A small bunch of early Gumby episodes for the 60th anniversary

Back after a few months..I decided to honor Gumby and Pokey's upcoming 60th anniversary with the original versions of the earliest
shorts..here's the very first, Moon Trip

Mirrorland 

Merry Christmas/Happy New Year..

Trying to find a copy with the original background music of the early 1960s "Scrooge Loose"..but I'll just leave you with this..

Here are the Christmas themed episodes from the original show, all from early 60s

Scrooge Loose
Pigeon in a Plum Tree

See you next year

The Glob

"The Glob"

1961-62
Produced, Written & Directed by
ART CLOKEY

Voices:
DAL McKENNON

Music
Opening title/JOHN SEELY-BILL LOOSE
"Glob" title card/?
"Light Neutral",/JACK COOKERLY & BILL LOOSE (& possibly EMIL CADKIN)(opening scenes)
"Tension"/SEELY-LOOSE (David Rose)(the sculpture gaining eyes)
"Light Neutral"/COOKERLY & LOOSE (Gumby and Pokey at Pokey's suggestion breaking away from their opening activity)
"Tension"/SEELY & LOOSE (Rose)(Gumby and Pokey suddenly seeing the coming to life of Gumby's new creation and escaping the book)
"TC-451 Heavy Agitato-Texan Theme"/LOOSE, SEELY, (Richard La Salle)(Glob following them out of book! Also chasing them and Gumby using his first plan to stop the monster)
"CB-68B Heavy Chase"/HARRY BLUESTONE-E.CADKIN (Chandler-Williams-Diane Music)(Gumby decides on another plan of action)
"PG-296 Western Saloon":/PHIL GREEN (the remainder, right through the surprise ending and Marshall Dillpickle)\


SYNOPSIS: Gumby literally creates a monster without knowing it.

The most well known episodes opf Gumby sometimes involved going out of, and into books, as a certain 1960s theme song will say. The stars are
a scary monster created (get the joke, "created a monster?") and a few of Capitol Records's memorable "D series" music themes, including cues used
on "The Texan" (1958-1960) and the 1958 Bugs Bunny short "Pre-Hysterical hare" due to a musicians strike and a third used in "Night of the Living Dead",
as wel as a light, tinkly Western theme taking up the entire final part (a la part of "Little Lost Pony").(Middle theme discussed in "Toying Around/Toy Capers')

The story opens up in an art classroom where only Gumby and Pokey are, Pokey licking an ice cream cone, Gumby sculping a monster, something that bores me (Pokey.)

Music gets a bit tense when both our heros turn their backs to the smonster, then the monster comes to life and then he starts
to look at Gumby and Pokey. Suddenly the monster comes up in front of them,m and scares them out of the book. "You really
shoulda taken my advice", says I, Pokey. "You're right, Pokey, it CAN be dangerous", but then the Monster comes up from out of the book (cue "Thee Texan" theme music()

Gumby goes onto a toy gun which shoots a net off on the mosnter, who then still chases him and Pokey. Next a cannon is tried but then doesn't work.

POkey suddenly remembers his own home town, the wild West,home of "Marshall Dillpickle" (obviously a take on "Matt Dillon" on the long running CBS show "Gunsmoke", 1955-1975)
 where they go, only to have Gumby's monstrous creation, "The Glob", following them!

Pokey gets Marshall Dillpickle, especially when Pokey and Gumby see the monster and the marshall  comes out and freaks out himself. Getting his pistols, he shots the monster, while holding, like Gumby and Pokey an Ice cream cone, which The Glob eats.

Suddenly-Gumby realises it. It's not any moving form..it's just ICE CREAM that the big guy wants!

SO a happy ending with all four is shared.

The use of scary music in what turns out to be a western, from a western (The Texan) and used much later in the horror film (not set in the west) and then happy Texan stock music, is the real star of the episode.

Nice going from art school to the Wild West by way of toy store. The open titles have poured down clay, with a eerie stock cue still unindentifiable to me.

GUMBY CROSSES THE DELAWARE

GUMBY CROSSES THE DELAWARE (1966)
Produced, Written & Directed by
ART CLOKEY

Voices:
DAL McKENNON (onscreen it's spelled "McKINNON)

Sound:
AUDIO EFFECTS CO.

Probaly the earliest of the "third series" of Gumby and yours truly, his, uh, "little pony", introduced new musical elements including
background music formerly used in low-low budget producer Sam Singer's 1964 Sinbad cartoons and earlier ones, credited onscreen
to "Johnny Holliday" but both those and the Gumbys have Guenther Kauer, and Doug M.Lackey (the later 1970s "Wilderness Family"
series as well) credited on actual sites for these, ASCAP and BMI (ASCAP in this case).


Through my last six years of research (and this blog as well!) I found on APM.com as previously noted Hans Conzellmann and Delle/Gerhard
Haensch (Selected Sound, est.1960s) files that are the cues in a few of these ("All Broken Up" when the announcer announces Pricle's abstract modern
tune and "Rodeo king" when Pokey - me - prances to the TV to see his pony crush Buck Bronto) and later in "Ren and Stimpy" (though I've never heard them
in actual epsiodes that I recall..)

One cue, the whistle skipping tune ("A-DIDDLE-did-did-dee"), heard in Sam Singer's Sinbad sometimes, would generlaly wind up as background music, and in these early newer
Gumby's, this ("Crosses Delaware), "Pokey's price","Pilgrims on the Rocks", and "Son of Liberty", also served as theme songs (did any others use these and they were just shorn off the credits
in syndication?) Of course this slide whistl;e theme turned up as the opening theme to 1966-68 Gumby's.

It starts, anyway, at Gumby and Pokey's gumburger stand (as per Art Clokey's diet, ain't these vegan?:)) when a supposed "beatnik" who turns out to be a wandering Revutionary War
Minuteman crawling out of a nearby book is asking for food, resulting in the trio meeting George Washington, and having to trick the Hessians by going across the Delaware.

Pokey winds up getting one of Gumby's walkie-talkies (ya know, before cellphones were invented.:)) strapped around his little p;ony neeck to communicate but with those tricky
Hessians capturing him, communication WITHOUT self-EXPOSURE can be hard..fortauntely Pokey manages to talk into the camera and Geo.Wahsington and Gumby make it over.

During the famous crossing's Ice scene, there is (courtesy of Pokey) an "Uncle Tom" Little Liza reference ("Little Lzia Pokey"),

Gumby and Pokey can now escape to the future, to 1966, to their stand.

A very unqiue one that Clokey himself correctly described as one of his favorties. The Gumburger stand has very vague foods (sorta reminiscent of the 1959 part with Augie Doggie in "Pup Plays Pop" and a hamburger ish rutabaga sandwich).Was Clokey a vegetarian then,too or what ARE gumburgers made of..!

HOT ICE

HOT ICE
Produced by
ART CLOKEY
Writtern & Directed by
ARTHUR CLOKEY,
PETER KLEINOW &
RAYMOND PECK
Cast
Gumby/Goo/NORMA Mac MILLAN
Pokey/Prickle/ART CLOKEY
Moon Boggles/Dr./UNKNOWN

Synopsis: Our evil doc Z. has his eye out for jewels and then mistakes Goo's "ice" from the
Moon Boggles (whom we last saw in their own guest starring short) and then, amusedly rec-
ognizing this error, Gumby decides to take advantage of it by LETTING the madman find the
hard way.
Apparently a cross over after "Moon Boggles","Prickle's Problem" &  "Piano Rolling Blues" was ordered by TV, maybe even a network hoping
for Sat.Am.TV shows in 1967. It figures. H-B's "Wacky Races" spun off "Dastardly and Muttley" and "Penelope Pitstop", so maybe this
short was an experiemnt for the Dr. and the "Moon Boggles" together or by themselves, just as "Santa Witch","Goo for Pokey","Puppy Dog
School" and "The Reluctant Gargoyles" might have been Pokey spinoffs.
Our story  opens with a telescopic "iris" of a zoo with Goo and the Moon Boggles, crowning (or "tiara-ing" her?) princess and us seeing the owner
of the telescopic Dr.Zveege (probaly his last appearance) and mistaking the ice for jewels. He then sends his moving cage (from "Prickle's Problem")
out for Goo but then she escapes and reports it to Gumby who then knows the mistake and then decides well, if Doctor Zveegee WANTS this, he'll
GET it, since he doesn't even know what he is in  STORE for. He soon finds out once his cage drops the ICE in and he finds out, crouches over and FALLS
in the machine. We then see a hapless Dr.Zveegee being carried over to our heroes (and that includes the Moon Boggles in their last appearance) for a closing.
"Bah", again, is all that he can say.

PIANO ROLLING BLUES

PIANO ROLLING BLUES (1967)
Written & Directed by
PETE KLEINOW &
RAY PECK
Produced & Created by
ARTHUR CLOKEY
CAST
Gumby/NORMA MacMILLAN
Pokey/Prickle/Narrator(?)ART CLOKEY
Dr.Zveegee/?
Synopsis:Danger! Mad man on the loose to catch a dinosaur moving a "Beatle's" piano.
"When we last saw out friend Pickle, he was pursued by Dr.Zveege, the mad doctor who wanted him only for his
own sinister purposes" intones our narrator and that's what's happening, our evil scientist from "Prickle's Problem"
and "Hot Ice" with the Bela L.like Dracula voice who wants Prickle.
Gumby, Pokey and Prickle are moving a Paul McCartney-looking pianist (named, coincidentally Paul!)'s piano.

He employs his cage but it misses and is gone for the rest of the short.

Pokey (who contrary to what Gumby told his drag queen auntie in "Gabby Auntie" that year CAN drive) then drives off with the piano
but the rope attatched to such breaks a few times, and now the wacked doctor climbs on top the next time the lanyard breaks,
and he crashes into the traffic just as it's discovered that he's up to his old tricks. "Bah" (as the scientist is fond of saying).
The same generally not quite identifiable music cues with an extra - Norma MacMillan as Gumby WHISTLING his "Sinbad Jr."(Singer)-derived
theme---not much of this happens (though of course, Bugs Bunny and Pink Panther cartoons have the theme heard a lot, and
Dawn Wells(?)  and Tina Louise on a final season "Gilligan's Island", "High Man on the Totem Pole"
do whistle the Gilligan theme-regarding the question mark, Dawn Wells never could really sing---how many times can you hear the Flintstones
or the I Love Lucy characters singing their theme?? There's even an eerie piano take on the Gumby theme, or leitmotif at the beginning under the
main title!) on tv or in cartoons generally.. 
A lot of silence, aptly, is heard to make it spooky as Dr.Z goes to work and the characters keep hearing strange noises.
Paul is based on the Beatle look, just right for the times, the 1960s, but it's the Sgt.Pepper era and he's sporting Rubber Soul, and even specifically resembling Paul THE BEATLE.
No English accent though.

From now on, all remaining episodes unless noted are from '67.

PRICKLE'S PROBLEM (1967)

PRICKLE'S PROBLEM (1967)
Written and Directed by
PETE KLEINOW
RAY PECK
Cast
Gumby/Goo/Mother/BabyNORMA Mac MILLAN
Prickle/Pokey/Announcer/Dr.Zveegee(?)/ART CLOKEY
Synopsis:The debut of our evil anti-hero, Dr.Zveegee as he tries to catch Prickle who has just rescued a baby from some fate.

Music:Kauer-Lackey..Johnny Holliday
'
TV TROPES:
Big Bad: Dr.Zveegee, who is an obvious Bela "Drac" Lugosi soundalike

Inferiority Complex: Prickle feels he's not important

No Celebrities were Harmed: See Big Bad.

Unaware of fame: In real life, Prickle already WAS a popular character, and in the 1980s when Gumby was famous again (BEFORE the later series with its audio-Emma-makeover controversy reared its head), Prickle was a major merchandise attraction due to the then new Dinosaur craze..



You'd think that by now, with him being seen, that our whiny (but sincerely nice) dinosaur friend Prickle would be famous and happy, but, no,
he still wants recognition. Prickle doesn't get the idea to try to get over himself, but then sees and takes a chance saving a baby boy which lands
him in the paper.
It also brings a new character, the Bela Lugosi (1880-1956)-accented Dracula sounding bald head glasses wearing mad sci-
entist, Doctor Zveegee.
He stands about 6 feet high, likes saying "Bah" when bested and generally spends this episode and the next, "Piano Rolling Blues" being all like, so obsessed with Prickle, then another,
a crossover with another previously seen group of guest characters The (unnamed) seals called The Moon Boggles from their own title episode with Gumby, Pokey, and in his last appearance
,the unnamed zoo curator/keeper seen since the 1957 episode "The Zoops".
Here, just BEING a dinoasaur makes Prickle an object of desire for our evil doctor, who sends his trademark cage (Pat.Pend.) with mechanical claws that automaticcaly moves out to
GRAB Prickle with remote control operator by Dr.Z. It almost grabs the dinosaur who then runs and reports back to his friends, but the Pokey goes out, almost as if to act out as a
decoy for the machine, who grabs the PONY, who the other three now mourn only for the moving cage to grab its despicable owner INSTEAD!
Dr.Zveegee then goes off to places unknown for now..
A held picture of Prickle being famous (within the story structure of the episode, anyhow) is utilized for the offscreen announcer's voice
noting Prickle's new fame.