Bud Luckey created the singing and dancing lamb of Boundin’ after childhood memories of growing up in Montana. © 2003 Pixar.

“Here’s a story on how strange is life with its changes.
And it happened not long ago.
On a high mountain plain, where the sagebrush arranges a playground
south of the snow.
Lived a lamb with a coat of remarkable sheen -
it would glint in the sunlight all sparkly and clean...
Such a source of great pride -
that it caused him to preen.
And he’d break out in high stepp’n dance.
He would dance for his neighbors across the way.
I must say that they found his dancin’ enhancin’, for they’d also join in the play….”

It turns out that Destino isn’t the only animated short competing for the Oscar based on a song. Bud Luckey’s new Pixar film, Boundin’, the story of a once proud lamb that mopes around after losing its wooly coat, only to regain its infectious spirit with the help of a sagacious Jackalope, also took flight as a catchy tune.

For some, Boundin’ is a cross between the vibrancy of Mary Blair and the buoyancy of George Pal. For others, including Pixar’s Pete Docter, who recruited the 69-year-old traditional animator from Colossal Pictures in nearby San Francisco in ‘92, Boundin’ recalls the short films about counting Luckey directed during the first season of Sesame Street. But to the very humble and self-effacing Luckey, who attended Chouinard Art Institute (now CalArts) and was mentored by Art Babbitt at USC, the roots of Boundin’ go all the way back to his childhood in Billings, Montana.

“The first thing I needed was a sympathetic character,” Luckey explained. “The best thing I had seen as a kid in Montana was a naked lamb that had been sheared. And then Montana is Jackalope country… this mythical creature that’s a cross between a rabbit and a deer — a bunny with horns. And then the prairie dogs were everywhere. The owl used to hang out in the prairie dog holes, and there were rattlesnakes and fish came up stream.”

Once the song began to take shape, Luckey pitched the idea to Pixar’s shorts department, where it was embraced and nurtured by producer Osnat Shurer. Luckey did some sketches and eventually made a storyboard reel and recorded a scratch track playing the banjo. “I remember when he pitched it we were all charmed by it — it didn’t take much convincing,” Docter remarked. “Bud had these amazing drawings that were so charming. There was no cynicism at all, which is pretty rare these days. A number of us had been familiar with his Sesame Street work and it had a little taste of that.”