The green, humanoid figure that starred in a long-running U.S. television show that started in 1957 is still beloved by his four-legged sidekick, Pokey, and by millions of people who watched the show.
Among those fans is a man who put on a full-figured Gumby costume and made a botched attempt to rob a 7-Eleven store in California on Thursday.
Here are some facts that the felon, who failed to produce a gun because he couldn’t fit his hand in the pocket of his costume, and his fellow Gumby fans should know:
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* Gumby was created in the early 1950s by a student at the University of Southern California named Art Clokey and his wife, Ruth.
* Gumby’s legs were disproportionately wide so that the clay character could remain standing during stop-motion filming.
* Gumby’s head was shaped like a cone on one side to mimic the hairstyle of Clokey’s father, who had sported an impressive cowlick.
* Clokey’s first animated film was called Gumbasia. The three-minute epic featured “claymation” characters and boasted a montage of moving and expanding lumps of clay set to music.
* Gumby appeared on the Howdy Doody Show in 1956, and was given his own show the following year.
* Gumby’s pals included Pokey, a yellow dinosaur called Prickle as well as a flying blue blob whose illustrious name was Goo.
* Gumby’s popularity surged again in the 1980s with Eddie Murphy did a send-up of him on Saturday Night Live. That led to a spike in Gumby toy sales and a new syndicated series in 1988.
* Clokey died last year. Gumby lives on.
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