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A Miner Affair / All Cooped Up / Gumby's Circus
Season 1 · Episode 5 · Jan 30, 1988
A Miner Affair:
On the way to a gig in Tombstone Gulch, Gumby and friends are stopped by an old silver miner, who forces them, with his sheer charisma and a long whip, to work in his silver mine. Goo causes a distraction, which must involve their band equipment for some reason, and Gumby and Pokey dump a load of silver ore on him. They escape easily, and make it to the gig. The silver miner has the intelligence to follow them into town, where he's recognized and arrested almost immediately.
All Cooped Up:
While Gumby and friends are away, the Blockheads steal Chilly, the only chicken on Gumby's farm. They take her to the Eggspedition Building at Chickenco. What follows is a far too real description of corporate farming: chickens are kept in cramped cages for their entire lives, forced to lay eggs until they grow too old and then. . . . Well, it's still a children's show, so they don't go on to say. Chilly fakes an illness by not laying eggs, and when she's removed from her cage, she escapes the building, but gets stopped by the fence. We have to wrap it up quick, though, so Gumby and friends very conveniently come along and save her. Gumby shuts Chickenco down, and the world is safe once again.
Gumby's Circus:
Gumby decides to take advantage of the freaky qualities of his friends and family and puts on his own circus. My, but there's a lot to see. Denali shoots ice cubes into a bucket, Minga does a cartwheel, a walrus does a trapeze act, and there's a special request return performance by the growing and shrinking beetle from "The Beetle and the Caterpillar". The Blockheads try to sneak in to see the wonderful spectacle, but when they can't break in, they cut the ropes that hold Gumby's tent up. Nothing important happens, and the Blockheads are caged up, presumably to become part of Gumby's traveling show.
