At times here in Sitoland I like to pass on some of my Wisdom of the Old Animators. I've picked up over the years.

Jack Schnerk was a well known animator in New York who worked at UPA and for John Hubley. He was one of the faster animators around. On Richard Williams film Raggedy Ann (1976) I once asked Jack what the secret was to being a fast animator? Jack replied " If you're doing a scene, and you have to get up and pee, finish the scene first. You'll get much faster."

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Birthdays: King Ludwig II the Mad of Bavaria, Leonard Bernstein, Brette Hart, Lola Montez (flamenco dancing mistress of Ludwig I, King of Bavaria), Alan Pinkerton, Elvis Costello, Clara Bow, Ruby Keeler, Monty Hall, Van Johnson, Willis Reed, Frederick Forsythe, Wayne Shorter, Billy Ray Cyrus, Dr. Bruno Bettleheim, Rolly Fingers, Gene Simmons of KISS, Anne Archer, Animator and Film Director Tim Burton, Sean Connery is 77

1718- The FIRST BOATLOAD OF FRENCH COLONISTS LAND IN LOUISIANA- Sieur de la Moyne- Bienville established a fort and trading post on some high ground between the Mississippi and Lake Ponchartrain. He named the place for Phillip of Orleans, then ruling of France in the name of the child King Louis XV. The French and Dutch always had a problem with their American colonies, in that nobody wanted to leave home to live there. Voltaire called New France a land of Beaver, Bears and Barbarians. One solution the French thought up involved sweeping the streets of all the hookers, cutthroats and riffraff and shipping them all to America. Though it wasn't exactly "Pilgrim's Progress", this influx of cardsharks and sportin' ladies helped New Orleans quickly establish it's rep as one of the wildest towns of the New World.

1830- This is the day of the legendary race between the locomotive the Tom Thumb and a horse and buggy outside of Baltimore. The Tom Thumb weighing in at about a ton and developing a whopping one horse power. The boiler driven fan broke down near the end, The horse won. Still, the train’s performance was so impressive that the first U.S. railroad, the Baltimore & Ohio, shifted from horse drawn to steam railroad.

1835- The New York Sun newspaper ran the amazing story that British astronomer Sir William Herschel, the discoverer of Neptune, had observed little men living on the surface of the Moon! The story proved false but it boosted the sales of the paper.

1875- Matthew Webb became the first person to successfully swim the English Channel.

1967 – In Mississippi George Lincoln Rockwell, leader of American Nazi Party, was blown off the speakers platform with a double barreled shotgun. Although not as significant as the Martin Luther King or the Kennedy’s assassinations, it was another incident in the violent 1960’s. George Lincoln Rockwell was also a distant cousin of artist Norman Rockwell, although the artist was embarrassed to admit it.

1970- A young British singer named Elton John did his first US tour, opening at the Troubadour in LA.

1980- The premiere of the Broadway musical version of the classic movie 42nd Street. In a moment of Broadway melodrama producer David Merrick came out on stage and startled the cast and audience by announcing that the director of the play Gower Champion had died that very day. 42nd Street went on to be a smash hit. The play itself is about a Broadway director who works himself to death creating a hit musical. Gower Champion's wife Marge Champion, was divorced from Disney animator Art Babbitt, the creator of Goofy.