Friday, September 18, 2009

Cultural divides

Try explaining to your Lebanese boyfriend and his sister why you just bought yourself a set of small bendable plastic figures--one a green fellow with oddly slanted pointy head, and one an orange pony.

"It's Gumby and Pokey!"

Blank stares.

"They had a TV show when I was a kid. They went in and out of books!"

Blank stares.

"Never mind."

7 comments:

3carnations said...

Oh come on. Surely they have cartoons there that they could compare this to. Turn on a cartoon and explain that it's "like that".

lizgwiz said...

But Gumby and Pokey weren't just any old cartoon--they were stop-animated! Try explaining that to someone who speaks very little English. Hee. I think they were probably mostly just confused as to why an adult would buy herself such silly toys. ;)

jazyjen said...

Sigh!Where can a girl find a guy whose heard of Gumby and Pokey?

stinkypaw said...

Their loss, and you're one lucky woman for finding these figurines!

nancypearlwannabe said...

It's a good thing you didn't try to describe "claymation" to him!

flurrious said...

You should show them the Eddie Murphy sketches. Then they'll really be confused.

SUEB0B said...

I went to college with Gumby's son. Ok, the son of the creator. Joe Cloakey. He was SUCH a sweet guy - it was obvious his dad was a special person. He had this innocent childlike wonder...kinda like Gumby.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Clokey