Tom Sito's Animation History

President Emeritus Sito recalls important July dates in Cartoonland.

July 1, 1941 - Animation director Tex Avery walks out of the Looney Tunes Studio when Jack Warner ordered cuts in his Bugs Bunny cartoon, A Wild Hare. Boss Leon Schlesinger puts him on a four-week suspension without pay, but Avery has already lined up a new gig at MGM.

July 2, 1982- Don Bluth’s The Secret of NIMH premieres.



July 2, 1986 - Walt Disney’s The Great Mouse Detective is released.

July 9, 1980 - Disney’s The Fox and the Hound comes out. It was Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston’s last movie. Other artists on the movie include Glen Keane, Tim Burton, Brad Bird and John Musker.

July 9, 1993 - Industrial Light & Magic completes its transition to digital technology by shutting down its Anderson Optical Printer. The Optical Printer system of mattes has been the way VFX had been done since 1909, but the Digital Revolution changes everything.

July 11, 1991 - Disney announces it will enter into a deal with a Bay area digital off shoot of Lucasfilm named Pixar. (Whatever happened to that relationship?)

July 13, 1925 - Walt Disney and Lillian Bounds marry. Lillian was one of the first female animation ink & paint artists.
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But wait! There's more!

July 14, 1933 - Max Fleischer’s first Popeye the Sailor cartoon debuts. At first, vaudevillian Red Pepper Sam provides the sailor's salty mumbles. But when Sam asks for more money, Fleischer replaces him with assistant animator Jack Mercer, who is the voice ever after.
 (Or at least ... for a lot of years.)

July 15, 1938 - Popeye cartoon With the Jeep introduces Eugene the Jeep. The funny little character later gave its name to the army’s new General Purpose Vehicle, the G.P. or Jeep.

July 16, 1964 - Warner Brothers A False Hare, the last Bugs Bunny cartoon by the original crew, and the last theatrical Bugs short until 1985, is shown in theaters.


July 22, 1989 - Studio Ghibli’s Kiki’s Delivery Service opens.

July 24, 1948 - Warner’s short Haredevil Hare featuring the first Marvin the Martian debuts.

July 24, 1985 - Disney’s The Black Cauldron premieres.