Trivia Today - Monday, July 21, 2014

Greetings Infomaniacs,

I found what I consider to be some pretty interesting facts about cartoon characters from listverse.com. For instance, did you know that the Betty Boop character was originally drawn as a dog?? Now I want to go back and rewatch my favorite Betty Boop VHS tape....but first I would need to find it, and then locate a VCR for that matter!

Enjoy!
Melissa

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Questions? Comments? Email Melissa


WHO SAID IT?
QUOTE: "Risks must be taken because the greatest hazard in life is to risk nothing."

HINT: (1924-1998), known as "Dr. Love," was an American author and motivational speaker, and a professor in the Department of Special Education at the University of Southern California.


RANDOM TIDBITS
In 1930, when the Fleischer brothers created the Betty Boop character, she was a French poodle, drawn with flabby ears and a black round nose. It wasn't until 1932 that she became completely human and her former poodle ears were transformed into earrings.

Tom And Jerry Were Originally Called Jasper And Jinx. The name "Tom and Jerry" was a suggestion by an MGM animator, although some say that the names were inspired by WW II, when the British soldiers were called "Tommies" and the Germans, "Jerries."

In 1936, Olive Oyl made a cameo appearance in the film Somewhere in Dreamland as a single mother with two children living in poverty during the Great Depression. Although the character is just called "Mother" in the film, she uses the same traditional clothes of Olive Oyl, has the same physical appearance, and is voiced by the same actress, Mae Questel.

The cartoon character Totoro was so popular in Asia that when a new species of velvet worm was recently discovered in Vietnam, it was named Eopepiparus totoro in homage to the film. The scientists were inspired not so much by the character Totoro itself, but by the "cat bus" in the same movie, whose multiple pairs of legs resemble the velvet worm's.

Donald Duck appeared in a series of educational films during the '60s, the last of which was about family planning. In the 1968 film called "Family Planning" and produced by Disney for the US Population Council, an "average couple" of the world (a Latino man and his Indian wife) is lectured on how to have fewer babies. Donald Duck appears between each segment performing clumsy antics, and he even dresses as a doctor to give the couple the "key" to the magic of family planning.

In most of the cartoons of the early '50s, Goofy was called George Geef, and he had a wife and child. While the face of Goofy's wife is never shown, we can assume that she is fully human and not an anthropomorphic dog-like creature because she has five fingers instead of four.

(www.listverse.com)


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WHO SAID IT?
QUOTE: "Risks must be taken because the greatest hazard in life is to risk nothing."

ANSWER: Leo Buscaglia.

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