''Gumby'' is an American

clay animation Clay animation or claymation, sometimes plasticine animation, is one of many forms of stop-motion animation. Each animated piece, either character or background, is "deformable"—made of a malleable substance, usually plasticine clay. Tra ...

franchise Franchise may refer to: Business and law * Franchising, a business method that involves licensing of trademarks and methods of doing business to franchisees * Franchise, a privilege to operate a type of business such as a cable television p ...

, centered on the titular green

clay Clay is a type of fine-grained natural soil material containing clay minerals (hydrous aluminium phyllosilicates, e.g. kaolin, Al2 Si2 O5( OH)4). Clays develop plasticity when wet, due to a molecular film of water surrounding the clay par ...

humanoid character created and modeled by

Art Clokey Arthur "Art" Clokey (born Arthur Charles Farrington; October 12, 1921 – January 8, 2010) was an American pioneer in the popularization of stop-motion clay animation, best known as the creator of the character Gumby and the original voice o ...

. Gumby stars in two television series, the feature-length '' Gumby: The Movie'', and other media. He immediately became a famous example of

stop motion Stop motion is an animated filmmaking technique in which objects are physically manipulated in small increments between individually photographed frames so that they will appear to exhibit independent motion or change when the series of frames i ...

clay animation and an American cultural icon, spawning tributes, parodies, and merchandising.

Overview

The ''Gumby'' franchise follows Gumby's adventures through different environments and historical eras. His primary

sidekick A sidekick is a slang expression for a close companion or colleague (not necessarily in fiction) who is, or is generally regarded as, subordinate to the one they accompany. Some well-known fictional sidekicks are Don Quixote's Sancho Panza, ...

is Pokey, a talking orange pony. His nemeses are the G and J Blockheads, a pair of antagonistic red humanoid figures with cube-shaped heads, one with the letter G on the block, the other with the letter J. Their creation was inspired by the trouble-making

Katzenjammer Kids ''The Katzenjammer Kids'' is an American comic strip created by Rudolph Dirks in 1897 and later drawn by Harold Knerr for 35 years (1914 to 1949).detective with pipe and

deerstalker A deerstalker is a type of cap that is typically worn in rural areas, often for hunting, especially deer stalking. Because of the cap's popular association with the fictional detective Sherlock Holmes, it has become stereotypical headgear f ...

hat like Sherlock Holmes; Goo, a flying blue shapeshifting

mermaid In folklore, a mermaid is an aquatic creature with the head and upper body of a female human and the tail of a fish. Mermaids appear in the folklore of many cultures worldwide, including Europe, Asia, and Africa. Mermaids are sometimes ass ...

who spits blue goo balls; Gumbo 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.

History

1953–1969: Origins

Gumby was created by

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 (1940 film), Fantasia''. ''Gumbasia'' was created in the "kinesthetic" style taught by Clokey's USC professor Slavko Vorkapich, Slavko Vorkapić, 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 film producer Sam Engel, who encouraged him to develop his technique by animating figures into children's stories. Clokey produced a pilot episode starring 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 based on the Gingerbread Man. Clokey saw the color green as both racially neutral and a symbol of life. Gumby's legs and feet were made wide to pragmatically ensure that the figure would stand up during

filming. Gumby's slanted head was based on the hairstyle of Clokey's father, Charles Farrington, in an old photograph. The pilot episode was seen by NBC executive Thomas Warren Sarnoff (the youngest son of RCA and NBC founder, David Sarnoff), who asked Clokey to make another one. The second episode, ''Gumby on the Moon'', became a huge hit on ''Howdy Doody'', so Sarnoff ordered a series in 1955 titled ''The Gumby Show''. In 1955 and 1956, 25 episodes at 11 minutes each 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 the role in 1957. Gumby's best friend, an orange pony named Pokey, was introduced during the earliest episodes. Because of its variety format, ''The Gumby Show'' features Clokey's animations plus interviews and games. During this time, the show had two successive hosts, Bobby Nicholson, 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. The cartoon shorts introduce new characters including a blue mermaid named Goo and a yellow dinosaur named Prickle.

1982–1989: Revival

Beginning in 1982, Gumby was parodied by Eddie Murphy on ''Saturday Night Live''. In it, when the cameras are off, the sweet Gumby reverts to his true self of an irascible, cigar-chomping celebrity who is highly demanding of the production executives. Whenever they refuse his demands, Gumby asserts his star status by saying "I'm ''Gumby'', dammit!" in an exaggerated Jewish accent. According to Joseph Clokey, Art's son, he and Art "thought Eddie was a genius in the way he played that character". In 1987, the original ''Gumby'' shorts were released on home video. In 1988, Gumby appeared in ''The Puppetoon Movie''. This renewed interest led to a new series of 99 episodes of 7-minutes, produced for television syndication in association with Lorimar-Telepictures in 1988. Dallas McKennon voices Gumby in the new adventures, in which Gumby and his pals travels beyond their toyland setting as a musical band. ''Gumby Adventures'' includes new characters, such as Gumby's little sister Minga, a mastodon named Denali and a chicken named Tilly. The new series includes the 1950s and 1960s shorts, with new audio. The voices were re-recorded and the music was replaced by Jerry Gerber's new synthesizer score. Legal issues prevented Clokey from renewing rights to the original Capitol Records production tracks.

1990–2021: feature film and reruns

Starting in 1992, TV channels such as Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network aired reruns of ''Gumby'' episodes. In 1995, Clokey's production company produced an independently released theatrical film, '' Gumby: The Movie'', as the character's first feature-length adventure, with John R. Dilworth, creator of ''Courage the Cowardly Dog'', as animation consultant. In it, the villainous Blockheads replace Gumby and his band with robots and kidnap their dog, Lowbelly. It has in-joke homages to science-fiction films such as ''Star Wars (film), Star Wars'', ''The Terminator'', and ''2001: A Space Odyssey (film), 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 America Online, AOL. In March 2007, KQED-TV broadcast an hour-long documentary ''Gumby Dharma'' in its ''Truly CA'' series. It details Clokey's life and work, and has new animation of Gumby and Pokey. For these sequences, animator Stephen A. Buckley voiced Gumby and Clokey voiced Pokey. In 2012, MeTV began airing ''Gumby'' in its weekend morning animation block until the end of the year.

2022–present: Fox ownership

In February 2022, Fox Entertainment, the TV production division of the Murdoch family's Fox Corporation, announced it had acquired the ''Gumby'' intellectual property from the estate of Art's son, Joseph Clokey, encompassing all rights including "film, TV and streaming, consumer products, licensing, publishing and all other categories", with plans to launch new series across linear and digital platforms, while adding to the classic ''Gumby'' material available on its free streaming platform Tubi.

Cast

*Dallas McKennon: Gumby (1957, 1960–1967, 1987–1989, 1995), Pokey (1960–1969), Gumbo (1960–1962), Prickle (1964–1969), Professor Kapp (1964–1989, 1995), Denali (1987–1989), Nopey (1964–1969), Henry (1987 re-dubbed), Rodgy (1987 re-dubbed), Additional voices (1957–1995) *Ginny Tyler: Gumby (1968–1969), Gumba (1957–1962), Granny (1960–1962), Witty Witch (1960–1962), Additional voices (1957–1962) *Norma MacMillan: Gumby (1964–1969), Pokey (1964–1969), Goo (1964–1969), Gumba (1967–1968) *Ruth Eggleston: Gumby (1955–1956), Gumba (1955) *Betty Hartford: Gumba (1956) *

: Pokey (1955–1989, 1995), Prickle (1964–1969, 1987–1989, 1995), Gumbo (1955–1989, 1995), Additional voices *Don Messick: Henry (1963), Rodgy (1963), Additional voices *Paul Frees: Professor Kapp (1963), Additional voices *Gloria Clokey: Goo (1987–1989, 1995), Gumba (1987–1989) *Janet MacDuff: Gumba (1987–1989, 1995), Granny (1987–1989), Additional voices (1987–1989, 1995) *Holly Harman: Minga (1987–1989), Tilly (1987–1989), Additional voices *Hal Smith (actor), Hal Smith: Prickle (1964–1969), Additional voices (1964–1969) *Taig McNab: Additional voices *Camden Angelis: Additional voices Several sources say that Dick Beals voiced Gumby in the 1960s; however, Beals denied this claim in a 2001 interview.

Episodes

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" for ''Adventures into Books: Gumby's World'', a traveling exhibition promoting the Center for the Book's national reading campaign from 1997 to 2000. By the end of the 1990s, Gumby and Pokey had also appeared in various commercials for Cheerios cereal. 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 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 50th 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 (who voiced Gumby's sister, Minga in the 1988 series). 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, a Google Doodle acknowledged Art Clokey's 90th birthday. It was composed of a toy block with a "G" and five clay balls in the Google colors. Clicking each ball revealed the Blockheads, Prickle, Goo, Gumby, and Pokey. On December 21, 2019, Eddie Murphy reprised his role while hosting SNL during a skit on Weekend Update.

Merchandising

The most prominent of Gumby merchandise is the bendable figure set by Lakeside Toys. Several single packs and multi-figure sets were made by Jesco (later Trendmasters), and a 50th anniversary collection. There are plush dolls, keychains, mugs, a 1988 Colorforms set, a 1995 Trendmasters playset, and a Kubrick (toy), Kubricks set by Medicom. A tribute album, ''Gumby (album), Gumby: The Green Album'', produced by Shepard Stern, was released in 1989. In August 2005, the first video game featuring Gumby, ''Gumby vs. the Astrobots'', was released by Namco for the Game Boy Advance. 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 owned 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.

References

External links

*
Premavision/Clokey Productions
* *

at Don Markstein's Toonopedia
Archived
from the original on September 1, 2016. {{Authority control Mass media franchises introduced in 1953 1950s American animated television series 1960s American animated television series 1980s American animated television series 1955 American television series debuts 1957 American television series endings 1960 American television series debuts 1969 American television series endings 1988 American television series debuts 1988 American television series endings American children's animated adventure television series American children's animated fantasy television series American culture American television series revived after cancellation Clay animation television series English-language television shows Television series about shapeshifting Television series about size change Television characters introduced in 1955 Fictional characters who can duplicate themselves Fictional characters who can stretch themselves Fictional characters who can turn intangible Fictional humanoids First-run syndicated television programs in the United States NBC original programming Sentient toys in fiction Stop motion characters Television shows adapted into comics Television shows adapted into films Television shows adapted into video games Television series by Lorimar-Telepictures Television series by Fox Entertainment