John Haugse did the animated title sequence
Boogievision was made during one of the most trying times for independent productions. The Seventies began with independent films taking 20 % of worldwide box office income and the concerned Major Studios in reaction to that loss of market share made great efforts to stop that growing trend with a decade long series of calculated industry "lock downs" and freezes of product flow.
The power of the independents grew out of a mix of industry professionals moonlighting for extra cash and nonunion wannabes working for next to nothing or in many cases in exchange for just the experience and the resulting production credits for the resume. An increasing number of independent pictures were seen as more effective or more interesting with certain audiences than the average studio picture. A troubling development for the Majors.
Boogievision started with two cast members, Frank Millen and Marlene Selsman, improvising scenes from a story outline which were recorded and used to develop the script. Frank and Marlene were nonunion and worked for a deferred salary which would be paid if Boogievision was completed, got distributed and actually showed an income to cover it's costs. Out of work actors many of whom were employed part-time as singing waiters at Poppy's Deli in Santa Monica made up most of the Boogievision cast. Any chance to work in a film drew in a surging flood of actors eager for the opportunity, union and nonunion, all anxious to be seen as active in their craft. Word spread rapidly about the nonunion opportunity with the Boogievision production and SAG undertook actions to suppress this all too visible Indy production when a SAG representative came, contract in hand, banging on the stage door threatening either sanctions against a SAG member who was in the cast or to close down the production unless a producer's SAG contract was signed immediately. Since only a few days remained of principal photography the contract was signed. Actor and SAG member John Rubenstein avoided sanctions and the production finished on a speeded-up shooting schedule. SAG's plans to kill Boogievision with financial and legal troubles backfired when not only the nonunion cast applied for guild membership but any actor who had ever heard of Boogievision also applied for membership all with claims of being in the cast. An overwhelmed SAG on re-checking their paperwork luckily found an out-of-date contract had been signed by mistake and promised to send out a new contract which became forever lost in the mail. With no contract SAG membership claims stopped coming in.
Many find John Haugse's animation to be the most effective work in the film. Certainly, Blake Edwards and producer Tony Adams found one of John Haugse's art students who did most of the animation in Boogievision as class assignments to be worth remembering when they were screening several of Jim Bryan's films as background research for a project they were developing, S.O.B.(1981). Years later that art student's ongoing hyper-lyrical work in animation found it's way onto the Julie Andrews TCM Special.
One of the first actions that newly formed Lee Motion Picture Equipment Rentals (Lee Strosnider and Austin Mc Kinney) undertook to establish their avowed support of independent film production was to give Boogievision deferred rentals on it's production equipment.