On Sunday afternoon, February 22, the Grove Society sponsored a watch party for a new PBS Wisconsin documentary, Bucky!, on the life and times of the beloved UW mascot. PBS reached out to us because an Evansville Resident from the early twentieth century, Lloyd “Babe”
Spencer, played an important role in the story. “Babe” was the original mascot for the UW teams and was known for his playful nature and for bringing his pet badger, “Billie,” to the games with him. In the late 1940s Wisconsin Athletics replaced the live “Billie” with the cartoon character,
“Bucky” that we know today.
The party took place at The Night Owl in Evansville; the Night Owl’s Travis Ardisson was happy to collaborate with the Grove Society and provided a special menu of old-time Wisconsin food and drink. A delegation from PBS Wisconsin included the documentary’s director and producer, who entertained questions from the audience after the showing.
The highlight of the party, however, was an appearance by Bucky Badger himself, who spent an hour posing for pictures, delighting the many children in attendance, and leading them around the place as if he were the Pied Piper.
Bucky also assisted in awarding Evansville’s First Historian, Ruth Ann Montgomery, with a lifetime membership in the Grove Society.
A running theme of the documentary is the way in which Bucky Badger appeals to everyone who cares about Wisconsin: he makes people happy, makes us feel connected in our love for him and for our state. As the photographs make clear, Bucky did that for everyone who attended the
watch party: we laughed, we delighted in his shenanigans, we felt fortunate to be able to share in his Bucky-ness for an afternoon. The Night Owl, PBS Wisconsin, Wisconsin Athletics, and the Grove Society all contributed to the event’s success, but at the end of the day the event’s contribution to the life of Evansville’s community amounted to considerably more than the sum of the parts.
The documentary can be found on the PBS Wisconsin app, as well as on PBS’s YouTube channel. There is additional content on the PBS Wisconsin page and on Youtube, including an original short feature on RoseAnn Donovan, a woman who was Bucky in the 1980s.
