1976, America's Bicentennial year. Lavish patriotic celebrations were planned in strange contrast with the Watergate scandal and the resignation of President Nixon. Mistrust of government activities was at an all time high. Many young people, myself included, shook their heads in disbelief at the flag waving planned for the July 4 event.

I was just out of film school in Boston, trying my hand at independent filmmaking. My friend and cohort Ken Finch and I had been shooting a full length film called Diazoman. We had gotten off to a pretty good start but had to abandon the project after our equipment was stolen from our apartment. Pooling the last of our money together, we bought a new camera and tried to come up with a short film that would be timely. A spoof on the Bicentenial was a natural. Using some of the same props and actors from the Diazoman project we were able to complete the movie in time for the July 4 event. The Spirit of 76 won several awards and played as a short for 3 months at the Elgin Theatre in NYC before the feature film, Bedtime for Bonzo.