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Memories Of Animator Bud Luckey by Karl Cohen
Animator Bud Luckey (1934-2018) at his favorite place, his drawing table. photo courtesy B. Luckey
I FIRST MET BUD LUCKEY AT A PARTY
at Imagination Inc., an animation company in North Beach run by Jeff Hale and John Magnuson.
Musicians at Earthquake McGoon’s Saloon would drop by his studio before going to work on Fridays for an impromptu jam with Bud on banjo. You might also find other local characters there having fun, including members of the improvisational comedy troupe The Committee.
In the early ‘80s, that company folded and Bud and Rudy Zamora formed the Luckey-Zamora Company, located on Broadway a couple blocks from the Bay. It was there that KQED shot segments of their TV special called “The Animators,” which included some of Bud’s exceptional work and intelligent conversation, while Rudy looked on and never said a word.
Later, when he was working at Colossal Pictures, before joining Pixar, people told me that whenever they had a difficult drawing problem they would ask Bud how to draw it and he would solve their dilemma. He was the maestro.
“My roommate and I were working as cocktail waitresses at the Magic Cellar,” in the 1970s, Sally Cruickshank told me recently, when I asked her about Bud. “It was downstairs and part of Earthquake McGoon's. It was a great place filled with memorabilia of Carter the Great, and it attracted an interesting group of people: magicians, musicians, animators, underground cartoonists, even a lion tamer named Tiny.”
“Bud was a regular there,” Sally continued, “as were many of the customers. He liked the animated films I'd made so far, and got me in to show them to Jeff Hale at Imagination Inc. They tried to get me work on ‘Sesame Street’, which was a new program then, but my storyboards were turned down.”
“I think Bud's ‘That's About the Size’ animation for ‘Sesame Street’ is one of the best songs they ever produced. Bud sings and Turk Murphy's band accompanies. A faded copy is on YouTube. It has a lovely poignancy." (See it here.)
Luckey, a man of many talents, also used to host jam sessions at his studio. photo courtesy B. Luckey
“I never knew him outside of the Magic Cellar,” Sally concluded, “but he encouraged me to keep going with animation, and I heard funny stories about working on 'The Alvin Show'.”
Sally later created several delightful moments for “Sesame Street” and her “Quasi at the Quackadero” was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress. It was also voted #46 in the 1994 book “The 50 Greatest Cartoons: As Selected by 1,000 Animation Professionals”
Vince Collins asked me, “Hey, do you know about Outback Productions? When Bud was living on Twin Peaks, after the holidays he bought Santa's Workshop (about 8' x 8') from the Christmas display at the Emporium. He installed that in the backyard and put his animation stuff in there and did his work there. He called it Outback Productions."
Vince was the staff animator at Palmer’s Lab in SF for many years. His wildest personal work is “Malice in Wonderland”, from 1982. It has been seen by over 1.4 million on You Tube at one address and almost 500K on another.
“[It] will just melt your brain as nude gremlins do perpetual somersaults and Cheshire grins evolve into the toothy vertical smile of a vagina dentata," noted Wired Magazine, in this article, To call it surreal would be an understatement: this is what you see after taking the brown acid."
“I met Bud several times when he was married to my friend, Diane,” Barbara Sokol told me the other day. “A very humble, quiet, kind man.” Marcy Page said she was “very sorry to hear this news. A very talented and kind man.”
John Hays worked with Bud at Colossal. “I kept in touch with him as much as possible [after he joined Pixar]. I asked him to come by Wildbrain to give a talk about his short film 'Boundin’ (2003). That was a big hit of course. Joe Ranft even showed up for that. We ended up at one of the local bars afterwards.”
Luckey was instrumental in a lot of Pixar characters, including Woody from 'Toy Story'. photo courtesy B. Luckey
Bud’s son Andy posted this notice on Facebook. “With great sadness I announce the passing of my Dad: Bud Luckey. My Dad was best known for his work in animation—Pixar, Disney and 'Sesame Street'—and as a voice actor—Eeyore, Agent Rick Dicker, Chuckles the Clown, et al. He loved his work but got even greater satisfaction from seeing others enjoy it."
He’ll be deeply missed by his friends, family and colleagues to whom he was just “Bud.” His kind and easy going demeanor led his Pixar colleagues to dub him “Bud Low-Key.”
A few other facts about Bud: He was born on July 28, 1934, in Billings, Montana. He served in the U.S. Air Force during the Korean War. Afterwards, he attended Chouinard Art Institute, which would later merge with California Academy of Music to become California Institute of the Arts (Cal Arts). He also trained at USC with Disney veteran Art Babbitt.
He went on to work for “The Alvin Show” in 1961 and did an animated pilot for a “Mad” magazine TV special. His other credits include the 1977 animated feature “The Mouse and His Child.” His star continued to rise as he worked on major Pixar features, including “A Bug’s Life” , “Monsters, Inc.”, “Cars”, and “Ratatouille”. While at Pixar Bud wrote, designed and directed the short “Boundin”’ (2003). It won an Annie award and was nominated for an Oscar.
If you're interested there's a Wikipedia page on Bud Luckey and lots of video tributes, simply Google his name. One clip that was quite moving to me had John Lasseter and Pete Docter talking about the brilliance of Bud’s work in 2004. John mentions Bud’s helping create many things at the studio, including its greatest star, Woody. see it here. A few works by Bud, with comments by Jerry Beck can be seen here.
Karl Cohen is an animator, educator and director of the local chapter of the International Animation Society and can be reached .Posted on Apr 02, 2018 - 10:11 PM