Prior to directing The Evil Dead, Sam Raimi, along with a group of school friends; Bruce Campbell, Rob Tapert, Scott Spiegel, Josh Becker, John Cameron, Bill Ward, Matt DeWan, and Tom Sullivan among others, wrote, directed, produced, and shot a string of over 60 low & no budget Super-8 short films between 1969 and 1985. They were mostly slapstick comedies, although there were forays in the genres of drama, crime, horror, history, and avant garde.

While a number of them have leaked as bootlegs, and a handful offically released by Josh Becker, most have never been given an offical DVD release. Following a May 2015 interview for BookOfTheDead.ws, Bill Ward got in touch out of the blue in June 2017, with some screenshots he'd taken from a number of the ten or so Super-8 Shorts he owned on VHS, to be used on this site. He had been intervewed back in May 2015 and said he would send over an new material he turned up. We emailed back and fourth over a few weeks, and together with his good friend Scott Spiegel, we put together a DVD box-set containing eleven shorts for sale to fans.



The set contained Inspector Clutz Saves the Day (1969), Pies & Guys (1971), Corny Casanovas (1971), Piece of Mind (1973), For Crymin' Out Loud (1973), A Night in a Sanitarium (1973), Loose Loot (1973), Three Smart Saps (1973), Three Pests in a Mess (1974), Booby Bartenders (1974), and finally Curse of the Werewolf Teaser (1974). The list of shorts ran at 67m 16s in total, and play in chronological order. Each short came with an optional commentary track recorded by Scotty, along with the YouTube DVD promo, and motion menus. The DVD set was available in both 'Standard' ($30) & 'Deluxe' ($40) versions. They're both the same, although the 'Deluxe' set came with two extra 6" x 4" photos, plus any of the set's elements you request, could be signed by Bill & Scott. below you can see final photos with all the elements of the DVD set, along with the artwork created for this DVD set. This was the first time these earliest shorts have been publicly seen. The shorts themselves were made up of both footage the group shot themselves, and stock footage they had access to, along with occasional Three Stooges dialogue, stock music & sound effects. Scotty transferred many of the huge number of shorts he owned from Super-8 film to S-VHS tape back in the 1990s, and later on to DVD, when he added/upgraded certain stock shots simply unavailable at the time. That aside, the content of the shorts themselves (including any music) remained untouched. This DVD was pretty much the experience you would have had on viewing these shorts when they were first shown back in the early '70s. The DVD cover was recycled & modified from the un-used artwork personally created for the Josh Becker's Super 8 Shorts Fanmade DVD back in 2010. The Disc art was created from a scan of an original Cyldon 400ft aluminium 16mm film reel. The 'vintage' style booklet/program was made from scratch, using standard cropped-down A4 paper which was tea stained & dried, printed on, stapled (with pre-rusted staples), then lastly distressed to make it look old. A total of 75 were made, so it was a big undertaking. The introductory notes were written by Bill, and the notes on the transfers and each short, by Scotty. Scotty actually wrote about eight times the volume of notes which could be fitted in the final 8-sided booklet, so much of this extra text has been merged into each shorts' section on the BookOfTheDead.ws Super-8 Shorts - Full Shorts List page. Scotty's full unedited text can be found on the DVD's computer viewable DVD-ROM folder, along with Bill's raw notes, 132 Super-8 Shorts related behind the scenes, promo & miscellaneous photos, Super-8 Shorts Related Newspapers, Magazines & Text Files, information on the Super-8 Shorts Josh Becker used to sell, the Super-8 Shorts Score Project, and an offline backup of the BookOfTheDead.ws website as of the 13th of July 2017.

In October 2017, a follow-up second two disc DVD set was released. It contained eleven further shorts directed or co-directed by Scotty, along with some of Bruce Campbell's early TV commercials, intercut with vintage 60's, 70's & 80's intros, credits, trailers, adverts & promos picked by Scotty from his extensive VHS, 8, 16, & 35mm collection. The set contained the following 'featured' items; Half-Wits-Holiday (1974), All The Worlds A Stooge (1974), No Dough Boys (1974), The Singing Nutzs (1974), I’ll Never Heil Again (1975), The James Hoffa Story (1975), James Bombed In 'Here Today... Gun Tomorrow' (1976), The Ghoul - Ch.62 Show Segments (1978-1979), Attack Of The Helping Hand! (1979), Compilation Of Shorts Clips (1974-1979), The Blind Waiter (1980), Torro, Torro, Torro! (1981) - Scotty's Edit, Cleveland Smith Bounty Hunter - The Producer's Cut (1982), WHYT Radio Snake Commercial (1984), WHYT Radio Puppies Commercial (1984), Breakdancing Stooges (1984), and WNIC Naturally Funny Commercial (1985). The list of 'featured' items ran at 142m 29s alone, but 227m 28s including all the vintage adverts, trailers, promos and such. They play in chronological order. All the shorts have an optional commentary track by Scotty, as does some (but not all) of the additional material.

As fans will want to know specifics, the Attack Of The Helping Hand! transfer here is uncropped, brighter & better quality than featured on the semi-bootleg 2002 German Dragon Films Entertainment Intruder R2 SE PAL DVD, as is Torro, Torro, Torro!; which is also edited differently. Cleveland Smith Bounty Hunter is a different edit to Josh Becker's official release, but The Blind Waiter is largely the same, also less cropped. The DVD cover was simply modified a modified version of the previous cover, and the disc art & vintage style booklet were constructed in much the same way as before.

In June 2018, a third DVD set was released, centred around Josh Becker. It contained eleven further shorts directed or co-directed by Josh, along three of Josh's 2013/14 SpineChillers shorts, and two of his feature film trailers. The set contained the following shorts; Public Enemy Revisited (1971), Additional Footage (1971), Oedipus Rex (1972), Super Student (1972), The Case of the Topanga Pearl (1976), The Final Round (1977), Acting & Reacting (1978), Holding It (1978), The Blind Waiter (1980), Stryker's War (1980), Torro, Torro, Torro! (1981), & Cleveland Smith Bounty Hunter (1982), along with three SpineChillers shorts; Sorry I Couldn't Make It... (2013), Are You On Your Way? (2013), Estate Sale (2014), and trailers; Thou Shalt Not Kill... Except Trailer (1985), If I Had a Hammer Trailer (1999). The shorts play in chronological order. This release does not come with a commentary track, nor does it come with a booklet/program. It does however, come with a 'vintage' style flyer and reproduction photos.

Josh had these Super-8 shorts professionally transferred & remastered to DVD at CinePost in Marietta, Georgia (with the exception of Torro, Torro, Torro!,  which is from a VHS source). It's worth noting that the vintage content available on this release is identical to the five DVDs which Josh sold through his website 'BeckerFilms.com', between 2010 - 2016. The DVD authoring has been tweaked, menus added, and given proper packaging, but the actual transfers are the same. Further, the Torro, Torro, Torro!  & Cleveland Smith Bounty Hunter transfers here are the original full edits, unlike the shorter versions on DVD2, and the transfer of Stryker's War has it's original musical score, unlike the version included on the 2012 Synapse Films Blu-ray & DVD Combo release of Thou Shalt Not Kill... Except.

These three sets represent the bulk of the shorts which Scotty Spiegel, Bill Ward and/or Josh Becker directed or co-directed themselves, it's unlikely that any further shorts will be released in the immediate short term. That may hopefully change down the line, but for the moment, it will stop at the DVD sets currently available. Of the total sixty-four known Super-8 Shorts, the thirty-three titles released over the three box-sets, consitute the bulk of the titles owned/co-owned by Bill Ward, Scotty Spiegel & Josh Becker. The eleven shorts on box-set 3 constitue the bulk of the titles owned/co-owned by Josh Becker (leaving three of his early shorts unreleased), around eight further unreleased shorts are owned/co-owned by Bruce, Twenty owned/co-owned by Sam, one by John Cameron, and three further Becker shorts remain unreleased. Any further DVD releases would depend on other members of the film making group allowing the shorts they directed/co-directed to be publicly released. A website was personally designed & set up specifically for this project, and it's the only place you can buy the DVD; Super8Shorts.com. You can also follow the Super8Shorts.com Facebook Page to keep up with the latest updates and new of future releases. If you're interested in any of my fanmade projects, you can contact me via email at , or through the Rob's Nostalgia Projects Facebook page. Check out & 'like' that Facebook page to see the latest in-progress updates to any current projects, and check out my Wants List to see if you can assist me with any future projects or upgrades.