Moving Mountains for Gumby.
Your favorite clay stop-motion animation star Gumby now has a reality show episode under his belt. In April 2015, Gumby and the Clokeys (the family that created Gumby) appeared on A&E’s Shipping Wars show.
In celebration of Gumby’s 60th Birthday, Arizona State University hosted a special Gumby exhibit in a gallery on its Tempe campus. Shipping Wars engaged professional shippers to bid on the opportunity to ship the Gumby exhibit to Arizona. The winning team packed up priceless memorabilia, photos and delicate clay puppets, sets and very tiny fragile props and delivered them to the gallery, 850 miles away across the desert. One set included snowy mountains made of wood and plaster 18’ long and 8’ high, a ski patrol house, Gumby’s winter cabin and snow banks. Packing, loading and this precious cargo was a challenge to say the least.
One of the shippers was so enamored with Gumby, her childhood hero, that she insisted on helping set up the exhibit and she even stuck around afterwards to kick off the exhibit in true Gumby style. You’ll have to watch the show to see how the journey and event unfolded.
If you missed the show when it first aired, check the A&E website, YouTube and your local cable listings to see where you can watch it now. You can catch a short clip of it here:
http://www.aetv.com/shipping-wars/video/bringing-down-the-gumby-house
Read more about the Gumby exhibit at ASU.
From left to right: Peter Bugg (Gallery Director), Todd and Tamera (Shipping Wars stars), Joan Clokey, Joe Clokey, Chris May (Director)