Rating: Summary: [bad] rhino! Review: ... Bad enough they took out the classic theme song but then to remove the orginal soundtracks is an absolute outrage. There is nothing on the box or in any of the advance press to tell you they futzed with the soundtrack. I had no idea these things were redone in the eighties. I'm sure the people at Rhino are too young to know the difference. This is the last Rhino product I ever buy. By the way, I only gave this one star because there is no option for zero stars! This thing deserves negative stars.
Rating: Summary: Almost didn't buy it....GLAD I DID! Review: After reading a number of negative reviewes about this set, I was pretty sure I didn't want to buy it. People complained that the music wasn't original. They said the original print looks bad.
After buying this set a couple of months ago...I'm really glad I did. I love it!
Firstly, the music: I'm 35 and I remember watching Gumby on TV very very early in the morning. You know what I don't remember? I don't remember what the music sounded like. Mind you, I would absolutely love to hear it with the original music. At the very beginning of the Gumby The Movie there is some kind of martian person sitting in an easy chair watching an episode of Gumby. The music that's in it is probably the original soundtrack. Strings and flutes. I love that stuff. Kind of like perky 101 Strings. I love the fact that old TV shows had lots of neat incidental music. (crash your fathers new Buick, you get a bassoon or whooping trombones, that's all gone. Too bad, I never get sick of it.) The music that's on this set however just..fits. In fact, it sounds a lot like the music in the Gumby Movie. It's made with some kind of electronic keybord. I never think about the original music anymore..like I did before I actually bought and watched the set.
Secondly, the print: It's fine. The colors seem a bit washed out. I recently bought a new TV and it looks better. These are old films. They sould look old. Any jumps or hairs or whatever is bothering people in the print is minimal. Once again based on reading the reviews, I expected it to look crummy and I expected it to sound lousy. I like reviews. I like Amazon reviews. Reviews are one of the best features of Amazon. In this one case, I think some people could be misled by the reviewers who remember Gumby either differently or more accurately than the rest of us. So, they're disapointed with this product. Maybe I remember Gumby just well enough to know I wanted this set, but not so well that I felt any kind of let down.
My only complaints are that: The DVD takes about a minute and a half to go through it's pre-menu deal. You have to watch an FBI warning, then you have to watch a Rhino ball bounce up and down with "splat" and "whisker pluck" sounds thrown in, then you have to watch a lame newly claynimated Gumby, Pokey and Rhino rhino sitting on a couch before you can get to the main menu. Then, there is a canned intro to each and every single episode. There's a Pokey one, a Gumby one, a Goo one, and a Ma n Pa Gumby intro. They're brand new and very bright. They say the same exact thing every single time. I hate them. Lastly, the packaging is akward. I'm going to buy 7 CD/DVD envelopes instead and throw the box into the fire.
Don't be too much of a purist here. It's a great set, it's fun, it's damn good, it's loaded with lot's of cool vintage toys, situations that don't make any sense, and plots that don't resolve.
Lastly, the interview with Dal McKennon (Kinnon?) is useless. He's a kook, you hear the answers, but not the questions. It had to have been pieced together by an amateur. I wish there were more than 112 episodes.
Rating: Summary: IF YOU WATCHED GUMBY IN THE 80s+ YOUL LOVE IT Review: All these other reviews down this dvd so much, i grew up with gumby in the late 80s early 90s and i cant notice a difference in music or voice quality, which is what everyones complaining about, i do notice in the early episodes, there voices are different, but thats obviosly how they started out. This dvd is true to the era of gumby in the 80s. This is the best box set i have ever owned, and will be treasured for ever. I reccommend not thinking twice about buying it, think once and think yes. This is a classic to show the kids, and they will love it as much as you did. This is a great buy, and i give it 5 stars.
Rating: Summary: A Dead Drag Review: Although I LOVE Rhino, and am forever grateful for their ever-expanding catalogue and preservation of potentially lost pop culture arcana, this set is disastrous. I wrote a letter of complaint to the company, and was told that the original music could not be afforded, so Rhino chose to release the botched rehashes from the 1980s. What galls me (in addition to the mere fact that they would dare release these treasures in this format in the first place) is the marketing which makes NO MENTION of the rotten synthesizer musak and the chopped up episodes. The packaging gives the altogether false impression that you are getting the real thing, in its original glory. WHY???!!!???
Rating: Summary: The Soundtrack is Brutal! Review: Art Clokey's Gumby episodes are surreal masterpieces. The innovative and imaginative visuals are the only aspects that saved this box set from the rubbish bin. I originally saw the Gumby cartoons with the original soundtracks, quirky tunes that well complemented the atmosphere in the Gumby episodes. I have to agree with the appalled reviewers who are disgusted with this box set. A young child who has not seen the originals will not know the difference in the music and may enjoy the set, but a seasoned Gumby fan will not be happy with this purchase.
The extras and the packaging are supurb, but the main features, the Gumby cartoons, are utterly ruined by the awful synth soundtracks. The new music is irritating and annoying to the extent of disrupting the action on screen. The plunky goofy nursery rhyme melodies are often louder than the dialogue. Instead of underscoring what is going on in the shows, the music competes and many times overpowers the wonderful images. To add insult to injury, the incompetent engineer who mixed the sound somehow caused an "echo" /reverb on the characters voices, which gives their voices a distracting tinny quality that is franky just poor sound mixing. Can someone at Rhino explain why they spent so much time on the extras but aren't presenting the cartoons the way they were originally intended?
Rating: Summary: In response to many reviews here.. Review: As I've posted, like that Akira fellow, I agree with Rick..I have the Capitol Music scored 1980s FAMILY HOME ENTERTAINEMNT Gumby;'s, and they hold uyp, the modern day music sounds horrible.. Carrie Keller is right on ab0ou the licensing and longer epeisode issues (the earlier ones in the syndication DID seem like they came in pairs, and that first, outer space one had THREE parts remade.."MOON TRIP" and in either order - I'm just using alphabetical order here-"GUMBY ON THE MOON?TRAPPED ON THE MOON")..thanks Carrie Keller (another two time poster here) for the explaination there and for admitting the original music was great even though you also enjoy the new music. To the several who seem to be actng like most reviews of the GUMBY box set are mean, it isn't that anyone is mean per se here, but rather it's coming from (in many a case) an older fan of the show who recalls the audio, music for the roginals, before the 1980s "video rights" thing (Capitol's own superstar Peggy Lee had it out with Disney at the time over 1955's LADY AND THE TRAMP, so did the House of Mouse's SLEEPY BEUATY (1959), Mary Costa, the Fox and the Hound writer Daniel P.Mannixx,etc.) (This also happened to the old Captain Video space ace 1950s raido/tv series when sponsor Ovaltine held the rigths to the name..names are even changed, as Jack Webbmight say in still antoher beloved TV property to change the legally protected innocent.This happened with CASPER too, to composer WInston Sharple's music, but the difference for me was, see, I never partticarly cared for those..I did like the Sharples music and loved the 1958-59 FELIX and his MAGICO BAG cartoons with that score...Rhino, as otrhers have said, you can do better, and you usually do much more than better.
Rating: Summary: Soundtrack is NOT Original Review: Deeply disappointed by "updated" soundtrack with irritating music created by a synthezier, different voices used, and completely different sound effects... If an "original soundtrack" version is ever offered, I will purchase it.
Rating: Summary: Gumby's the greatest Review: Don't let the reviews of other people fool you. Any original animation of Gumby is superb, no matter whats going on with the soundtrack
Rating: Summary: Gumby's the greatest Review: Don't let the reviews of other people fool you. Any original animation of Gumby is superb, no matter whats going on with the soundtrack
Rating: Summary: Gumby is great... Box set is good. Review: Four stars is for not having the original audio stuff... But I would easily give the green guy five if it wasn't for that sad detail. I felt compelled to write this review based on the fact that I think some of my fellow Gumby fans are playing hardball. First of all, I am stoked that Rhino got the box set out... Sure, it could have used the original music... Maybe it was destroyed? We don't know the details and shouldn't assume we do. It is also very obvious by watching the shows in order, (in response to another reviewer), that the original Gumby series was 12 min. long. Notice how the episodes that follow each other have the same theme??? They are the same episode cut into two pieces... They did that way back when I was a kid to make shorter shows! (that is not a new feature of this set). What I would have liked to see done was to piece the old 50's episodes back together...That would be cool. I also like that they are presented in chronological order, so you can watch how the production changed over the years! I would also like to see a release of the 80's Gumby show... I wonder if that is in the works?
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