Gumby is known for his adventures in various fantastical settings, often accompanied by his orange horse friend, Pokey. Together, they travel through books and other dimensions, encountering a variety of quirky characters. The show's unique stop-motion animation and imaginative storylines made it a cultural icon, especially popular in the 1950s and 1960s, with several revivals over the decades.

One of the most famous references to Gumby was a recurring skit on Saturday Night Live in the 1980s, where comedian Eddie Murphy portrayed an exaggerated version of Gumby. In this parody, Murphy's Gumby is a brash, loud-mouthed, and irritable character, often saying his catchphrase, “I’m Gumby, dammit!”

Gumby has also been parodied or referenced several times in The Simpsons … and then in the 1990s Ross Geller, played by the actor David Schwimmer, wears a Gumby costume for Halloween in one of the episodes of the popular TV series Friends. Gumby even made it to the big screen. In 1995, Art Clokey directed Gumby: The Movie, which followed Gumby and his friends as they battled the Blockheads, the mischievous red villains of the series.

Finally, and as per the hero shot for this story, Gumby's image has also been used widely in merchandise like toys, shirts and comics.

But, the most interesting thing about Gumby is his back story, and connection to avant-garde filmmaking.

Art Clokey was, and is still, revered as the grandfather of clay animation. His first project using this technique was Gumbasia, a 3 minute short film released in 1953. Clokey created Gumbasia while a student at the University of Southern California under the direction of Serbian-born Hollywood montagist Slavko Vorkapić. Gumbasia is a surreal short of pulsating shapes and lumps of clay set to jazz music in a homage of Walt Disney's Fantasia. It’s pretty great. Watch it HERE.

Gumbasia was created in a “kinesthetic” style that Vorkapić taught, described by him as "massaging of the eye cells" using various camera movements and stop-motion editing.

Anyway, Gumbasia impressed the right people, including producer Sam Engel, who was the president of the Motion Picture Producers Association at the time. Engel was impressed with the film when he saw it: “Art, that is the most exciting film I have ever seen in my life.” He was keen to improve the quality of television for children. So, he pitched the claymation project, but this time with characters, to Tom Sarnoff at NBC, who gave Art and his wife Gloria a contract for seven years to produce a Gumby series. In June 1956, it began as a segment on Howdy Doody, before it became its own show.

The unaired pilot is also worth a look. It is set in a small town toy store on a Sunday morning when the store is closed allowing Gumby and Pokey to come to life. Very Pixar’s Toy Story, right? … but 40 years earlier.

Gumby’s actual TV premiere, a three-part episode about going to the moon, was even weirder. People at home didn’t register these as avant-garde techniques – they just found themselves unable to look away from the screen, because Clokey wouldn’t let them. Gumby demanded people’s attention, proving once again that “avant-garde” ideas are only ahead of their time until they aren’t.

Gumby paved the way for later stop-motion characters like Wallace & Gromit (1989), The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993) and Coraline (2009). His success helped legitimise stop-motion as a viable and artistic form of animation, influencing generations of animators to experiment with the medium.

Story Idea: Bonnie Siegler
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References

wikipedia.org/wiki/Gumby
gumbyworld.com/
animationobsessive.substack.com/p/the-avant-garde-origins-of-gumby

Images

1. Gumby and Pokey bendy toys
2. Video: Gumbasia, 1953
3. Some scenes from Gumbasia
4. Video: Adventures of Gumby: A Sample (1955 unaired pilot)
5. Art Clokey at work on Gumby’s TV premiere (courtesy of Stop Motion Magazine)
6. Eddie Murphy as Gumby on Saturday Night Live
7. Gumby crashes the couch on The Simpsons
8. Gumby