The Blockheads—Square Thinkers
After the Katzenjammer Kids and before Beavis and Butthead, there were the Blockheads. “G” Blockhead and “J” Blockhead are both numskulls. They know only one way to do anything: the hard way, often at someone else’s expense, and usually at Gumby’s expense. But where did they come from?
“I used to read about the Katzenjammer Kids on Sunday morning in the Sunday paper. In the comic strips they were on the very top of the page. They were always getting in trouble. When their father was climbing a ladder, they were sawing halfway through the rungs, and their father was up there. It was awful! The Blockheads are kind of like them. Always in trouble. They started in a toy store. We used a toy store setting for Gumby, and we always had blocks in the store. The Blockheads evolved from the blocks that we had in the store.”
In “The Blockheads,” the mischievous duo puts ice cream in a milkshake for Gumby. But, since Gumby freezes up when he has ice cream, he always orders milkshakes without ice cream. Gumby drinks the milkshake and freezes, becoming as stiff as a board. He needs warm blankets and coffee to restore him for another go at teaching the Blockheads a lesson.
In “The School for Squares,” the Blockheads put Indian children who have tee-pee heads into a press that turns their heads into blockheads. Fortunately, Gumby is able to repair their heads on a potter’s wheel. The Blockheads never leave well enough alone!