The East Coast is getting pounded with Hurricane rains. Here in Southern Cal it's near 100F degrees every day and we'd love a little of that rain. I always miss September back East. After a hot sticky summer, you get the first wisps of cool air and the first leaves begin to turn. While here in Tinseltown, September is August Part II. But hey, you live a two-hour drive to the Mojave Desert, you can't be surprised that it gets hot.

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Quiz: Ethel Skakel had a rather famous husband. Who was he?

Yesterday’s question answered below: Zerelda Mimms had a rather famous husband. Who was he?
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History for 9/7/2008
Birthdays: Grandma Moses, Dame Edith Sitwell, Elia Kazan, Richard Roundtree, Sinclair Lewis, Anthony Quayle. Peter Lawford, Senator Daniel Inouye, Susan Blakely, Shannon Elizabeth, Sonny Rawlins, Julie Kavner the voice of Marge Simpson.

605 B.C. Nebuchanesser II crowned king of Babylon. In 597 he destroyed Israel and began the Baylonian Captivity of the Judeo-Christian apocalyptic writings, but he also build the famed hanging Gardens of Baylon for his wife Amrytis.

1191-KING RICHARD VS. SALLADIN-The Battle of Arsuf, the only major set battle between King Richard's Crusaders and Salladin Saracens. Salladin's men were driven back by the charging armored knights, but no final victory was achieved. Richard galloped about chopping people so ferociously that the Saracen warriors rode around him and avoided contact. Contrary to the image Salladin didn't ride around on a fiery Arab white stallion. He directed his army from the rear on a donkey. This he did in imitation of the example of the pious Caliph Omar, who also disdained white chargers as vanity. After such hot work in the desert Salladin sent his enemy Richard a cup of snow with rose water called Sherbat, which is the forerunner of modern Iced Sherbet or Slurpie.

1303- ATTACK ON THE POPE- Pope Boniface VIII considered his throne higher than all Royal crowns. He even had a big triple tiara crown made bigger than all royal crowns to prove it. He got into a fight over sovereignty with French King Phillip the Fair, excommunicating him and all France. Then Phillip had a French clerical assembly accuse Boniface of being a “murderer, false monk, sorcerer, embezzler, adulterer, sodomite, idolater and infidel”. But King Phillip could fight with more than words. This day he sent a hit squad of 2000 knights to attack the pope at his summer residence in Anagni. As the knights slew the Vatican guards and burst into the palace Boniface knew his hour had come. He put on his full pontifical robes and mounted his throne to await his end. The knights William of Nogaret and Sciarra Colonna marched up to the old man, held a dagger over his head and paused.” That is the message from my master, King Philip” Then they left. The 70 year old Pope was rescued by the Orsini family three days later, but Boniface died mentally broken from his ordeal.

1776 -The FIRST SUBMARINE ATTACK-Yankee Ezra Lee pilots inventor David Bushnell's barrel shaped submersible "The Turtle" over to the British warship HMS Eagle. His attack consisted of an attempt to drill holes in her hull. But the ship was copper bottomed. Doh!

1812- BATTLE OF BORODINO, or La Moskova. Napoleon's French army and the Russians pound each other to bits before Moscow in the great battle immortalized by Tolstoy in 'War and Peace'. As the French army marched to the attack, Russian Prince Bagration sat on horseback in front of his troops. Before opening fire he pulled out a silver flask and toasted his enemy:"Gentlemen of France, Bravo! C'est Superb!". He was killed later.

Leo Tolstoy had an ancestor at the battle. General Mikhail Tolstoy was an eccentric who rode into battle in a horse drawn carriage with his pet black bear seated alongside him who drank his champagne. The French capture all the strategic points and force General Kutusov to abandon Moscow, but while the Russians could make good their losses La Grande Armee' was exhausted and thousands of miles from supplies and reinforcements. Napoleon was listless from a bad cold and may have had prostate problems, since his doctor recalled he had trouble passing water. In any event, his illness made him hesitate sending in his Imperial Guard at a key moment to finish off the Russian army or maneuver to cut off their retreat.
Bad tempered Marshal Ney was enraged: ”Have we come so far merely to possess another battlefield? What is he doing so far back? He is no longer a general, he is an Emperor. Let him sit home in the palace and leave the fighting to us!”

1822- Brazil declared independence from Portugal.

1880 - George Ligowsky patents device to throw clay pigeons for trapshooters

1892 -Gentleman Jim Corbett finally KOs John L. Sullivan after 21 rounds for heavyweight boxing title. Corbett was an advocate of the new Marquis of Queensbery rules and preferred using boxing gloves to bare knuckle fighting.

1907 - Sutro's ornate Cliff House in SF destroyed by fire.

1911- French avant-garde poet Guilliame Appollinaire was the man who coined the term “surrealism’. He was such an elitist, outspoken radical guy that Parisian authorities felt he must be up to something. So when the Mona Lisa was stolen out of the Louvre this day Appollinaire was arrested. There was no evidence and he was released shortly after. The real thief was a disgruntled waiter who once worked as a security guard at the museum..

1940- THE BATTLE OF BRITAIN- Nazis bombers change their strategy of bombing RAF bases in southern England and instead concentrate on destroying London for psychological value. For the next 57 straight days London suffered under a rain of high explosives.

1957- Actress Ingrid Bergman and director Roberto Rossellini separate.

1963- Mushi productions cartoon series."Tetsuan Atomo" debuts in the U.S as AstroBoy.

1978 - Keith Moon, rock drummer of the Who, died of a drug overdose at 31. He actually overdosed the drug he was perscribed to treat his alcohol and drug abuse. In one night he took 22 tabs of choloromethiazole edysilate. He was staying in the very same London apartment #123 Curzon Place, was the one that Mama Cass Elliot died in four years earlier.

1984-the Walt Disney Board formally fired Chairman and Walt’s son-in-law Ron Miller.

1986- Archbishop Desmond Tutu was installed as the first Black leader of the Anglican Church in South Africa. His appointment signaled the beginning of the final campaign to overthrow the racist apartheid system.

1996- Rap artist and actor Tupac Shakur was shot to death gangland style in Las Vegas Nevada. He was standing up in the open roof of a BMW 750 sedan talking to some girls when a Cadillac pulled along side and opened fire. In 2002 the LA Times concluded and investigation that rapper Biggie Smalls or Notorious B.I.G. hired and killer and provided the gun. Notorious B.I.G. was himself shot to death shortly after.

2000- Barely legal teen pop star Britney Spears shocked even the permissive MTV Music Video Awards crowd by singing her hit “Oops, I Did it Again” while stripping and grinding in a Las Vegas showgirl type sheer bikini.
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Yesterday’s Quiz: Zerelda Mimms had a rather famous husband. Who was he?

Answer: Jesse James.

Robert Duvall did one of my favorite interpretations of Jesse James in George Roy Hill's underrated dramedy THE GREAT NORTHFIELD MINNESOTA RAID (1972).

Quiz: Zerelda Mimms had a rather famous husband. Who was he?

Yesterday’s Question answered below: Why are spiced chicken wings called Buffalo Wings?
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History for 9/6/2008
Birthdays: Marquis De Lafayette, Joseph Kennedy Sr., Buddy Holly, Jane Curtin,
Sergio Aragones, Swoozie Kurtz, Jo Ann Worley, Rosie Perez, Billy Rose, Ernest Tubb, Justin Whalin

338BC- Five days after Greece was conquered by Phillip of Macedon, the Greek philosopher Isocrates died at age 98. It was said he was depressed by world events and old age so he simply stopped eating. Isocrates wrote speeches about his philosophy but he was not a good speaker so he published them, creating the first literary essays.

1298- Battle of Curzola- One of the perennial battles between Venice and the Pisa only distinguished by the fact that Marco Polo was captured. The first thing the globe trotting merchant did upon getting home from China was get drafted. While a P.O.W. in a Pisan prison he wrote his accounts: " My Travels". He actually dictated them to another prisoner because he may have been illiterate or simply had weak eyes. Recently scholars challenged just how much of China he actually saw, because he makes no mention of The Great Wall or chopsticks.

1522- A ship reached Spain manned by only a dozen or more skeletal sailors. They were all that was left of Fernand de Magellans fleet of five ships and 260 men that set out one year ago to reach the Indies. Magellan was killed and eaten by cannibals in the Philippines, Magellan had beheaded three of his captains in Argentina and most of the crew was dead. The last leg of the trip the men sailed up the coast of Africa without stopping for food or water for fear of falling into the hands of their Portuguese enemies. But they had achieved the dream of the great Columbus, they reached the Indies by sailing west. In fact they had circumnavigated the globe, forever proved the world was round.

1566- Elderly Turkish Sultan Sulieman the Magnificent died while besieging the Hungarian castle of Szigetvar. His Vazirs worried that the news of his death would panic the troops and leave their lands open for invasion. So they kept it a secret and marched back to Istanbul with Sulieman’s body propped up and held down by wires on his throne in his rolling pavilion. Censers of perfumed incense were waved to cover the fact that the Sultan stank.

1782- Patsy Jefferson, the wife of Thomas Jefferson died. Jefferson promised her on her deathbed that he would never marry again and was so distraught he refused to leave their bedroom. He finally emerged after three weeks. They spent her last hours writing out their favorite passages from Tristram Shandy together. Jefferson kept the little folded up piece of paper on him the rest of his life.

1812- At Borodino the Russian army prepared to fight Napoleon’s Army before the entrance to Holy Moscow. This night the Orthodox Metropolitan in procession carried through the camp the icon of the Black Virgin of Smolensk. Thousands of soldiers kneeled, crossed themselves and whispered Gospodi Pomilui- Lord Have Mercy. During the Napoleonic Wars Russian officers began the curious custom of making sure that they went into battle wearing clean underwear- no gentleman wanted to his body to be found with dirty undies!

1821- Jacob Fowler with 21 frontiersmen left Arkansas for Santa Fe New Mexico to see if the local government was more amenable to Americans now that Mexico had won their independence from Spain. They were welcomed and began to hunt and trap.

1847- After living in a shack on Walden Pond for two years, Henry David Thoreau moved in with Ralph Waldo Emerson and his family in Concord Mass.

1862- During the Civil War an incident occurred when Stonewall Jackson’s Confederate brigades moved through the pro-Union town of Frederick, Maryland. All civilians kept indoors and waved white flags from their homes. But elderly widow Barbara Fritchie flew a bigass American Stars & Stripes from her window and dared anyone to do anything about it. General Jackson just smiled and tipped his hat as he rode by. Years later a famous poem was written about the incident, The Ballad of Barbara Fritchie:” Shoot if You Must, This Old Grey Head, But Spare your Countries’ Flag, She Said!”

1901-PRESIDENT WILLIAM McKINLEY ASSASSINATED- The President was visiting the Temple of Music at the World Exposition in Buffalo when anarchist Leon Czogolsz shot him with a pistol hidden in his bandaged hand. Czogolsz was such an emotionally unstable character that even other anarchists avoided him. He said he was inspired by the political speeches of Socialist Emma Goldman, which soured many mainstream Americans to radical Socialism.
McKinley lingered for two weeks while doctors were afraid to probe for the bullet. Ironically he had just inspected a new-fangled X-Ray machine at the science pavilion that could have saved his life but doctors said: " This is too serious a time for toys!" He died and Teddy Roosevelt became President. Roosevelt was a maverick Republican that McKinley reluctantly chose as his running mate because he was a hero in the recent Spanish-American War. When Tammany boss Paul Crocker heard about Roosevelt being made V.P. he shouted;" Don't you realize that now there's only one heartbeat between that nut and the Presidency-?!" Republican Senate Majority Leader Marc Hanna was also annoyed:”Oh, no! Now that crazy cowboy is President!”

1914- As the First World War raged all across Europe the country that started it all, Serbia, had a curious campaign. It was expected that the mighty Austro-Hungarian Empire would quickly stomp this little country. But under the leadership of their resident military genius, Marshal Radomir Putnik, the Serbs drove out the invading Austrian army and this day even had the cheek to invade Austria! The Austrians pushed them out, tried another invasion, then forgot about them for the rest 1914 and all of 1915.

1945- Four days after the Japanese surrender ending World War Two FBI director J. Edgar Hoover sent a nasty memo to Attorney General Tom Clark complaining about General Donovan. Wild Bill Donovan had led the wartime espionage agency the OSS, now he proposed a continuation of intelligence gathering in the US as well as overseas. Hoover saw this as a direct challenge to his authority. Donovans’ wing was reborn as the CIA in 1947 an the FBI has remained cool ever since. Before the 9-11 tragedy you could not directly e-mail the FBI from the CIA.

1954- Groundbreaking for the first nuclear power plant in Pennsylvania.

1958- The Spunky and Tadpole show debuts!

1966- Dr. Hendryk Verwoerd, the South African Prime Minister most responsible for the institutionalizing of racial segregation called Apartheid, was assassinated by a demented aide.

1968- Many momentous events occurred in 1968: assassinations, riots, the Vietnamese Tet offensive, the Soviet Invasion of Czechoslovakia, Easy Rider, 2001 a Space Odyssey Sergeant Pepper. But that’s nothing compared to the television premiere of H.R. PUNFNSTUFF this day! Witchipoo, Orson and the Vroom Broom. Whether or not Sid and Marty Kroffts strange kiddie show was a code for drug use -HR meaning Hand-Rolled Puffing Stuff, is a matter for scholastic conjecture.

1969- DePatie-Freleng's the Pink Panther TV Show premiered.

1971- Scientists at Proctor & Gamble invent the disposable diaper.

1972 - John Lennon & Yoko Ono appear on Jerry Lewis' Muscular Dystrophy Telethon.

1997- The great Funeral of Princess Diana of Wales brought England to a halt and was televised around the world. There was a last minute fuss over the fact that Buckingham Palace refused to lower the Royal Standard to half-mast, customary for a death in the Royal Family, because technically Diana was divorced and no longer part of that family. The tabloid press jumped on this as a way to divert public attention from the discussion that their hounding Diana was what caused the fatal car accident. As this day began the flag came down at the urging of the elderly Queen Mum.

2000- The United Nations called a Millennial Summit. 150 presidents, kings, princes and prime ministers convened in New York City, the largest international conference held since the UN Charter conference in 1945. Nothing important was decided and New Yorkers grumbled about the traffic.
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Yesterday’s Quiz? Why are spiced chicken wings called Buffalo Wings?

Answer: Fry cook Angelina Bellissima of Buffalo New York, noticed that chicken wings were the most under utilized part of the bird. In 1964, she scooped a bunch into her fryer with her own recipe of spices and served them at her local bar.
The rest is culinary history.

Joe Grant, everyone's friend and mentor, courtesy LaughingPlace.com


By now some of you may be thinking, Sito is always paying tribute to this old animator who died and that, so how many &%$# father-figures did he have?!

Well, the reason is generational. The Golden Age Artists all got into the business with the big boom in studio production in the 1930s. They did their best work in the 1940s and 50s, began retiring in the 1970s in time to mentor us Baby Boomers, who were making it cool to be in animation again. Now the few remaining are in their 90s.

If you get serious about a career in cartoons, you will discover that you will have a family separate and apart from your biological family. You will have your Animation Family. Because of all the long hours and after work socials, you may be spending more time with them than your real family!

So I honor our mentors, the people who paused from their own work to pass on Sacred Knowledge to novices like me. I only hope I can be as selfless and generous as they were.
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Quiz? Why are spiced chicken wings called Buffalo Wings?

Yesterday’s Quiz answered below: What is the Riddle of the Sphinx?
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History for 9/5/2008
Birthdays: Louis XIV The Sun King, Jesse James, Cardinal Richelieu, Johann Christian Bach, Jacopo Meyerbeer, John Cage, Quentin de la Tour, Darryl F. Zanuck, Jack Valenti, Bob Newhart, George Lazenby, Raquel Welch is 68, Kathy Guisewhite, Dweezil Zappa, Werner Herzog, Michael Keaton is 57

1499- Former Columbus captain Alonso De Hojeda arrives in the New World on his own expedition. Along with him as pilot (Navigator) was a Florentine named Amerigo Vespucci. Vespucci made several more trips to the alien land and published a book about his adventures never mentioning Hojeda. His publishers spiced up his accounts with naked brown natives with lascivious morals throwing themselves on the Europeans. It was quite popular reading.
In 1538 when Columbus was dead and forgotten German mapmakers Martin Waldseemuller & Gerhardus Mercator published the first mass printed maps of the known world. They drew on Vespucci's books and called the new hemisphere "America". I guess that's better than the United States of Hojeda.

1698 - Russia's Peter the Great was determined to drag his kingdom into the modern world. Since the fashion in Europe at this time was clean shaven, he imposed a tax on beards. When Czar Peter spotted a boyar at his court who refused to comply, he personally jumped the old man with a pair of shears.

1781- BATTLE OF THE VIRGINIA CAPES- Arguably the real battle that won the American Revolution. French Admiral DeGrasse' navy drives off the English fleet attempting to save Lord Cornwallis's army trapped inside the port of Yorktown by Washington and Rocheambeau. For command of the vital mission the British admiralty had passed over a more aggressive fighting admiral named Rodney in favor of an semi-retired fossil named Graves. Graves caught the French fleet dispersed unloading troops and supplies, but instead of attacking he waited for three hours while the enemy formed in line. He then raised confusing signals – flags for “Attack” and “Maintain Position” being raised simultaneously/ The inability of the British navy to rescue Cornwallis sealed his fate and eventual surrender. If the British had won this battle scholars agree the French were tired of propping up the bankrupt American rebels who could barely muster a few thousand volunteers.

1812- The vanguard of Napoleon’s Grand Army came up upon a little hill outside the town of Borodino. They strained to see if they had reached Moscow. But instead they saw something else- the main Russian army preparing to stand and fight. Napoleons plan was to invade a country, destroy their army, occupy their capitol, then sign a peace treaty. But these Russians weren't playing by the rules. For months after retreating across thousands of miles of Russian soil, Napoleon would finally get the big battle he desired.

1867- After the Civil War the US experienced a beef shortage. This was answered by herding Texas longhorn cattle up to where they could be put on trains to Chicago and eastern meat markets. This day the first herd of Longhorns made it up the Chisholm Trail to the train depot of Abilene Kansas. A rancher who bought a thousand head of cattle at $4 a head could sell them up north for $40 a head. One cattle drive could net up to $100,000, well worth fighting Indians, rustlers and floods. This created cattlebarons and a new kind of hero in the public mind, the Cowboy.

1882- The first Labor Day parade occurred when 10,000 union workers marched in Union Square New York.

1885 - 1st gasoline pump is delivered to a gasoline dealer (Ft Wayne, Ind)

1917- The U.S. Government made nationwide police raids to close down the offices of the IWW (The International Workers of the World- or The Wobblies). They were a folk-song-singing radical labor union who came out against U.S. participation in World War One, ."The Master Class has always declared the wars, the Working Class must fight the battles"- Eugene Debs. Their apologists point out that while the Great War cost 166,000 U.S. casualties it made 200 new millionaires and if you had stock in petrochemicals like Dupont you made 400% profit.

1929- Wall Street stocks soared to unprecedented heights throughout 1929. Starting today they began to taper off and slide. Economist Roger Babson, the Sage of Wellesley , warned of an impending Stock Market crash but people laughed him off. They called his warnings "Babson-Mindedness". The market would continue to move downwards for the next several weeks climaxing Black Tuesday, the great crash of October 29th and the Depression.

1932- Paul Bern, the studio executive husband of sexy starlet Jean Harlow, was found lying naked on his bathroom floor with a bullet in his head. He committed suicide and left a note apologizing to Harlow for not being able to satisfy her. Harlow called the studio and her agent before calling the police. All jumped to hush up the scandal.

1923-FATTY ARBUCKLE- Ex-plumber turned comedian Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle signed a $3 million dollar deal with Paramount Pictures. He celebrated by staging a wild three day party in the penthouse of the St. Francis Hotel in San Francisco. During the wild goings on he pulled young starlet Virginia Rappe into a bedroom. Soon screams were heard. Arbuckle came out and said "Get her dressed. She makes too much noise". Friends found Rappe in agony with her clothes shredded. She died of toxemia from a ruptured bladder saying "Fatty Arbuckle did this to me! Make sure he doesn't get away with it." Arbuckle was tried twice for rape and first degree murder, but was acquitted after both were hung juries. To this day film historians argue if Arbuckle was framed. In the trial it came out that Rappe had had a botched abortion and was suffering from internal bleeding before the party.
But Fatty Arbuckles career was destroyed. Women tore down the screen whenever his face appeared. In Wyoming cowboys shot their sixshooters at the screen. At the suggestion of Buster Keaton he made a living writing gags under the pseudonym William or Will B. Good. Years later Santa Monica police pulled him over for drunk driving. He flung a champagne bottle out of the car and laughed "There goes the evidence again!"

1935- At a giant Nazi Party rally in Nuremberg Adolph Hitler told the world “We want Peace. Germany has no interest in harming her European neighbors .” uh-huh..

1935- Tumbling Tumbleweeds premiered, the film that made a star out of Gene Autrey, the Singing Cowboy.

1943- Young British cartoonist Ronald Searle is captured by the Japanese in Burma. He spent his time as a P.O.W. working on the infamous Bridge on the River Kwai and making sketches of the nightmarish conditions of his fellow prisoners.

1957- Jacques Kerouac’s ode to the beat life ON THE ROAD, first published. Kerouac wrote it in a white heat using one large roll of white paper stuffed into his typewriter instead of individual sheets. When the editor got the novel it had no paragraph breaks of chapter breaks. Another young writer of the time, Truman Capote, was unimpressed. “That’s not writing, it’s typing.”

1972- Palestinian Black September terrorists attack Munich's Olympic Village during the Summer Games. They kill 11 Israeli athletes of their national team.

1989- President George Bush Ist, does a major speech highlighting his war on drugs. He brandishes a bag of crack-cocaine he declares was purchased across the street from the White House in Lafayette Park. Later the truth came out that no crack cocaine is sold in Lafayette Park, the DEA agents had to talk a crack dealer into coming to the park. They even had to give him directions because he never visited the White House area before.

1994-Patrick McDonnell started drawing the comic strip MUTTS.
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Yesterday’s Quiz: What is the Riddle of the Sphinx?

answer; According to Greek Mythology was a monster who stood outside the City of Thebes and asked travelers a riddle. If you got it wrong, it killed you. If you answered it, the Sphinx killed itself. The Riddle was " what has four legs at dawn, two legs at noon and three legs at sunset. The young hero Oedipus answered the question that destroyed the Sphinx. The answer is Man. At the Dawn of life man crawls on all fours, at the prime of life he walks on two legs, and in the sunset of life, old age, he walks with a cane, so on three legs.

I just learned that legendary animator-director Bill Melendez died at age 91.

courtesy of Bill Melendez Productions

Bill was the director of the 1965 classic A CHARLIE BROWN CHRISTMAS, considered by many the finest animated TV special ever made. It's been run every year for 53 years since it's debut. Bill once told me he himself animated the opening scene, of all the children ice skating in pairs to Vince Guaraldi's carol " Christmas Time is Here." He did it all straight ahead, on one level, a downshot, about 30 feet worth.
He was very proud of it.

Bill was funny, opinionated, big-hearted, a teller of tales. We spent many a lunch at Mussos, the Valley Inn or Petit Chateau, talking about the old lefty days. Bill came of age during the MAD-MEN era of lunch meetings. So downing three vodka martinis and going back to work was no problem for him. I however, struggled to keep up.

Born Cuatemoc Jose Guillermo Melendez, the son of an officer in the regular Mexican Army, who named him for the last fighting Emperor of the Aztecs. Bill said his father and the local priest argued over the baptismal font because the priest didn't want to use a pagan name like that. So as he said, his life began with a fight. Guilliermo ( William) was added as a compromise. Bill's family sent him to LA for college in 1934 and he attended Choiunard. Bill first joined Walt Disney Studios in 1938 as an Assistant Animator. He was very active in the Great Strike of 1941. He was kicked out of the Magic Kingdom for being a troublemaker, and thought his career over.
But it was just beginning.

Bill Melendez became a terrific animator at Warner Bros for Bob Clampett on shorts like THE GREAT PIGGYBANK ROBBERY and BOOK REVUE. He also worked at UPA on GERALD MCBOING-BOING and MADELEINE. And rejoined Clampett for Beany & Cecil.

I always loved the way Bill kept to the essence of Schulz drawing style, while keeping the animation fresh.

But it was as the creator of the Charlie Brown specials and features that he is well known. He did 75 more Peanuts films over the years. His studio was the final holdout of the old Cartoonist Guild Local 852. Those who read my book DRAWING THE LINE will have read about the feud between that union and the IATSE local that lasted until 1979. Bill joked with me that he could never come into an IA local.


Me interviewing Bill for ASIFA a few years back.

Many will keep their special memories of Bill Melendez. My memories will be of his activism, his passion for the rights of animators to be treated right. As Guild president Bill argued with Walt Disney about wage increases for artists, tried to save Norm Ferguson's job from being cut when he was past his prime, argued with HUAC henchman Roy Brewer over the alleged Red infiltration into the Guilds. Bill loved to show me how Leon Schlesinger could fake having a heart attack rather than raise your pay.

Bill Littlejohn, Bill Hurtz, Art Babbitt and Bill Melendez, all past Presidents of the Cartoonists Guild, were my personal inspiration when I became union president. Their example led me past the pinstripe suit, pinky ring, Tony Soprano-type union hacks to see the original activists, and to yearn to fight for the same things they fought for.

I noticed something curious when interviewing old animators who gave in and crossed picket lines or went back on their brother and sister artists. Many of them wouldn't look you in the eye when explaining themselves. Their gaze would drop to the floor-"You don't know what it was like back then... etc."

Bill Melendez always looked you straight in the eye. I could see he regretted nothing. His little black dot eyes sparkled when he recalled how they made the studio heads crazy.

That is a goal in life almost as satisfying as having a fulfilling artistic career. That when it's over, you never have to look away, you can look people in the eye with pride, and say at least I did my best.

To never stoop to selling out your friends, to live your principles as well as your dreams, is the best way I can think of honoring the life of Cuatemoc Jose Bill Melendez.

Via Con Dios, Companero!


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Quiz: What is the Riddle of the Sphinx?

Yesterday’s Question answered below: Who said: “ an enigma, wrapped in a mystery, set in a question..” and what was he/she referring to?
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History for 9/4/2008
Birthdays: Darius Mihlaud, Anton Bruckner, Chateaubriand, Craig Claiborne, Dick York, Richard Wright, Nigel Bruce, Mary Renault, Tom Watson, Mitzi Gaynor, Damon Wayans is 48, Paul Harvey is 90, Beyonce' Knowles is 27

218BC- Hannibal’s army with elephants reached the summit of the Alps.

1781- HAPPY BIRTHDAY, LOS ANGELES. Royal Governor of New Spain Gaspar de Portola and Franciscan monk Fra Junipero Serra with twelve soldiers, some free black families and Indians, about 44 in all, dedicated a new town, one days ride north of San Pedro. The 63 year old Serra had been stung by a scorpion but ignored it, so he hobbled around dragging his swollen leg. Fra Serra named the town after St. Francis of Assisi's first church in Italy- St. Mary of the Angels, so El Pueblo Nuestra Senora Santa Maria Reina de Los Angeles de Porcuincula. Like totally knarly dude!

1781- Benedict Arnold, the American Colonial general turned traitor, led a force of British redcoats to burn his own home town of New London, Connecticut. Who says you can never go home?

1833 –The New York Sun hired young boys to sell their papers on street corners. The first newsboy was ten year old Barney Flagherty. Now go peddle your papers, kid.

1884-Thomas Edison proves he could replace gas streetlights with electricity by illuminating one square New York City block (around Pearl st.) with his new dynamo. J.P. Morgan's bank on the corner of Wall and Broad streets is the first private business to be lit solely by electricity.

1888-George Eastman patents the roll film camera. The word "Kodak" is supposedly the sound the shutter made. Another story on the origin of the word was that George wanted a word pronounced the same in all known dialects. So after some research (Rochester lore has it that he did all of this himself) he concluded that only k and x qualified as sounds uttered the same way in all languages. Thus Eastman Kodak. Years later the Rochester based Haloid company, which had for years manufactured photographic paper for Kodak, invented a dry copying process and renamed their company Xerox, following the same convention.

1893- Writer and illustrator Beatrix Potter sent a letter to a sick child: " I don't know what to write you so I shall tell you the story of four little rabbits. Their names were Flopsy, Mopsy, Cottontail and Peter." The Peter Cottontail stories born.

1904 – The Dali Lama signed the first treaty allowing British commerce in Tibet. Tibet had been a closed society forbidding any contact with the outside world.

1934- Young filmmaker Leni Reifenstahl was contracted by the German Propaganda Ministry to film the 1934 Nazis Party Congress held in Nuremburg. While they were expecting a routine documentary-" They would have been happy if I just kept ze camera on Hitler for 90 minutes.." Leni Reifenstahl instead created the film THE TRIUMPH OF THE WILL, who’s darkly hypnotic images would make film history.

1940- The Columbia Broadcast Service or CBS network started up their first television station.

1957-Ford Motor Company introduced the Edsel, named for Henry Ford's son. Touted as "the dream car of the decade". Ford spent more to promote it than any other car in history. Only 200,000 were sold and after complaints like the steering and brakes failing and dashboards unexpectedly bursting into flame the car was discontinued. Ford lost $250 million. Edsel became the synonym for corporate failure.

1972- American swimmer Mark Spitz won his 7th gold medal in Olympic competition in Munich. He also spawned a cottage industry selling the poster of him wearing his medals, tiny Speedos and that’s about it. This image and the swimsuit poster of Farrah Fawcett, were two of the more famous images of the 1970’s. Phelps! Make a poster deal, FAST!

1976- College party boy George W. Bush was busted for drunk-driving close to his family home in Kennebunkport, Maine. He later applied for a brand new Texas State driver’s license, which came with a clean record with no report of the arrest. As President delivering the commencement at Harvard in 2002 he joked:” In the motorcade, seeing all those police cars behind me with their lights flashing… kinda brings me back to my college days…”

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Yesterday’s Quiz: Who said: “ an enigma, wrapped in a mystery, set in a question..” and what was he/she referring to?

Answer: Winston Churchill, in a radio address in October 1939, after Soviet Russia joined Hitler’s Germany in crushing Poland. “ I cannot forecast to you the action of Russia. It is a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, set inside an enigma; but perhaps there is a key. That key is Russian national interest."

Quiz: Who said: “ an enigma, wrapped in a mystery, set in a question..” and what was he/she referring to?

Yesterday’s question answered below: What film had the awesome line- “ The Dude Abides…”?
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Birthdays: Alan Ladd, Irene Papas, Memphis Slim, Eddie Stanky, Mort Walker the creator of Beetle Bailey, Mitzi Gaynor, Richard Tyler, Eileen Brennan, Valerie Perrine, Charlie Sheen is 42

1592- Retired London actor Richard Green wrote a letter to his fellow actors complaining of a newcomer becoming popular in their midst "A new upstart crow filled with Bombast" - Master William Shakespeare.

1777- In a small skirmish with British redcoats near Cooch, Maryland, the American rebels raise their new Stars & Stripes banner for the first time in battle. They are quickly defeated.

1833- The New York Sun began publication, the first mass circulation newspaper in the U.S..

1886- Geronimo gives up to the U.S. Army for the fourth and last time. He and his Chiracaua Apaches were promised no retribution would befall them. After they were disarmed they were packed up into railroad cars and shipped to prison in Ft. Myers, Florida to die in the malaria infested swamps. Geronimo in his time had as many Apache enemies as cavalry. The White Mountain Apaches helped guide the US cavalry in their pursuit. After Geronimo's Chiracaua's were exiled the White Mountain Apache were rewarded by also being transported to the Florida everglades. Geronimo survived all and after his release he retired to Santa Fe where he died in 1910.

1912- Los Angeles attraction Frazier's Million Dollar Pier destroyed by fire.

1930- The first issue of the Hollywood Reporter.

1937- Orson Welles Mercury Theater of the air produced its first play on nationwide radio- an adaptation of Victor Hugo’s Les Mierables.

1939- Britain and France declare war on Nazi Germany over the invasion of Poland, World War Two results.

1939- British Prime Minister Chamberlain's war announcement interrupts a Disney Cartoon "Mickey's Gala Premiere" showing on the nascent BBC television service. Television shuts down for the duration.


1944- During World War Two, U.S. pilots shot down by the Japanese were rescued by submarines. The submariners called the pilots Zoomies. This day, off the coast of Ichi Jima, the submarine USS Tampico plucked out of the ocean a Zoomie who would one day be President of the United States. Second Lieutenant George Bush Sr.

1946- After the War, the BBC television service resumes and an announcer says:" Well now, where were we?" They continue the Mickey cartoon from where it was interrupted in 1939. World War Two probably held back for a decade the development of television.

1950- Mort Walker's "Beetle Bailey" comic strip first appeared.

1960- The Hanna-Barbera show 'Lippy the Lion and Hardy-Harr-Harr" premiered.

1967-Last broadcast of the game show What's My Line. Host John Daley led a panel of NY columnists and socialites in witty banter- Bennett Cerf, Dorothy Kilgalen, Kitty Carlisle-Hart, Bill Cullen and Henry Morgan. Well....I'm going to turn over all the cards now...

2003- Two crooks in Detroit hijacked a Krispy Kreme truck and tried to hold three thousand donuts hostage.
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Yesterday’s Quiz: What film had the awesome line- “ The Dude Abides…”?

Answer: Why, the Coen Bros cult classic, The Big Lebowski, of course! It was over the line, Donny!