Now, I can look at Gumby’s shows on You Tube with amazement at how much was done with so little. Near the end, Art Clokey posed with fellow animator Stan Lee at Comic Con Santa Monica, undated (Courtesy: Cartoon Flophouse) A little green clay figure with his little brown pony that would furbish its walls and cabinets and not only make them new but real. More importantly, they were missing the vital elements. The scenery were merely the ruins of what had been a great creative effort. How could they be restored? They seem to have lost their meaning, like the pillars and foundations of what was left of ancient Rome. They were in such poor condition, in my view, that they would have to be put under glass immediately. Now that collectors were by then interested in Gumbyana, I wondered whether and how anyone would pay top dollar for them. One of the curators explained to me that Clokey had never thought that his work could later command such prices, and that most of it was thrown away or recycled for other live-action episodes. You see, most of these scenes were made with colored construction paper or painted cardboard, recycled items that could double as doors or windows, glues and very thin wires and wooden sticks–some could have been toothpicks. Some, but not many, had cards made for them, explaining in which episodes they were used. Of course, I was asked to be careful around them. Some “walls” were sagging or leaning, and often, they were faded. That scenery was now worth thousands of dollars and unfortunately, it was very fragile. This gallery, among other things, were presenting the early scenery from Art Clokey‘s The Adventures of Gumby, the clay animation children’s series.

When I was living in San Rafael, in Marin County in the early Nineties, I was walking down Fourth Street downtown after a Sunday brunch, when I happened upon a small gallery near the Rafael Film Center. This was all part of the Sixties for me, growing up. He also created Davey and Goliath for the Lutherans, too.

Clockey gumbssia