NAMES IN THE NEWS : Buddy Hackett Really Wings It
NEW YORK — Comedian Buddy Hackett watched sea gulls so much that he learned to look like one.
“I was a method sea gull,” Hackett says. “I climbed up on the window and jumped.”
The character of Scuttle the sea gull in Disney’s new film “The Little Mermaid” was modeled after the comedian.
Hackett studied the birds at Malibu beach after he signed to provide the voice of the character. He told People magazine in this week’s issue that he learned sea gulls are “terrorists.”
“They’ll pull and tear and eat anything,” he said.
The friendly sea gull in the movie was changed after animator David Stephan saw a series of photographs of Hackett making faces like a sea gull’s.
Scrapping the skinny gull he originally drew, Stephan added a few pounds, endowed the bird with crossed, close-set eyes, and gave it Hackett’s tendency of talking out of the side of his mouth.
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