Gumby is the bomb. A mean green man with crazy, absurdist philosophies to share with the kids.
Look at him here, rocking out on a wicked telecaster, sharing a confident's gaze with his ever present pony pal pokey. They can walk into any book. Any fucking book. They can saunter into the juicy bits of Lady Chatterly. They can hang out with Fanny in the Magic Far-Away Tree. They can give Harry Potter a sweet wedgie. I'm not the only nerd to have thought of this.
Look at him here, rocking out on a wicked telecaster, sharing a confident's gaze with his ever present pony pal pokey. They can walk into any book. Any fucking book. They can saunter into the juicy bits of Lady Chatterly. They can hang out with Fanny in the Magic Far-Away Tree. They can give Harry Potter a sweet wedgie. I'm not the only nerd to have thought of this.
Best thing about Gumby is that his claymation vignettes, of which there are over 230, desseminate some way-out concepts for their target market of toddlers.
Within Gumby's psycadelic entourage are Pokey, an orange rocking horse; Prickle, a spiny yellow dinosaur or dragon; Gumby's family, being Gumba, Gumbo and Minga (his sister); Goo, an amorphous blue blob sometimes resembling a mermaid who fires globule granades at the ever present enemy: the rigid, unbending blockheads.
Honest, go back and look at some of the Gumbies made in the 60s. Its so arty that the guy who invented is actually called Art. Art Clokey. The characters Prickle and Goo are representations of the philosophies of Allan Watts, in their names, physical appearance and temperament.
One episode from the early 60s ends with Prickle suddenly exploding, covering Gumby and Co with his viscous remains. Gumby's advice to his beleagured fellows? "Oh well everybody. That's just the way life is."
There were no warnings for Prickle. Like being swept off the road by a drunk-driver, or falling to your death due to shoddy scaffolding, sometimes you just explode.
Still don't believe me? Check out this episode.
One of my favourites was when, after another escapade with with the Blockheads:
ReplyDeletePokey says to Gumby
"We've been framed. Never trust animated people."
thats some wildly post modern children's TV.
That said, those were heady days, look at the characters in Noddy - the selection of multi-cultural (read racist) and sexually adventurous (a sugar daddy known as Big Ears) characters was off the hook.