{"id":1832,"date":"2008-12-01T19:15:00","date_gmt":"2008-12-02T00:15:00","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2008-12-10T09:44:50","modified_gmt":"2008-12-10T09:44:50","slug":"behind-the-music-lemggumby-the-moviel-em","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/behind-the-music-lemggumby-the-moviel-em\/","title":{"rendered":"Behind the Music: <em>Gumby: The Movie<\/em>"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe class='youtube-player youtuber' type='text\/html' width='425' height='355' src='http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/AhczFRlBT2E?rel=0&amp;fs=1&amp;ap=%252526fmt%253D18' webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen frameborder='0'><\/iframe><br \/>\n<em>Researching a thread for Rock Town Hall can lead a Townsperson down unexpected alleys and confront us with shocking revelations. The following piece is just such an example. Beware, HVB.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Sometime in the early &#8217;80s, <strong>Townsman Sethro<\/strong> and I attended a midnight movie showing of about 30 consecutive episodes of the childhood classic claymation show from our youth, <em>Gumby<\/em>. It was perfect midnight movie programming! Each time one short episode ended and the Gumby theme restarted we reached new levels of glee! All we were missing was a big box of <strong>Quisp<\/strong>. <\/p>\n<p>As soon as my first son reached television-viewing age and could make some sense of cartoons that preceded his generation, I wanted to turn him onto Gumby. I bought him a set of rubber Gumby, Pokey, Blockheads, et al figures, much like the ones I had as a boy. I searched in vain for a good collection of Gumby episodes on VHS or DVD. At the time, there was nothing available along the lines of that midnight movie showing that didn&#8217;t come with Amazon warnings along the lines of, &#8220;These poor-quality tapes are practically bootlegs.&#8221; I did see something legit called <em>Gumby: The Movie<\/em>. I didn&#8217;t take into account that it was made in 1985 and may not have had all the aesthetic qualities of the Gumby I grew up with, but it seemed worth a try for exposing my boy to this important show.<br \/>\n<!--nextpage--><br \/><iframe class='youtube-player youtuber' type='text\/html' width='425' height='355' src='http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/r2itjB3vdxs?rel=0&amp;fs=1&amp;ap=%252526fmt%253D18' webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen frameborder='0'><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>At first I was disappointed with this &#8217;80s Gumby movie. The intro theme was not exactly the same. That&#8217;s half the joy of any Gumby episode. The plot and pacing were a little off. Seeing characters use new technological developments that did not exist when the original tv show was made, like computers and <strong>pointy guitars<\/strong>, bothered me. Most troubling was the pointy guitar-inspired music that Gumby&#8217;s &#8220;Let&#8217;s put on a show!&#8221; rock band, <strong>The Clayboys<\/strong>, was playing. I feared that exposure to these songs would adversely influence my boy&#8217;s musical development. (<em>Note:<\/em> I have not seen the &#8220;Director&#8217;s Cut&#8221; of this video, as advertised above.)<\/p><iframe class='youtube-player youtuber' type='text\/html' width='425' height='355' src='http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/CA6j2lvcoVM?rel=0&amp;fs=1&amp;ap=%252526fmt%253D18' webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen frameborder='0'><\/iframe><p>My boy was fine with the movie, and thankfully he was hip to the fact that the movie sucked. The trippy shape-shifting and travel through books were enough to keep him amused. He probably watched the movie 30 times during a stretch in his preschool years, and then our second son did the same. They are unscathed by the bad musical sequences, but I&#8217;m still disappointed that they&#8217;ve not seen the real Gumby episodes. Someday I&#8217;ll get them up to speed on that cultural phenomenon.<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>Next:<\/strong> The real reason I bring this Gumby movie up for discussion in the Halls of Rock.<\/em><br \/>\n<!--nextpage--><br \/>\nClosely read the closing credits, which I stumbled across while researching <a href=\"http:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/index.php\/2008\/11\/30\/jefferson-starship-airplane\">another thread<\/a>:<\/p><iframe class='youtube-player youtuber' type='text\/html' width='425' height='355' src='http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/P1swUYF2TKo?rel=0&amp;fs=1&amp;ap=%252526fmt%253D18' webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen frameborder='0'><\/iframe><p><em><strong>Finally (next page):<\/strong> the story behind the killer axe work on Gumby: The Movie is finally revealed!<\/em><br \/>\n<!--nextpage--><br \/><iframe class='youtube-player youtuber' type='text\/html' width='425' height='355' src='http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/uFxsxzoAYio?rel=0&amp;fs=1&amp;ap=%252526fmt%253D18' webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen frameborder='0'><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><em>The horror&#8230;the horror&#8230;<\/em><\/p>\n<p><object classid=\"clsid:D27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000\" codebase=\"http:\/\/fpdownload.macromedia.com\/get\/flashplayer\/current\/swflash.cab\" id=\"Player_06b3b378-a6ba-41af-8796-e35831299188\"  WIDTH=\"400px\" HEIGHT=\"150px\"><param NAME=\"movie\" VALUE=\"http:\/\/ws.amazon.com\/widgets\/q?ServiceVersion=20070822&amp;MarketPlace=US&amp;ID=V20070822%2FUS%2Frotoha00-20%2F8010%2F06b3b378-a6ba-41af-8796-e35831299188&amp;Operation=GetDisplayTemplate\" \/><param NAME=\"quality\" VALUE=\"high\" \/><param NAME=\"bgcolor\" VALUE=\"#FFFFFF\" \/><param NAME=\"allowscriptaccess\" VALUE=\"always\" \/><embed src=\"http:\/\/ws.amazon.com\/widgets\/q?ServiceVersion=20070822&amp;MarketPlace=US&amp;ID=V20070822%2FUS%2Frotoha00-20%2F8010%2F06b3b378-a6ba-41af-8796-e35831299188&amp;Operation=GetDisplayTemplate\" id=\"Player_06b3b378-a6ba-41af-8796-e35831299188\" quality=\"high\" bgcolor=\"#ffffff\" name=\"Player_06b3b378-a6ba-41af-8796-e35831299188\" allowscriptaccess=\"always\"  type=\"application\/x-shockwave-flash\" align=\"middle\" height=\"150px\" width=\"400px\"><\/embed><\/object> <noscript><a HREF=\"http:\/\/ws.amazon.com\/widgets\/q?ServiceVersion=20070822&amp;MarketPlace=US&amp;ID=V20070822%2FUS%2Frotoha00-20%2F8010%2F06b3b378-a6ba-41af-8796-e35831299188&amp;Operation=NoScript\">Amazon.com Widgets<\/a><\/noscript><\/p>\n<nav class=\"page-links\"><strong>Pages:<\/strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/behind-the-music-lemggumby-the-moviel-em\/\" class=\"post-page-numbers\"><span class=\"page-num\">1<\/span><\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/behind-the-music-lemggumby-the-moviel-em\/2\/\" class=\"post-page-numbers\"><span class=\"page-num\">2<\/span><\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/behind-the-music-lemggumby-the-moviel-em\/3\/\" class=\"post-page-numbers\"><span class=\"page-num\">3<\/span><\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/behind-the-music-lemggumby-the-moviel-em\/4\/\" class=\"post-page-numbers\"><span class=\"page-num\">4<\/span><\/a><\/nav>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Researching a thread for Rock Town Hall can lead a Townsperson down unexpected alleys and confront us with shocking revelations. The following piece is just such an example. Beware, HVB. Sometime in the early &#8217;80s, Townsman Sethro and I attended a midnight movie showing of about 30 consecutive episodes of the childhood classic claymation show <a href='https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/behind-the-music-lemggumby-the-moviel-em\/' class='excerpt-more'>[&#8230;]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[342],"tags":[34],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1832"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1832"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1832\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1832"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1832"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1832"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}