Gumby: The Movie

Green humanoid clay boy Gumby (Dallas McKennon) and his red talking horse friend Pokey (Art Clokey) are part of a band called Gumby and the Clayboys. When Gumby's nemeses, The Blockheads, use their loan company to scam a bunch of farmers out of their homes, Gumby decides to put on a benefit concert with his band unaware his music causes Lowbelly the dog to cry pearls which the Blockheads discover and enact a plan to enrich themselves.

Odds are if you were in the right place and right time be it the Howdy Doody Show, the TV series, or Eddie Murphy's SNL parody, you're probably familiar with Claymation figure Gumby created by Art Clokey. While Clokey may not be a household name, he's considered a pioneer in Claymation with his works such as Gumby and the Lutheran children's show Davey and Goliath etching their way into our cultural milieu through homage or (more likely) parody. During the 80s Gumby had experienced a revival of popularity and cultural relevance with Clokey producing new episodes of the series for syndication and also found a new audience following Eddie Murphy's SNL sketch leading to a college aged fanbase who appreciated the surrealism. Production on the film began in 1988 before being completed in 1992 and the film sat on a shelf due to lack of distributor interest. The film was given a very limited run at about 21 theaters by Arrow Releasing in 1995 where it only made $57,000 against an estimated $2.8 million budget, but did much better on home video selling one million VHS units on its run. Critical reception wasn't particularly kind from whatever critics actually bothered to watch the movie with the film deemed by critics as outdated in comparison to the year's other releases like Toy Story or Pocahontas or even recent stop-motion films like The Nightmare Before Christmas. Gumby may have been a first mover with Claymation, but when you step back from whatever nostalgic attachment you have from this film it's hard not to argue Gumby's been left behind by successive talents in the field.

Watching Gumby the Movie (or Gumby 1 as the screen title shows) there's a large variety of sets and elements on display so it's much grander and ambitious than the TV series was. But despite the large size, there's something about the movie that feels like it belongs to the same era of Stop-Motion animation as various Rankin-Bass projects. For comparison, Nick Park released his first Wallace & Gromit short A Grand Day Out in 1989 with production costing roughly $22,000 dollars. Despite some rough spots in the animation or filmmaking elements A Grand Day Out felt large in scope and had a cohesive if weird story (going to the moon because you're out of cheese, it does what it should for 20 something minutes). Looking at Gumby the Movie, its plot doesn't really feel all that grand and it's just a bunch of mini conflicts loosely stapled together that might've worked as 10-20 minute segments on television, but when put into feature film format the stiffness and awkwardness of the story that might've added a certain level of appeal on TV feels drawn out. I will say there's a certain novelty to watching some of the morphing and deformation of the clay models in how the move and interact with each other, but this also leads to problems in establishing any kind of stakes because there's no real way for Gumby to be hurt by the Blockheads and in a movie where anything and everything can happen it kind of makes it hard to keep audience investment up for 90 minutes.

Gumby the Movie is the kind of film that defies review because it's divorced from logic and rests itself primarily on the surrealness of its animation and world. The movie tries to anchor itself to some kind of narrative (even if it's paper thin) for the purposes of giving some kind of engine to keep the audience invested, but it's basically window dressing as Gumby's capable of doing anything and everything the animators will allow him to do. There's a certain level of charm to Gumby and his movie, but it also feels like while stop-motion has moved forward with the likes of Phil Tippett, Nick Park, and Henry Selick, Gumby has stayed exactly where he is.

I had an interesting triple feature today. The first three quarters of the "Gumby" movie, then "Fight Club", then the rest of "Gumby". I don't know why I mentioned this but I guess it explains the mind set this review is getting written from.

All I really have to say about this movie is these three words. These three little magic words:

EVIL ROBOT GUMBY!

When I was a teen, I came up with what I thought could only be the best idea in the world. A "Terminator II" parody with the cast of "Gumby" gone bad. Art Clokey and I must be psychic friends or something because here we are with the Gumby movie, and it's Evil Robot Gumby.

Yes. Oh yes.

This movie rules.

As a kid, I always enjoyed how creative Gumby had his adventures on the TV show. So much of it was just for pure fun. When I finally heard that there had been a movie released, I was super excited. And none to my surprise, Gumby: The Movie rocked my world. For any Gumby fan, this movie will be a great hit. Everything in this movie is kept the same and even includes some cultural references.

Director Art Clokey, who directs his final Gumby film, has done a magnificent job. Dal McKennon is back as good old Gumby and several other characters. Even Art Clokey is Prickle and some other roles. All the animation is done by clay; how else would a Gumby film be done?! Most of the comedic parts are watching the silent Blockheads fight with each other. They're always doing something foolish.

The effects are great in this movie. Since stop motion cinematography allows you to make a special effect over time, much of the creations that are made are really quite stunning. This movie BARELY uses CGI for any part of the film. It's things like these that bring the viewer back to the time where CGI wasn't used very often and was only used if it was available. Now almost if not every movie studio uses CGI for anything they want and its gets tiresome to see the same effects used over and over again. Claymation is a sorely missed special effect that is now extinct in the movie making business at least from what I see now.

The music, which was composed by Jerry Gerber, is great listening to. Because this movie uses dated effects, it's great to hear music that belongs from the same era. Unfortunately, the soundtrack to this film is inaccessible. I get flustered over that but it's still good that it used in the movie thank heaven. What's also great to see are the cultural references in this film. The Blockheads make robot duplicates of the main characters; sounds a little like The Terminator (1984). Another scene where Gumby fights his robotic clone with a light saber. Need to say more?

As the last film made by Art Clokey, Gumby: The Movie will please its fans and may gain interest in others who are not familiar with Gumby. For anyone who has never seen claymation at its best, this is it.

First let me say that my recollections of Gumby from childhood are very hazy. It's much easier to recall those skits of Eddie Murphy playing Gumby on Saturday Night Live, but that's because I see those re-runs on Comedy Central all the time. So as I saw Gumby: The Movie on the shelf at the video store, I wasn't interested in reminiscing my own early years, but more an idea of what that's supposed to be like.

When the tape went in and the movie came on, it was sheer joy from beginning to end. I watched this with several other people also, and made this observation: People who enjoyed Eyes Wide Shut (such as myself) also enjoyed Gumby: The Movie. People who did not enjoy Eyes Wide Shut... well you can guess. I am convinced that much of Kubrick's inspiration for his last work of art, came from Gumby: The Movie. You may think I am joking, but I am as serious as brain surgery.

The entire tone set in the beginning of the FILM, is dark and oooh oooh oooh mysterious. There's a darn drive-in theater on the moon. What does that say to you? Come on now. Gumby is nowhere to be found and Pokey is naturally upset. (Though not as upset as he will be when he melds with two other characters as a result of a tube slide accident.) Yet, even as he is upset, he delivers his lines with the same lack of panache as any other line in the screenplay.

Look at him! Pokey knows that Gumby will turn up somewhere, and they've been in a relationship for so long that you must appreciate the knowledge on their part of the routine. Pokey's been worried before and he recognizes that. Gumby and Pokey have done everything together, yet they somehow manage to honorably "sell-themselves" out one last time here. Old buddies out to make the world honest and pure.

It is entirely too complicated to go into the depth of what every single word from their clay mouths' implies, but it offers the questions and the answers are for you to figure out. Let me ask you this, Why is it that Gumby's dad is red? Shouldn't his parents be yellow and blue? What does this tell you? Gumby's dad is not actually Gumby's dad! But then who is he huh? And NO I was not intoxicated in any way while watching this film, I'm straight edge!

I'm positive that if you are interested in delving into the inner workings of films and not interested in taking things at face value, you will thoroughly enjoy Gumby: The Movie. So watch it again and again. By the way, Would you know you were human if nobody told you? And what kind of shock would it be if you happened to come across the word human in the dictionary?

The characters are timeless, But this movie is way too long. It should be more executed and simple to for kids. The acting needs work.