Trivia / Hardware Wars

• Artist Disillusionment: Ernie Fosselius seems to have mixed feelings about the legacy of Hardware Wars. He's proud of it, but it was something of a Black Sheep Hit for Fosselius, a music and film production pro who liked to make DIY pop culture parodies on the side. He picked A New Hope as the subject for a parody of Hollywood special effects because it was an obvious target. But over the years it acquired the reputation as "The first Star Wars Fan Film", and people assume that Fosselius was a Star Wars superfan making an Affectionate Parody, which Fosselius says leads to lots of unwanted attention whenever a new Star Wars film comes out.
• Disowned Adaptation: The 1997 "Special Edition" was done by producer Michael Wiese without the involvement of Ernie Fosselius, and Fosselius has distanced himself from it.
• He Also Did: Besides the Expy of Chewbacca being based on Cookie Monster, there are a surprising number of Sesame Street connections to Hardware Wars. Jeff Hale (who played Augie Ben Doggie) ran the animation studio that created the famous Typewriter and Pinball Number Count inserts. Ernie Fosselius helped out with those, and Walt Kraemer (who did voices on Hardware Wars) composed the music for them.
• No Budget: Made for $8,000 with a cast of San Francisco locals who were mainly paid in beer.
• Promoted Fanboy: Ernie Fosselius did behind-the-scenes work on both Return of the Jedi and Spaceballs.
• What Could Have Been: Foss has received numerous offers from investors to finance a feature-length Hardware Wars movie, but rejected them as he feels it's better off as just a parody short.

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