I spent a nice day working on a mural for a friend's gym in North Hollywood. He didn't hire me. I just saw this nice big wall and decided it needs a picture on it. Funny, how after all the animating on Cintiqs, planning complex shows, studio politics, and retakes.....sometimes it's fun to just paint funny pictures on someones big white wall. It reminds you, as an artist, that at base you have a gift that can make people smile. And at times, that is what it is all about.

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Quiz: What is meant by Spartan living?

Yesterday’s Quiz Answered Below: In Walt Disney’s film of Alice in Wonderland, the portrayal of the Queen of Hearts was based on a real life person. Who was it?
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History for 8/19/2008
B-Days: Orville Wright, Ring Lardner, Ogden Nash, Alfred Lunt,jockey Willie Shoemaker, Malcom Forbes, Tipper Gore, Gene Roddenberry, Colleen Moore the It Girl, Jill St. John, Ginger Baker of Grand Funk Railroad, Dawn Steel, John Stamos, Peter Gallagher, former President Bill Clinton is 62

480 B.C. THERMOPYLAE- The Spartan King Leonidas had gone on ahead of other Greek allies to try and slow down the gigantic Persian invasion force of Xerxes. He chose to stop them at a narrow mountain pass in Thessaly called Thermopylae or Hot Gates. He had only 300 Spartans of his royal guard and 7000 other Greek allies to fight off 200,000 Persians. After repulsing several attacks this night spies told Leonidas a Greek traitor named Ephialtes had shown Xerxes a way around his position. If he did not retreat tomorrow he would be surrounded. Their seer Meistias saw nothing but death foretold in the sacrificial entrails.
But Leonidas decided the best way to gain time and create an example for Greece to rally was to stay and fight to the end. He allowed his allies to withdraw but 1500 warriors including his 300 Spartans stayed with him. Meistias sent away his only son to be saved but he stayed to fight. This night before the last battle the Spartans spent most of their time combing and oiling their hair and beards, for they did not want to enter the next life looking shabby. One Spartan warrior named Dieneces was told when the Persian multitudes fire their arrows they black out the sun. Dieneces replied: “Good, then we can fight them in the shade.”

Before we attack, I need to do another series on my abs, Grrrrr!

14 A.D.- Elderly Emperor Augustus died after ruling the Roman Empire for 44 years. The Empress Livia had ordered the imperial villa surrounded with troops so no one but her saw his end. She said his last words were:" Have I played my part well in this great comedy called life?" But the historian Tacitus suspected Livia might have aided his shuffling off this mortal coil before he had second thoughts about leaving the empire to her son Tiberius, He may have said something more like: " Honey, I don't feel so good. What did you put in these figs?"

1274- King Edward Ist Longshanks and his Queen Eleanor of Castile crowned at Westminister Abbey. Edward was called Long-Legs because he was over 6 foot, and his constant wars and blood conquest earned him nicknames like The Hammer of the Scots, the Great Plantagenet and Big Baddass In-Your-Face Mofo King.

1399 - King Richard II of England surrendered his throne to his cousin Henry Bollingbroke, who became King Henry IV. Richard II is not remembered for much else but inventing the pocket-handkerchief.

1599- Spanish Conquistadors capture and burn Acoma pueblo in New Mexico east of modern Alberquergue. The Indian village on the sheer tabletop mountain reminded the Spaniards of attacking castles back home. After their victory they enslaved the population and burned the chief at the stake as a heretic. As the chief was roasting the monk Diego Las Casas started to feel guilty, so he urged the chief at his last moments to accept baptism. The chief called out through the flames:"No thank you, because then I would go to the Christian Heaven and meet even MORE of you people!"

1692- Salem Mass, The pilgrims executed four women as witches. One was an elderly senile woman who just looked scarey like a witch, and another was a Caribbean servant named Tituba who liked to entertain children by telling ghost stories.

1745- THE GATHERING OF THE CLANS- At Glenfinnin in the Scottish Highlands to the thunder of drums and the skirl of massed bagpipes, Bonnie Prince Charlie raised his banner of revolt and called all Scottish clans to rally to him. Many clans stayed aloof but Clan MacDonald and Cameron wholeheartedly swelled his ranks as did his family clan the Stuarts.

1781- George Washington starts his continental army marching from Yonkers, New York to attack Lord Cornwallis at Yorktown Virginia. At Dobbs Ferry he started ferrying his troops across the Great Northern River as the Hudson was known then. He was amazed that the British army only twenty miles away in New York City never stirred to attack him. Washington’s minutemen at this time were so broke that the French General the Comte du Rocheambeau donated some of his own money to pay them some wages.

1812-OLD IRONSIDES- During the war of 1812 The USS Constitution pounded it out with the frigate HMS Guerriere off the coast of Nova Scotia. The British captain complained his cannonballs bounced harmlessly off the Constitutions heavy New Hampshire oak hull as though it was made of iron. The nickname stuck and today Old Ironsides is the oldest commissioned ship in the US Navy.

1814-THE ATTACK ON WASHINGTON BEGAN. A huge British battle fleet of 14 Ships of the Line landed an invasion force of veteran redcoat troops at the town of Benedict on the Pautuxent River in Virginia. Admirals Cochrane & Cockburn’s intent was to march on Washington D.C., and “give the Americans a Good Drubbing!” The defenses of the American capitol were some militia and a few Marines from the two armed schooners hiding in the shallows of the Cheasapeake. U.S. Secretary of War Armstrong was convinced they were faking and the real target of the British was Baltimore. President James Madison sent contradicting orders to Armstrong and the field generals. Secretary of State James Monroe personally galloped about alone under British fire bringing the only reliable scouting reports.

1955 - WINS radio, announces it will not play "copy" white cover versions of black R&B . DJs must play Fats Domino's "Ain't It A Shame," not Pat Boone's. In 1957 Little Richards “Tuttie-Fruitie” never got higher than 17th in the Billboard Charts while Pat Boones version, by his own admission awful, went to number one.

1957- The NY Giants baseball team voted to move to San Francisco.

1973 - Kris Kristofferson wed Rita Coolidge.

1977- Groucho Marx , the last surviving Marx Brother, died at age 86. In his final years Groucho had rewrote his will in favor of his 31 year old personal secretary Erin Fleming. This spawned a furious legal battle between Fleming and the Marx family.

1989- The Polish Communist regime resigns and turns over power to the Solidarity trade union movement, the first Communist government to collapse.

1991-THE AUGUST COUP. Communist hardliners in a final attempt to stop the fall of the Soviet system try to overthrow leader Mikhail Gorbachov. They try to do it the way they did it to Nikita Khruschev in 1964, arresting Gorbachov while he was at his vacation dacha or cottage. The coup failed several days later when Russian Republic President Boris Yeltsin climbed on top of a tank and called for a "people-power" style rising to support the democratic elements of the government.

2000- Scientists report water at the North Pole for the first time in 50 million years. Today they are worrying about all the ice melting by next year.

2335 – According to Star Trek the Next Generation this is the birthday of William T Riker, in Valdez Alaska, first officer of the Enterprise.
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Yesterday’s Quiz: In Walt Disney’s film of Alice in Wonderland, the portrayal of the Queen of Hearts was based on a real life person. Who was it?
courtesy of mouseplanet.com

Answer: Frank Thomas said they went to lunch once in Hollywood and saw gossip columnist Louella Parsons bullying around her staff. She was a squat thick lady with black hair and a large mouth. And the rest is...animation.
Here, check the resemblance for yourself-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NsclfwA4VsY

Quiz: In Disney’s film Alice in Wonderland, the portrayal of the Queen of Hearts was based on a real life person. Who was it?

Yesterday’s Question answered below: What is nomenclature?
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HISTORY FOR 8/18/2008
Birthdays: Meriwether Lewis ,Austrian Emperor Franz Josef II, Leo Slezak Shelly Winters, Caspar Weinburger, Roberto Clemente, Rafer Johnson, Enoch Light, Coco Channel, Roman Polanski is 75, Patrick Swayze is 56, Madeleine Stowe is 50, Christian Slater, Edward Norton is 39, Martin Mull, Denis Leary, Robert Redford, born Charles Robert Redford Jr, who first wanted to be an animator before turning to acting, is 72



1503-Pope Alexander VI, the Borgia, died. Some say he died of malaria, others that he poisoned himself accidentally while trying to poison someone else. The Borgia's enemies then take over the Vatican and end Caesar & Lucretia Borgia's reign of terror. The Pope had had seven children and at the time was sleeping with 16 year old Giulia Farnese whom he had painted as the Virgin Mary. People said the Alexander had sold his soul to the devil because at his death an ape appeared on his windowsill and water boiled in his mouth. Hmmm- proof enough for me. His 300 lb. corpse was so swollen with corruption that it had to be pounded into it's coffin with big wood wine-corking mallets.

1587- Virginia Dare, the first English child in America, is born. She was in the Roanoke Colony, the fabled "Lost Colony" who all disappeared a year later.

1850- Honore' Balzac died after drinking too much coffee. He was overweight, seldom bathed and picked his nose in public, but women still found him irresistible.

1856- Mr Gail Borden patents condensed milk. It became popular during the Civil War when it was used by the army, then it spawned the process food industry. When Borden died he left instructions that his tombstone be shaped like a milk can.

1862- THE GREAT SANTEE SIOUX UPRISING- Minnesota Sioux tribes called Dakota-Allies, had agreed to sell their land and settle on reservations and learn farming. Once removed from their land they starved waiting for food and money held up by government agents corruption. When Chief Little Crow -Taoyateduta demanded food he knew was being stockpiled in warehouses Indian Agent Andrew J. Myrick responded “Let your people eat grass!” This day the Sioux exploded across the prairie from New Ulm to Fort Snelling (Minneapolis)- 200 whites were killed, including Indian Agent Myrick, who was found with a tuft of grass stuffed in his mouth.

1872 - 1st mail-order catalog issued by A M Ward.

1896- 200 outlaws gather at Hole-In-The-Wall to form the "Wild Bunch".
They never went all at the same time to a heist, it was more like a gunfighters guild. I wonder what the dues were?

1919- Tennessee becomes the last state needed to ratify the Nineteenth Amendment to the Constitution giving women the vote. The legislature was deadlocked but the tie was broken by one state senator who changed his mind. He wanted to please his mother.

1937- The Toyota Automobile Company was established as an offshoot of the Toyoda Motorized Loom Works. They changed the name Toyoda to Toyota because a Shinto priest told them the name would be luckier.

1939- The movie the Wizard of Oz released and made a star of Judy Garland. Frank Morgan, ther actor playing the Wizard, needed to wear a shabby old coat so a studio costume designer went through some L.A. thrift stores until she found the good candidate. When Morgan looked in the lining he discovered the coat was previously owned by L.Frank Baum, writer of the Oz stories. Morgan was first president of the Screen Actor's Guild, but stepped down when he was considered 'too left' to work with the Roosevelt administration. Lyricist Yip Harburg ( Somewhere over the Rainbow ) was later blacklisted as a communist. "And yer little dog ,too!!"

1950- Battle of the Bowling Alley- The US and South Korean Armies pushed up against the Pusan Perimeter score their first victory against North Korean regulars. It got it’s name because the North Korean tanks bottled up into narrow defiles by the land made excellent targets for waiting anti-tank artillery, bazooka and aircraft. Eyewitnesses said it looked like a “Bowling Alley in Hell.”

1953- The first MacDonalds Franchise restaurant opened in Downey California.

1956- Actress Vivien Leigh suffered a mental breakdown after a miscarriage.

1958 - "Lolita," by Vladimir Nabokov, published. The novel was rejected by four publishers before Putnams picked it up. It became a best seller and allowed Nabokov to quit teaching and focus on writing.

1958 - TV game show scandal investigation starts. Allegations that popular quiz shows like 21 were rigged turned out to be true.

1962 - Peter, Paul & Mary release their 1st hit "If I Had a Hammer"

1966- HAPPY BIRTHDAY SLURPEE! The Ice Slurpee was invented by two Dallas engineers for a failing Oklahoma ice cream store.

1977- The Xerox Company decided not to seriously market the Alto, the pioneering personal computer that had a graphic window interface and mouse long before anyone else. Xerox decided to stick with copying machines and disbanded their Palo Alto development team Xerox PARC. Most of their breakthroughs wound up in other computers like the Macintosh II and the IBM PC.



1977- The rock band the Police make their debut in a Birmingham nightclub. The lead singer Gordon Sumner started to get the nickname Sting from the black and yellow shirt he habitually wore.

1986 - John Tesh's first appearance on Entertainment Tonight.

1989- Publishing Tycoon Malcolm Forbes flies 800 guests to Tangiers to celebrate his birthday. His birthday party cost $2 million. The soiree' comes to symbolize 1980's wealthy excess.

1999- TV psychic Kriswell predicted TODAY would be the End of the World.
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Yesterday’s Question: What is nomenclature?

Answer: Nomenclature today means the assigning a classification to a particular grouping of objects like elements. It is from the Nomenclatura, an ancient Roman personal slave who acted as a personal data base for his master. The Nomenclatura memorized thousand of names, business contacts and details, and could provide them at the snap of his master's finger. I wonder if one was named Marcus Licinius Wickapedium?

I've heard through the grapevine that art director Walt Peregoy will be honored this year as a Disney Legend. Congratulations to Walt and his family! His design style on 101 Dalmations was inspired. We're all very happy for him.



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Quiz: What is nomenclature?

¬Yesterday’s Quiz answered below: What does it mean when you call someone a Svengali?

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History for August 17th, 2008
Birthdays: Davy Crocket, Mae West, Marcus Garvey, Sam Goldwyn- original name Schmuel Gelbfisz, then Sam Goldfish, Monte Wooley, Maureen O’Hara, Boog Powell, Belinda Carlisle, Guillermo Vilas, V.S. Naipul, Donnie Wahlberg, Sean Penn, Robert DeNiro is 64

1661- THE PARTY. Armand Fouquet, the first minister of Louis XIV (the Sun King) decided to throw the ultimate party and invite his royal master. Fouquet's new chateau Vaux leVicomte was so lavish, the dinner for 6000 guests so exquisite, the gardens so beautiful and the entertainment was provided by the playwright Moliere. Everything was so all around superior to anything anyone had done that the King responded by having Fouquet relieved of his offices and thrown in the Bastille. It seems King Louis didn't like being upstaged by his servants. Fouquet's immodest ambitions were no help either, his motto was "To what heights may I aspire?" Louis wanted to arrest him on the spot, but his mother said to do so would spoil a really nice party. So he waited two weeks then sent his chief of Musketeers Comte D’Artangnan to arrest Fouquet, The king's new minister Colbert was much more discreet in his entertainments.

1908- D.W. Griffith signed a contract to begin directing movies for Biograph Pictures. He was paid $50 dollars a week plus royalties.

1941-Walt Disney and his artists leave on a goodwill tour of South America, underwritten by a $70,000 government grant. President Franklin Roosevelt was worried that some South American countries might be sympathetic to Nazis forcing the U.S. to worry about her backdoor. So FDR sent Nelson Rockefeller to give the Latin American countries whatever they wanted to keep them out of the world war. Among other things they wanted Donald Duck. It also helped settle the Disney animators strike at home, because without Walt boiling over, Roy could make a deal in private. The Three Caballeros and Saludos Amigos result.

1962- The Beatles replaced drummer Pete Best with Ringo Starr.

1969- The closing day of the Woodstock Rock Concert, Three Days of Peace and Music. Jimmy Hendrix did his now famous rendition of the Star Spangled Banner.

1984- The Walt Disney Company informed it’s chairman Ron Miller that they wanted his resignation. Disney had fallen to 14th in film box office by then. Miller was Walt Disney's son-in-law and was once a professional football player. Within two years of Michael Eisner taking power Disney was number one.

1985-The Hormel Meat Packing Strike, severely threatening the worlds supply of SPAM.

1992- Famed film director Woody Allen admits he is having an affair with Soon Yi Previn, the adopted daughter of his long time lover Mia Farrow. He is 60 and she is 21. But as the unrepentant Allen states: “The Heart wants what it wants.”
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Yesterday’s Quiz: What does it mean when you call someone a Svengali?

Answer provided by Prof Nancy Beiman in Toronto: Svengali was the hypnotist in the novel TRILBY from the 19th century. He hypnotized the titular artist's model and made her do things. Anyone who controls another person by suggestion or will power is still referred to as a Svengali. The novel also gave us the Trilby Hat. Which still, by the way, looks pretty good.

P-p-p-puhl-LEASE!I want a Twentieth Anniv Crew Reunion!

2008 is the twentieth anniversary of the breakthrough film WHO FRAMED ROGER RABBIT? All year plans have flown around Disney and the Academy to do some kind of reunion tribute. But as the schedule for the remainder of the year fills up, nothing seems to have gelled. At SIGGRAPH, Don Hahn and I reconnected and re-affirmed our determination to get something together.

Stay Tooned for October! And I'm saying it now to start the ball rolling. Next year Ariel, the Little Mermaid will have her Twentieth Birthday!

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Quiz: What does it mean when you call someone a Svengali?

answer to yesterday’s question below- What is mean when you speak in a pejorative sense?
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History for 8/16/2008
Birthdays: Fess Parker, Karl Stockhausen*, George Meany Charles Bukowski, Menachim Begin, Otto Mesmer the creator of Felix the Cat, Myron Grim Natwick the creator of Betty Boop, Hal Foster the creator of Prince Valiant, Alex Raymond the creator of Flash Gordon, Kathie Lee Gifford, Eydie Gorme, Bill Evans, Leslie Ann Warren, Angela Bassett, Julie Numar, Robert Culp, James Cameron is 54, Bruce Beresford, Madonna Louise Ciccone is 50

*Stockhausen was an atonal composer who's music was not to everyone's taste. Once when he was late on writing a new concerto for a concert he placed a piece of paper on a window and traced the pattern of stars, drew musical bars over the dots and had it performed. Eyewitnesses said it was awful. Someone asked Sir Thomas Beecham" Have you ever heard any Stockhausen? " He replied:" No, but I think I stepped in some back there."

Today is the Feast of St. Roch, who had a heavenly inspired dog to lick his sores and cure him of the Black Plague.

1805- In the camp at Boulogne Napoleon held a grand military ceremony for his Grande Armee’. To the thundering beat of 1,300 massed drums he personally awarded medals to worthy common soldiers. The secret to Napoleons leadership was a special bond between him and his men that was unique to his time. In an world of aristocrats who considered the common people scum Napoleon walked casually among his soldiers like an equal, stopping to share a roast potato or a dirty joke in rough soldiers language. He called them his children. He had an uncanny memory and read the personnel rosters of his 350,000 man army once a month to update himself on his men’s achievements.

1858- Queen Victoria sent the first transcontinental wire message to President James Buchanan via Cyrus Field's incredible UNDERWATER TRANSCONTINENTAL CABLE, stretching from London to New York. After great fanfare about progress and a new era in communications it broke down, as well as the next several tries to fix it. Just hours after the first message a fisherman pulled it up in his net, thought it was the tail of a sea serpent and cut off a chunk to take home and brag to his friends. Other attempts were ruined when technicians tried to correct the faintness of the signal by boosting the voltage beyond the safety range of the insulation-Zapp! Direct transcontinental communications didn't really become a reality until wireless broadcasting. But the who-ha over this scientific marvel did inspire author Jules Verne to write "Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea."

1877- BIRTHDAY OF THE WORD-"HELLO". In a letter dated today Thomas Edison wrote to the first president of AT&T about how people should initiate conversation on the new telephone machine. A genteel Victorian would think it impolite to speak until spoken to. Edison explained that the results of sonic tests proved the old English fox hunting call "Halloo!" was most audible over great distances. Alexander Graham Bell, an old navy man, always thought the right way to start a phone conversation was to say "AHOY!", but hello won out. In most languages around the world the word hello is the same. It was the only English word Sioux Chief Sitting Bull ever learned. He loved to grab your hand and pump it vigorously while saying:" HELLO, HELLO!"

1896- Four miners find gold in Bonanza Creek in the Klondike. The Yukon Gold Rush begins.

1938- Blues legend Robert Johnson was poisoned by a jealous husband in Three Forks Mississippi.

1942- Happy Birthday Mighty Mouse. Terrytoon's short: "The Mouse of Tomorrow".

1954- First issue of Sports Illustrated.

1969- “ Hey Man, we’re gonna serve breakfast in bed for 500,000” So was hippy Wavy Gravy’s announcement on the second day of the Woodstock Rock Concert. He said this was the day Americans learned to eat Granola. It was ladled out en masse in paper cups and has been a diet staple ever since.

1976--Apple Computers was founded by two college dropouts- Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs, in a California garage.

1977- E-DAY in Memphis. 42 year old Elvis Presley, donuts and Pizza Hut box in hand, died sitting on the toilet. He was reading a book, the Historic Search for the Face of Jesus.

1985- On her birthday, Madonna married Sean Penn.

1987- The Harmonic Convergence- Another one of these celestial events that the mainstream media trumpeted as the end of everything. All nine planets of our solar system were in perfect alignment and the subsequent gravitational forces were supposed to knock the Earth into the Sun or something or other, that would send us to Hell in a Handbasket. Lots of New Age types flocked to occult sites like Mt. Shasta and Stonehenge to meditate on the End of All Things. So what happened? Well, we're all still here, ain't we...?

1991- The original Shamu the Whale died of respiratory failure at age 16.

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Yesterday’s Quiz: What is mean when you speak in a pejorative sense?

Answer: When you speak of someone or something in a critical way. You express your disapproval.

SIGGRAPH 2008 wraps tonight. It was a lot of fun. Not as crowded as the Comicons are, but pretty interesting folks and topics.

The usual endless booths of Motion Capture demos with dancers in rubber suits with wires stuffed up their bums jumping around. Usually there is one or two really cool things to see. Last year it was the i-phone glass touch-screen the size of a coffee table. But I didn't see anything that unique this year. Perhaps I missed it.

I gave a talk and critiqued work at the FJORG! competition. Much bigger than last year. Lots of energy and excitement. Congratulations to Team Grojf, comprised of Jacob Patrick, John Nguyen, and Kevin Rucker, were chosen the winner for their film The Red Truck. The teams The Mexicutioners and The Fjantastic Fjorgers tied for second place, with Honorable Mentions awarded to teams Mouthful of Cookies and Trikings. These teams will all receive trophies and prizes. I expect the films will be up on U-Tube soon. The 2007 ones are there.

FJORG is an Iron-Chef like student competition for animators.
The winners were chosen from a field of 16 three-member teams that are given 32 straight hours to create character-driven film. This under extreme pressure, Lectures, distractions, Dragon Dancers, Mimes, and big crazy Vikings yelling Fjorg!!! at all hours. On Monday a horde of chanting, hairy-assed Vikings from Fjorg ran over to the Virtual Rome reconstruct and tried to sack it. Just like the Good Old Days!

all of us Fjorging last year in San Diego

Congratulations to Festival organizer Pat Beckman-Wells, Becky Wibel, Arno Kroner and all the team for another successful competition. Thanks also to Dreamworks, Disney and all the other sponsors. For such a crazy little idea, it's really grown in stature and adds a new level of energy to the halls.

On Weds, I chaired the Animation Mentor Salute to Frank & Ollie. That was a nice time,about 600 plus people attended the show. Andreas Deja did his overhead projector analysis of Frank & Ollies drawings. Randy Cartwright and Don Hahn had some fun anecdotes about them. Ted Thomas brought some fun outtakes of F&O flubbing lines and clowning spontaneously. It's still hard to fathom they are no longer around. I guess part of the process of aging, is you keep the voices of those no longer here, fresh within your mind. It's become quite a chorus up there. But they were all of a generation, the Golden Agers of Hollywood. We shall not see their like again.


Went to a few parties and caught up with old friends. Making a lot of contacts for my next book. Saw my old Taiwanese company Digimax, and saw what they were up to. Very happy to note that the short I directed for them, ADVENTURES IN THE NPM, won the Grand Prix at the Tokyo International Anime Festival.
That was a thrill for us all.
courtesy Flickr.com
I apologize to all my SVA alumni I missed the West Coast alumni bash at the Hotel Figueroa the other night. I was too worn out and was under the weather. What a wus!


Hope to see you at SIGGRAPH 2009 in New Orleans.