Pixar Animation Studios
In the 2005 DVD release of Disney/Pixar's The Incredibles, in addition to Bud Luckey's Oscar-nominated short Boundin', the studio included a short biography of Luckey entitled "Who is Bud Luckey?" In that video biography, Pixar (and now Disney's) Creative Executive Vice President John Lasseter declared: "Bud Luckey is one of the true unsung heroes of animation."
Luckey joined Pixar in 1990 as a character designer, storyboard artist and animator for Toy Story. He was Pixar's fifth artist/animator. John Lasseter credits Bud Luckey with the creation and design of the star of Toy Story, Woody, a cowboy. Originally the character was a ventriloquist's dummy like Edgar Bergen's character Charlie McCarthy. He evolved into a talking doll with a pull string and a gun-less holster.
According to Toy Story producer Ralph Guggenheim, John Lasseter and the story team for the first Toy Story film reviewed the names of Pixar employees' children looking for the right name for the film's boy child character. "Andy", (Andy Davis) was ultimately named after and based on Luckey's son, animator Andy Luckey. The character's last name, "Davis", was named after the nearby college town of Davis, California, which is home to University of California, Davis, the alma mater of a number of Pixar engineers.
Luckey's character designs can also be seen in A Bug's Life, Toy Story 2, Monsters, Inc., Finding Nemo, Cars, Ratatouille, WALL-E, Up, and in Toy Story 3, in which he also voices a clown named Chuckles.
In 2003, Luckey gained attention for the short film Boundin', which was released theatrically as the opening cartoon for The Incredibles. It was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Animated Short in 2003. Luckey wrote and designed the short, and also composed the music and lyrics, and sang and performed banjo on the soundtrack for the cartoon. Boundin won the ASIFA Hollywood Annie Award that same year.
In The Incredibles, Bud Luckey voiced the role of National Supers Agency (NSA) Agent Rick Dicker. In the film's DVD commentary, director Brad Bird jokes that he had an idea to start Boundin' with Rick Dicker coming in to his office late at night, pulling out a bottle of "booze" and a banjo to start singing the song about the dancing sheep who is sheared and has his confidence restored by the Jackalope. He also lent his voice to Chuckles in Toy Story 3 and Hawaiian Vacation.
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