I attended the Cal Art's Producers Show last night. Lots of great films and clever ideas. The show opened with a hilarious sendup of Motion Capture featuring cameos by well known Disney animators. Students walking around the campus in black leotards with ping-pong balls taped all over their bodies. I hope someone puts it up on You-Tube or somewhere.

I had a favorite film because of a close personal connection. Nicholas Butera did a film tribute to He-Man and She-Ra cartoons. He did a remarkable job of recreating our stock poses, tracing poses from the model sheet, Irv Kaplan's background paintings and he even did our scene Wipes! Very funny stuff.



Congratulations to all the graduates at Cal Arts, as well as my charges at USC and UCLA and all the Class of 2007! Welcome to ToonTown!

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Birthdays: Salvador Dali', Irving Berlin, King Oliver, Denver Pyle, Henry Morgenthau, Doug McClure, Randy Quaid, Natasha Richardson, Chang and Eng Bunker the original Siamese Twins-1811

1945-After the Nazi Germany surrendered the Nazi governor of occupied Norway, Josef Treboven, committed suicide by sitting on a stick of dynamite. When Wile E, Coyote does that it's funny, but Norwegian Nazis? It's kinda gross and messy.

1956 - Pinky Lee Show last airs on NBC-TV

1968 - actor Richard Harris attempted a singing career, releasing the song "MacArthur Park".

1972 -On the Dick Cavett talk show Beatle and peace activist John Lennon said his phone had been tapped by FBI. It turns out it was, but at the time we all thought he was just paranoid from too many drugs.

1981- The musical play CATS opened in London.

1981- Bob Marley died of brain cancer at age 36. Jamaican Marley and his group the Whalers made the Reggae sound mainstream in pop music around the world. Ja –Mahn!

1992 - Carlos Herrera, chef, bartender and inventor of the Margarita, died at age 90. The Margherita was supposedly named for Hollywood actress Margaret Sullivan. She wanted to drink tequila and lime with her friends but couldn’t tolerate the strong taste. Carlos Herrera mixed the tequila and lime juice into an iced cocktail and put the salt along the rim. He mixed a batch whenever he heard the actress was coming to Tijuana, writing on the bottle- For Little Margaret- Por Margherita.

1997- Deep Blue, a computer developed at IBM, defeated top world chess champion Gennady Kasparov.

Tales of the Old Masters-



One time a young animator brought his work for the legendary animator Bill Tytla to critique. Tytla flipped the scenes of the young ingenue, but his only comment was " Many are called, but few are chosen." The young man never animated again.

Another time Bill's protege George Bakes came into an office I was in and saw a scene stacked on a desk." What is this, animation?" George queried. He flipped it several times, then said:" On second thought, I was wrong.."
(* note: it wasn't MY stuff!)

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Birthdays: Fred Astaire, Sir Arthur Lipton (inventor of the teabag), Nancy Walker, David O. Selznick, Jim Abrahams, Donovan, Homer Simpson, Bono

1885- Geronimo goes on the warpath. For the next 15 months he holds off 5,000 U.S.troops with just 16 Apache warriors,12 women and 6 children.

1893- The U.S. government declares the Tomato officially a vegetable and not a fruit.

1908- The First Mother's Day celebrated, it became a national holiday in 1914. The holiday was inspiration of a lady named Anna Jarvis, who spent the rest of her life trying to keep it from being commercially exploited. She died broke and surrounded by mothers day cards sent from well wishers.

1993- 188 young women died in a fire in a toy making factory near Bangkok, Thailand. They were locked into the building by their employer like the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire victims in 1911. They were making Bart Simpson dolls for America.

1994- Former children’s party clown and serial killer John Wayne Gacy was executed by lethal injection. Police found 28 children buried around his house. His last words were: "Kiss My Ass!"

At long last, proof that my long lost family must be Chinese. Here is a fun snap clowing around with a senior designer at Digimax Taipei named Scott Wong. It was taken by a talented young animator we called TMC.




Birthdays: John Brown, James Barrie the creator of Peter Pan, Henry J. Kaiser of Kaiser Aluminum, Glenda Jackson, Billy Joel, Candice Bergen, Mike Wallace is 89, Pancho Gonzales, James L. Brooks, Albert Finney is 71


1754- THE FIRST AMERICAN NEWSPAPER CARTOON- Ben Franklin in his Pennsylvania Gazette printED a drawing of a segmented snake with each piece named for a colony with the inscription: Join or Die.
Okay, it's not Calvin and Hobbs, but it's a start.

1887- Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show did it’s first performance in Europe. In London the English public thrilled to displays of trick riding, wild red Indians, cowboys and little Annie Oakley the trickshooter. Buffalo Bill is sometimes considered America's first media star.

1932 – London’s Piccadilly Circus first lit by electricity.

1935- The First Belch heard on nationwide radio. Melvin Purvis (the FBI man who killed John Dillinger) was doing an ad for Fleischmann’s Yeast when he committed the offense, which was dubbed “The Burp Heard Round the World”.

1937- ACTOR’S SHOWDOWN WITH L.B.MAYER- In a dramatic confrontation the heads of the Screen Actor’s Guild Robert Montgomery and Franchot Tone go to MGM boss Louis B. Mayer’s beach house during a Sunday garden party. While IATSE-Capone mob gangster Willie Bioff stood by to give Mayer moral support, Montgomery told Mayer he had a 96% strike vote from the actors, so if Mayer didn’t recognize SAG as the sole bargaining agent for actors they would paralyze Hollywood monday morning! Mayer considered, then gave in. Bioff got from the actors a deal that the IA would back off if the actors would withdraw their support from a rival union to IATSE’s organizing the behind the scene’s technical artists. That night 5600 actors and friends celebrated at Hollywood Legion Stadium. Next morning 200 waited in line to get their SAG cards including Garbo and Jean Harlow.

1937- Burne Hogarth began drawing the Tarzan comic strip. Hal Foster had been in contract negotiations with the syndicate over money and the right to his originals. He had created Prince Valiant as a bargaining chip when the syndicate called his bluff by giving the Tarzan job to Hogarth. Foster went on to greater glory with Valiant but never forgave Burne.

1955- HAPPY BIRTHDAY KERMIT THE FROG! Washington D.C. station puts on a young Univ of Maryland grad named Jim Henson as filler before the TODAY Show. He antics with his green frog called Kermit, fashioned from fabric from one of his mothers old green coats. The Muppets are born.
original Muppet designs in the Smithsonian.

1961- John F. Kennedy's newly appointed head of the FCC, Newton Minow, did his first major address to a luncheon of top television executives. In his speech he blasted them for t.v.'s mindless content and violence and called television: " A Vast Wasteland."
What makes it historic is it's the first time anybody had noticed just how lousy t.v. is and how badly we are all addicted to it.

1970- THE MORATORIUM DAY- Largest of the nationwide youth protests against the U.S. war in Vietnam and Cambodia. President Nixon was obsessed by the protests. He had a bunker command post built under the White House where video monitors observed the “long haired peaceniks” outside. When Nixon told his staff he was going to go watch some football, he meant he was going to brood over the monitors. Retired CIA director Bill Gates confessed in his memoirs that as a young operative he took the day off to go protest as well as did a lot of other CIA agents. In Chicago young student and future comic John Belushi was dragged off by friends after being struck in the chest with a fired tear gas shell.
In 2000 it was revealed that President Nixon was so depressed at this time he was taking a mood altering prescription barbiturate named Dilantin. It was given him by Jack Dreyfus of the Dreyfus Fund without a doctors permission. Tricky Dicky was so whacked out that Secretary of Defense John Schlesinger ordered military and nuclear installations to ignore the orders of the President unless first cleared by the Defense Department.

1995- The Center of Disease Control published findings on a new deadly strain of virus appearing near Kinshasha Zaire and called it the Ebola Virus.

I saw this today on the wire service and had to mention it-



Hamas 'Mickey Mouse' Wants Islam Takeover
By DIAA HADID (Associated Press Writer)
From Associated Press
May 08, 2007 1:26 PM EDT
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip - Hamas militants have enlisted the iconic Mickey Mouse to broadcast their message of Islamic dominion and armed resistance to their most impressionable audience - little kids.

A giant black-and-white rodent - named "Farfour," or "butterfly," but unmistakably a Mickey ripoff - does his high-pitched preaching against the U.S. and Israel on a children's show run each Friday on Al-Aqsa TV, a station run by Hamas. The militant group, sworn to Israel's destruction, shares power in the Palestinian government.


"You and I are laying the foundation for a world led by Islamists," Farfour squeaked on a recent episode of the show, which is titled, "Tomorrow's Pioneers."

"We will return the Islamic community to its former greatness, and liberate Jerusalem, God willing, liberate Iraq, God willing, and liberate all the countries of the Muslims invaded by the murderers."

Children call in to the show, many singing Hamas anthems about fighting Israel.

Israel has long complained that the Palestinian airwaves are filled with incitement.

An Israeli organization that monitors Palestinian media, Palestinian Media Watch, said the Mickey Mouse lookalike takes "every opportunity to indoctrinate young viewers with teachings of Islamic supremacy, hatred of Israel and the U.S., and support of 'resistance,' the Palestinian euphemism for terror."

The television station would not comment.

A spokeswoman from Walt Disney Co.'s headquarters in Burbank, Calif., did not immediately return messages asking for comment about the use of a Disney-like character.

Yehia Moussa, a Hamas leader in the movement's Gaza Strip base, denied inciting children against Jews. "Our problem is not with the Jews. Our problem is with the (Israeli) occupation and the occupiers," Moussa said.

Israeli officials denounced the program. David Baker, an official in Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's office, said, "There is nothing comic about inciting young generations of Palestinians to hate Israelis."

Foreign Ministry spokesman Mark Regev called the program "outrageous" and charged that the Palestinians have not carried out their commitments to stop incitement of hatred toward Israel. "Children are taught that killing Jews is a good thing," he said. "Children are taught to hate Jews and to hate nonbelievers."

In strife-ridden Gaza, however, dreams of Islamic dominion and animosity toward the U.S. and Israel are widespread.

A Gaza-based psychologist said the program proved that the culture of glorifying violence had penetrated Palestinian society.

"It's the fault of both (Israel and the Palestinians)," said Samir Zakkout, from the Gaza Community Mental Health Program. "If Palestinians had peace, children wouldn't learn violence."

Children have been traumatized by bloodshed in the course of Israeli attacks and Palestinian infighting, he said.

"There's been a collapse of values," he said. "If I can kill my enemy, I can kill my brother."

Basem Abu Sumaya, head of the Palestinian Broadcasting Corp., said such programming was inappropriate.

"I don't think it's professional or even humane to use children in such harsh political programs," Abu Sumaya said. "Children's nationalist spirit must be developed differently."

The Palestinian Broadcasting Corp. is controlled by Hamas' political rival, the Fatah movement of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas..

Hamas loyalists launched the Al Aqsa satellite channel last year. Bearded young men read the news, often offering live news broadcasts. Islamic music is layered over footage of masked militants firing rockets into Israel. But the channel also broadcasts talk shows, programs about the disabled and cartoons.

Hamas loyalists also run at least five news Web sites, one newspaper - launched just last week - and a radio station.
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Never mind the CIA or Mossad, just wait till the Disney Legal Dept. finds out!

Birthdays: President Harry Truman, Roberto Rossellini, Don Rickles, Leopold Bakhunin, Louis Gottschalk, Oscar Hammerstein, Ted Sorenson, Sonny Liston, Toni Tennille, Ricky Nelson, Peter Benchley, Thomas Pinchon, David Attenborough, Keith Jarrett, Alex Van Halen, Melissa Gilbert is 43, French illustrator Jean Giraud aka Moebius is 69, Enrique Inglesias is 32

1824- Ludwig Von Beethoven performed his Ninth (Choral) Symphony and Missa Solemnis in concert for the first time. Even though he was stone deaf he was still in demand as a conductor. The orchestra trained themselves to ignore the Maestro's baton waving and follow the lead of the concert-master ( first violinist ). It was said when they finished and the audience was cheering poor Beethoven was still flapping his arms about and moaning the melody, unaware of the sound of his own voice.

1874- Massachusetts adopted a ten-hour workday for women, down from 12-14 hours.

1878- David Hughes invents the Microphone while trying to get over bronchitis.

1910-Mazeltov! Russian-Jewish immigrant glove salesman Schmuel Gelpfisch married Blanche Lasky, the daughter of vaudeville performer Jesse Lasky. Gelpfisch later changed his name to Goldfish, then Goldwyn. He and his father in law Jesse Lasky went into the new flicker business and started the Jesse L. Lasky Feature Play Company. They moved to Hollywood and in 1915 they merged with Paramount Pictures and Goldwyn merged into Metro-Goldwyn Mayer. Both became top Hollywood producers.

1933- When the Rockefellers were building their huge office complex Rockefeller Center in New York City they decided to get one of the greatest living Mexican painter Diego Rivera to design the murals for the interior of the atrium ’Man at the Crossroads". This despite the fact that Rivera was well known as a radical communist. Soon Nelson Rockefeller noticed Rivera was painting in the center of the mural a huge heroic portrait of Lenin stepping on John D. Rockefeller’s face! Against Rivera’s wishes Rockefeller ordered the mural painted over and no record of it’s existence ever kept. But on the night before the painting was to be destroyed Swiss art student Lucienne Bloch slipped a camera into her shirt. While Frida Kahlo distracted the guards she took the only photos of the mural for posterity.

1943-Tex Avery's "Red Hot Riding Hood"- Ooohh Wolfy !

1962-"A Funny thing Happened to Me on the Way to the Forum" opened on Broadway.

1962- Director Joe Mankiewicz shot the climactic spectacle scene of Cleopatra –Elizabeth Taylor, entering Rome through the Arch of Titus on a mobile sphinx surrounded by thousands of extras. The shot had been delayed six months after a stunt woman fell off an elephant and then the light in the Forum had not been right. When she appeared in the scene the thousands of Italian extras were supposed to shout "Hail Cleopatra!" but instead they shouted "Liz! Liz!"

1973-A.I.M. Indian movement surrendered Wounded Knee to the F.B.I..

1978-In court postman David Berkowitz confessed to being "Son-of-Sam" or the "44 caliber killer", the serial killer who terrorized New York City by shooting to death teenage couples at random and toying with letters to journalist Pete Hamill . Berkowitz said he received his orders to shoot people from his neighbor's dog "Sam". His reign of terror had the normally blase' city so upset that in a scene out of Fritz Lang’s "M", godfather John Gotti pledged the services of the Mafia to catch the maniac. Police finally caught Berkowitz when they found his Volkswagen Beetle illegally parked and noticed the infamous 44 handgun sticking out of a paper bag on the front seat. In Attica prison Berkowitz made friends with Mark David Chapman, the murderer of John Lennon.

1998- The impotence drug Viagra gains national prominence when retired senator and Presidential Candidate Bob Dole confessed on the Larry King talk show that he participated in the drugs test trials and the had "thoroughly enjoyed himself."