Since I had not spotted this set in any brick and mortar retailers, I ordered the set off Amazon about a week after release when the price had dropped to $14.99, which is what each of the first two sets were selling for at Best Buy when they were released. For those who were hoping to just walk into Best Buy, Target or Walmart and buy a copy, you've had no other options excpet Amazon. Well, it looks like that is about to change as the news blog on the Gumby website says that this set will be on store shelves for the Holiday shopping season.
As I have watched the entire set and all the bonus content, let me just say that once the 1980's series gets released, that "Gumby Essentials" DVD will become obsolete. All the bumpers from the Essentials disc are on this set. There is one promo bumper from the early 1960's that was not on the Essentials disc, but has been on YouTube for quite some time. The full version of the film "The Clay Peacock" is included, as I had only seen short clips from this film on YouTube. The 1967 theme song is included as well. On the first few sets, the 1967 theme is only brifely heard during the menu screens. There are interviews with animators who had worked on Gumby, and they were all done during the event GumbyFest. The video of these interviews is also availble to watch on YouTube.
Perhaps the most interesting inclusion in the bonus materials is an unreleased Gumby theme song from the 1960's. A few clips from this film did make it into the 1967 "Heart" theme song. The sequence for this song ends with the the title "A Gumby Thanksgiving Special". I am curious if there was such a TV special. The only episodes that would fit the bill would be "Pilgrims on the Rocks" and "Pokey's Price", and those two episodes do not make a full half-hour TV special.
In other news, I saw a listing on Amazon for Gumby: The Movie, and a release date of February 2017. The listing was for a DVD, but Joe Clokey has said that a Blu-Ray release is possible as a high-definition transfer of the film does exist.