QUIZ: What was the Newman Laugh-O-Grams Company?

Yesterday’s Question answered below: Here’s another one about famous meetings. Of these meetings, which one never took place? Walt Disney and H.G. Wells, Walt Disney and Frank Lloyd Wright, Walt Disney and Max Fleischer, Walt Disney and Nikita Khruschev, or Walt Disney and Mussolini?
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History for 12/17/2007
Birthdays: Paracelsus (otherwise known as Nicholas Paracelsus Theophrastus Bombastus Von Hohenheim) the father of modern medical diagnosis, Antonio Cimmarosa, Canadian PM William Lyon Mackensie-King, Arthur Fiedler, Penthouse Magazine creator Bob Guccione, William Safire, Ford Maddox-Ford, Erskine Caldwell, Tommy Steele, Bill Pullman, Eugene Levy, Wes Studi is 59, Milla Jovovich is 32, Sean Patrick Thomas, Armen Mueller-Stahl, Giovanni Ribisi, Bart Simpson-1989

ROMAN FESTIVAL OF SATURNALIA-This festival of Saturn, the biggest holiday to the ancient Romans is one of the roots of Christmas. On this holiday Roman families got together, masters served their slaves and gave them a day off. People gave each other gifts in pretty colored wrappings. Romans also decorated the outsides of their houses with wreaths and lights to welcome the New Year -sound familiar? Most modern scholars agree that Jesus was probably born in July or August, but Christians began using the Saturnalia as the birth festival of Jesus as early as 335AD. It was made official by the Vatican in 885 AD. So at sunset shout "Io,Io, Saturnalia!" Hail Saturn!
jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle all the waaaayy!"

1777-VALLEY FORGE- While Lord Howe’s British Army calls the Christmas Truce and beds down in Philadelphia, George Washington’s army makes camp at Valley Forge. The severe winter and poor conditions make Washington’s Army lose as many men as if there had been a battle. 2500 out of 10,000 colonials do not live to see the Spring. Meanwhile the local American farmers sold their food to the British, who paid better prices.

1843- Charles Dickens "A Christmas Carol: A Ghost Story for Christmas" first published. In the 18th century and earlier the Christmas celebration was a more rowdy affair with public drinking, marching around in costumes “mummery” and mayhem more like today’s Mardi Gras. This is why the Pilgrims tried to ban it. The popularity of Dickens story of Scrooge, Marley and Tiny Tim did much to help Victorians change the nature of the Christmas celebration to a more intimate and pious observance among centered on the family.
Magoo, still the best Scrooge ever!

1865- Schubert's Unfinished Symphony (#8) received it's world premiere. In 1822 Schubert wrote the first two movements and 8 measures for the 3rd (Scherzo) then gave the manuscript to a friend who kept it in a closet for 43 years.

1892- Peter Ilyich Tschaikowsky’s ballet “The Nutcracker” premiered at the Imperial Ballet in Saint Petersburg. One child dancer playing a candy cane in that first performance was a Georgian boy named Gyorgi Balavadajze-later American choreographer George Balanchine. Interestingly enough the two of his compositions Tschaikowsky liked the least were The Nutcracker and his 1812 Overture.

1903- THE AIRPLANE- Orville and Wilbur Wright make the first flight at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. For one minute a powered heavier than aircraft flew. Orville finished the day with a telegram to their father minding the bicycle shop back in Dayton Ohio: “ Success. Four Flights Thursday Morning against twenty-one mile an hour wind.. Inform press home for Christmas.”The news failed to get into most national newspapers. The Wrights themselves maintained a strict secrecy because they knew rivals like Glen Curtis, the French and Smithsonian professor William Langley were all close to inventing an airplane as well. The sensation of the airplane didn’t really become widespread until the Wrights demonstrated their plane in France in 1908 and around New York Harbor in 1909.

1917-HAPPY BIRTHDAY THE KGB! Lenin created the first Communist Secret Police, the Cheka, led by a son of a Jewish Orthodox Rabbi turned Communist, Felix Derszhinsky:” My thoughts induce me to be without pity.” In a few months the Cheka executed more people than the Czars’ police the Okrana did in all of the XIXth Century. The Cheka in Stalin’s time was called the OGPU, then NKVD, his executioners in the Great Purges. After Stalin their name was changed to the KGB, the great spy and Secret Police operation set to bedevil their counterparts in the west the CIA and MI5. The KGB was disbanded in 1991. Current Russian President Vladimir Putin was a KGB agent.

1955- Carl Perkins awoke in the middle of a bad nights sleep and wrote Blue Suede Shoes, the first song to be a hit in Country, R&B and Rock n’ Roll charts simultaneously.”Well you can knock me down, step on ma face, etc.”

1962- The Beatles first hit "Love Me Do" enters the U.K. pop charts.

1969- Tiny Tim, the campy, ukulele strumming crooner, married his Miss Vicky, or Victoria Budinger live on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson.

1969- The US Air Force terminated Operation Blue Book, the investigation of UFO phenomena.

1989- Communist dictator Nicholas Cercescu ordered the Romanian Army to open fire on democratic protestors in Timisoara. Two thousand were killed. This incident pushed elements of the Army to turn their guns on the government. The Romanian Revolution was the most violent of the Communist regime changes. The people and army overthrew Cercescu, who was shot on live television on Christmas Day.
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Yesterday’s Question: Here’s another one about famous meetings. Of these meetings, which one never took place? Walt Disney and H.G. Wells, Walt Disney and Frank Lloyd Wright, Walt Disney and Max Fleischer, Walt Disney and Nikita Khruschev, or Walt Disney and Mussolini?

Answer: Walt Disney and Nikita Khruschev. Khruschev did a highly publicized tour of America in 1959. In LA his wife was invited to Disneyland but not him. US officials cited security concerns. Legend was that Walt Disney blew him off because the Russians pirated bootleg copies of Snow White in 1942. But others say the nationwide publicity was too big for Walt to bear a grudge, and he had hoped the bald Soviet Premier would come.
Chim-chiminy, chim-chiminy, chim chim, cheroo: Let me visit Space Mountain or I drop bombs on youuuu!"