Thursday, September 20, 2007

Thoughts on the Ontological Transformation of Gumby

Maybe it's fatherhood that does this to you.

I had the Gumby theme song in my head this morning. It occurred to me that a critical piece of information is missing from the song:

"He was once..."

Ooohh good, a story!!

"... a little green slab of clay"

Really??! Clay?! Holy cow! So what happened?

"but you should see"

Yeah!???? Tell me!!!

what Gumby can do today."

Huh??

"He can walk into any book"

But how did he...?

"with his pony pal Pokey too..."

But how did the clay....?

"If you got a heart"

Yes, but is that really at issue here...?

"Then Gumby's a part.."

He's a part of something? Something magic?

"...of yooouuuuuuuu!!"

Me??! Whaddya mean ME?

(end music)

So what the heck happened there? We start out with this inanimate green slab, we're on the cusp of this great fairy-tale transformation, and then BAM.... right into "lookee what he can do". I know what he can do! I'm sitting at the TV watching him do it! But how can he do it? How does clay get this power? Magic? Vitamins?

See what I'm saying here? There's an ontological transformation that's just TOTALLY glossed over.

This ain't just idle speculation here, folks. Somehow this creature is apparently part of ME. I can't just brush that off.

Maybe I need to watch the intro again....there might be some visual cues I don't remember.

And no, Wikipedia doesn't know either.

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