THE HOLLYWOOD SHORTIES is a documentary on the birth of organized sports in the American dwarf community. Beginning in the 1950s and rising to prominence in the 1980s, the Hollywood Shorties were a basketball team, the first of their kind and unique in the history of dwarf athletics. Formed from an insular community of recognizable-but-typecast actors in—wait for it—Hollywood, the team began simply as a rare outlet for little people to gather publicly. As the team’s athletic skill increased, so did its membership and so too its popularity. By the early 1980s, the Shorties had created a niche in entertainment akin to the Harlem Globetrotters, playing exhibitions from Gladstone High to the Fabulous Forum with their signature blend of comedy and basketball prowess. Simultaneously, they found themselves the vanguard of a revolutionary movement to bring little people into the public eye as something other than objects of curiosity. But, in a bittersweet turn, the very popularity that the Shorties singlehandedly created would eventually phase the team out of the sport they pioneered. But their legacy stands without peer and is recounted here by original team members and the generation they inspired.
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Produced, Written, & Directed by
Ryan Steven Green
Producer & Director of Photography
Craig Evans
Edited by
Juliette Edwards, Ryan Steven Green
Music by
Ian Mackley
Cast
Jimmy Briscoe
Tony Cox
Scott Danberg
Mary Hall
Robert Hall
Glen Haserot
Joe Gieb
Lydia Graber
Scott Green
Joe Griffo
Jim Kay
Martin Klebba
Adam Romano
Chris Romano
George Rossitto
Len Sawisch
Anthony Slide
Kevin Thompson
Narrator
Brian Stepanek
Archivist & Assistant Editor
Matthew R. Green
Associate Producer
Charlie Pecoraro
Titling & Motion Graphics
Leslie Andrew Ridings
Sound Re-recording Mixer
Nikola Simikic
Colorist
David Berlinsky
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