I think Gumby is one of those characters where several different generations can honestly say, “I grew up watching him.”
He actually goes all the way back to 1955, first appearing on Howdy Doody before getting his own NBC show. But what surprised me was how many little pieces of Art Clokey’s own life ended up in that simple green character. Gumby’s head was patterned after his father’s hairstyle in an old photograph, his big feet helped keep him standing during stop-motion filming, and Clokey chose green partly because he saw it as a color that didn’t represent any particular race.
Even the name has a story. Clokey’s father used the word “gumbo” for the clay-filled mud around Michigan farms, which eventually led to Gumbo, Gumba and little Gumby.
And Gumby almost came about accidentally. Clokey had made an experimental clay film called Gumbasia in 1953 after first working with clay professionally on a Budweiser commercial where he animated bites disappearing from a Swiss cheese sandwich. A producer saw Gumbasia and encouraged him to make clay characters for children’s television.
Then came another generation. College kids rediscovered Gumby, and in the early ’80s Eddie Murphy turned him into one of his memorable Saturday Night Live characters. That parody actually helped put the real Gumby back into the public eye.
So depending on your age, you might remember Gumby from the ’50s, the ’60s, reruns in the ’70s or his big ’80s comeback.
What era of Gumby do you remember watching?
