QUIZ:

WHERE DOES THE CUSTOM OF PUTTING UP CHRISTMAS LIGHTS ON YOUR HOUSE COME FROM? (answer below)

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Birthdays: English King Edward VII “Bertie”, Emile Dickinson, Chet Huntley, Morton Gould, Victor McLaghlin, Dan Blocker, Tommy Kirk, Fionnula Flanagan, Kenneth Branaugh is 46, Dorothy Lamour, Susan Dey, Michael Clarke Duncan


1607- In Virginia Captain John Smith left the Jamestown camp with two men to find food. They were captured by the Indians who killed the other men and dragged Smith before chief Powhatan. He ordered Smith’s head to be placed on a flat stone and bashed in with a war club. But Powhatan’s favorite daughter Pocahontas threw herself over Smith and protected him. Smith could speak no Algonquin and the Indians no English and neither could sing any Broadway tunes. Was this an execution prevented or a ritual of admission into the tribe? Powhatan was known to extend his rule through dynastic alliances with other tribal leaders, and he was well aware of the white strangers, wiping out a Spanish attempt to land on his beach in 1600. Maybe this was his way of wanting to bring the white mans powers to his side. No one knows for sure. Smith didn’t write of this incident until back in England 14 years later.

1901- The First Nobel Prize is given. Alfred Nobel made millions by inventing dynamite and nitro-glycerine. But as much as his discoveries were used for constructive purposes they also made it possible for armies to blow each other up much more efficiently. He felt guilty and after an accident with the stuff killed his own brother he resolved to create something positive from his fortune. Hence the Nobel Prize. Nobel died on Dec 10th 1896 and the awards are given each year on the anniversary. President Teddy Roosevelt won the first Peace Prize in 1910 for mediating an end to the Russo-Japanese War. In 1950 Dr. Ralph Bunche was the first African-American to receive a Nobel.

1905- O. Henry’s short story “ A gift from the Magi” first published.

1938- To make the film "Gone With the Wind" Producer David Selznick and director Victor Fleming shot the massive "Burning of Atlanta" in Culver City, California. The sequence was storyboarded and designed by William Cameron-Menzies, who designed the sets for Intolerance for D.W. Griffith. Selznick used the opportunity to clean the studios backlot storage, destroying sets from King Kong, Little Lord Fauntelroy and Last of the Mohicans in the inferno. They shot the scenes with three Rhett Butler stand ins.

1941-The Hollywood Victory Committee formed. Top Hollywood agents like Abe Lastfogel, Lou Wasserman and Myron Selznick (David's brother) start signing up movie stars for bond drives and touring shows for the troops.
The committee later created the Hollywood Canteen, a nightclub for servicemen on Ivar near Sunset. A soldier or sailor could come in for a free meal served by Tyrone Power or Red Skelton and have a dance with celebrities like Rita Hayworth or Dina Shore.
One animation painter who worked in the kitchen told me the only celebrity who would stay until closing, even mopping and washing coffee cups was Marlene Deitrich.

1966- The Beach Boys “Good Vibrations” hit #1 in pop charts.

1967- R&B star Otis Redding and four of his band the Bar Kays were killed in a small plane crash near Madison Wisconsin. Redding had recorded his hit “Sitting on the Dock of the Bay” just three days earlier.

1995- Worst recorded snowstorm in Buffalo, NY history. 37.9 inches in just 24 hours!
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Answer to the Quiz

WHERE DOES THE CUSTOM OF PUTTING UP CHRISTMAS LIGHTS ON YOUR HOUSE COME FROM?
Answer: No, it's wasn't Edison, and it wasn't the Victorians. The custom goes back to Ancient Rome. The Romans welcomed the New Year in by putting oil lamps in every window. and decorating their houses. Also the rival religion to Christianity then was Mithraism. On the solstice the Mithraists lit fires on their roofs as offering to Ahura Mazda the Sun God.

woohoo! Party! Party!

Great Holiday Party at the union attended by hundreds of artists.

Turned in a new article to animation work network AWN about disasterous story pitches.It's slated to run after December 11th.

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Birthdays: Sappho, John Milton, Jean De Brunhoff, Elzie Segar the creator of Popeye, Hermoinie Gingold, Dalton Trumbo, John Cassavettes,Broderick Crawford, Dick Butkus, Kirk Douglas is 90, Red Foxx, Cesar Franck, John Malkovich is 53, Douglas Fairbanks Jr. Buck Henry is 76, Judy Dench, Felicity Huffman, Star Trek’s Mr Worff- 2340 AD

1889- The Chicago Auditorium dedicated. The landmark building’s architect Louis Sullivan had hired a new assistant to help with the drawings-Frank Lloyd Wright.

1905- Richard Strauss’s opera Salome premiered in Dresden. The lead role demands an opera singer with big Wagnerian lungs but also a flat stomach to do the strip tease the Dance of the Seven Veils. When the opera debuted in New York, old millionaires like J.P. Morgan were shocked at its’explicit sexuality. They threatened to cut off funding until Salome was pulled from the schedule.


1946- Damon Runyon died ,the writer whose characters the musical "Guys and Dolls' are based. His philosophy: "All life is six to five against."

1948-Actor Ossie Davis married actress Ruby Dee.

1960- The first episode of Coronation Street premiered on British ITV.

1964-John Coltrane recorded his landmark jazz album “The Love Supreme”. Late on foggy nights Trane liked to take his sax out onto the middle of San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge and practice by himself.

1965- Bill Melendez's "A Charlie Brown Christmas" the first half hour animated t.v. special, featuring the music of Vince Guaraldi. Peanut’s creator Charles Schulz had heard Guaraldi's jazz combo perform in San Francisco and when he picked him to do the music. He never scored a film before:" How many yards of music do you want?" Vince Guaraldi died a few years later of the various vices jazzmen were prey to but the t.v. special goes on. A Charlie Brown Christmas has run every year for 40 years.



1967- At a Doors concert lead singer Jim Morrison was sprayed with mace and arrested by Miami police for “lewd behavior” on stage, but probably more for referring to the cops in derogatory terms.

1992-Britains Prime Minister John Major announced the separation of Prince Charles and Diana of Wales.

1994- Disney Animators in California move into their new Animation building designed by Robert Stern.

I had a nice time Thursday with Prof Dave Master doing the virtual classroom talk called AcmeAnimation. I was linked to several colleges, answered question about "the Biz" and critiqued work. For those of you who were on line and decided to check out my website- WELCOME!


Last time I was in New York Howard Beckerman gave me this wonderful photo of the Terrytoons crew in 1931. Art Babbitt is crouching down in front. Bill Tytla stand behind with the womans head turned towards him. Frank Moser second from the left with the fedora and faced in shadow. Shortly after this time both Babbitt and Tyla quit to go West and work for Walt Disney.
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Birthdays: Horace (Quintus Horatius) 65BC- author of the Country Mouse and the City Mouse, Mary Queen of Scots, Swedish King Gustavus Adolphus, Queen Christina Vasa of Sweden 1623, Jean Sibelius, George Melies the father of Motion Picture Special Effects, cartoonist James Thurber, Eli Whitney, Jim Morrison, Diego Rivera, animation pioneer Emile Reynaud, Sammy Davis Jr, Maximillian Schell- Swiss born actor who plays Nazi officers in all those movies, Flip Wilson, Sam Kinison,Teri Hatcher is 42, Sinead O’Connor is 40, Kim Basinger is 53

1868- According to Jules Verne’s novel Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, tonight is the night Captain Nemo’s fantastic submarine the Nautilus attacked and sank a US warship and captured Professor Aronax and harpooner Ned Land.

1886-The American Federation of Labor (AFL) formed. The first president was former cigar maker Samuel Gompers.

1913- ground broken for the construction of San Francisco’s Palace of Fine Arts.

1891- George O'Brien invented the electric tattooing needle, making modern tattooing possible.

1940- Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo remarry. The two great Mexican artists had been married for ten years but divorced for a year because of their mutual infidelities. Diego also wanted to protect Frida from fallout from his political activities. But after a year apart that decided they couldn’t live without one another and remarried.

1941-DAY OF INFAMY Aftermath- On the day after the Pearl Harbor sneak attack, President Roosevelt did his famous "Day of Infamy" speech. Congress voted almost unanimously to declare war on Japan.
Interestingly enough the U.S. did not declare war on Germany along with Japan. Germany and Italy declared war on the U.S. four days later. The only vote against the war was Montana Congresswoman Jeanette Rankin, who had voted against the First World War also in 1917. With the American Fleet sunk or scattered the US Pacific Coast braced for Japanese attack. In California Fourth interceptor Command reported two formations of enemy planes flying from San Francisco to Los Angeles. They turned out to be seagulls. Another panicky report of an approaching Japanese task force turned out to be Monterrey tuna boats. Blackouts began, as did mass arrests of Japanese-Americans. In Hollywood the Paramount Studio baseball team was allowed to finish it's game with the L.A. Nippons 6-3, after which the FBI arrested the entire team. The civil defense command placed anti-aircraft guns on the Walt Disney Studio lot because of it's proximity to the aircraft plant of Lockheed. Walt Disney himself was turned away at the gate for not wearing his identity badge.

1958- THIS IS JAZZ- Landmark live CBS television broadcast of jazz greats Billie Holiday, Count Basie, Lester Young , Coleman Hawkins and Thelonius Monk .

1961-"Surfin’" the first record by the Beach Boys started to climb the local LA pop charts.

1963- Frank Sinatra Jr was kidnapped in Lake Tahoe. After four tense days he was released unharmed, partly because he was part of the plot. Dad was not pleased.

1980- The Bravo Channel began. Remember when it played only classical concerts and ballets ?

1980- JOHN LENNON SHOT. . As he went in to his apartment building the Dakota in New York City Beatle-Composer John Lennon was stopped by a fan named Mark David Chapman for an autograph. A few hours later Lennon emerged from the building on another errand. Chapman was still there, except this time he pulled out a gun and shot Lennon dead. John Lennon was 40. The area of Central Park across from the apartment was dedicated to him as Strawberry Fields. The National Enquirer tabloid demonstrated it’s sensitivity by publishing on the front page the only photo taken of Lennon in his coffin. The photo was taken by a cousin of Lennon who wanted to make a few extra bucks.

John Hubley's 1941 vintage Picket Sign, courtesy of Emily Hubley.

Last approvals completed for the Taiwanese project. Hooray! Another one in the can! Congratulations to the great crew over on Nan Kang Road. Mo-mo-Shi-shi-Da! I'll let you know where you can get copies.

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Birthdays: Willa Cather, Larry Bird, Piero Mascagni, Madame Tussaud-1761, Tom Waits, Johnny Bench, Louis Prima, Ted Knight –real name Wladsyslaw Konopka, Victor Kiam II, Noam Chomsky, Ellen Burstyn-real name Edna Mae Gilhooley, Eli Wallach, Harry Chapin, Clarence Nash the voice of Donald Duck

1919- “Blind Husbands” premiered, the first film by Erich Von Stroheim. Originally a Viennese hat salesman, Stroheim cultivated his Germanic aristocratic image on the silver screen. The premiere issue of the New Yorker in 1923 glibly noted how “Mr Stroheim has grown a very stylish “Von” in the Southern California Sun”.

1925- Olympic swimmer Johnny Weissmuller set a world record in the 150 meter freestyle, one minute 25 and 2/5th seconds. He later went to Hollywood and was the star of the Tarzan movies.

1934- Aviator Wiley Post discovered the upper atmosphere air current called the Jet Stream.

1941-THE ATTACK ON PEARL HARBOR- At dawn, on a quiet Sunday morning, 360 Japanese planes surprise attack and sink most of the U.S. Pacific Fleet, causing 4,000 casualties. Simultaneous attacks are made on British and Dutch military posts in Hong Kong, Shanghai and Singapore. The White House butler recalled a general telling President Franklin Roosevelt-“They got the whole G*ddamn navy!”
Japan had begun her previous foreign wars with surprise attacks: against China in 1891 and Russia in 1905. It had its philosophical roots in the Emai school of Samurai, that of dealing a death stroke with one decisive blow. Americans were enraged by the "Day of Infamy" sneak attack, the US government was bracing for some kind of attack since July when FDR embargoed Japan’s steel and oil imports, but they couldn’t be sure where. Most experts expected a strike at Manila. Lt. William Higgins was awakened by the radar post on Diamond Head reporting hundreds of unknown planes headed towards them. His famous reply:" Well.....don't worry about it.."
The plan was masterminded by Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, Harvard class of 1926. He was anti-war and knew a war with America was a long shot. When he heard that the surprise was complete but delivered before the war declaration in Washington, he said:" All I fear we have done is awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with terrible resolve." The fact that Japan had sent a special envoy to Washington named Kurusu to negotiate the crisis even while preparing this attack was even more maddening to Americans. Young Daniel Inouye was playing ball in his Honolulu yard when he saw the Rising Sun insignia on the Zeros flying overhead."You Dirty Japs !" he cried, realizing a moment later the silliness of his remark, being Nisei Japanese himself. He went on to become a US Senator.
That evening President Franklin Roosevelt held an emergency cabinet meeting. Tearful crowds pressed against the fences of the White House and sang God Bless America and My Country 'Tis of Thee in the cold night air. Admiral Yamamoto was once asked if he had an extensive spy network because he knew so many details about the American forces. He said he had a copy of Jane's Fighting Ships for 1939 and subscribed to the magazine Popular Mechanics which described in detail every American plane's range and armaments.

1945- The microwave oven patented.

1964- Height of student uprising at Berkeley College in California. Students won more liberalized curriculum and open teaching and created the first major student protest of the tumultuous 1960's and earned Berkely the national reputation of the nation's most radicalized school. The Oakland police were later nicknamed the Blue Meanies after the villains in the Beatles cartoon Yellow Submarine.

1974- The disco song “Kung Fu Fighting” by Carl Douglas hit #1 in the pop charts.

Ah my Little Munchkins, I'm thinking back to the early 1970s when I was in school, Nixon was in Washington and Internet downloads and DVDs did not exist. Back then if you wanted to see classic black & white pre-Production Code cartoons, you went to your local Movie Retro House.



For a minimal sum you saw a parade of wonderful old Betty Boops, Popeyes and Kokos, Clampett's Porky in Wackyland and other classics, followed by odd movies of old like Todd Brownings Freaks, Reefer Madness, Une Chien Andalou, Bergman's The Seventh Seal and Barbera Stanwyck in the G-String Murders.

There was a compilation of Fleischer's naughtier shorts released in 1974 called The Betty Boop Cocaine Follies. For those of us raised on Bambi and just getting used to the 1960's undergrounds like Fritz the Cat, watching a 50 year old cartoon of Betty jumping out of her little black dress was pretty surprising!

My favorite was the Elgin Theater on West 23rd St and 8th Ave in Manhattan. It was a faded old vaudeville palace that reeked of marijuana smoke and trickled plaster dust on your head everytime an A train rumbled underneath. But in the cool dark on a busted seat you took in a treasure trove of Hollywood's ancient best.

Other old palaces that come to mind in New York City were the Thallia, the Beacon, the wonderful Bleecker Street Cinema with accompanying gift store and coffee house, the Waverly in the Village or the Carnegie Cinema. Or you could go over to the New School of Social Research on 12th Street and pay to hear a lecture on sex and violence in cartoons by Gene London or that new young historian with the black beard- Leonard Maltin.

In LA it was the NuArt, the Vista and the El Rey. Always with a midnight showing of John Waters Pink Flamingos, David Lynch's Eraserhead or Cafe Flesh. Many of these theaters used to be vaudeville houses where the Marx Brothers and the Three Stooges would try out their material in front of a live audience before committing it to film.

courtesy of Karl Cohen

In San Francisco when not doing light shows for Rick Munday the redoubtable Karl Cohen put on regular shows at the United States Cafe in the Haight Ashbury District for legions of grateful Flower Children.

In Toronto Pat and I used to go to Reg Hart's special screenings of pristine 35mm prints of Clampett cartoons and the silent Ben Hur, a print so good that the Museum of Modern Art once offered Reg to buy it. The Yonge Street Cinema used to show midnight shows of Japanese Monster movies like Ultraman and Ghidrah, that the Nelvana gang flocked to.

As collecting movies at home on video became commonplace and the variety of the selection covered the more exotic libraries, the need for the retro houses faded.

I reccomend everyone at one time in their lives should see a great old Hollywood film like Casablanca or Fantasia on the big screen the way the filmmaker wanted you to see it. You'll see it's a totally different viewing experience.

Like Pompeii or Tenochtitlan' these palaces are mostly gone, but for the memories left in the minds of we who saw them and shared the group experience of a well done cartoon projected in 1:3:3 aspect ratio. It was our research library, and we shall never forget them.. (unless you did a little too much of that weed!)

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Birthdays: John Eberhard 1822, builder of the first large pencil factory in the US- Eberhard Faber,Henry Jarecki, Baby Face Nelson, William S. Hart, Ira Gershwin, Dave Brubeck is 85, Agnes Moorehead, Tom Hulce, Wally Cox, Lynn Fontaine, Janine Turner, Steven Wright, JoBeth Williams, Aardman director Nick Park

Today if the FEAST of SAINT NICHOLAS, the patron saint of sailors and children. In the 350 AD Nicholas heard of a man so poor that he was about to sell his daughters into prostitution. Nicholas climbed into the man’s house and left gold coins in their socks drying by the fireplace. In some cities during the Middle Ages the custom was this day to elect a Boy Bishop who would reign in an honorary style until the Feast of the Holy Innocents December 28th.

1877- First edition of the Washington Post.

1915- MAX FLEISCHER PATENTS THE ROTOSCOPE TECHNIQUE- This system enables you to film an actor then draw the cartoons over the still frames of the live action to achieve a realistic motion. (an early form of Motion Capture) Max would film his brother Dave in a clown suit then draw Koko the Clown over him. Dave had already owned the clown suit because he had been seriously considering a change in careers. The Fleischer's New York studio would be Disney's chief rival for most of the 1920's-30's.

1933- U.S. Federal Judge James Woolsey decided James Joyce's novel "ULYSSES" is not a dirty book and can be published in the U.S by Viking Press. The book had been out in Europe since 1922.

1942- The movie the Cat People with Simon-Simon premiered.

1964- Rankin Bass' t.v. special 'Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer' first broadcast.