Wednesday, January 2, 2013

Candidate for President

Originally Broadcast in syndication in 1966.
Produced, Written,Directed and Animated by
ART CLOKEY
PETER KLEINOW
RAY PECK
Photography by
RAYMOND PECK
CAST
Gumby/Goo/NORMA MacMILLIAN
Pokey/Prickle/TV an nouncer/Historical Figures/DALLAS McKENNON(?)
Music
JOHNNY HOLLIDAY, IB GLINDEMANN?

PLOT: Goo & Prickle want Gumby to run for President. For once, I don't appear in this..

In 1966, our heroes were sitting when Prickle and Goo, l;ooking at a presidential candidate with a collie who bears a very strong resemblance to Lassie,
Prickle (who sounds like radio character actor Mort Marhsall as Yak from TTV'S "Tennessee and Chumley" channelling fellow radio and movie character actor Ned Sparks) and Goo (looking more vertically upright in some of theese earlier third generation Gumby's than later ones of this bunch), decide to make a VERY unwilling Gumby president for 1966 (though 1968 was the NEXT presidential year--also Leap, Olympic, and 4-multiple final digit year. See? See how all this works out?) and melt into the various books (more than be said for :Siege of Boonesboro). First off they're at George Washington and take that trip through the Potomac river.. Goo (who can take a microphone, though not, as Prickle has asked, shorthand--so she says) and Prickle are the actual stars here, despite Gumby being the one that this trip is for, and take a trip through the books of Abe Lincoln and Thomas Jefferson before their final one: Teddy Rosevelt. Prickle and Goo then help them and "suggest" the famed comments of the presidents, a la author Robert Lawson's Ben and Me [which became a 1953 DIsney film].
Toosevelt tells them his famous "Speak softly" and carry-you know. Geo.Washington, Tom Jefferson, Abe Lincoln...and Teddy Bear! [Oh well. three out of four aint' bad. Hey, aren't those 70s songs by Fleetwoot Mac and Meat Loaf respectively?]
Anyway, when they're home, I'm like calling the important artifacts "props for some comedian"..
One of several with guitar plucks before the theme.Goo's look has changed through out, making it a major transistion [thanks to "Hey Steve", member at IAD forums where I mas well]...

Usually Prickle (who several voices were disucssed earlier in this bog) had a more "Paul Lynde-happy" type voice, or :"Alan Sues"(gay in both the "homosexual" and "happy" senses if you want to make an analogy) but he talks with a different voice..Goo is a bit different looking than some later ones, so this has to be one of the earliest..the obscure authors Michaelson and Kaplan in their 1986 book "Gumby" don't list this one with an apostophe which would have marked this, like the laters ones, a direction effort of Pete Klienow and RayPeck, but instead of Art Clokey.

The Black Knight

THE BLACK KNIGHT (1957)
Prodcer/writer/director/possible voices(?))/ART CLOKEY
Animators, set,s UNKNOWN
CAST
Gumby/NANCY WIBLE(?)
Knight/DAL McKENNON?
Dragon/KIng/unknown
Music cues:
Gumby theme/LOOSE-SEELY
unknown Medievil fanfare/unknown
"Puppetry-Comerdy"/PHIL GREEN
dramnatic eerie tune/PHIL GREEN
"ZR-53 Comedy Mysteroso"/GEORGE HORMEL
"The Tin Dragooons GRE=457"/PHIL GREEN
"The Toyland Burglar"/PHIL GREEN
"Clockwork Clowns"/{HIL GREEN
(All of the GREEN sel;ections arte from a suite entitled, "KIddie COmedy Suite")
"ZR-109A Medieval Fanfare"/HOMREL-MOORE
"Gumby"/SEELY-LOOSE
\
Originally aired on NBC.
PLOT: Now we know WHY that baby draogn didn't MEAN to burn the medievl WHEAT. so Joust for fun, we get to see a Joust.
Gumby's forays into the Medieval scheme of things started rather early with stuff like this. This may be one of the first times Dal McKennon does a voice here; it's the knight (the good one; listen to
1959's "Three Stooges movie "Have Rocket, WIll Travel" to the unicorn for possdible confirmation). This is similiar to "Mysterious Fires" but seems a short unto itself like ater episodes.
Gumby is playing by himself (NO pervert thought, deviant art guys!) with an erector (ahem) set hwen a knight comes by, with tyhe gum one suddenly magnetizing tyhe armour off the knight, who then expains that a dragon's been
burning the wheat, thanks to a witch putting a mahic spell, as per an order of the Black Knight (no withc shows up, tohugh!) Journeyed into the dark forest and coming upon said knight, Gumby, asking hoim
feebly to stop, then gets him to agree to a joust the next afternoon with the whiote knight. Gumby delivers a bit of "English"..ahem..with his erector set andf getting the knight on, with the dragon in attendance.
Gumby decides to use his erector set that he'd brought along just flor the occaison (NATCH!) and magnetizes
 the BAD knight,wkins, rides on dragon with good knightr, and white knight hists hiw cabasa.
A companion film to "Mysterious Fires".
Soundtrack muisc starts and ends with George Hormel but seems largely made up of Phil Green compositions, all from the EMI PHOTOPLAY 45 rpm Kiddie Comedy Suite
, and used a lot on US and UK shows (Hanna Barbera,too!) but Capitol and John Seley simply retited them (for inststance, looking at anone on collecr Grahame Newton's AUstralian site, what seems to be "ClockWork Clowns" is the one on L-27/28 titled "EM-132A-6/8 rhythm". That disc also has "Bush Baby" (in Gumby, heard in both
"Of Clay and Critters" and "TOo Loo",refquently on "Augie Doggie"), as "8-EM-149 COMEDY MOVEMENT".

Mysterious Fires

MYSTERIOUS FIRES!!
Prtoduce,d Writte, voices and Directed by
ART CLOKEY
Gumby voice
NANCY WIBLE?
Dragon/?
Music
"Gumby Theme"/JOHN SEELY, BILL LOOSE
"Fire"-JB-68/EMIL CADKIN, BILL LOOSE, JOHN SEELY, and JACK COOKERLY, main titles
"Light Movemebnt EM-10-7D"/PHIL GREEN Gumby showing off, kngiht approacheth
"Clockwork Clowns"/PHIL GREEN [Gumby showing off his new 1957 Fire truck]
"ZR 109A Medival Fanfare"/GEORGE HORMEL [king explains dilemna-wheat burning]
"Fire"/JACK SHAINDLIN [dragon breathing fire][not to be confused with the earlier cue]
unknown?/PHI GREEN [Gumby corners Dragon, Dragon starts crying tears, king, draogn and Gumby making up by making the dragona  favorite pet]
'unknown" End
PLOT: Gumby's got a dragon on his hands burning fire.
Gumby going in the middle ages was one of the big go to plot devices, so was fire trucks (if not trains) to solve problems, Here we got the Middle Ages and fire trucks, with GUmby's 1956-57 higher pitched voice. a Knight,
who has a voice that in its reuse in the 1959 Columbia Pictures Three Stooges "Have Rocket will Travel" is credited by Jeff and Greg Lenburn and Joan Muaurer [3 Stooge Scrapbook, '
'82] as by eventually CLokey stalwart Dallas McKennon, but J.Lenburg is notirously not that reliable,
and the Gumby knight is a pretty early character before Dallas McK was starting to
appear [though he's already heard in Walter Lantz, Disney and even in one Warner Speedy Gonazles, "Tortilla FLaps"],
and neither seems to have any animation credits.
Opening, after a DRAMATIC D series cue [see above] suitable for Fire and used as such in "Night of the Living Dead"
[and beas no relaiton to the later cue in this-Capitol and Shaindlin had lots of Fire cues] The knight and Gumby to the
 former's era, the middle ages, where he finds cyring, impoverished villagers. Why are they so sad? Well, says the king, something
 burns their wheat.and Gumby gets the word of a dragon

So telescope user fireman, etc.Gumby look, reports a dragon and then approches over and puts it out. The dragon then defends itself ina veyr gay voice [HEY! I am so not
making that up!] Gumby finally gets the repitalian crybaby to agree to be the king's favorite pet.
The knight keeps hitting his head.....thsi was maybe one of the first self contained episodes before hte major redesign of the clayboy's eyes..followed by "THe Black Knight".
The open titles have fiery animation with a good chioice of the Capitol HiQ library at the opening.

The Indian Challenge

INDIAN CHALLENGE (1967)
Produced, Wrriten, and Directed by
ARTHUR CLOKEY
PETER KLEINOW
RAY PECK
Cast
Gumby/NORMA MacMILLAN
Pokey/Others/DAL McKennon(?)
Music by JOHN HOLLIDAY/CONZELLMAN-HAENSCH/GUNETER-LACKEY.
PLOT: A tale of some tellers of tall tales.
The series episodes by the 1960s had started getting shorter, with mostly dialogue taking up time, yet still exsciting..
Gumby attempts to break up fights and be an intervener in many of his shorts, and by the 1960s stories like that and like this were no
exception. In "The Indian Challenge", Gumby and I were setting reading with our friend Prospector Petewhen I, then Gunmby, hear sounds. It'sStoryteler Pete's nem,esis, the Indians (with some very familiar sounding member).
The story and dialgue tend be rather slowly paced in just four minutes, which had already started being a stape of TV shows/animated seires..
Gumby episodes generally started being more dialogue based ("Gumby Babysitsts" was another..) Still pretty enjoyablke with "Weeble Toys" like dolls types representing the supporting characters.

The Indians claim that Pete is  telling some mighty tall tales, and challenges him to tell Injun Joe,the chief (and part time persuer of Tom Sawyer and his famous friends) some stories about "Injun fighting". "But you only have to fight just one Indian",expkains Gumby. "Just one big old fat indian" likewise assures your truly, Pokey. (OKAY< I didn't say "BIG FAT
 old Indian.) OIt turns out both are cowards who are going to tell each other stories, and the loser gives up that right.-and Pokey truly sounds like he means when he confirs he's going to enjoy this..as is Gumby.
A rathert short episode