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July 10, 1954 – The Merrie Melodies short, The Oily American, directed by Bob McKimson, was released on this date. This short is seldom shown on American television due to American Indian stereotypes. The butler is a based on, character actor, Arthur Treacher, who was known throughout his life for playing butlers in film.

July 10, 1948 – The Looney Tunes short, The Shell Shocked Egg, directed by Bob McKimson, was released on this date. The unnamed rooster in this cartoon has the exact same figure and shape as Foghorn Leghorn, created two years earlier in 1946. The only difference between the two are the colors of their feathers.Continue reading “The Shell Shocked Egg premiered”

July 10, 1942 –Orson Welles’s butchered masterpiece, The Magnificent Ambersons, was released by RKO Pictures on this date. After a disastrous preview—which took place a week after the Pearl Harbor attack—it was clear to the executives at RKO that the film was too long, too dense, and too somber. Orson Welles, however, had decamped toContinue reading “Tomorrow everything would be gone.”

July 10, 1987 –The animated film, The Brave Little Toaster, directed by Jerry Rees and voiced by Deanna Oliver, Timothy E. Day, Jon Lovitz, Tim Stack, Thurl Ravenscroft, Wayne Kaatz, Phil Hartman, Joe Ranft, and Jonathan Benair, was released on this date. In a 2010 interview at Cal State, Northridge, Deanna Oliver revealed that atContinue reading “The Brave Little Toaster premiered”

July 10, 1966 –The follow-up to the Japanese science fiction television series produced by Tsuburaya Productions, Ultra Q, Ultraman, debuted in Japan on this date. (I have seen it listed as having first aired one week later July 17, 1966. Who knows, I wasn’t there.) The sequences of Ultraman battling monsters were so expensive toContinue reading “Ultraman premiered”

Today is Tesla Day – Inventor and electromechanical genius Nikola Tesla, the man who invented the 20th Century, was born to Serbian parents in what is now Croatia on July 10, 1856 . Remember, if we could only harness the free floating electricity, we could do away with the electric companies.

July 9, 1966 –The Beatles song Paperback Writer, topped the charts on this date. The B-side to this single was John Lennon’s Rain. Paul and John would always compete for the A-side of The Beatles singles.

July 9, 1995 –The Grateful Dead, who had been performing for 30 years, gave their last performance on this day, when they performed at Soldier Field in Chicago. During their 30 years, they performed more than 2,300 live concerts. The lead guitarist and backbone of the band, Jerry Garcia, died one month after the finalContinue reading “The long strange trip came to an end”

July 09, 1955 –The Merrie Melodies short, Shuffle Off to Buffalo, directed by Friz Freleng, and starring Bugs Bunny, Elmer Fudd, Daffy Duck, and Yosemite Sam, was released on this date. This is the first of only four Warner Bros. cartoons in which Bugs Bunny is pitted against all three of his main antagonists, YosemiteContinue reading “This Is a Life? premiered”

July 9 1938 – The Merrie Melodies short, Love and Curses, directed by Ben Hardawayand Carl Dalton, was released on this date. It is the earliest known Merrie Melodies short in the 1937–38 season to update the closing “That’s all Folks!” sequence.