15 YEARS AGO THE ROOTS OF ETHNICITY BEGAN AS REBELVISION

It was 15 years ago in the Spring of 1993 when I along with Stan Armstrong created and produced Rebelvision: The UNLV Variety Show, thus began our long partnership and even longer friendship (heaven help me). Back then, we were just the first crop to graduate from the fledging Film Department before it bloomed into what it is today. We knew of each other from seeing each other in the department. But all would changed when Stan got word from Boddy Scallion, who helped run the new UNLV television station, that he needed someone to do this movie review show that just got the green light on. For some reason, perhaps fate, Stan got a hold of me and asked if I was interested in helping along.
We began to brainstorm and came up a lot more than the original film review idea. We wanted to showcase the talents of all the students at UNLV and maybe outside the university. Soon we had everything set in our proposal for the show, completed with the title - Rebelvision: The UNLV Variety Show. The head of UNLV TV wanted to bring a communication student to help us along, seeing that neither of us had any major television experience. We were certainly a motley crew (or the mod squad) – an African-American male (Stan), a young woman (Carol Hooper), and a guy with Cerebral Palsy (moi).
Rebelvision was to be the first show on UNLV to be done by students and for the students; a big task indeed. But we started to write scripts and film segments; and for our interviews, we got some local guests that were famous or semi-famous for the time like the Flying Elvi (from Honeymoon in Vegas) and the late Diana Plato (Different Strokes.) We also featured dancers, debates on hot topics, and of course film reviews. We even had a small troop of student actors to do comedy skits and short action films. Stan and Carol were the host and I ran the behind the scene aspects of the show.
We did a whole year of episodes including a Halloween show (completed with small fun-scary news/documentary segments on UFOs produced by yours truly,) and a Christmas show that was a last for Stan and I in many ways. As per our agreement to make the show, we agreed to hand over the reins over to other students to continue with. So Rebelvision lived on for a while before it was turn back into its original concept – a film review show like ‘Siskel & Ebert’. That ran successively for a couple of years until the two hosts got film jobs elsewhere.
Sadly, like many shows done by UNLV TV back then, the tapes used for Rebelvision were recycled and use for future shows on the station. Now all that remains of Rebelvision is what Stan and I managed to save in our video cassette collection (yes, I said video cassettes.) I am trying to transfer them over to DVDs so maybe we can post some segments here in the video section.
Now Stan and I are back 15 years later doing EthniCITY. The concept is basically the same but since our days of growing up here, Vegas has grown into a more international ethnic city these days. That was our new angle and I really think it will be great and really feature the best at the university and in the city.
Like those classic cars that are popular again in new sleeker models, one can say that Rebelvision is back alive but in a new chassis called ethniCITY.
Until next time, Mabuhay!