A while back, I asked some blogger friends if they’d want to write a piece for my Share Your Nostalgia feature. In the past we have looked at Favorite Childhood Toy and Favorite Childhood Book. Today, we go back to Saturday mornings. This was when we sat in front of the TV with our favorite cereal and watched hours of cartoons. So I asked my guests to write about their favorite cartoon or cartoon character growing up.

The guest blogger who will get the topic rolling is my friend Randy from Mostly Music Covers. I loved his site from the moment I discovered it. His site is a wealth of cover songs, many of them I was unfamiliar with. Check out his site and see if someone has covered your favorite song. Let’s find out what Randy has picked …

My thanks to Keith for asking me to contribute to this round of his trips down memory lane. I didn’t have to think about it at all when he asked about our favorite animated program as a kid.

The Gumby Show was one of a few stop-motion animated television shows from the 1950s and 60s. It was created by Art Clokey who did many of the voices as well. The principal method was to use Claymation. He created another show called Davey and Goliath that I quite enjoyed as well. The main character is the age of a young child. Gumby is a grey/green clay figure who, along with his orange horse friend Pokey, embarked on various adventures.

The Gumby and Pokey characters were of course made into toys, which were made of rubber. They had a simple wire skeleton of sorts so you could bend them into different poses. They came as a pair and were reasonably priced, making them widely accessible.

The Gumby Show ran from 1956-1969. Gumby was from a 1953 movie short called Gumbasia but the addition of Pokey first appeared on the Howdy Doo – Dee show in 1956. It was then spun off into it’s own series. They would typically find themselves in toy shops or interacting with various toys that come to life. For example, in the episode “Toying Around,” Gumby and Pokey have fun in a toy shop, and an inflated balloon carries Pokey high in the air, leading Gumby to find a method to rescue his friend. Another episode, “Robot Rumpus” features Gumby using robots to do his chores around the house while he and Pokey play, but the robots get out of control.

Consider that last theme of uncontrollable robots, so it’s not surprising that I and many others developed a strong admiration for Isaac Asimov and his “I, Robot” series.

I am not entirely sure what Gumby’s source of income was to be able to afford all this but as a kid you don’t think about those things. My recollection is that the adventures made the show not only entertaining but quite magical seeing the animated toys and creatures appear lifelike. I recall taking Gumby and Pokey to show and tell in Kindergarten and while they lasted a few years, the pair were eventually bent into oblivion. I don’t recall exactly when I grew out of the show but just like “Little Jackie Paper” we move on to the next thing.