The Old Negro Space Program

The Old Negro Space Program is a short mockumentary in the style of a Ken Burns film. Imagining a black space program, whose "blackstronauts" were excluded from "White NASA", the film lampoons Burns's history of the Negro Leagues, a subject of his 1994 series, Baseball. The ten-minute film was produced and directed by Andy Bobrow, who wrote for the television series Hype, Malcolm in the Middle and later, Community. Bobrow later went on to write the Community episode "Pillows and Blankets", another parody of Ken Burns. It was created for broad release on the Internet. It was nominated for a 2005 Nebula Award but was ruled ineligible because the film "did not meet the requirement of professional release, or the 12 month period for nomination (after professional release) expired prior to the film receiving enough nominations to be placed on the ballot." The SFWA stated that the disqualification in no way reflected on the work's quality.