This Month In Animation

Tom Sito, on top of being an animation veteran, is an animation historian, author of books, and college professor. Below we offer a few Sito factoids from animation history:

THIS MONTH IN ANIMATION HISTORY

March 1, 1936 -- Max Fleischer's Betty Boop Cartoon "Snow White" released. Cab Calloway singing the "St. James Infirmary Blues" was a highlight.

March 15, 1933 -- Young animator Chuck Jones first hired at Leon Schesinger's Looney Tunes cartoon studio.

March 15, 2002 -- Blue Sky's first "Ice Age" premiered.

March 26, 1997 -- Turner Feature Animation's film "Cat's Don't Dance" , feautring the last film work of Gene Kelly. (He was a consultant on the dance sequences.) ...

Regarding the first "Ice Age": Until the picture was close to completion, Twentieth Century Fox -- which owned Blue Sky Studios -- was trying to get out of the feature animation business by selling the east coast studio. It was only when trailers featuring the pre-historic squirrel Scat got a boisterous reception in Europe that Fox reassessed its position.

(An expanded version of "This Month In Animation History" will be published in the March PegBoard.)