During the years between 1960 and 2000, James L. Ball, Ph.D., (also known as Buddy Ball, Jim Ball, Jim L. Ball, Jim Lloyd Ball, Mr. Jim L. Ball B.A., M.A., and Jimmy Ball) was active in several fields, including being the credited editor, writer and producer of horror films and craft instructional materials for his Aldan Company, Inc. (earlier known as Aldan Producers & Distributors of Motion Pictures). Ball also worked in the gay erotic video industry and sold Christian church supplies through his Major Studio Productions company. He recorded alternating subjects including drug abuse counseling, fortune-telling, Christian hymn, and teen heartthrobs with his Ball Record Company and Velvet Records. Ball's businesses operated in Southern California out of his homes in Los Angeles and Winnetka, California as well as the French Market in West Hollywood, California.

Ball attended Baylor University and Texas Christian University. Before returning to school at the University of Southern California for his Doctorate in Communication, the Waco resident taught "Child Expression," a course for children to learn how to deport themselves on stage. He compared working as a student in 1957 on "I was a Teenage Werewolf" to the Andy Hardy camaraderie of Judy Garland and Mickey Rooney urging the gang to put on a show. In 1962 Velvet Records released "No Camping" which featured recordings of Jose Sarria performing in drag at the Black Cat Cafe in San Francisco the year before the bar was closed, and included clandestine recordings of Hollywood fortune telling. Buddy Ball also worked with California churches, releasing record albums of their choirs and soloists, as seen in advertisements in "The California Eagle," a long-running Los Angeles African-American newspaper.

Jim "Buddy" Ball is best known for being the story writer and producer of the Sasquatchploitation horror film initially titled in a 1977 script "Revenge of Bigfoot" that had a limited theatrical release in the United States between 1980–1983 through the Aldan Company as "Night of the Demon," but was banned in several countries and was prosecuted in the United Kingdom as a result of the Video Recordings Act 1984 as one of its "video nasties". In the late 1980's and early 1990's, Jim Ball distributed several gay adult erotic videos through Major Studio Productions and is credited as editor on videos with adult film director and producer Kennith Holloway. Ball is not to be confused with another Jim Ball who was a contemporary in the horror film genre known for writing the music for 1981's "Night of Horror" and appearing in 1982 as Bill in "The Curse of the Screaming Dead" (alternately titled "Curse of the Cannibal Confederates").

There is evidence of Buddy Ball's support of gay activism in his service as a chairperson for the Mark 40 Defense Fund which had been organized to provide legal representation for men charged in the wake of a Los Angeles Police Department "slave auction" raid in 1976. Buddy Ball was also conversant with many facets of the gay experience, keeping in touch with a fellow Wacoan's updates on that city's tea house cruising scene, producing videos for men who prefer uncircumcised men, joining Southern California motorcycle clubs, and appearing in drag as "the beautiful Sister Simple, the Chinese Firecracker" on a flyer parodying the 1993 film "Jurassic Park" in "King Kong Park, the Musical."

Source: Doctor Kiss. (2011, April 11). Does know 80's and 90's horror films received theatrical distribution? Retrieved February 24, 2015, from http://monsterkidclassichorrorforum.yuku.com/topic/37220/Does-know-80s-90s-horror-films-received-theatrical-d#.