On Saturday Night Live in the 1980s, Eddie Murphy parodied the green clay character Gumby.
Murphy’s version transformed the gentle children’s character created by animator Art Clokey into an irritable, cigar-chomping celebrity. Gumby regularly demanded respect from television executives and insisted on his star status with the catchphrase “I’m Gumby, dammit!”
The parody began in 1982, during Murphy’s early SNL years. It was deliberately different from the original Gumby, whose adventures were built around cheerful stop-motion fantasy and the character’s ability to stretch and reshape himself. Murphy’s exaggerated performance helped make the sketch one of his best-known recurring SNL characters.
A common mix-up is choosing Pokey, Gumby’s orange pony companion. Pokey appeared in the original franchise and sometimes figured in Gumby-related material, but Murphy’s famous impersonation was specifically Gumby. The SNL sketches also helped renew public attention in the character during the 1980s.