The Wizard of Speed and Time is a 1988 low-budget feature film written, directed, and starring animator Mike Jittlov, as well as a 1979 16 mm short film, also by Jittlov. 1979 short film In the original short film, a young man in a green wizard costume runs throughout America at super speed, much like the superhero The Flash. Along the way, he gives a hitchhiking woman (Toni Handcock) a swift lift to another city and gives golden stars to other women who want a trip themselves. He then slips on a banana peel and comically crashes into a film stage, which he then brings to life in magical ways. Jittlov is a special effects technician, and he produced all of the special effects in the film himself, many through stop motion animation. This short film originally was shown as a segment of an episode of The Wonderful World of Disney. The episode was called "Major Effects" and was aired to coincide with the release of Disney's The Black Hole in 1979. The film segment then began to be shown at science fiction conventions around the country, gaining popularity, prompting Jittlov to eventually create a (semi-)fictionalized account, in the form of a feature film, of how this short film came to be. 1988 feature film Years later, Jittlov was able to remake the short, as well as incorporate portions of some of his other short films (such as Time Tripper and Animato), into a feature-length 35 mm film. The feature version recounts the exploits of a special effects "wizard" (played by Jittlov) trying to fulfill his dream of making a full-length movie. The tricks of movie magic are exposed; but so are the tribulations of the independent moviemaker working around the heavily unionized Hollywood film industry. Straeker: There are your film cans, but you can't move them. Jittlov: Why? Are they stuck to the floor? Straeker: No, to the system! Many scenes in the movie turned out to be only too prophetic, according to Jittlov. In the film, a director, Lucky Straeker (Steve Brodie), and a producer, Harvey Bookman (Richard Kaye), bet over whether Jittlov can actually complete a major effects assignment, and Bookman does everything in his power to thwart Jittlov. Richard Kaye produced the film and starred as one of the main characters, Harvey Bookman, also a producer. Richard Kaye's daughter Lauri Kaye, at the age of 16,