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August 8, 1997
Buddy Undergoes Surgery,
But He Still Sinks Layups
By BRUCE ORWALL
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
Hollywood can be a harsh town -- which explains why Kevin DiCicco is
worried about the career of Buddy, his highflying golden retriever who
made his debut last week in the Walt Disney Pictures film "Air Bud."
Buddy -- star of "Air Bud"
Mr. DiCicco spent seven years nurturing Buddy's stardom, trading on the
canine's ability to knock a basketball through a hoop using his nose.
After years of rejection, Mr. DiCicco landed a movie deal. The film
tells the story of a dog who leads a kids' basketball team to glory.
But Buddy's conquest of Hollywood has been bittersweet. A limp that
Buddy developed during the film's shoot turned out to be cancer, and his
rear right leg was amputated.
Buddy can still nose a basketball through a net. But for Mr. DiCicco,
who calls himself "more of a marketing expert than an animal trainer,"
Buddy's condition has caused a crisis. He has chased a movie career for
Buddy with the same obsession Buddy shows for fetching balls, and he
believed that Buddy had been on course for a litter of sequels and an
array of licensing and merchandising deals.
"It's unfortunate what has happened with Buddy," Mr. DiCicco says. "As
far as licensing possibilities, it's a tough call. It's a very touchy
situation as far as trying to license a three-legged animal."
Buddy's surgery became public last week in the Globe tabloid, just as
Air Bud was opening to a solid, if unspectacular, weekend gross of $4.7
million.
But Mr. DiCicco says that since the amputation last spring, Disney has
been less than enthusiastic about promoting Buddy. When the film was
screened for its cast and crew just before the debut, he says, "Buddy
was not asked to attend."
Disney officials say they didn't handle invitations for that event. And,
they say, they have tried for weeks to arrange promotional appearances
for Buddy on late-night talk shows and the like, but couldn't get Mr.
DiCicco's cooperation. When the studio tried to obtain promotional
footage of the three-legged hero shooting baskets after the surgery,
they say, Mr. DiCicco balked. "He kept stalling and stalling," said
Terry Curtin, senior vice president of publicity for Buena Vista
Pictures Marketing.
Mr. DiCicco finally agreed, but the studio says Mr. DiCicco's lawyer
demanded that the footage be held back until Buddy's surgery received
other publicity that Mr. DiCicco would control. "Our only assumption is
that that was the Globe story," Ms. Curtin says.
The attorney, Steve Schechter of Fairlawn, N.J., denies making such a
demand, and both he and Mr. DiCicco say they didn't cooperate with the
tabloid. Mr. Schechter says he advised his client not to shoot the
publicity footage because Disney didn't guarantee in writing that it
wouldn't "treat [Buddy] like a sideshow freak."
It all adds up to a sad turn for Buddy, who was a scruffy, sap-covered
stray when he wandered into the hands of his future stage dad at a
Northern California cabin in 1990. Mr. DiCicco was at loose ends in
those days, about to enter an unpromising career in real estate. He soon
learned, however, that the dog had an affinity for chasing balls. That
evolved into basketball, and Mr. DiCicco, a la pro coach Pat Riley,
drilled his pet hard. It took six months and 4,000 misses for Buddy to
make his first basket.
Success on the court sent Mr. DiCicco on a marketing fast break. He got
Buddy on "America's Funniest Home Videos" and on David Letterman's show.
Soon they were traveling the country doing appearances, including NBA
halftime shows. But a bigger goal always loomed, Mr. DiCicco says: "Get
him on the big screen and create a canine star."
Limited Skills?
It wasn't an easy sell. Studio executives fell for Buddy's grin but
thought his action skills were limited. Mr. DiCicco says he became
incensed that his dog was labeled "a one-trick pony, like all he does is
sink baskets. That's when we expanded into other sports."
He cross-trained Buddy to catch baseballs, stop hockey pucks and nose
soccer balls. Mr. DiCicco kept the faith while other stars, like the
Saint Bernard in "Beethoven," had turns as Hollywood's breed of the
week. "I don't think there was a lot of talent in what Beethoven did,"
Mr. DiCicco says. "But certainly seeing that provided incentive to keep
going."
They got a break when a production company, Keystone Pictures, heard
about Buddy and decided to make "Air Bud." Buddy's salary zoomed into
six figures. And he performed like a champ during the film's production.
Mr. DiCicco said Buddy nailed about 40% of his shots -- "better than the
kids" in the movie. "When the cameras are rolling and there's money on
the line, I think that's pretty good when you're a dog."
An Ominous Limp
But shortly before shooting stopped in December, Buddy started limping.
Mr. DiCicco thought his retriever had injured himself fetching a ball
that rolled under a bench. "We gave him a steroid shot, a few
inflammation pills, and it was back to work," he said. "Now we know it
was the cancer starting to form." Buddy's increasing lameness led to the
amputation.
Mr. DiCicco isn't sure what Buddy's future holds. The dog is about 10
years old and, while apparently in good health now, is getting old for
physical comedy, he notes.
Having invested so much in Buddy, however, he is loath to give up now.
Even though there is no "Air Bud" sequel in the works, "you can't just
start out with a concept, put six or seven years into it, and then just
let it wither and die," he says.
So Mr. DiCicco, 34, who has no job other than managing Buddy's career,
has another plan. Some time ago, he had a sample of Buddy's sperm
collected and frozen. A female has been found to bear Buddy's puppies.
"We have a litter that will be started very soon," he says. "After a
gestation period ... we're back in business."
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