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January 16,2007 Mea Culpas
January 16th, 2007

Congrads to PIXAR's Cars for winning the Golden Globe for Animated Feature. Now that the Globes have gone from a small award given without any fanfare to a full blown media night, I have a small request.

Can you please re-design that statue? I got to hold one when we won for Beauty and the Beast in 1991. What a lame statue! You can practically see the seam down the side. When you hold an Oscar or an Annie Award, you feel you're holding something significant. But the Globe looks like something you got at Spencer Gifts that used to say World's Greatest Golfer. Comon', you guys got the bucks. Time for a makeover.

Voting begins today on the Annie Awards. Check the ASIFA/Hollywood website to see if you are eligible to vote.

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JANUARY is a time for reflection and penance. Many people have a copy of Drawing the Line now, and some have sent me very constructive notes pointing out some minor corrections. Thank goodness most were typos. So, in the interest of full disclosure, here are the nits that have been picked so far.

Ouch!Who was the voice of Screwy Squirrel?-Ouch!

In my acknowledgement, p.xxiii, I listed the Professor I worked with from CSUN’s archive at Larry Marshall, it is actually Robert Marshall.

Page 96- Mr. Deeds Goes to Town was produced by Columbia, not Paramount.

Page 319- IDT did not release 2005’s Hoodwinked, the Weinsteins Company did. .

Pete Docter's name is misspelled, as is Ed Catmull's.

Page 133-It is Angelina Jolie, not Angela Jolie.

I had stated that Ward Kimball and Walt Kelly were no longer close friends after the 1941 Disney strike, I came to this after discussing it with several friends of Ward’s. But reviewer Mark Mayerson rightly pointed out that Walt Kelly contributed an illustration and liner notes to one of Kimball's record albums with the Firehouse Five as well as writing the introduction to Kimball's book Art Afterpieces. ( MARK! How could you do this to me! I danced at your wedding!- just kidding..)

Page 199- I wrote that Paul Terry never allowed screen credit for anyone but himself ( a fact I found in Leonard Maltin’s Of Mice and Magic- Terrytoons, Page 133), but he regularly credited writers, directors and his musical director, though his animation artists did remain anonymous.

Page 193- I mentioned that some on the HUAC committee could be bought off. That a payment of $5000 got your dossier moved from the bottom of the stack to the top. That was a proofreading gaff, it should have read- $5,000 got your dossier moved from the top to the bottom, meaning it would never be read.

Page 235- Prof Dan McLaughlin kicked my butt about saying Simpson's director David Silverman went to Pratt Institute when he was a proud grad of the UCLA animation workshop, started by Bill Schull in 1947.
David began at Pratt, then transferred over to UCLA.

Page 329- John Lassiter created the short Andre & Wally-B at Pixar, Right now it reads like he did it before he joined them.
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That's it for now. I did my best to catch most of them early, but some always slip through. It's what makes history a living science.
If you have any other notes, I’d love to hear from you. And maybe if I am extra good and say my prayers at night, the Infernal Fates might smile on my feeble efforts and grant me a second printing. Then I shall happily implement these notes.
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Birthdays: Yukon poet Robert Service, Andre Michelin 1853 the pneumatic tire inventor, Ethel Merman, Dizzy Dean,, A.J. Foyt, Marilyn Horne, Sade, Michael Wilding, Eartha Kitt, Debbie Allen, director John Carpenter, Kate Moss is 33, Tsianina Joelson, Great animator-amigo Raul Garcia-Sanz is 49

1938- Benny Goodman brought the new Swing Music to staid old Carnegie Hall. Count Basie and Harry James joined in to get the tuxedoed crowd dancing in the aisles, then afterwards they all went uptown to the Savoy Ballroom in Harlem to watch Count Basies band square off against the legendary Chick Webb. After this triumph Benny Goodmans’ band would never be the same- Lionel Hampton, Harry James and Gene Krupa all split off to form their own orchestras."That band I had the night I played Carnegie Hall was the best I think I ever had." Goodman said later.

1940- Lee Francis, then Hollywood’s top madam, was busted for prostitution.

1942-Actress Carol Lombard and her mother died in a plane crash in the Sierra Mountains while returning from a war bond drive. Her husband movie king Clark Cable was so disconsolate that he joined an airforce combat squadron instead of doing USO work and took dangerous missions trying to get killed.

1954-THE WAR ON COMICS- Senator Estes Kevfhauer chaired a U.S. Senate subcommittee to study juvenile delinquency. They conclude that one of the contributing factors to adolescent moral decay was four-color comic books. The probe was sparked by the publication of a book called The Seduction of the Innocent. It charged among other things that Batman & Robin were gay because when not fighting crime, Bruce Wayne & Dick Grayson lounged around all day in silk pajamas! Despite testimony by Walt Kelly, Milt Caniff, Al Capp and Bill Gaines 350 comic book companies including the EC "Tales from the Crypt" label were driven out of business. The strict comics-code was established. The comic book industry, which had been selling one million books a month, never regained that level of prosperity in the US again.


1962- Television pioneer Ernie Kovacs died when he plowed his Corvair into a tree at Beverly Glen and Santa Monica Blvds. Kovacs had a fondness for all night poker and vodka parties. Friend Jack Lemmon said Ernie was so fanatical for a good card game that once when over a friend's house no table large enough could be procured for a game, Kovacs ordered the front door taken off it's hinges and a tablecloth thrown over it so they could all play.

1962-First day of shooting on the film Dr No.

1974- Peter Benchley’s novel Jaws first published.

1995- The UPN Network (Universal-Paramount Network) began telecasting.


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