On a Go Go Luckey streak

When Gary Auerbach, BE ’81, graduated from the University, he wasn’t looking for a job running his own production company, but soon enough, the job found him.

Now, as the co-founder of the highly successful production company Go Go Luckey, which includes among its hit television shows Laguna Beach: The Real Orange County on MTV and Paranormal State on A&E, Auerbach finds himself looking back fondly on his time at UD and crediting the University for helping him locate his path to success.

In the early ’90s, Auerbach began working on various television and film projects, including the dating game Singled Out, the situation comedy Austin Stories and The Jon Stewart Show, a talk show that served as a springboard to the comedian’s current hit, The Daily Show.

In this decade, Auerbach found success again at MTV by working as an executive producer and creative consultant for Ashton Kutcher’s prank show Punk’d before Go Go Luckey struck gold by producing the wildly successful Laguna Beach. A reality show, Laguna Beach focused on a group of eight California teenagers who were nearing the end of high school and approaching the next chapter of their lives. The show featured and made pop culture stars of Kristin Cavallari, Stephen Colletti and Lauren Conrad, who has since gone on to star in a spinoff show called The Hills that follows her life after Laguna Beach.

The scope of the show’s success has surprised Auerbach, who says he did not anticipate the level of celebrity status that many of the stars have achieved.

“I’ve had shows where people have gone on to do well,” he says, pointing to Jon Stewart and Singled Out co-host Jenny McCarthy, but “since these are just regular kids [from Laguna Beach], it’s surprising that they’ve gotten that big.

“It’s always nice when it happens because it means the show is doing well.”

Auerbach says it is hard to choose his favorite show among those he has produced. Ultimately, however, he settles on Laguna Beach, noting, “It was the most satisfying in sort of changing people’s perceptions on the look and feel of television.”

The company prides itself on “young and fresh” programming with a “signature cinematic look,” he says

The success of Laguna Beach has permitted Auerbach and Go Go Luckey to pursue other interesting television opportunities, including the recent hit Paranormal State. The half-hour series chronicles the lives of Penn State students as they seek out the truth behind paranormal mysteries.

Based in Santa Monica, Calif., Go Go Luckey was founded by Auerbach and his wife, Julie. The company was named for a painting Auerbach completed while directing in a Chinatown location, where he came across unlikely inspiration in Chinese calligraphy with the word “lucky” spelled “luckey.”

An economics major at UD, Auerbach says that the key to entertainment is “having a well-rounded background and an interest in learning, and I found that at Delaware.” His UD experience, he says, “really kept me curious, and it kept me wanting to learn more.”

Auerbach, who attended the University with his older brother, served as a dining hall employee, played on the rugby team and says he was bursting with school spirit while at Delaware. He remembers many of the downtown Newark locations fondly, lamenting the recent demise of the landmark Stone Balloon.

“UD was a great balance of social and academic life,” he says, adding jokingly, “I was probably more on the social side than the academic side.”

While a student, Auerbach says, he liked film theory and psychology classes, as well as math, where “I had some really great teachers.”

After graduating and before getting into television and film production, Auerbach moved to New York to work
in theatre, but says he was really “bartending and doing different things” when a friend from high school taught him how to edit film. From there, Auerbach started shooting and editing and eventually wound up working at MTV and at various production companies.

He still keeps in contact with many of the friends he made at the University.

“I thought Delaware was a pretty awesome school because it’s kind of a big school in a very small town,” he says. “I think it’s a good collection of different people because you get the New Yorkers, the kids from Pennsylvania, and the Delaware and New Jersey mix.”

—Adam Thomas