History WesternAnimation / Gumby

* {{Catchphrase}}: Pokey's "Holy Toledo! / Holy Cachinas!" and Prickle's "Oh, dinosaur chips!"

* RunawayTrain: The 1988 episode "Wild Train Ride" has the Blockheads intentionally set this up with the train Minga and Granny are riding on. They lock the train's engineers in the station restroom, start up the engine and hop off before it pulls out, and since the trains in the ''Gumby'' universe can travel anywhere they want, carrying their tracks wherever they go, this brings things UpToEleven in that the train leaves a path of destruction and can even enter books the way characters can (naturally, {{Cloudcuckoolander}} Granny enjoys it, and Minga is initially scared, until she compares the train crashing through a house to a ride at ''Ride/{{Disneyland}}''!) Things get worse when the train ends up in a book about the Rocky Mountains and ends up on a railroad track route with [[TrackTrouble a washed-out bridge]]. But luckily Prickle (who was planning to ride the train with Granny and Minga but missed it due to the Blockheads starting it up early) phoned Gumby about the runaway train, and they arrive in a helicopter with the train's engineers, lowering them onto the locomotive and stopping the train just in time. Granny's comment on the whole experience is this...

* RunawayTrain: The 1988 episode "Wild Train Ride" has the Blockheads intentionally set this up with the train Minga and Granny are riding on. They lock the train's engineers in the station restroom, start up the engine and hop off before it pulls out, and since the trains in the ''Gumby'' universe can travel anywhere they want, carrying their tracks wherever they go, this brings things up to eleven in that the train leaves a path of destruction and can even enter books the way characters can (naturally, {{Cloudcuckoolander}} Granny enjoys it, and Minga is initially scared, until she compares the train crashing through a house to a ride at ''Ride/{{Disneyland}}''!) Things get worse when the train ends up in a book about the Rocky Mountains and ends up on a railroad track route with [[TrackTrouble a washed-out bridge]]. But luckily Prickle (who was planning to ride the train with Granny and Minga but missed it due to the Blockheads starting it up early) phoned Gumby about the runaway train, and they arrive in a helicopter with the train's engineers, lowering them onto the locomotive and stopping the train just in time. Granny's comment on the whole experience is this...
--> "That was the most interesting train trip I've ever been on!"

* WidgetSeries

* ReCut: The 1950s episodes got this when the show was revived in the early 1960s; the original 21 11-minute shorts were re-edited into 42 six-minute episodes that could be shown alongside the new six-minutes shorts being made at the time, with one half retaining its' original the title and the other getting a new title (for example, when "Robot Rumpus" was split into two parts, the first part was renamed "Yard Work Made Easy" while the second part retained the "Robot Rumpus" title). In 2006-2013, Clokey Productions/Premavision restored the original 1950s shorts into their original length using any available original elements, thus making them a lot more convenient to watch compared to when they were re-edited. The sole exceptions were two experimental four-minute shorts made in 1957, "Train Trouble" and "In a Fix".

In 2022, Creator/FoxEntertainment[[note]]Which is a unit of the now-separate [[Creator/{{Fox}} Fox Corporation]] after Creator/{{Disney}} purchased most of [=21CF=] in 2019, which included the Twentieth Century Fox studio[[/note]] purchased the rights to Gumby and other characters from Clokey's estate. Fox will develop, produce and distribute hours of content for the franchise.

In 2022, Creator/FoxEntertainment[[note]]Which is a unit of the now-separate [[Creator/{{Fox}} Fox Corporation]] after Creator/{{Disney}} purchased most of [=21CF=] in 2019, which included the 20th Century Fox studio[[/note]] purchased the rights to Gumby and other characters from Clokey's estate. Fox will develop, produce and distribute hours of content for the franchise.

* IdiotBall: The movie borders on IdiotPlot.[[invoked]] The characters could practically end the plot about halfway into the movie. Goo ties them up, they shut down the Gumby robot and the fake clayboy robots. It could end there, right? But nooo, they literally ''leave the blockheads tied up'' and allow them to escape.

* RunawayTrain: The 1988 episode "Wild Train Ride" has the Blockheads intentionally set this up with the train Minga and Granny are riding on. They lock the train's engineers in the station restroom, start up the engine and hop off before it pulls out, and since the trains in the ''Gumby'' universe can travel anywhere they want, carrying their tracks wherever they go, this brings things UpToEleven in that the train leaves a path of destruction and can even enter books the way characters can (naturally, {{Cloudcuckoolander}} Granny enjoys it, and Minga is initially scared, until she compares the train crashing through a house to a ride at ''Ride/{{Disneyland}}''!) Things get worse when the train ends up in a book about the Rocky Mountains and ends up on a railroad track route with [[TrackTrouble a washed-out bridge]]. But luckily Prickle (who was planning to ride the train with Granny and Minga but missed it due to the Blockheads starting it up early) phoned Gumby about the runaway train, and they arrive in a helicopter with the train's engineers, lowering them onto the locomotive and stopping the train just in time. Granny's comment on the whole experience is this...

* BlindingBangs: Nobuckle.

Gumby's 1980s resurgence in popularity was most likely attributable to a series of sketches on ''Series/SaturdayNightLive'' depicting Gumby (played by Creator/EddieMurphy) and Pokey (played by Joe Piscopo) as actually being old-time Jewish vaudeville stars themselves playing parts. These sketches birthed the {{Catchphrase}} "I'm Gumby, dammit!"

Art Clokey produced this series of clay animated shorts for Creator/{{NBC}} in UsefulNotes/TheFifties after screening his student film ''Gumbasia'' for [[Creator/TwentiethCenturyStudios Twentieth Century Fox]]. Clokey also performed some of the character voices.

* AbsenteeActor: Gumby does not appear in the shorts "Santa Witch" and "Goo for Pokey", though Pokey does mention him by name in both shorts.

* PonyExpressRider: Seen in the 50s episode "Pokey Express", when Gumby and Pokey volunteer for the Pony Express to deliver letters to Santa Claus and evade the pesky teepee-shaped Indians. Not surprisingly, Gumby rides on Pokey for this job.
* PortalBook: Gumby and his friends could step inside books and meet the characters of many different eras and titles.

In 2022, Creator/FoxEntertainment purchased the rights to Gumby and other characters from Clokey's estate. Fox will develop, produce and distribute hours of content for the franchise.

Art Clokey produced this series of clay animated shorts for Creator/{{NBC}} in UsefulNotes/TheFifties after screening his student film ''Gumbasia'' for [[Creator/TwenthiethCenturyStudios Twentieth Century Fox]]. Clokey also performed some of the character voices.

Art Clokey produced this series of clay animated shorts for Creator/{{NBC}} in UsefulNotes/TheFifties after screening his student film ''Gumbasia'' for Creator/TwentiethCenturyFox. Clokey also performed some of the character voices.

* TailfinWalking: Goo tends to get around like this in the 1980s series. (In the 1960s series, she just slides from place to place on her belly)

* BlindWithoutEm: Granny can't see very well without her spectacles. This especially comes into play when she DrivesLikeCrazy in "Hot Rod Granny" and "Cottage For Granny" (she even mistakes Pokey for her pet dog in the former!)

* CuttingTheKnot: Goo does this in "Shady Lemonade" to rescue a cat stuck in a tree. After Gumby's fire truck ladder fails to do the job, she just destroys the tree with weed killer and gets the cat down. Of course, one has to wonder why [[FridgeLogic Goo just couldn't fly up]] to save the cat.

* DerangedAnimation: Art Clokey briefly experimented with LSD in the '60s.
** However, this was after he made the classic Gumby shorts and he had sworn off drugs by the time he returned to film-making. The claymation was still weird though.

* AllJustADream: A few episodes end this way, such as [[spoiler:"Blocks in the Head," "Proxy Gumby" and "A Moving Experience."]]

* BedsheetGhost: Gumby, Pokey and Goo combine this with TotemPoleTrench in "Wishful Thinking," attempting to pass themselves off as a fairy ghost that makes wishes come true, in a trick for Prickle to tell them his birthday wish.

** Gumby is also this in the late '60s short "Grub Grabber Gumby."

** In "Hot Rod Granny," after Granny's glasses get broken when she bumps into a mailman on her way out of a store, she ends up getting in Gumby's hot rod by mistake, thinking that Pokey is her pet Golden Retriever she left sitting in her Model T. As she DrivesLikeCrazy on the wrong side of the road, she mistakes other motorists for "reckless drivers," and when she ends up on a drag race track, she thinks the road is nice and smoother. Then when she ends up driving into a stream, she thinks they ''forgot to put a bridge in'', and that a motorcycle cop that was chasing her is a messenger boy.
** In "Cottage For Granny," after Tilly accidentally breaks Granny's glasses and she drives home from Gumby's farm, naturally she DrivesLikeCrazy due to her poor eyesight, initially driving on the wrong side of the road, and when a hay bale truck swerves out of her way, she mistakes the bale of hay that falls on her car hood for tall grass alongside the road. Then she approaches a railroad crossing [[RailroadTracksOfDoom with a train approaching]] and mistakes the flashing crossing signals for a police car's lights, thinking they pulled over a "reckless speeder," and smashes through the crossing gates and makes it across right before the train can hit her, mistaking the broken crossing gates for fallen branches in the road.
* BlindWithoutEm: Granny can't see very well without her spectacles. This especially comes into play when she DrivesLikeCrazy in "Hot Rod Granny" and "Cottage For Granny" (where she even mistakes Pokey for her pet dog in the former!)

* CoolTrain: A number of model trains in the franchise are able to travel wherever they want, carrying their tracks wherever they go. This was prominently featured in episodes like "Train Trouble," "Point of Honor," "Tricky Train," "Wild Train Ride" and "Just Train Crazy."

** Gumby has roughly the same slab-shaped body as his father, but his mother has a round head with blonde hair on a body that has breasts. [[PantslessMalesFullyDressedFemales And she wears clothes.]] She's not cute by the standards of most entries on this page, but she's far more human-shaped than the rest of her family.

** Granny drives like this after [[BlindWithoutEm her spectacles are broken]] in "Hot Rod Granny" and "Cottage For Granny." As she drives she makes one BlindMistake after another while evading danger by sheer luck.

* FakeBand: In the 1980s episodes, Gumby, Pokey, Prickle and Goo have an [[WesternAnimation/TheArchieShow Archies]]-esque band together simply titled "The Gumbys," with Gumby on lead guitar, Pokey on drums, Goo on keyboard, and Prickle alternating on saxophone or bass guitar. Curiously, they never had any original vocal songs; save for an 80s rock rendition of [[PublicDomainSoundtrack "Mary Had a Little Lamb"]] with Goo singing lead vocals in the episode "Of Note", all of the band's performances and music videos were of instrumental compositions, though Gumby often made up for this by demonstrating his VoluntaryShapeshifting abilities while jamming on his guitar.

* GoshDangItToHeck: Prickle often said, "Aw, dinosaur chips!" whenever he was frustrated or annoyed. Other interjections commonly heard: "Gee," "Oh my!" and "Golly!"

* HappyBirthdayToYou: The traditional song is sung in a couple of 80s episodes ("A Real Seal" and "Merry Go Pumpkin") and also used as background music in "The Lost Birthday Present." Though the 1967 episode "Wishful Thinking" has Gumby, Pokey and Goo sing a different birthday song to Prickle to the tune of "We Wish You a Merry Christmas." Art Clokey was presumably unable to get the rights to use the song (back when it was copyright) until the 80s revival.

* InterspeciesRomance: Gumby's aunt Gumbetta and her (apparently) human husband. Complete with HalfHumanHybrid cousins.

* MediumBlending: In a few of the '50s-'60s episodes, particularly including "Hidden Valley," some stop motion shots cut to live action shots.

* NeverSayDie: Averted in "The Groobee," when the zookeeper sadly tells Gumby how their lion "got sick and died suddenly."
** An unusual subversion in "Candidate For President," where after it's announced that Gumby has been nominated for the presidential election, Goo comments that maybe if Gumby's elected and they are in Washington D.C. she can meet Abraham Lincoln. To which Prickle comments, "[[DeadpanSnarker Maybe... if you go for ghosts.]]"

* PaperThinDisguise: In "Gumbitty Doo-Dah," the J Blockhead makes up the G Blockhead as Gumby by morphing his facial features to resemble Gumby's and forming the distinct bump on his head, as an attempt to nab Prickle's new ball. Prickle isn't fooled, and lets the Blockheads have the ball, knowing that the ball actually has a space alien inside.

** The early '60s episodes would often use modified puppets of characters from Art Clokey's other series of the time, ''WesternAnimation/DaveyAndGoliath''. A notable example is in "The Small Planets," when a modified Davey puppet (with lighter-colored hair and different eyes) is used for a SpoiledBrat with a [[RailEnthusiast huge model railroad setup all over his small planet]], and the same episode had a modified puppet of Davey's sister Sally used for a small girl that enjoys scaring others off her small planet with dinosaur masks, but wishes someone could stay and play with her.

* ScreamsLikeALittleGirl: The Blockheads do this in "Young Granny," sounding very much like [[WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons Homer Simpson]] when they scream.

* SmartPeopleWearGlasses: Discussed in "Dopey Nopey." A smart intellectual boy [[DroppedGlasses has lost his glasses]] and is [[BlindWithoutEm blindly trying to find them]], and then when Pokey finds them he wants to wear them because he thinks the glasses will make him smart. But despite Gumby warning him that's not the case and not to wear them, Pokey doesn't listen, puts on the glasses anyway, and [[BlindMistake proceeds to walk right into a closet]] (he was meaning to go to the library). And then Gumby's dog Nopey comes in, gets into a scuffle with Pokey, and the glasses end up on ''his'' head, and HilarityEnsues... at least until they come across the boy and return his glasses, and he gets back to reading his Shakespeare book.

* TotemPoleTrench: In "Wishful Thinking", Gumby and Pokey break into Prickle's house dressed as a fairy ghost attempting to trick Prickle into telling them what he wished for on his birthday. Unfortunately, just as Prickle was about to tell them, Pokey lost his equilibrium, causing Gumby to fall off his back and on top of Prickle. The fall caused Prickle to start screaming thinking the ghost had swallowed him.
** Also in "Gumbastic," Gumby encounters a bunch of little flat clay circles spinning around, and he mashes them all into a large green circle that then becomes another Gumby (with red eyes, ala his merchandising appearances), whom then proceeds to [[LatexPerfection unzip himself]] to reveal two Blockheads-like characters with cylinder-shaped heads, stacked up in a FullBodyDisguise.

* EpicFail: The robot waiter at the café always does this.
** At the end, before the music video "Take Me Away" begins, Nobuckle accidentally jumps into a wagon after waking up, and rides on it crashing into the Clayboys.
** Also, after "Take Me Away," Lowbelly rides his skateboard over to the Clayboys, but accidentally jumps in front of Gumby and pushes him on Fatbuckle's drum.
* FakeBand: The movie {{Retcon}}s Gumby's band so that instead of Pokey, Prickle and Goo making up the rest of the Gumbys, Gumby instead serves as the lead guitarist for a band called [[MeaningfulName The Clayboys]], also consisting of Thinbuckle on rhythm guitar, Fatbuckle on drums and Nobuckle on bass guitar. Gumby's shapeshifting during performances becomes a PlotPoint when it causes Gumby's pet dog Nobelly to [[MakesJustAsMuchSenseInContext cry pearls]]. Then near the end, when shooting a music video, Gumby dances with Tara, who has a crush on him, and sings lead vocals to the song "Take Me Away."

** The characters were tossing an Idiot Ball back and forth before that, too:

* ReCut: In 2007, the movie received a 76 minute "director's cut," which strangely omitted certain scenes from the original 90 minute version. Cuts that create noticeable plotholes. The 2008 DVD release of the film included the cut scenes as "deleted scenes," which have to be watched separately from the rest of the movie.

* BirthdayEpisode: There's been a few, such as "Toy Crazy" and "The Lost Birthday Present" involving Gumby's birthday, "Wishful Thinking" (and its' sequel "The Turnip Trap") and "A Real Seal" involving Prickle's birthday, and "Merry Go Pumpkin" involving Minga's birthday.

* UnfortunateNames: Gumbo should in no way be confused with the thick, hearty Creole stew that shares his name.

* RedplicaBaron: The Red Baron is parodied as the "Black Baron" in an episode where Gumby is an aviator of the WWI.

* ComicallyMissingThePoint: May or not be intentional. In the movie, when Gumby discovers that [[MakesJustAsMuchSenseInContext Lowbelly cries pearls whenever Gumby performs with the Clayboys]], his first response is: "But our music isn't sad!"

In 2015, the Creator/JimHenson Company made a deal with Clokey's estate to produce a new Gumby series. No news has been forthcoming, though a leak in mid-2019 of several screenshots revealed the series was well into production. Further details leaked on Website/FourChan on April 22, 2020 revealed several details, such as the series being named ''The New Adventures of Gumby and Friends'', and that production had moved to Creator/{{Seth Green}}'s Stoopid Buddy Stoodios, the same studio that produces ''WesternAnimation/RobotChicken''. The mid-2019 leak stated the series would premiere in June 2020, but the UsefulNotes/CoronavirusDisease2019Pandemic has most likely shifted this timeline.