While attending Boy Scout Troop 55, Bud learned many things from his well-respected leader, but most of all he remembered Mr. Young’s lesson to “never give up.” That he never did. Here’s a letter that Bud sent to Mike Flecker* on Wednesday, April 9, 2003, proving just that.

Hi Mike:

Dick sent me your e-mail address some time ago and today I decided to check up on the Upnose/FISH Island progress.

Have you approached, talked or thought about a Producer yet? All it takes is one man or woman that sees the vast potential in the Upnose or F.I.S.H. Island. The projects need someone that is already at the TOP. Someone who can push buttons and get things done. Over the last twenty years I’ve gotten close but something always seems to get in the way.

Here’s a little history …

Back in 1982, a student and I started on a venture; trying the impossible … we noticed how enthralled kids were with some models we had made. We decided that we could sell the idea, story and models of an Alien Civilization born in the 1837 Cat Hole Lead Mine, outside of Cuba City, Wisconsin to Hollywood. I called the creatures ROCKETMEN, named after the original Rocketmen Serial of the forties that I used to see at the local movie house in North Carolina. The Rocketmen evolve in a junkyard. They made themselves using junk parts.

Being from the sticks in South Western Wisconsin made it impossible to get “in the door.” However, there was a movie being made 20 miles away in Dubuque, Iowa named “Take this Job and Shove It” produced by Greg Blackweld.

I knew the man that owned the Brewery where the film was made and he gave me Greg’s phone number in LA. I also had heard that Steven Spielberg was looking for an alien for his upcoming movie, ET. Rocketman would be perfect for him. I had his number too but I decided to call Blackweld. I quickly told him the story and he flipped and wanted to see models. Two weeks later, he called and said, “Let’s make a movie and get a lawyer!”

Well, I called a friend in LA and he called a lawyer and after a month of dealing, the lawyer confiscated all the models and took them back to his office in Beverly Hills. He said, “This project is too big for this small time guy!”

For the next ten or so years Larry and I flew out to LA and flew back to Wisconsin, out and back, out and back, etc.

Our first meeting was with John Kortney. We flew out and he canceled the meeting.

A month or two later we flew out and met with Disney’s Richard Burger who loved the Rocketman and made an offer. He gives us until Friday 5 pm or no deal. Our lawyer said “Wait, I can get more money on Monday.” Friday passed and so did the offer. Three months later Burger was fired anyway.

Next meeting was set up with Monty Python. We flew out to LA and they flew back an hour before to London because of the weather. No meeting.

Next Ed Self and Tom Wilhite were running Disney. Self was a friend of the lawyer. They loved the project but they too were fired. I believe someone told me that Hollywood was in the process of playing Musical Chairs. I found out they were right!

Months later we flew out for a chance meeting with some people from Ladd Studios … they backed out at the last minute but another meeting was set up with Frank Price of Universal who had just flopped with his pet project, Howard the Duck! The presentation took place at night in our lawyer’s office. Mr. Price arrived in a suit and his Lackey (as my lawyer said) and we started the presentation … I even made him laugh which I heard later on was a plus. We waited for five months for a NO. The damn DUCK!

Months later our lawyer overheard a conversation at a Beverly Hills restaurant that Robert Watts, then a VP/Producer for George Lucas Raiders / Star Wars / Indiana Jones, etc., was looking for a project. This time I knew we were going to make it. He set up meetings with Frank Yablans at MGM. Robert gave the presentation and Yablans stood up at the meeting and said, “Buy It!” At last I thought! For a few days I was happy as could be. We took a cab to the Airport and I bought some reading material for the flight back to Cheese Land. I picked up the Hollywood Reporter and lo and behold the headlines read, “Yablans Fired from MGM.” Damn … and so close!

A few months later we had a meeting with Watts and we met with Ned Tanen then President of Paramount. We missed Isner by only a month. We made the presentation in the “Executive Board Room.” There was the largest and longest “U” shaped table I’d ever seen. At the head of the table was a huge portrait of Adolph Zukor looking down on us. We had the meeting; he liked the project but wasn’t into SiFi anymore. A few months later he was fired …

Next Watts took us to Columbia where Steve Somers was President. He loved the project. He sent a fabulous telegram to London (Watts’s home) and said he wanted the Rocketman and looked forward to working with us!

Wow! A month later he was replaced by a guy named Puttnman. I found that out at a party from a Grocery Store owner who owned Coca Cola stock. What a shock. Watts even met with Puttnman in London, showed him the Rocketman models and he loved them but said he was into war at the moment.

Next Robert was assigned “Roger Rabbit” and his time was tight.

We still managed to meet with Sid Ganis, then the new Paramount President, but for some reason he and Watts didn’t click. They had worked together on Lucas’ films. Finally Watts dropped out of the picture after some two years when “Batteries Not Included” hit the screen … a story about little aliens evolving out of a junkyard … Ugh?

Now Rocketman is on the shelf again but still as fresh as if it were designed yesterday. Larry graduated and moved on into the real world of jobs, family and bank loans.

Now I was alone.

I had learned a lot from Larry about building models so I started writing stories and making my own creatures.

Years passed. My first story was The UPNOSES. I wrote that one in Montana. My brother was diagnosed with Pancreatic Cancer and I went out to live with him in his log cabin on Horse Butte. One evening we were sitting around the fire and he asked me how my story was going.

“Oh, OK, but I’m having a little trouble with the subject and location,” I said.

“Why don’t you have your Aliens come down here and cure me?” he said jokingly.

What he said hit a nerve. I would make my brother the main character but instead of Aliens curing his cancer, I made him blind and have them cure that. I also included all the kids that lived down from his Horse Butte cabin and would visit him everyday. I also used the name the kids had given him, Uncle Hondo. What a perfect place for an Alien Landing!

Within a year, my brother passed on and in his memory I had made a zillion models and the story was complete. I was also still heartbroken over all the failures and the almost successes of the Rocketmen. I didn’t know if I had enough energy to do it again … but I did.

A year went by and my son’s girlfriend got a job at Paramount. She was the one that pushed me into coming out to LA again. At the time I was broke but my son had won a two-way plane ticket at a USC Basketball game. It seemed that he was dressed up in his Trojan Outfit and was picked out of the crowd of twenty or more thousand cheering fans to come down to the ball court and be blindfolded and then made to find and stand in a hula-hoop. Tex being as clever as he is started to turn, pointing his sword like a compass and the crowd caught on. When he pointed to the hoop they cheered and he walked in that direction. After five walks he stepped into the circle and won the ticket.

That was the ticket they gave me. Angie made some arrangement for me to take a tour of Paramount. After the tour she introduced me to her boss. We hit it off. Within seconds, I had a presentation set up for the next day. The rest of the day I went all over LA picking up models I had given to friends. The next day the producer sent his lackey to the meeting. I was really disappointed but I made the presentation to him anyway in a small conference room right outside the Marketing Dept. After a few minutes he beat around the bush, committed to nothing, and left me hanging in the room.

Tex’s girlfriend suddenly came rushing in and told me to pack up, that “they” were having an emergency meeting about some movie called Forrest Gump. “Who in the hell is Forrest Gump?” I asked.

So here I am in Paramount Studios with all my models, packing up and facing a long disappointing flight back to Wisconsin the next day. My “new career” try would be over and I knew I would never return! I made a decision not to move! I unpacked my models, placed them at the end of the long table, faced them as if they were looking out two open doors and sat down and waited for the Paramount Police to throw me out! Angie returned and went into a panic! “I’m going to be fired!!!! You have to leave now!” Suddenly two women walked by the open doors, then returned and asked about my models.

“Come on in and I’ll tell you the story,” I said.

They were really excited telling me how their kids would love them, etc. One asked if she could run back to Marketing and bring her friends! Within five minutes the room was filled with twenty or more people, all from Marketing. Suddenly the head of Marketing came by the door and saw all her department in a meeting and she too came in. She was returning from a two-week vacation and had just stopped by to check her mail.

“Oh My God! My kids would love these!” The room was buzzing with everyone holding the models and talking and laughing as if it was Christmas and they were swapping toys.

For a second, I looked up and saw a group of “executive types” looking through the door. Then they left because they thought I was a Producer and I had called a meeting and the Secretary had made a mistake on their meeting room! Ha! So they went downstairs to a smaller room. I was told later that a Marketing VP was really upset because he had been left out of this mysterious meeting!

Within a month I had a contract with Paramount and their new UPN TV Channel. I thought I was in again but interest in UPN dwindled and the contract option ran out. The person that got me that contract quit and took my projects and me with her to Brillstein Gray. I gave a great presentation to Bernie and Brad. I was there for two years but nothing was done. Brad Gray made the comment one time that his kids would not stop talking about the UPNOSES. Then politics interfered and left me alone on the BG Island. Their option contract ran out and everything returned to me and came back to Wisconsin. 

I’m 64 years old and I’m looking for someone at the top! Time is ticking away! (Bud died at age 66.)

At the San Diego Book Show some woman came up to the NETMAN exhibit and said, “Oh My God! Katzenberg should see these! He would love these models!”

“Well, go get him!” I said.

She walked away into the sea of people … oh well, another almost! 

…………………………………………….

I think the world of kids is ready for something new like the UPNOSES & F.I.S.H. Island.

Look forward to hearing from you. Sorry I got carried away!!!!!

Bud

*MICHAEL FLECKER, President and Partner, Idea Planet, L.P., www.ideaplanetlp.com