DID YOU KNOW...At the Walt Disney Studio in 1941 there were four animators of Japanese ancestry ( Nisei). On MAy 29,1941 all four went out on strike with their screen cartoonist union brothers and sisters. One of them Chris Ishii, later created the faux Snow White sequence in the 1977 Woody Allen film Annie Hall.
courtesy Colorado.gov
Chris Ishii being fingerprinted for induction into the U.S. Army at Camp Amache Colorado. He was interned there with other Japanese Americans. Chris later became a top artist at UPA and co-owned Focus productions. He worked on Unicorn in the Garden and Madeleine, and won two Clio awards for advertising. I met him while we both worked for Shamus Culhane. He and Shamus would exchange raunchy toasts in Italian whenever he came to drop off backgrounds.Chris once demonstrated for me his technique called "The Poor Man's Airbrush"- an old toothbrush dipped in paint and using your finger you flick paint spray on the background. Chris actually got some very subtle hues using this curious improvisation. Filmmaker, father and grandfather, Chris Ishii died in Dobbs Ferry NY, in 2001.

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Birthdays: John Adams, Christopher Columbus, English playwright Richard Sheridan, Ezra Pound, Emily Post, Louis Malle, Henry “Da Fonz” Winkler, Charles Atlas, Ruth Gordon, Claude LeLouch, Dick Gautier, Louis Malle, Ted Williams, Grace Slick, Diego Maradona

1811- Jane Austen’s novel Sense and Sensibility published.

1938-"THE NIGHT THAT PANICKED AMERICA- 27 year old Orson Wells broadcast a radio update of H.G. Well’s story "The War of the Worlds". Despite periodic station announcements that it was only a fictional re-enactment, people across the U.S. go bonkers that an actual Martian invasion had landed in Grover’s Mill New Jersey. In Hollywood famed actor John Barrymore, drunk as usual, went over to his kennel of prize winning racing greyhounds and open their cage doors, saying: "Fend for yourselves!"

1963- The first Lamborghini 350GTV went on sale.

1973- The Carlin Case- Radical radio station WBAI in New York broadcast hippy comedian George Carlin’s routine about the “Seven Deadly Words” the naughty words you can’t say on the air. I can’t write them because children read this column but you all know what they are anyway. The FCC slapped a heavy fine and WBAI sued for free speech and the case made it to the Supreme Court. Today the High Court found for the FCC and those 7 deadly words remain banned from airwaves today. Aw, Sh*t!

1992- QUANTRRILL’S FUNERAL- The remains of William Clark Quantrill were buried in a cemetery in his birthplace of Dover Ohio. Quantrill’s Border Raiders were infamous during the Civil War for their guerrilla depredations in Kansas and Missouri. After being shot dead in 1865 an admirer dug up his bones and kept them. After passing through several hands the bones were put up for sale, displayed in a glass case and even used by Ohio State fraternities for their initiations. Billy Quantrill’s head was discovered in a refrigerator behind the tuna sandwiches and Coca Cola in the Dover Historical Society.

2002- Rap star of Run-DMC Jam Master Jay was shot dead in the lounge of his recording studio in Queens NY. The killer was never found.