Gumby Found

My Lost Gumby Interview - Originally titled Gumbys Dad, written by a very young writer in 1986

by Michael W. Harkins
Last year as I waded through a pile of stuff in a box remember how it came up, but there was a mention of that had been buried in my home office closet, I found an Gumby, which led to my introduction to Holly, and moved old manila envelope. I couldnt tell what was inside this to a request (insistent request, Im sure) to speak with Art. envelope addressed to myself, I eventually spoke to him on in my handwriting, with a 1986 the phone and he graciously postmark. I was intrigued as I granted me, a fledgling pulled out the TYPEWRITTEN freelance writer, an afternoon pages. to come and interview him at Man, Im old. home. The envelope was an SASE, I had no market in mind an acronym known to every for an article about Gumby freelance writer: a self-addressed and Art, and I certainly had stamped envelope. While the no editor chomping at the bit majority of todays agents, to receive my story. I simply editors and publishers use email had to interview Art because, for queries and communications, well, hell, man, it was Gumbys there are still a few who accept dad. I was and continue to be things through the mail, and this evera cartoon fan(atic). My major in art Above, the original Gumby Found. Below, school had been animation, film and present acronym has been part of the editors lexicon for ages: ...if you the extended Gumby family photography (I dropped out during my want your materials returned please second year to go on the road with a enclose an SASE... band...which is how I ended up Thats what I had in my in Northern California), and Art hand, a copy of Gumbys Clokey was a pioneer. Once I Dad that had been returned discovered not only that I had to me from a now unknown only one degree of separation publication. from him and that he lived and This is the second time worked within a couple of miles Ive stumbled across something from where I lived, I would decades old that I believed was have finagled my way into his worthy of sharing with the world life no matter what. at large. In 2002, my discovery I had no idea what to in the garage of a small paper expect, so it follows that I had bag with several old reel-to-reel no idea he would be so open audio recording tapes became a about his life. While I have story for National Public Radio my own critique about how about my mothers voice. well written the story is, or Again, I had found my own isnt, the content is objectively kind of buried treasure. remarkable. While there may now be an adequate collection At a party back in San Francisco in 1984 or 85, I had of biographical information available, there wasnt much if met a friend of Art Clokeys daughter, Holly, and I dont

anything this revealing about Arts life up the list. Its my pleasure to share at the time. He shared intimate, at times this with everyone on what would deeply painful memories, recounting have been Arts 90th birthday. having been given up for adoption by his mother, his daughters suicide, his LSD therapy sessions, and his encounter with Gumbys Dad an Indian guru. An interview with the creator That may have actually contributed of the worlds best known little to my inability to sell the final article, green guy which I attempted to place with at least by a half-dozen major publications. I dont Michael W. Harkins know where those boilerplate rejection letters are now, but I do recall that each His childrens television of them had included a note from the show was a hit in the mid-fifties, editor as to how much everyone liked merchandise he inspired over Holly Harman, Art Clokeys step-daughter, now twenty years ago continues to Gumby, but didnt think the article an author of new Gumby stories, artist and was right for the publication. grow in popularity, and a multidesigner in Northern California Thats all part of the freelancers million dollar movie is in the learning process (no change in that at works. all from then to now), as is the other mistake I made with Not bad, for a little green guy named Gumby. the article: a book on Art and Gumby was published a year Many people know Gumby from early TV episodes, after my interview, and because of that I thought no one while others remember Gumby as the cute toy which would be interested in the article, so I shelved it. turned and twisted into endless shapes and poses. Theres Note to beginning freelancers: that was a bonehead also a huge group that knows televisions Saturday Night move. The additional interest and exposure of the book Live version of Gumby, with Eddie Murphy channeling a to the public actually would have helped generate more bombastic, Bizarro World version of everything the little interest in the article, an element of getting published that is guy isnt. still relevant today. Now, as a new generation discovers the Gumby and Sadly, I discovered that Art had died just a few months all his friends (including Pokey, his orange horse), most of before I rediscovered this story, but after deciding that I his fans know little if anything about Gumbys origins, or would put it out to the world with only slight revisions, I about the remarkable life of Gumbys creator, Art Clokey. was able to find Holly Harman, Arts daughter (amazingly, (A note from 2011: I believe I interviewed Art at his she was only a few miles up the highway from me), now a house in Mill Valley, California, but I cant be certain, and designer and illustrator, and let her know about the story. I dont know why I chose to leap into the interview without We met for lunch and talked about Art, her brother Joe mentioning where it took place. Based on conjecture and (who keeps Gumby alive via all things Gumby at www. objective evaluation of myself as a young writer, I conclude gumbyworld.com), and her own contribution to the Gumby that I was just so dang pleased that Art agreed to the legacy over the last few years as author of several original interview, and because I was still learning what the hell I Gumby story books, published by Chronicle Books and was doing, that theres no particular reason. through her own imprint (www.harmanpublishing.com). The lesson here for new writers is to realize that Ive been lucky throughout my life to have had the spaces in which people live and work can provide multiple, as David Letterman says, Brushes with Greatness, insights into a subjects life and personality. Including and my short but immersive time with Art Clokey is way those observations is important and often enlightening. My apologies for this aside; lets resume.) Keeper of all things Gumby, son Joe Clokey, Art Art Clokey is one part silver-haired English teacher, Clokey, and daughter Holly Harman one part philosopher, with a dose of court jester thrown in to keep things lively. His voice is soft and his clear blue eyes dart back and forth as he speaks. Gumbys animated adventures first appeared on television in 1956. Arising from bedtime stories told to his then nine-year old daughter, Ann, Gumbys adventures remained pure from imagination to TV screen because of
2 Gumby Found, copyright 2011, M.W. Harkins

their unaltered content. NBC saw the pilot film, was immediately taken by it and signed us up, says Art Clokey. I had complete freedom, Art points out. Very simple: no committees, no executives, no test audiences. On the network they went. The show was popular, but shortly after Gumbys first season an executive shakeup at NBC brought the axe down on several projects, and Gumby was one of them. They cut childrens programming. They didnt want to cut-out Howdy Doody, that was doing real well at the time. Fortunately, I got free from my contract and I was able to buy back the films. Free from the network, Art was approached by the Lutheran Church and asked to create a religious childrens series. Combining puppets with the claymation techniques developed for Gumby, Art produced the Davey and Goliath series, a Christian boy-and-his-lion story. But the bond between Art and his tiny green friend remained strong. I plowed the Davey and Goliath money into new Gumby films, expanding the series from 20 episodes to 130. Despite Gumbys early success and Arts persistence, the early sixties held little promise for the duos future. Art went through a divorce and Gumby had only moderate airplay in syndication. At that point I was trying to redistribute the series myself. New ones I had made. It was hard to get into the stations because at that time there was a glut of cartoons from the big studios. They were opening up their vaults, sweetening deals for their half-hour adult series by throwing in cartoons. Art sums up his situation at the time: I was going broke. In desperation, Art moved into a realm of business he had managed to avoid since Gumbys inception merchandising. Art created the Gumby rubber toy. I didnt like the idea. I didnt like the idea of manipulating children to buy things. The Gumby doll debuted in 1964, first in Los Angeles then New York. Sales were tremendous, the doll an instant success. Art licensed a manufacturer to make and distribute the toy. This allowed him to offer TV stations the Gumby show, plus revenues from commercial advertising of the new toy. The result? Within six months the Gumby series were all over the country, ninety-some stations. That was what got it going the toy is what enabled me to make a living. For the next twenty years Art and Gumby traversed the peaks and valleys of life and business, from the highs


of Hollywood living to the lows of family tragedy. Art became as resilient as his elastic green friend in overcoming obstacles and learning from them. Now, a Gumby renaissance has resurrected the diminutive adventurer to star status, with appearances on Saturday Night Live and national commercials. Gumby dolls now share shelf space with everything from Gumby T-shirts to ink pads. An astonishing result, considering Gumbys simple origins. Were trying to keep the merchandise and toys from distorting him. Its hard but we try. Its going to increase, and in a way I dont like it, but I cant avoid it. Gumby continues to grow in a manner Art never imagined, and this includes the evolution of Gumbys adventures through the years. After reviewing many episodes, Art discovered a strong symbolic similarity between his life and Gumbys stories. I was exposing my psyche before the world, to anyone that could read fantasies or dreams. I had full control of production, full control of direction and writing. Gumby is a reflection of my life. Art now lives in southern California with his wife Gloria, a far cry from Detroit and the brown-shingle house where he was born. His fondest childhood memories are of summers spent on grandfathers farm, where he had his most blissful experiences. Id go every summer for about three months. It was a custom. My mother and father liked to get out of the city. The trips came to an abrupt halt when he was nine years old. My parents divorced. My father, within a year, was killed in an auto accident. I was stranded in Detroit. My mother married this fellow who became a football coach in California. They had just had a child and my sister lived with them. I came out to live with them and (the man) gave my mother an ultimatum to either get rid of me or he would go. Arts resemblance to his deceased father was too much for the man to bear, because he was paranoid and guilt ridden. He had been a policeman in Detroit and we had rented a room to him at the start of the depression. He ended up taking my mother away while my father was off on twoweek vacation in Boston. Art recalls the turmoil in his childhood, amazed as anyone at the circumstances of his situation. My mother was on the horns of a dilemma. She had a new child, she didnt want the man to leave, so, she put me up for adoption. She placed me in a home for children in transit. He stayed with several other children under the care
Gumby Found, copyright 2011, M.W. Harkins

of an older German woman, who provided for children in unfortunate or special circumstances like Arts. The house was small and worn, but the womans heart was big and compassionate. She was like a surrogate mother, he remembers fondly. She liked me very much and wanted to make sure I got a good home. The woman proved to be the sunshine in Arts stormy childhood. She introduced him to a rainbow named Joe Clokey. She found this professor, Joe Clokey, and his wife, who were wonderful people, devout, religious people. He was a composer of sacred music, he taught music, he was an organist. He later became Dean of Arts at Miami University of Ohio, where I eventually graduated. As if trying to make up for earlier troubles, fate cushioned the pain of Arts forced adoption by placing him in paradise. Joe Clokey had an income that enabled him to live in a beautiful big home above a golf course, in the hills above Claremont, California. It was like a mansion to me. His adoption by Joe Clokey became a major turning point in Arts life. It was a wonderful piece of luck that I got out of that mess. I went from a little shack with a goat pen to this...place! The dining room was like a stage. It had curtains across, it was just beautiful. Joe Clokey liked to write and give operas. You could get one hundred people in the living room, it was thirty feet long. It was wonderful. His fascinating environment was complemented by an illuminating education. I had seven years of academic Latin, three of Greek, and three of French, and a little German. I was always associating with people who were educated, cultured, so I absorbed some of the best cultural background you could get. College found him majoring in geology, but, I didnt know what I wanted to do at all. I thought maybe Id be an actor. Art managed to get on a speakers bureau and presented small lectures accompanied by an eightmillimeter film on geology that he had spliced together. Art interrupted his second year of college during World War II to enlist in the Army Air Force. He served in several diverse capacities, and smiles as he remembers his first assignment. I drove a big truck full of bombs and fifty-caliber ammunition across the mountains in Algeria. I was just a casual waiting to be assigned and they needed reinforcements, so they put us guys in six-by-six trucks we had never driven. It was a real strange caravan, grunt and grind. Id see bombs off to the side of the road, where guys had gone around sharp turns.


He spent most of the war in Army Intelligence, debriefing pilots after missions and studying photographs of enemy positions or troop movements. Home after the war, Art enrolled in college but had a hard time deciding on a major course of study. He drifted from the classics, liberal arts, to mining geology. He ultimately decided to enter the ministry. Quite a swing of interests... A high priest was a good friend of Joe Clokeys and he would come over and they would talk a lot. I got imbued with this whole business of ministry and church. He entered a seminary in Connecticut and promptly met the girl who would be his first wife. They were married in 1948 by the girls father, a Swedish Lutheran pastor. Its a long way from Miami, Ohio to Hollywood, but thats where Art headed next. I got married, I didnt want to go back to the seminary. I didnt feel I was constitutionally prepared for taking on everybodys troubles. A growing interest in films and continuing interest in faith indicated his new direction. I decided to go out to Hollywood and make religious films. I could preach through the film medium. So he moved out West to the film capital of the world, and, I couldnt get a Job, he says emphatically. I wasnt a member of a union. Teaching part-time to support himself, Art enrolled in the cinema program at USC. Here he would discover his first guru, per se, in the guise of Slavko Vorkapich, head of the Cinema Department. Vorkapich had emigrated from Yugoslavia and worked on several Hollywood films, including Ingmar Bergmans Joan of Arc. He turned my head around completely, opened me up to the great potential of films, by teaching me the kinotegraphic film principles, which hardly anyone knows about today. Art studiously put together silent, sixteen-millimeter black-and-white films for class. One of his films featured stop-motion animated Coca-Cola bottles dancing on a table. The one-minute film was sent to Cokes main office in Atlanta. Coke sent back twelve storyboard scripts for twelve commercials to be aired nationally. They said, Let Art ignore the scripts, these are just to show him what we want to say. Let him use his own style. It was the beginning of a three year relationship and a showcase for Arts unique approach to film techniques. About a year later Anheuser-Busch called me and I started doing commercials for them too. In 1953, between shooting commercials, the seed of Gumby took root and began to sprout. Vorkapich had
Gumby Found, copyright 2011, M.W. Harkins

left USC but Art had continued to create films under the teachers guidance, taking them to Slavkos house for personal critiques. I decided to make a more complete study, like an MTV thing, but I only had two weeks to shoot between Budweiser commercials. He produced a movie called Gumbasia, a lively stop-motion animated romp of moving geometric shapes and forms, sculpted of clay, and accompanied by jazz music. Surprisingly, it wasnt a special attraction to clay or animation that decided the films subject matter. I wasnt interested in claymation at all. I did it in miniature because it was easier and faster than working with people that makes sense. One of Arts part-time jobs was tutoring, and one of his students was the son of Sam Engel, a producer for 20th Century Fox. He appreciated what I was doing for his son so he invited me over to the studio. I brought Gumbasia. Engels screened the film, once, then stood up and paced back and forth. He said, Art, this is one of the most exciting films Ive ever seen in my life. Here he was, the President of the Motion Picture Producers Association, and I thought, Oh wow!. He said Go back and design some characters. He financed the pilot film. Art designed the Gumby character with a specific purpose in mind: simplicity. I had to design Gumby very simple to be economical to do, to duplicate, he explains. As you manipulate the figures they disintegrate. Each animator had a tray of Gumbys, ready to replace after fifteen minutes or so. Complex figures would take too much time and money. They would get distorted too easily. Gumby is a very simple shape, so if you distort it a little bit, its still Gumby. (Another note from 2011: People who know Art and Gumbys history may also be aware that Art eventually concluded the distinctive shape of Gumbys head resembles the shape of Joe Clokeys hair. Several books that came out after I did this interview include a picture of Joe Clokey, and, indeed, the resemblance is evident.) NBC saw the pilot film and Gumby was on his way. A film that had taken four weeks to produce and shoot landed Art a multi-year contract with the television network. But even in its infancy, network politics ruled the roost, and Gumby was an early casualty of an executive shakeup. The late fifties and early sixties found Art trying to stay afloat in the television sea, attempting to distribute Gumbys series and stay alive. His decision to create the Gumby toy, the toys subsequent success and the positive affect it had on the TV series appeared to be a business triumph. But it


barely escaped being personal financial disaster for Art. Like so many others involved in marketing and merchandising In the sixties. Arts merchandise revenues almost slipped through the cracks of the dotted line on the contract. When the time came for Art to sign with the toy company, his attorney couldnt attend due to a scheduling conflict with a corporate client. In his place the attorney sent a bright but inexperienced young man who allowed Art to sign an agreement which heavily favored the manufacturer. I should have never done it. This sharpie (from the toy company) made out this thing on a yellow pad and had me sign it. I didnt know any better. Arts initial share in the toy revenues was less than twenty-five percent, and it would be years before he could renegotiate for a fairer percentage. Pressure, and the erratic work in the film and TV industries increased, strained Arts marriage. He divorced in 1966 and embarked on a quest for understanding and answers in his fragmenting life. He calls it his hippie stage. I was so unhappy with the divorce and not having Ann and Joe (his son) with me, and not seeing them grow everyday. I continued therapy with psychologists and psychiatrists, and one psychologist suggested that my therapy and awareness would be expedited by going to a clinic in Menlo Park, where mescaline and LSD were still legal. For four hundred dollars you would get an LSD or mescaline trip under the guidance of a psychiatrist and a nurse. It was a very religious experience. Art attended weekly sessions, each one more glorious than the last, and at times he reached the level of universal consciousness. He never had a negative experience and benefited from the therapy. There was just one problem. The feeling was wonderful but it always went away after about an hour or so. He believed there must be another way to do it permanently, and moved away from chemical therapy and into serious study of Eastern religions and gurus. By the early seventies the Gumby toy was bringing in revenue and boosted syndication of the series to almost 100 stations. Art settled in Northern California with his girlfriend, Gloria. Life seemed fine but Art missed his children and strived to maintain a close relationship with them while they lived in Los Angeles with their mother. The experience of his own neglect as a child compelled Art to never short change his children.We had wonderful times. His tone lightens. Wed go skiing
Gumby Found, copyright 2011, M.W. Harkins

with Ann and Joe at Sun Valley, and Vail, Aspen. The time was the sixties and the seventies, a time of major changes in philosophy and lifestyle, and Art admits to being propagandized into the acceptance of divorce. But it isnt! he stresses. It is being irresponsible to virtually abandon your children. Therapists we went to during the divorce, theyd say, I cant guarantee Ill get you back together again, all I can do is open you up and make you more aware of yourself. But therapists are amoral. They need to point out responsibilities more, the moral responsibility that the parents have for their children. Once again Art experienced loneliness because of someone taken away from him. The emptiness was familiar. I didnt want to abandon them, he says softly. I wanted them to come live with me. It broke Anns heart when I left. Joe was young, aboput two-and-a-half, three, but it broke her heart (she was eleven). We had a good rapport, it was just quite painful for her. As Ann got older she wanted to become a writer and settle in Mill Valley with Art and Gloria. But while visiting her mother, Ann had started to have trouble with a boyfriend, and fell into a depression when he rejected her. Art feels that her depression, deficient therapy, and the divorce of her own parents combined to overwhelm Ann, leaving her unable to cope. Her suicide at the age of nineteen devastated him. I had a daughter a wonderful, talented, beautiful daughter, who...uh... Lets see, she was going to college, she was in her second year of college. She was nineteen. She, uh, she hanged herself, December 12th, 1974. I cried for six months. Everyday. His voice tightening, Art recounts how the housekeeper who found Ann called the studio instead of the emergency squad. They said, My god, cut her down, cut her down! Because her neck had not been broken, the outcome might have been different if the emergency squad had been notified sooner. It was a tragedy of errors. He looks away for a moment. Theres a big blind spot in my life. He moved on, away from despair and into the sunshine of 1976. Art and Gloria married in a ceremony presided over by the Dean of the Episcopal Cathedral in Los Angeles. We had a beautiful, big wedding. Joe Clokey wrote the wedding suite music for it. Just to walk down that aisle with that music and a full choir Beautiful! The next few years Art occupied himself with buying


out several of the original principals in the merchandise agreement. He also created a new toy company for Gumby and a new film company. The influence of mystic religions had become a large part of Arts life. Through his years of study Art had become a follower of Sai Baba, an Indian guru of the highest order -- an avatar. He made several trips to India, on one occasion joining Sai Babas ceremony for ten-thousand followers. Art hoped to catch a glimpse of the guru as he passed through the crowd. He got an eyeful. I took a Gumby with me and held it up. Sai Baba stopped in front of me and materialized some vibhuti (a sacred substance that can only be generated by an avatar) in his hand. He showed me the bottom of his hand and I saw it, and he plopped it on the toy. It was a special blessing. When we got home things started, happening. Some art students in Pasadena had a strong love for Gumby. Their houses were filled with Gumby sculptures and pictures, and they interested the Beverly Hills Library in putting on a Gumby show. It only held, I think, sixty people in their little theatre in the library, but they had one-hundred-forty people standing up in there the night we did the show. And there was a whole row of kids in their late teens and early twenties that had made their own Gumby T-shirts to show us. This was in 1980, and at the second show there was an executive from the Landmark Theatre chain who asked us to do a series of shows all across the country in their theatres. So we put together about an hour-and-a-half of Gumby films and I would give a little talk, and answer questions at the end. Then the colleges started getting interested and lecture agents started getting colleges and universities for us. And then all of a sudden, Eddie Murphy...Bang! Now a classic slice of television comedy, Saturday Night Live gave Gumbys growing revival a tremendous boost when Eddie Murphy donned a life-sized Gumby costume, crammed a fat cigar in his mouth and sternly stated Im Gumby, damn it! Murphys pompous big-star portrayal of the gentle Gumby was a hit with the fans, and Gumby made many appearances before Murphys departure from the show. They called us first. They wanted to use film clips, thats how we got together. The idea with Eddie Murphy, we thought it was great, terrific publicity. He had the cigar and was all ego, and it was just the opposite of what (the audience) was expecting. To get humor you have to surprise people. We appreciated what Eddie Murphy did. Art and Gumby continue to ride a wave of surging
Gumby Found, copyright 2011, M.W. Harkins

popularity in the eighties. Gumby merchandise runs the gamut from key chains to watches. A book about Gumby will be published in the near future. Theres even a Gumby pizza chain in Florida. A new Gumby series is in development, while older episodes have been picked up for airing by one of the largest syndicators in the country. A complete series of Gumby episodes is available on video cassette. An indication of Gumbys newfound strength in the television market was the shows rating victory in its Los Angeles time slot over the popular He-Man cartoon series. And, oh yes, theres the Gumby movie... Gumby will be living in today. Hell have computers, robots. He has a band, an agent, a girlfriend, and a new mascot, of which Pokey, Gumbys lifelong orange companion, is jealous. The only thing hes not doing, what everybody else seems to be doing, is going into outer space. He wants to get this Earth situation straightened out. The blind curves on lifes highway appear to be behind Art now, his family now grown to include Gloria, her daughter Holly, his son Joe, and of course, Gumby and Pokey. How does he feel about life? Well as Sai Baba says, my message is my life. I went through all this turmoil, the divorce, my daughter. I went through therapy, including chemicals, searching... trying to become better, more aware. Then I went back and looked at the Gumby films of 73, 72, and others, and I was absolutely amazed, because it was here that I had exposed my psyche. I was operating on my sub-conscious. The Gumby experience is a big part of Arts life, but his most pressing concern is of family. I feel that I would do anything to educate people, to know their moral responsibility -- They are duty bound to use every means possible to keep that relationship going. For the children and fo themselves. Toys, television, books, and movies. It could all be so very complicated, but its simple from Art Clokeys point-of-view. Some hippies have said, back in the sixties, that to them Gumby is a symbol of love. I think thats true. Peoples lives are whats important. And the key to life? Love, he says simply. Thats the key to everything. *** M.W. Harkins 7/7/86, revised 2011

Michael W. Harkins is a writer, editor, communications consultant and author of The Way to Communicate, a practical and philosophical guide to building enlightened person-to-person communication skills in a time of expanding personal disconnection. He can be contacted through his blog, www.thewaytocommunicate.wordpress.com

Gumby Found, copyright 2011, M.W. Harkins