Gumby's 50th Anniversary (I mish yoo Gumbyyy!!)

[DrSpengler]

I dunno about any of you, but I *liked* Gumby when I was a kid. Stop-motion is tha hawtness and Gumby's cartoons, being from the 60's, were all surreal and psychadelic. Then there was the 80's show where he formed a rockband out in a barn. Yeah.

Anyway, to celebrate, I wrote this retrospective:

http://www.bcartoons.com/?p=46

It's got links to episodes on You Tube (including the MST3K version of "Robot Rumpus"). This is actually the first time I've watched Gumby since it was rerunning on Nickelodeon a looooong time ago. Good nostalgia.

Prickle was always my favorite when I was a kid, mostly because he was a dinosaur and when you're a kid there's nothing cooler than dinosaurs.

Anyhow, hooray GUMBY! Let's talk about GUMBY!

[Peanut]

Really nice job, man. I thought I was the only person alive who still liked Gumby. It's weird, I never really watched him on TV. I used to go to the video store and rent all the really old Gumby movies and watch them over and over with my sister. I don't even know that 80's opening theme, only the 60's one.

Wasn't there a movie at some point? I can't really remember all that well, but I do recall one. Anyways, yeah. I f*cking loved Gumby. I miss him actually. I remember I had one of those plastic Gumby bendy things and my sister had the Pokey.

When I was a kid I just loved stop-motion, especially clay-mation. There just isn't enough of it anymore. If there's even anything that still uses it. I don't really watch much TV anymore. The last awesome one was probably Bump in the Night.

[DrSpengler]

Nickelodeon used to rerun the Lorimar episodes and my mom would rent Gumby Betamax cassettes from Erol's for me (and copy them onto blanks!).

I freakin' LOVE stop-motion. Doesn't matter how fake it looks, it just makes me giddy and, personally, I prefer fake-looking stop-motion over fake-looking CGI any day of the week. When stop-motion looks blatantly obvious at least it looks COOL. CGI, on the other hand, just looks like an out-of-place cartoon.

Bump in the Night was a great show, mostly for the stop-motion and the performance from Jim Cummings. The only show these days that uses CGI is Moral Orel which parodies Davey and Goliath.

I wish stuff like Sci-Fi Channle original movies would use stop-motion. Sci-Fi Channel movies NEVER go for realistic effects and I'm getting sick of crappy CGI monsters.

But I'm just in a nostalgic mood today after watching all those Gumby cartoons.

[Raph's Girl]

And to celebrate the 50th annaversary of Gumby even further there is a new Gumby comic book series out.

It's done by Wildcard Productions. With Eisner award winning writer Bob Burden and illustrator Rick Geary.

I have the first issue and let me tell you...this aint the Gumby you grew up with....unless you remember evil beer drinking clowns in the original.

The series starts with Gumby getting a new neighbor (a girl that he appears to gain a crush on). She's obviously new to Gumby land and one of her complaints upon seeing the town is "Where's Target?" :lol:

[DrSpengler]

I might have to check it out.

Half the fun of Gumby is the claymation, but if the writing in the comic's funny-enough, it's worth a look.

[Drtooth]

I love Gumby, and I also love Monty Python's Gumby character... MY BRAIN HURRRTS!!! IT WILL HAVE TO COME OUT!!!



I freakin' LOVE stop-motion. Doesn't matter how fake it looks, it just makes me giddy and, personally, I prefer fake-looking stop-motion over fake-looking CGI any day of the week. When stop-motion looks blatantly obvious at least it looks COOL. CGI, on the other hand, just looks like an out-of-place cartoon.

Bump in the Night was a great show, mostly for the stop-motion and the performance from Jim Cummings. The only show these days that uses CGI is Moral Orel which parodies Davey and Goliath.

Stop motion, and I have tried my hand at it, is the FREAKING hardest, trickiest thing to do. I wound up shooting everything 2-D stop motion, like Craig Bartlett's Arnold cartoons (before Hey Arnold). Stupid puppet kept drooping too low.

I like CGI, but I only really think Pixar had mastered it beyond the point of it being trendy and fad-like (unlike Dreamworks, Sony, etc.) But I have the UTMOST respect for every animator that even tried stop motion.

That said, Gumby did have the obvious problems. In the Dough (or Bakers Tour... I forget which.. or it could have been both) had a dough ball character that kept shrivelling up thoughout the cartoon. It's an early one and it was straight to film, but it still was kinda funny. Definately not as polished as today's "lunchbox" system, where you can toggle between frames and fix stuff as easily. I really have respect for that. Tough, the outcome isn't as good as you think, but it showed character alone to try something tricky.

[Peanut]

My friend and I used to make clay-mation movies when I was in my early teens. I actually got really really good at it, but my partner in crime ended up moving away and I kind of dropped off from it. It's really disappointing, because I had a real passion for stop-motion animation, and I also had real patience for it, something a lot of people don't have. It took me close to half a year to make my 1 minute and 30 second movie I did for a culminating assignment in my grade 10 Communication Tech class. I had to make another video along with it because of how short it was, but I didn't care.

[DrSpengler]

I used to do it when I was a kid, too, but using someone else's equipment. I enjoyed it and managed to be pretty patient.

I always wanted to do it again, though I don't think I could since my hand isn't nearly as steady as it used to be. I had a tough time just posing action figures for that photo-based web comic I used to do.