Tuesday, January 22, 2008

That's about the Size ..

This cartoon is a big part of me.
Watch this one while you can, as it usually gets pulled off youtube. It's written, animated and sung by Bud Luckey, with Turk Murphy and a small combo from Earthquake Magoon's accompanying him. I usually cry when I watch it. Bud Luckey has had great success at Pixar- yay BUD!
The back story:
I graduated from college early, thanks to various summer school courses. It was 1971. I'd made one animated film at Smith, and took off for San Francisco. I'd seen some of R. Crumb's work and read about underground comix. I knew it would be very different from Smith College and that's what I wanted. I enrolled at the San Francisco Art Institute for a graduate course with Larry Jordan, who had made lovely animated cut-out films, and Lenny Lipton, who actually wrote "Puff the Magic Dragon" and was a worthless teacher. So was Victor Moscoso, but that's another story.

My best bud Janet and I got "jobs" as cocktail waitresses at the Magic Cellar, a bar that was a hangout for magicians-- at 490 Clay St, downstairs from Earthquake Magoons. Bud Luckey was a frequent customer of this hangout. He worked around the corner at Imagination Inc, one of the first studios to produce animation for Sesame Street. Bud encouraged me to pursue animation and tried to get me work at Sesame Street through Imagination Inc. Nothing came of it at that time. Years later a different producer ran things at Sesame Street and I had the opportunity to create many animated songs for Sesame Street.

This piece may look restrained if you have no personal memories of it, but it was a breakthrough at the time, and the true feelings evoked carry through the years I think. A sweet melancholy to the song.

7 comments:

Mars Tokyo said...

What a delightful animation! Thanks for introducing me to it.

Namowal (Jennifer Bourne) said...

I remember that cartoon. I enjoyed it as a kid. Any time someone observed how small any distant thing was my mom would chime in "Oh the big becomes the little when you see it back a bit!"
It's impressive- I wonder if Sesame Street still runs it?
I'm glad he encouraged your animation efforts!
I'm surprised Sesame Street wasn't more receptive. Adds a new irony to the line "Can you tell me how to get to Sesame Street?" I wonder what their problem was?
It must have been gratifying when things changed and you finally got the chance to make cartoons for them!

Linda Davick said...

Move over, Charles and Ray! Their attempt at this concept (Power of Ten) isn't nearly as charming. Or soulful.
Another one of your wonderful starry sky endings.
What do you mean when you say it usually gets pulled off youtube? Can people pull stuff off?
Working at the Magic Cellar––how perfect.

Sally said...

Linda, All someone has to do is click report this video and it can be taken down. I think somebody's worried about copyright, but it doesn't seem as if Sesame Street gives a darn about the videos being on youtube-- there are thousands of them. I know this one keeps getting taken down, though, because I'll mark it as a favorite, then will go back to look at it again and it's gone.

(Actually I was worried I might have posted it already.)

Namowal, that's cute about your mom. One line in the song is especially dear: "the huge becomes the dinky which is just the opposite."

Mars, you're welcome! Glad you enjoyed it.

Anonymous said...

Charming animation. Yes, I love the "dinky" line.

Anonymous said...

Nice perspective piece. I saw "Power of 10" which was very good but it was a scientific work and not of the same type as this. BTW Do you hate the Ditech commercials as much as I do?

Sally said...

I don't know "Power of 10." I also can't remember which commercials are Ditech, but on googling I see there are an abundance of sites dedicated to hating those commercials so they must be pretty awful!