MUSEUM OF TELEVISION & RADIO, THE: FIRST OF THE
INTERNATIONAL CLAYBOYS: GUMBY AND THE ANIMATION LEGACY OF ART CLOKEY
Summary
This presentation honors animator Art Clokey, who earned fame as the creator of Gumby, the "little green guy" who -- with his faithful pony, Pokey -- starred in a series of stop-motion clay animation shorts that debuted in 1953. Clokey pioneered techniques that continue to inspire artists, including Nick Park, creator of "Wallace & Gromit." This compilation of Clokey's work includes the following:
Clokey's first film job, "Andersen's Split Pea "Soup" (audio is missing), in which the title meal ends up in soup cans after the vegetables are cut, chopped, seasoned, and cooked in a most unique fashion;
a Budweiser beer commercial which showcases chores being done around the house by animated contraptions;
a 1953 short, "Gumbasia," a paean to "Fantasia" in which abstract art shapes emerge from a series of constantly shifting clay formations;
a Gumby short from 1956, "Robot Rumpus," in which Gumby and Pokey's use of robots for household chores results in mayhem, with Gumby's horrified parents, Gumbo and Gumba, getting sucked into the chaos;
a Gumby segment in which Gumby and Pokey inadvertently find themselves on a cookie sheet along with some ready-to-be-baked pieces of cookie dough;
a Gumby short from 1956, "Rain Spirits," in which Gumby and Pokey help a Hopi boy find the gods of rain to bring relief to his drought-stricken land, then deal with Sky King Kachina, Corn Maiden Kachina, the magical Thunderbird, and cranky goat Flying Stone;
a Gumby segment in which multiple Gumbys perform a disappearing act;
a Gumby segment in which Gumby and Pokey take part in a race car contest and deal with some double-dealing opponents, the Blockheads;
a Gumby segment in which Gumby befriends a raccoon and a rabbit, both of whom are displaced from their homes after a young, inexperienced beaver builds a dam;
a Gumby segment in which Pokey makes "Gumby art";
a short from 1956, "Who's What," in which playroom toys are amused by a stuffed bear making Claymates -- a bird, a cat, and a lion -- who prove more demanding than expected;
a Gumby segment in which Gumby and Pokey are World War I flying aces;
a 1956 short, "Treasure for Henry," in which Roger the bird and Henry the bear loot a pirates's ship so that they'll be able to afford better meals, leading to a battle royal on the high seas;
a Gumby segment in which Gumby's attempts to blow up a balloon backfire;
a Gumby short from 1964, "Lawn Party," in which Gumby and Pokey watch "animated people" on their televisiion, with the live-action protagonists of the show getting into misadventures in a park;
a Gumby segment in which the green guy morphs into a variety of objects;
the revised 1967 Gumby theme song;
a 1956 Gumby short, "The Groo Bee," in which Pokey shows Gumby why Groo Bees -- which build crates around animals -- make great pets, after which Gumby uses one to catch a lion;
a Gumby segment in which Gumby is shot out of a cannon by Pokey:
a 1956 Gumby short, "Ricochet Pete," in which deputy sheriff Gumby comes up against the titular gunslinger in Silver City, culminating in a battle of wits in Last Chance Canyon;
a Gumby segment in which Gumby launches a rocket-shaped facsimile of himself;
a Gumby short from 1966, "Son of Liberty," in which Gumby and Pokey aid the American Revolution by helping Paul Revere alert the Minute-men on his midnight ride through Lexington and Concord;
a Gumby segment in which Gumby and Pokey play baseball;
a 1963 short, "The Clay Peacock," in which the NBC peacock logo is among the objects studied in a surreal fusion of imagery set to electronic music;
a live-action segment in which Clokey shows how he shapes the clay Gumby to reflect different emotions for the character;
a 1977 short, "Mandala," in which a host of strangely shaped objects decorate a deserted landscape, seguing first into a series of tribal masks dotting a graveyard, then a burst of floral patterns and animal shapes, before changing into a live-action look at nature and love;
a music video-inspired Gumby short, "Gumbymania," in which Pokey watches Gumby and the Clayboys play guitar and perform a song which underscores a montage of Gumby's abilities to morph into virtually any object and pull off mind-bending feats;
a segment from the 2004 short "Davey and Goliath's Snowboard Christmas," in which the young boy and his talking dog go snowboarding through the woods and down a mountain -- until Davey's mother intercedes; and
a segment from the 2005 video game "Gumby vs. the Astrobots" in which Gumby and Pokey battle countless menaces and triumph by using their ingenuity.
Details
- NETWORK: N/A
- DATE: 2006
- RUNNING TIME: 1:32:45
- COLOR/B&W: Color
- CATALOG ID: B:88687
- GENRE: Animation; Children's
- SUBJECT HEADING: Animation; Children's;
- SERIES RUN: N/A
- COMMERCIALS: N/A
CREDITS
- Art Clokey … Producer, Created by
- Michael Boddicker … Music by
- Nick Park
- Paul Revere