Mike Jittlov was a math major at UCLA, but taking an animation course to satisfy his art requirement led to two movies, The Leap and Good Grief, which made it into the professional finals for Academy Award nomination.  With a 16mm camera and a multiplane animation system he built for $200, he became an animator.

By 1978, Jittlov was part of Disney’s Mickey’s 50, with his short film Mouse Mania. It was the first stop-motion Mickey Mouse cartoon, as Jittlov created more than a thousand Disney toys marching around a psychiatrist’s office. His short The Wizard of Speed and Time was shown on another Disney special, Major Effects.

When I was a kid in the early 80s, Jittlov’s ads in Starlog for The Wizard of Speed and Time were in every issue. This was before the internet, in a time and place where I wouldn’t be able to see them. Today, years later, I’m old and I can see them at any time.

The Wizard of Speed and Time (1979): In just over two minutes, The Wizard of Speed and Time (Mike Jittlov) runs through Hollywood — running at high speed, The Wizard gives a hitchhiking woman (Toni Handcock) a ride, then gives golden stars to others — before crash landing into a studio that comes to life with walking cameras and dancing clapboards. This is pretty amazing because so much of it is stop motion and other sections use zooms and simple camera tricks to give the illusion of movement. Even though this is a short, just watching this you can tell that it took forever to make. This is pre-CGI, all magic and something that I have waited to see for decades.

This was $110 when I was a kid if I wanted to buy it. I kept trying to save up and never made it. Now I wish that I had.

The Wizard of Speed and Time (1988): Combining the original short, along with Time Tripper and Animato, two other early movies he made, Mike Jittlov took the story of The Wizard to new heights with this, a movie he spent fourteen years trying to make and three years filming.

Director Lucky Straeker (Steve Brodie) and  producer Harvey Bookman (Richard Kaye) make a bet if special effects artist Jittlov can actually complete his first effects assignment. Bookman does everything in his power to thwart Jittlov, even firing his friends. The script by Jittlov, Kaye and Deven Chierighino is filled with so many jokes, even including thousands of subliminal messages in the effects and poster.

It’s also overstuffed with cameos from Forrest J. Ackerman, Angelique Pettyjohn, Ward Kimball and Will Ryan, plus cops named Mickey (Philip Michael Thomas) and Minnie (Lynda Aldon), as well as their dog Pluto, who in some shops is just Jittlov covered by a brown jacket and using puppeting himself.

Why doesn’t Jittlov shake hands? He’s telepathic.

I waited too long to see this. Don’t make the same mistake that I did.

You can watch this on YouTube.