Gumby is an American clay animation franchise, centered on a green clay humanoid character created and modeled by Art Clokey. The character has been the subject of two television series, a feature-length film, and other media. Since the original series aired, he has become a famous example of stop motion clay animation and an influential cultural icon, spawning tributes, parodies, and merchandising.
Video Gumby
Overview
Gumby follows the titular character on his adventures through different environments and times in history. Gumby's primary sidekick is Pokey, a talking orange pony. His nemeses are the Blockheads, a pair of red, humanoid figures with cube-shaped heads, who wreak havoc. The Blockheads were inspired by The Katzenjammer Kids, who were always causing trouble. Other characters include Prickle, a yellow dinosaur who sometimes styles himself as a detective with pipe and deerstalker hat like Sherlock Holmes; and Goo, a flying blue mermaid who spits blue goo balls and can change shape at will;; Gumby and Gumba, Gumby's parents; and Nopey, Gumby's dog whose entire vocabulary is the word "nope". The 1988 syndicated series added Gumby's sister Minga, mastodon friend Denali, and chicken friend Tilly.
Maps Gumby
History
1953-1969: Origins
Gumby was created by Art Clokey in the early 1950s after he finished film school at the University of Southern California (USC).
Clokey's first animated film was a 1953 three-minute student film called Gumbasia, a surreal montage of moving and expanding lumps of clay set to music in a parody of Disney's Fantasia. Gumbasia was created in a style that Clokey's professor, Slavko Vorkapi?, taught at USC called Kinesthetic Film Principles and described as "massaging of the eye cells." Much of Gumby's look and feel was inspired by this technique of camera movements and editing.
In 1955, Clokey showed Gumbasia to movie producer Sam Engel, who encouraged him to develop his technique by animating figures into children's stories. Clokey moved forward, producing a pilot episode featuring the character Gumby.
The name "Gumby" came from the muddy clay found at Clokey's grandparents' farm that his family called "gumbo". Gumby's appearance was inspired by a suggestion from his wife, Ruth (née Parkander), that Gumby be bases on the Gingerbread Man. The color green was then chosen because Clokey saw it as both racially neutral a symbol of life. Gumby's legs and feet were made wide for pragmatic reasons: they ensured that he would stand up during stop-motion filming. Gumby's famous slanted head was based on the hairstyle of Clokey's father, Charles Farrington, in an old photograph.
Clokey's pilot episode was seen by NBC executive Thomas Warren Sarnoff who asked Clokey to make another one. Gumby's second episode, "Gumby on the Moon", became a huge hit on Howdy Doody, leading Sarnoff to order Gumby his own series in 1955 entitled The Gumby Show. In 1955 and 1956, 25 eleven-minute episodes aired on NBC. In early episodes, Gumby's voice was provided by Ruth Eggleston, wife of the show's art director Al Eggleston, until Dallas McKennon assumed her role in 1957. Because of its variety-type format, The Gumby Show featured not only Clokey's puppet films, but also interviews and games. During this time, the show went through a succession of two hosts: Robert Nicholson and Pinky Lee.
In 1959, The Gumby Show entered syndication and more episodes were produced in the 1960s. Production started in Hollywood and, in 1960, moved to a larger studio in Glendora, California where it remained until production ended in 1969. During this time, Gumby was primarily voiced by Norma MacMillan, and occasionally by Ginny Tyler and Dick Beals. The cartoon shorts introduced other characters like a mermaid named Goo, a dinosaur named Prickle, and Gumby's pony friend named Pokey.
1982-1989: Revival
Beginning in 1982, Gumby was parodied by Eddie Murphy on Saturday Night Live. According to Murphy's parody, when the television cameras were turned off, the sweet Gumby reverted to his true self: an irascible, cigar chomping celebrity who was highly demanding of the production executives. Whenever the executives refused to give in to his demands, Gumby would assert his star status by saying "I'm Gumby, dammit!"
In 1987, the original Gumby shorts enjoyed a revival on home video. The following year, Gumby appeared in The Puppetoon Movie.
This renewed interest led to a reincarnation of the series consisting of ninety-nine brand new 7-minute episodes produced for television syndication in association with Lorimar-Telepictures in 1987. Dallas McKennon returned to voice Gumby in the new adventures in which Gumby and his pals traveled beyond their toyland-type setting and establish themselves as a sing-a-long band. The show also included new characters, such as Gumby's little sister Minga, a mastodon named Denali, and a chicken named Tilly.
In addition to the new episodes airing on television, the classic 1950s and 1960s shorts were re-run as part of the series, but with new audio. The voices were re-recorded and the original music was replaced by Jerry Gerber's synthesizer score from the 1987 series. Clokey's rights to use the original Capitol Records production tracks could not be renewed at the time, due to legal issues.
1990-present: Feature film and reruns
Starting in 1992, TV channels like Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network aired reruns of Gumby episodes. In 1995, Clokey's production company produced an independently released theatrical film, Gumby: The Movie, marking the clay character's first feature-length adventure. In it, the villainous Blockheads replace Gumby and his band with robots and kidnap their dog, Lowbelly. The movie featured in-joke homages to sci-fi classics such as Star Wars, The Terminator, and 2001: A Space Odyssey. In 1998, the Gumby episode "Robot Rumpus" was featured on Mystery Science Theater 3000.
On March 16, 2007, YouTube announced that all Gumby episodes would appear in their full-length form on its site, digitally remastered and with their original soundtracks. This deal also extended to other video sites, including AOL. In March 2007, KQED-TV broadcast an hour-long documentary Gumby Dharma as part of its Truly CA series.
In 2012, Me-TV began airing Gumby on weekend morning, in its weekend morning animation block. The show remained part of the channel's programming until the end of the year.
On April 8, 2015, it was announced that there is a new Gumby series in the works which will be co-produced by the Jim Henson Company.
Cast
- Dallas McKennon: Gumby (1957, 1960-1967, 1987-1989, 1995), Pokey (1960-1969), Gumbo (1960), Prickle (1964-1969), Professor Kapp (1962-1989, 1995), Denali (1987-1989), Nopey (1964-1969), Henry (1987 re-dubbed), Rodgy (1987 re-dubbed), Granny (1987-1989), additional voices
- Dick Beals: Gumby (1960-1967)
- Ginny Tyler: Gumby (1957-1960), Granny (1960), Witty Witch (1960), additional voices
- Norma MacMillan: Gumby (1964-1969), Pokey (1964-1969), Goo (1964-1969), Prickle (1960's)
- Ruth Eggleston: Gumby (1955-1956), Gumba (1955-1956)
- Art Clokey: Pokey (1955-1989, 1995), Prickle (1964-1969, 1987-1989, 1995), Gumbo (1955-1989, 1995), additional voices
- Don Messick: Henry (1962), Rodgy (1962), additional voices
- Gloria Clokey: Goo (1987-1989, 1995)
- Janet McDuff: Gumba (1987-1989, 1995), Granny (1987-1989), additional voices
- Holly Harman: Minga (1987-1989), Tilly (1987-1989), additional voices
- Hal Smith: Additional voices
- Taig McNab: Additional voices
- Camden Angelis: Additional voices
Reception and legacy
In 1993, TV Guide named Gumby the best cartoon series of the 1950s in its issue celebrating 40 years of television.
Beginning in 1994, the Library of Congress used Gumby as a spokescharacter due to a recurring sequence in the show where Gumby walks into a book and enters the story's setting. This led to Adventures into Books: Gumby's World, a traveling exhibit called that promoted the Center for the Book's national reading campaign from 1997 to 2000. By the end of the 90s, Gumby and Pokey had also appeared in various commercials for Cheerios cereal, most notably Frosted Cheerios.
On August 4, 2006, the Center for Puppetry Arts in Atlanta opened Art Clokey's Gumby: The First Fifty Years. This exhibition featured many of the original puppets and sets, along with screening of Art Clokey's films. This event was conceived by David Scheve, of T.D.A. Animation, and Joe Clokey, of Premavision, and was one of several exhibits that opened around the country, celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of The Gumby Show. The children's book Gumby Goes to the Sun was also published that year to commemorate the anniversary. The book was originally created in the 1980s by Clokey's daughter, Holly Harman, .
In 2007, the Gumby comic book series was nominated for two Eisner Awards, Best New Series and Best Publication for a Young Audience, and won the latter.
On October 12, 2011, Google paid tribute to Art Clokey's 90th birthday featuring clay balls transforming into characters from Gumby. The doodle was composed of a toy block with a "G" on it and five clay balls in the Google colors. Clicking each of the balls revealed the Blockheads, Prickle, Goo, Gumby, and Pokey.
In a 2014 episode of the Disney XD's Gravity Falls called "Little Gift Shop of Horrors", the character of Soos Ramirez appears in the "Clay Day" segment resembling Gumby.
Merchandising
Various Gumby merchandise has been produced over the years, the most prominent item being bendable figures. Several single packs and multi-figure sets by Jesco (later Trendmasters), as well as a 50th anniversary collection, have been made of the Gumby characters. Also included in the Gumby merchandise catalog are plush dolls, keychains, mugs, a 1988 Colorforms set, a 1995 Trendmasters playset, and a Kubricks set by Medicom. A tribute album, Gumby: The Green Album, produced by Shepard Stern was released in 1989 through Buena Vista Records.
In August 2005, the first video game featuring Gumby, Gumby vs. the Astrobots, was released by Namco for the Game Boy Advance. In it, Gumby must rescue Pokey, Prickle, and Goo after they are captured by the Blockheads and their cohorts, the Astrobots.
The Gumby images and toys are registered trademarks of Prema Toy Company. Premavision owns the distribution rights to the Gumby cartoons, having been reverted from previous distributor Warner Bros. Television in 2003, and had licensed the rights to Classic Media until September 30, 2012. At this time, Classic Media was officially acquired by DreamWorks Animation and branded as DreamWorks Classics, which became a subsidiary of NBCUniversal in 2016.
As of April 2015, NCircle Entertainment owns home video and digital distribution rights to the cartoons.
See also
- List of films featuring clay animation
- Morph
- Semper Gumby
References
External links
- Official website
- Premavision/Clokey Productions
- The Gumby Show on IMDb
- Gumby-related interview videos at the Archive of American Television
- Gumby at Don Markstein's Toonopedia. Archived from the original on September 1, 2016.
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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