Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #110318 in DVD
• Released on: 2002-04-09
• Rating: G (General Audience)
• Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
• Formats: Animated, Full Screen, Color, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 7
• Running time: 30 minutes

Amazon.com
Gumby, the little green plasticine boy from the toy-land world of Gumbasia, first burst onto TV screens on the Howdy Doody show in 1956. By 1957 the landmark children's show had launched its own series of reality-bending adventures. Gumby could walk into storybooks and through mirrors, blast off to the moon and travel back to the dinosaur age, and roll himself into any shape he chose. What kid didn't want to be Gumby?! Over 40 years later the delightful mix of innocence, imagination, and surrealism for kids is just as much fun and still feels unexpectedly inventive--the spacy electronic music alone feels years ahead of its time. Rhino's seven-disc boxed set features over 100 shorts made between 1956 and 1967, remastered from creator Art Clokey's original materials. The age of the series may show in minor scratching and speckling and occasional unsteady frames, but the picture is sharp and the color and sound surprisingly good and the whimsical little shape-shifting boy is as young as ever. The bonus seventh disc features a toy box of Gumby-related goodies, notably interviews with Clokey and original Gumby voice artist Dal McKinnon (quite the ham on camera) and a collection of Clokey's early films, including the inventive Gumby pilot film (sans soundtrack, sadly), gorgeous experimental exercises in abstract art, and two very entertaining marriages of silent slapstick comedy and stop-motion magic. --Sean Axmaker

From the Back Cover
Rhino Home Video is proud to debut one of the most beloved animated characters of our time on DVD. The GUMBY set features collected shorts ranging from The Gumby Show in 1956 to syndicated episodes in 1967. The DVD boxed set includes seven discs, a miniature Gumby figure, and such bonus features as an interview with the creator of GUMBY, the GUMBY pilot, storyboards, and bumpers.

Customer Reviews

The Soundtrack is Brutal!
Art Clokey's Gumby episodes are surreal masterpieces. The innovative and imaginative visuals are the only aspects that saved this box set from the rubbish bin. I originally saw the Gumby cartoons with the original soundtracks, quirky tunes that well complemented the atmosphere in the Gumby episodes. I have to agree with the appalled reviewers who are disgusted with this box set. A young child who has not seen the originals will not know the difference in the music and may enjoy the set, but a seasoned Gumby fan will not be happy with this purchase.

The extras and the packaging are supurb, but the main features, the Gumby cartoons, are utterly ruined by the awful synth soundtracks. The new music is irritating and annoying to the extent of disrupting the action on screen. The plunky goofy nursery rhyme melodies are often louder than the dialogue. Instead of underscoring what is going on in the shows, the music competes and many times overpowers the wonderful images. To add insult to injury, the incompetent engineer who mixed the sound somehow caused an "echo" /reverb on the characters voices, which gives their voices a distracting tinny quality that is franky just poor sound mixing.

Can someone at Rhino explain why they spent so much time on the extras but aren't presenting the cartoons the way they were originally intended?

A BIG Disappointment! NOT the original GUMBY!
Received this DVD set today and to my surprise, it is missing the ORIGINAL 'CAPITAL MUSIC' score and original theme song and open. ... If you are going to do an elaborate collection of CLASSIC ANIMATION, it must be restored to it's original elements. These cartoons have a horrible synthesizer score that were added in the 1980's. Word is, they didn't want to pay the money to keep the CAPITAL score in. ... IMAGE issued two GREAT ART CLOKEY 'DAVEY & GOLIATH' discs with wonderful packaging and original CAPITAL MUSIC score!
I can't even watch this with the score they used and the continued use of bad music in the menus and NEW animated bumpers. This is a BIG disappointment! Small Children may still enjoy this collection BUT not the people that grew up with this series as kids....and for this price, those are the only people that would be buying this so RHINO cut out their target audience. I rated it One Star for the kids. 0 STARS for Adults.
...

Hey, at least they made an effort; don't worry, a new set is in the works.
Let me start by saying that it's a little sad to see people giving this set one-star reviews blasting Rhino for not including the original music. (One reviewer even compared Rhino to the Ministry of Truth in "1984," trying to rewrite history. Come on...)

Having done my research, I can say that it's not Rhino's fault. Rhino is simply releasing the set. The real reason for the use of the 1988 versions stems from music clearance issues between Premavision / Clokey Productions and Capitol Records, who controls the library cues heard in the original shorts. According to Joe Clokey (son of Art), Capitol's asking price for new needle-drop use was too high. (Also, from what I can gather, a lot of the music has been mired in legal issues with the widow of William Loose, who composed many of the cues. I have no idea if this is a specific cause of the Gumby problems, though.)

With the music problems unresolved, this is the best that Premavision / Clokey, and thus Rhino, could give us. At least we got all of the Gumby shorts in *some* form, along with a bunch of bonus shorts. Because of this, I give a 3 for effort; nevertheless, the lack of the original music, and the use of the old 1988 video masters, prevent the set from receiving anything higher.

But there is hope: I e-mailed Joe Clokey recently, and he told me that he spent the last year completely restoring the classic Gumby shorts, original soundtracks and all. Even more promising, he says that Premavision / Clokey is committed to resolving the music issues, and that we can (hopefully) expect a brand new DVD set in the next year or two.

Until then, this is the best we'll have. (For those purists, such as myself, who must have the original soundtracks, I recommend hunting down the 80s VHS releases from Family Home Entertainment. They pop up often on eBay and half.com, as well as at specialty/used-video shops.)