tribute to Ed Wood with his short film, Plan 9.1 from Outer Space, which featured hand-carved wooden puppets of the characters from Ed Wood's film, Plan 9 from Outer Space. The puppets acted out the scenes along with the edited soundtrack of the original film. Hardware Wars Fosselius' biggest hit was his 1978 parody Hardware Wars, a 12-minute parody of Hollywood coming attractions that took on the cultural juggernaut that was Star Wars. Complete with cardboard sets and visible wires holding up ships which were various household appliances, the film was shot over 4 days with a budget of around $8,000. When released, the film became a hit on its own, grossing close to three million dollars over its lifetime, making it one of the most popular and profitable short films of all time, but Fosselius netted very little of that profit. In later years, George Lucas called it his favorite Star Wars parody. Fosselius was honored by Lucasfilm when Hardware Wars was given the Pioneer Award at the 2003 Official Star Wars Fan Film Awards. When Hardware Wars was re-released in 1997 with new special effects in a "Special Edition" to spoof the special editions of the original Star Wars trilogy, Fosselius was not involved, as he disagreed with the concept of adding actual digital effects to a film which satirized digital effects, and asked that a "Not Approved by Ernie" label be added to the release. The film was finally released on DVD in its original form in 2002. This time, Fosselius did participate, restoring the original stereo soundtrack, adding additional material and original outtakes, and recording a director's commentary that itself was a parody, poking fun at similarly self-indulgent tracks. However, Fosselius was reportedly flummoxed by the technicians who performed the telecine transfer and who made attempts to digitally remove the strings and wires and clean up the print, not realizing that the "defects" in the original were put there on purpose. Fosselius later teamed up with Apprehensive Films to release a 30th-anniversary DVD. Musical career In the mid-sixties Fosselius performed with the San Francisco band Earth Mother and the Final Solution. He was also a founding member of the band The Mystic Knights of the Oingo Boingo, for whom he wrote the song "Hipsters on Parade". Other works Fosselius has continued to whittle mechanically animated carved caricatures and automata which he displays in traveling galleries called