ll do is phone my wife, then like a good Englishman I’ll have a cup of tea.”

1999- Legoland opened in Carlsbad Cal.