The Hollywood Shorties

"The larger-than-life story of the world's smallest professional basketball team"

Mar 12 2016 Not Rated 1h 25m
Documentary, History, Sport

In 1980s Los Angeles, a professional dwarf basketball team composed of recognizable-but-typecast actors finds itself the unwitting vanguard of a revolution to represent little people as something other than objects of curiosity.

Plot

The Hollywood Shorties is a documentary on the birth of organized sports in the American dwarf community. Beginning in the 1950s and rising to prominence in the 1980s, the Hollywood Shorties were a basketball team, the first of their kind and unique in the history of dwarf athletics. Formed from an insular community of recognizable-but-typecast actors in - wait for it - Hollywood, the team began simply as a rare outlet for little people to gather publicly. As the team's athletic skill increased, so did its membership and so too its popularity. By the early 1980s, the Shorties had created a niche in entertainment akin to the Harlem Globetrotters, playing exhibitions from Gladstone High to the Fabulous Forum with their signature blend of comedy and basketball prowess. Simultaneously, they found themselves the vanguard of a revolutionary movement to bring little people into the public eye as something other than objects of curiosity. But, in a bittersweet turn, the very popularity that the Shorties singlehandedly created would eventually phase the team out of the sport they pioneered. But their legacy stands without peer and is recounted here by original team members and the generation they inspired.

Written by

Ryan Steven Green

Directed by

Ryan Steven Green

Production Countries

United States of America

Production Companies

Frontiersman Pictures

Languages

English

Awards

1 win

Scores
# of Votes
68
Average Rating
7.7 out of 10
Metascore
NA
Popularity
NA