The GHZ Forum

I was never a fan of Gumby. At no point in my childhood did I ever sit through an entire episode. I haven't encountered any representations of the character in at least a decade nor have I thought about it in as long a period. Indeed, all recollection of the franchise was stashed away in some remote region of my memory that I think must be where all my high school algebra is hiding out.

So imagine how dumbfounded I was when I woke up this morning, having just dreamt that I was the director of a new Gumby movie. I decided that we needed to do it with a surrealist slant, so I took the Gumby model and stretched it out to Giacometti proportions. It was actually pretty awesome.

I can't even begin to imagine what caused my subconscious to regurgitate memories of Gumby. It will be awesome if I wake up tomorrow and remember how to graph an equation.

I never understood the concept of Gumby as a child. I never watched the show, but I had some bendy toys of Gumby and his horse so that's all I knew about him. I remember the toys being kind of shoddy and the horse's leg was bent so much the wire ended up poking out of the rubber body.

Funnily, the official Gumby comic book by Bob Burden and Rick Geary is pretty surreal. Actually, I don't know if that's funny or not because I have no idea if the show was anywhere near as weird. Anyway, you should check it out. It won an Eisner for best publication for a younger audience, but it was legitimately good.

I've fond memories of Gumby however briefly he was in my life (like an absentee dad, I guess), which is saying something considering all the shit on television I used to watch. What sticks the most is the Movie in which he was living a hypothetical life as President, mostly 'cause I sleeping at my cousins' quaint ground-level apartment when I saw it early in the morn. It was always a treat visiting them 'cause I lived in a urban neighborhood and seeing trees was always welcome. Mostly though, it was because they had the video games that maintained my interests in the medium.

Speaking of dreams; last night I dreamt I was living with a pack of talking utahraptors. They were supportive and understanding, but the fear of being disemboweled always loomed.

I have some semi-fond memories as well, my parents rented a couple Gumby videos from the charming and of course no-longer-in-business local rental store when I was very, very young, and I identified it as being very strange even then. I think the choppy animation style had as much to do with it as anything else. Years later Nickelodeon picked it up for a while, and it seems like every time I caught it it was the ecology PSA-like one where Gumby says he's "going to hold a worm caucus."

I never understood the concept of Gumby as a child.

He's basically a little clay man that lives in a toystore and can enter books.

Gumby could literally walk into books and go to different worlds. He was my hero. Also his enemies were called the Blockheads, which was the funniest thing ever when I was wee.

I think my favorite Gumby moments were whenever Prickle would lie about what he was to get an advantage. "Free food for dragons!" "OOh! I'm a dragon!" "No ice cream for dragons." "I am a dinosaur."

There was a parody of Gumby in Mad TV about a decade ago, it was hilarous!

Gumby was weird. I barely remember any of it, but I remember it was on Nick a LOT in the early 90's weekday afternoons. I haven't watched anything of it in 15 years, though.

Also, when I clicked on this topic, I thought someone would have mentioned that Gumby creator Art Clokey died this year.

I was wondering if someone would post that. One of our classmates died in the kiln today, mother!

The Turtle Guy wrote:Relevant.

Wow, I actually came here to post this. Good job, TTG.