Earliest Production Seeds

I often think that the seeds of the documentary began with the UPA Tribute presentation at the Filmex International Film Festival in Culver City, in 1978, but, in actual fact it probably began the evening of March 23, 1950, when my mother, my brother, Nick, about to turn ten, and I, sat in front of a tiny Philco television screen, which our neighbors called the animated postage stamp, but, we were eagerly awaiting news of who would win the best animated shorts Oscar.  The awards weren’t televised until three years later, and the news only had the “big” awards, so we had to wait for my dad to return, and when he walked through the front door holding that big shiny Oscar we jumped all over him.  It was certainly among the most exciting moments of my young life.  It wasn’t until later that we got a posed photo of my dad being “presented” the first UPA Oscar.

Over the next decade there were other exciting moments for me concerning UPA, which just solidified somewhere down deep in my sub-conscienceness that I must do something to honor that little studio, especially when it all seemed to go up in smoke so quickly, just when I believed it would live forever.  Almost two decades later a few of us mounted the first UPA Tribute, which was my first thoughts of actually creating a documentary -Tee Bosustow

Category: Production