Bud Luckey



Bud Luckey is an animator, currently known for his work at Pixar, who directed Sesame Street animated inserts beginning in 1971, including a total of 14 counting films. Luckey composed the songs for these shorts, in collaboration with lyricist Don Hadley, and provided the balladeer-style vocals for most of the entries, notably "The Alligator King".

Luckey, whose given first name is William, was born and raised in Billings, Montana and following a stint in the Air Force, moved to Los Angeles to attend the Chouinard Art Institute. Luckey began his career as an inbetweener for Disney animator Art Babbitt's commercial studio. Luckey then moved to San Francisco, working as an art director for television ads. While in San Francisco, working at local studio Imagination Inc., Luckey created his Sesame Street segments.

From 1973 to 1984, Luckey owned and managed an animation studio, where he animated and directed commercials, then spent two years working on early computer-based educational games. In 1986, he joined Colossal Pictures in San Francisco as animator, director and trainer/mentor. Bud then joined Pixar in 1992 after being recruited by friend and Monsters Inc. director Pete Docter. At Pixar, he has worked on every feature film to date, and is credited with designing Woody and other characters for “Toy Story”. Luckey also wrote, directed, and sang on the 2004 Oscar nominated short Boundin, and was heard in the Pixar feature film from the same year, The Incredibles, as government official Rick Dicker.

In an interview on the Incredibles DVD set, Lucky recalled, “About thirty years, I'd done some Sesame Street stuff with a friend of mine, Don Hadley. I like to think these days that thirty years ago, I used animation to teach kids their numbers, and now these kids are teaching me how to animate with numbers. So it was a good deal.”

Sesame Street Filmography

 * The Country Fiddler series
 * The Alligator King (7)
 * Candy Man (8)
 * Martian Beauty (9)
 * Ten Turtles
 * It's a Lovely Eleven Morning
 * Ladybug Picnic (12)
 * Just About The Size of It (aka "Infinity")