The Space Shuttle that went into space today with the large Japanese laboratory carried an additional passenger. A Buzz Lightyear doll.

To Infinity and uh,...you know.

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Quiz- Yesterday in Hollywood there was a big fire on the Universal back lot. Why is the area where they film movies called Lots?

Yesterday’s Question answered below: Movie companies tell us copying movies is piracy and bad. Was illegally pirating a movie ever a good thing?
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History for 6/2/2008
Birthdays: John Randolph, The Marquis DeSade, Martha Custis Washington, Thomas Hardy, Hedda Hopper, Sir Edward Elgar, Johnny Weismuller, Charlie Watts, Disney animation story artist Dick Heumer, Lotte Reinniger Marvin Hamlisch, Barry Levinson, Jon Peters, Dana Carvey, Garo Yepremian, Jerry Mathers the Beaver of the old t.v. show Leave it to Beaver is 64, Dayvid Haysbert, Lasse Halstrom

303 A.D.-Martyrdom of St. Elmo.The Emperor Diocletian had him starved, beaten with clubs, flogged with lead balled whips, rolled in tar and set on fire, roasted again in an iron chair, and he finally died after having his intestines wound out around a windlass. He is the patron saint of seafarers. When the blue electrical phenomenon appear on ship's masts during a storm is called "St. Elmo's Fire".

1453-At Breslau, Papal Legate John of Capistrano presided over the torture of six Jews. After they confessed to Jewish practices, he had them burned at the stake. After John died of natural causes the Protestants dug up his bones and threw them to the dogs. John was canonized San Juan Capistrano in 1690. A century later Franciscan monk Fra Junipero Serra named the picturesque little mission in California after him. And the swallows do migrate there.

1763- At the British Fort Michilimackinac near Lake Superior some Sauk and Chippewa Indians were playing lacrosse. While the British sentries were engrossed in the ball game Indian women gathered near the forts’ open gates. When one player hurled the ball up over the wall as a signal the women tossed concealed knives and tomahawks to the players who rushed the fort and massacred its garrison.

1780- THE GORDON RIOTS- Lord Gordon organized a public demonstration against a pending bill granting toleration of Roman Catholic worship in England. The mob marched on Parliament where went goes berserk and looted London for a week. Lord Gordon became the last nobleman executed in the Tower of London and Parliament passed the Riot Act. But his tactics scared Parliament from passing the bill. The Catholic Emancipation Bill would not be passed until 1834. From then on whenever an unruly crowd won't disperse shortly before the Authorities start shooting and clubbing people, they first read them aloud the Riot Act.

1886- President Grover Cleveland married Frances Folsom in a White House ceremony. She was the daughter of his former law partner and Cleveland became her legal guardian after his death. Despite her being half his age and his earlier reputation for fathering cxhildren out of wedlock they were much in love and she especially charmed the American public. At age 21 she became the youngest woman to be First Lady. Songs were written for her and their first baby was honored with a candy bar- the Baby Ruth.

1896- Gugielmo Marconi took out a patent on wireless broadcasting - radio.
At the time his device could be heard from almost 12 miles away !

1920- Eugene O’Neill won a Pulitzer Prize for his first play Beyond the Horizon.

1928 - Velveeta Cheese created by Kraft.


Ain't the internet a scary place? courtesy thespoof.com

1940-Will Eisner's "The Spirit" comic first appears.

1961- Humorist writer George F. Kaufman died. He wanted put on his headstone:
"Over My Dead Body!"

1973- London animator Richard Williams closed down his Soho studio for a month so his staff could be lectured by Disney legend Art Babbitt.


The notes from these lectures have been xeroxed and rexeroxed and have become the most famous unpublished animation manual of all time. My fellow animators & I nicknamed it THE SECRETS OF LIFE AND DEATH, after the book of notes by Dr. Frankenstein in the monster movies.
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Yesterday’s Quiz: Movie companies tell us copying movies is piracy and bad. Was illegally pirating a movie ever a good thing?

Answer: Once. The 1922 silent horror classic Nosferatu. Even though the filmmakers changed the name and the ending, it still looked enough like Bram Stoker’s novel Dracula, that the late authors’ family sued for breach of copyright. The judge ruled for the family, and ordered all the prints destroyed. The only reason we any have copies of this landmark film is because of bootleg copies.

Max Shreik as Count Orlov in Nosferatu. Even 88 years later, it's still a really creepy movie if you never have seen it.