Found this on Jerry Becks' website on Cartoon Brew:
Brian of the Hell on Frisco Bay blog notes that August 21, 2006 marks the 100th anniversary of Friz Freleng's birth, and he's officially calling on the blogging community to make that day a Friz Freleng Blog-A-Thon. Here's Brian's rules:
I invite anyone, whether animation experts, enthusiasts or newbies, fans of Freleng or not, to watch or rewatch at least one of his cartoons between now and August 21. On that day, post something about Freleng or one or more of his films on your website, and send me the link. You may name the cartoon(s), character(s), or aspect(s) of Freleng's style you want to discuss in the comments section below, or leave it as a surprise for the rest of us. Sounds like fun. We're in at Cartoon Brew...who else is in? I'm in too!

History for 8/1/2006
Birthdays: Roman Emperor Claudius, Francis Scott Key, Captain William Clark of Lewis and Clark, Herman Melville, Robert Todd Lincoln- Abe and Mary Lincoln’s only child to live a full life, Geoffrey Holder, Yves St. Laurent, Giancarlo Giannini, Dom Deluise, Jerry Garcia, Coolio, Sam Mendes

1793 – Revolutionary France became the 1st country to use the metric system.

1933- The WPA Arts Project set up to employ starving artists on large public works projects like murals for libraries and bridges, etc. Artists like Grant Wood, Andrew Wyeth, Dorothea Lang , Orson Welles and Bernice Abbott got commissions. At the time American artists were obliged to post on the outside of their residences or studios a sign "A.I.R." or artist-in-residence. This was to warn the general public that the person at this dwelling may have nude models, bongo players and other such depravities cavorting around at all hours.

1950-San Francisco producer Jay Ward's "Crusader Rabbit" the first animated cartoon show ever made for television.

1953- The Alan Ladd movie Shane released.

1960 - Chubby Checker releases "The Twist" and starts a world wide dance craze.

1973- with the tag line “Where were you in ’62?” American Graffiti opened in theaters. The hit made young director George Lucas a player in Hollywood and made stars of kids like Harrison Ford, Richard Dreyfus and Susanne Somers.

1981-I WANT MY MTV! MTV goes on the air, rock videos 24 hours a day. The idea was funded by a consortium of investors including Mike Nesmith of the Monkees, now on the board of 3M Paper company. If you put on the TV this day you saw a slide of an astronaut for several hours, then finally a voice said :”Ladies and Gentlemen, this is Rock & Roll.” The first rock video played was by a British New-Wave Band called the Buggles entitled “Video Killed the Radio Star.”followed by a Pat Benatar single. There are now MTV channels around the world- Beijing, Rio DeJaniero, Berlin and Moscow.

1991- elderly movie queen Heddy Lamarr was busted in Tampa Florida for shoplifting.

1994- NASDAQ stock trading on Wall Street was halted for 35 minutes because a squirrel gnawed through a fiber optic cable at the organization’s computer center in Connecticut.

E. Meissonier, courtesy of artnet.com

Plans for Book Signing appearances for DRAWING THE LINE are currently being finalized for Nov-December at UCLA, USC, the Cartoon Museum in San Francisco and the School of Visual Arts in New York. We're inviting ASIFA/Hollywood, ASIFA/SF and ASIFA/East to make them all a fun reunion. Our first looks like it will be at Gordon Beirsch in Burbank on Good Luck Friday the 13th of October,courtesy of Creative Talent Network. I'm preparing a powerpoint talk with some images that didn't get into the book in time.

Stay tooned to this station for more developments. And when they come you're all welcome to drop in. I and my comrades will spin you some more ribald tales of Days of Yore when Animators were Animators and they didn't trust you if you weren't a Scotch drinker

Birthdays: Liberace, Sebastian Sperling Kresge the founder of S.S.Kresge stores. Wesley Snipes, Milton Friedman, Sherry Lansing, Geraldine Chaplin, Kurt Gowdy, Dean Cain-Remember when he was Superman?, Primo Levi, Ted Cassidy who played Lurch in the Adams Family and was the voice of Space Ghost and the Herculoids, and according to J.K. Rowling this is the birthday of Harry Potter

1873- San Francisco's famous cable car system starts up.

1930- Radio mystery show The Shadow premiered. "Who knows what evil lurks in the
hearts of men? The Shadow knows...heh, heh, heh...". Orson Welles did the voice of the
crime fighting Shadow for a year in 1937 for $185 a week, which for a 22 year old was pretty good money.

1995- The Walt Disney Company bought the ABC Network, the Discovery Channel and
ESPN, shutting the new company DreamWorks out of a television deal just negotiated with ABC. Disney later accused TimeWarner of monopolistic practices.

Birthdays: Georgio Vasari, Henry Ford, Emily Bronte', Vladimir Zworykin inventor of the television cathode tube, Arnold Schwarzenegger is 59, Peter Bogdanovich, sculpter Henry Moore, Lawrence Fishburne, Jean Reno, Hilary Swank, Christopher Nolan, Lisa Kudrow is 43

1932-Walt Disney’s “Flowers and Trees” the first Technicolor Cartoon. Disney had worked out a deal with Technicolor creator Herbert Kalmus to use his technique exclusively for two years to show larger Hollywood studios its quality.

1932- The first Los Angeles hosting of the Olympic Games in their spanking new Coliseum. Gold medallist in swimming Larry Buster Crabbe later became a movie star. Another medalist, the Hawaiian Duke Kahanamoku, began to teach the Californians about a new sport- surfing!

1936- Producer David O. Selznick buys the movie rights to the best selling book “Gone With The Wind” from an ailing Irving Thallberg. The "boy genius" Thallberg was hoping that Selznick would ruin himself in the process of making this film. Thalberg was convinced that GWTW would prove to be a massive flop because "Costume dramas are box office poison."

1954 - Elvis Presley joins Local 71, the Memphis Federation of Musicians. “Uhh.Thankyuh..thankyuh…uhh, solidarity foh-eiveah!”

Dear Gang, My second book has gone up on Amazon for pre-order. I contributed the animation chapter to this ambitious work. It's three volumes and a bit more expensive than Drawing the Line, but hey, you're getting more authors and more info. Here is the link and the description in the catalog.

http://www.greenwood.com/catalog/C8793.aspx


Paul Buhle (ed.)
Praeger Perspectives Volume 1: Film, Television, Radio, and Popular Art Volume 2: Theater, Music, and Literature Volume 3: Sports, Leisure, and Lifestyle
Book Code: C8793
ISBN: 0-275-98793-0
Praeger Publishers
Publication Date: 12/30/2006
List Price: $300.00 (UK Sterling Price: £170.00)
Availability: Not yet published. (Estimated publication date, 12/30/2006)
Media Type: Hardcover
Trim Size: 6 1/8 x 9 1/4
Subjects:
Popular Culture » Popular Culture (General)
Interdisciplinary Studies » American Studies
Multicultural Studies » Jewish Studies
Description: Since they first began arriving in the United States in large numbers at the end of the 19th century, Jewish Americans have played a significant role in shaping American culture. The influence of the Jewish people is deeply and richly felt in many realms, including art, literature, politics, humor, and sports, to name just a few. The American film industry was pioneered by the likes of Adolph Zukor, Harry Cohn, and Jack Warner. Tin Pan Alley and Broadway gave the country George Gershwin, Irving Berlin, and Stephen Sondheim. Where would rock 'n' roll be without Lou Reed, Bob Dylan, and the Beastie Boys? Jews and American Popular Culture examines the influence of a highly creative and resilient people who have flourished despite the myriad forms anti-Semitism has taken since their earliest arrival.Chapters explore topics across a range of time periods and genres, including assimilation, stereotypes, and the Holocaust. In addition to examining the works of such compelling figures as Woody Allen, Philip Roth, Hank Greenberg, the Three Stooges, Allen Ginsberg, Wendy Wasserstein, and Ann Landers, a team of unparalleled scholars explains how a comparatively small, underprivileged group of people has managed to overcome great odds and wield wide-ranging influence on contemporary culture. Shut out of more traditional fields, Jews in the final decades of the 19th century and the opening decades of the 20th century embraced the new technologies of film, radio, and television, as well as new industries and areas of commerce, from the department store to novelty toy distribution. What resulted was an American culture shaped by a resilient minority population. From Betty Boop to Barbie, from The Honeymooners to Friends, the creative spirit of American Jews defines our culture. Edited by acclaimed author Paul Buhle, featuring the work of leading scholars and journalists, and presenting a never-before published comic strip by Harvey Pekar (whose life was featured in the film American Splendor), this definitive, comprehensive three-volume set represents the first-ever work of its kind.