GUMBY
Gumby first appeared in 1956 and was the brain-child of Art Clokey, the creator of the Christian clay animation show, Davey and Goliath. The idea began with a short called, “Gumbasia” in 1953. A few things had to change before it was ready to be a regular series. The characters needed to be attractive and to appear regularly. There are the problems usually connected to clay animation shows to consider too. The characters need to be easy to re-create because they will get a lot of handling in between frames.
All this was overcome without too many difficulties. The show started as 5 minute shorts within The Howdy Dowdy Show. Gumby’s voice was by Norma MacMillan who also did Casper and Sweet Polly Purebred. In 1957, the show appeared with Gumby and the lovable Pokey (a pony) and was hosted by a pig named Pinky Lee. The team lasted until 1960 when Clokey went to work on Davey and Goliath. The two shows often showed up together on weekend kid’s television and there were for a time, books starring all of these clay folks.
There has been the odd appearance of Gumby’s gang in one-shot comic books including Gumby’s Summer Fun Special (1987) and Gumby’s Winter Fun Special (1988). There was even a series of 3-D comics published in the late 80's brought to us by Blackthorne Comics.
Despite their short-lived shows, they are well remembered and well-loved to this day.
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