August


AUGUST 1ST
1950 - Crusader Rabbit", the first limited animation television show,premiered.

AUGUST 6TH
1926 - Warner Bros. announced the motion picture sound-on-disc system.
1970 - Hippies and Radical Yippies try to take over Disneyland. 750 infiltrate the park, take over the Wilderness fort, raise the Vietcong flag and pass reefers out to passersby. Later, when the radicals marched in a Main Street parade, they sang thier own lyrics to Zipadee Doo Dah ("Ho, Ho, HoChi Mihn is going to win..."). More conservative park guests tried to drown them out by singing America the Beautiful. Suddenly, as the confrontation heated up toward a flash point, a platoon of Anahiem Police officers in full riot gear poured into the park from backstage areas. A riot was adverted,and for many years afterward Disneyland selectively enforced a "dress code" at the park, occasionally refusing admission to "long-haired hippies". The 1970 incident is the only time an outside security force dmade a full-blown public appearance in The Happiest Place on Earth.

AUGUST 9TH
1930 - Max Fleischer's short "Dizzy Dishes" introducing BettyBoop.

AUGUST 10TH
1889 - O.B. Brown patented a "projecting device" combining amagic lantern and a phenakistiscope. The first true movie projector.

AUGUST 13TH
1941 - James Stuart Blackton, the first American animator, top cartoonist,founder of Vitagraph, and publisher of the first true movie fanzine MotionPicture World, is hit by a bus on Pico Blvd.
1942 - Disney's "Bambi"premiered.

AUGUST 17TH
1941 - Walt Disney, his studio paralysed by a cartoonist's strike, goeson goodwill tour of South America (underwritten by a $70,000 governmentgrant.). The film "Saludos Amigos" and "The Three Caballeros"result. Federal mediators later settle the strike.

AUGUST 20TH
1907 - Alan Reed, the voice of Fred Flintstone, born.

AUGUST 21ST
1906 - Friz Freleng, Warner Bros. Animation director, born.

AUGUST 22ND
1880 - George Herriman- cartoonist creator of Krazy Kat and longtime L.A.resident, born.

AUGUST 24TH
1997 - According to the film "Terminator II", the Skynet computer defense system becomes self-aware and launches the War of the Day of Judgement.

AUGUST 26TH
1873 - Dr. Lee Deforrest, part inventor of wireless radio and television,born.
1980 - Fred 'Tex' Avery, master cartoon director, died in the parking lot of Hanna/Barbera Studios.

AUGUST 27TH
1968 - Disney rejects the final attempt of master animator Bill Tytla,creator of Grumpy, Dumbo and the Devil on Bald Mountain, to get his old job back. Tytla even offered to work on spec on a test to get back in. Tytla died later that year.

AUGUST 29TH
1953 - Warner's "Cat Tails for Two" introducing Speedy Gonzales. Speedy Gonzales was a real man. Artist Frank Gonzales got the nickname 'Speedy'for his ability to complete his daily quota of drawings faster than anyone else. The name was later matched to the character.

AUGUST 30TH
1887 - Thomas Edison received a patent for the Kinetoscope