Chance Hippler and Jeff O’Brien meet while attending college at The University of Florida

Hippler and O’Brien agree to launch a pizza concept centered around the Gumby character
brand.

Hippler and O’Brien obtain an initial two-year license from Art Clokey, creator of the Gumby
characters, to use Gumby and Pokey for a pizza restaurant concept.

First Gumby’s Pizza location opens in Gainesville, Florida. Chance and Jeff work 100 hour
weeks and eventually are able to squeeze out $50/week in salary.

Art and Gloria Clokey travel to Gainesville, Florida to meet with Chance Hippler and Jeff O’Brien
and to see the very first Gumby’s Pizza location in person. Walking into the small but energetic
college-town shop, the creators of the beloved clay character were able to see how their
creation had already taken on a new life with students and late-night pizza crowds. The meeting
was enthusiastic and optimistic, with the parties excitedly discussing the possibility of a
long-term licensing agreement for the United States. What began as a simple visit quickly
turned into a bigger conversation about the future of the brand and how Gumby and Pokey
could grow alongside the expanding Gumby’s Pizza concept.

On June 27, 1986, Art Clokey and Gumby’s sign the license agreement that, together with the
1991 memorialization, would quietly shape the direction of the brand for more than three
decades, a long stretch during which the relationship operated smoothly and without incident.
License Agreement 6.27.86.pdf
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1dlWp5S1rPpKg7S3qbe1tXnkehxWx6ahq/view?usp=sharing

Gumby’s Pizza's second location opens at Florida State University in Tallahassee, FL. Chance
and Jeff would fondly remember this as a huge milestone in the history of Gumby’s Pizza.

Joe O’Brien, Jeff’s father, becomes a long time advisor to the company and eventually acquires
an equity stake in the company. Joe, a US Naval Academy graduate, Navy test pilot, and war
hero with tours in Viet Nam, was very much welcomed with his vast experience as an operator
of Hardees and Fuddruckers restaurants.
In an ironic twist that adds intrigue to the story four decades later, Joe O’Brien would go on to
marry Mary Lou Riggins, the former wife of NFL Super Bowl MVP John Riggins. Mary Lou and
Riggins share four children together, all of whom hold a vested interest connected to the Gumby
license. Riggins later married attorney Lisa Marie Riggins, who in 2017 founded Fairness for
Athletes in Retirement (FAIR), an organization created to advocate for pension equality for NFL
players who retired before 1993 and often received minimal benefits despite long careers in the
league.
Through FAIR, Lisa Marie Riggins led a sometimes combative national campaign pushing for
pension reform, working with former players and public advocates to pressure the National
Football League and the National Football League Players Association during collective
bargaining negotiations. Those efforts contributed to a major breakthrough when the NFL and
NFLPA committed more than $1 billion to increase pensions for pre-1993 retirees. Fox
Corporation is a decades-old partner with the NFL, who has a very contentious relationship with
the Riggins family.
https://washingtonian.com/2019/02/10/bad-news-for-the-nfl-john-riggins-wife-lisa-marie-riggins-i
s-a-lawyer/

Gumby’s accelerates its national expansion with new locations opening in major college markets
including the University of Georgia, Texas A&M, UNC–Chapel Hill, University of Michigan,
Arizona State University, University of Texas–Austin, University of Illinois, Michigan State
University, Ohio State University, North Carolina State University, University of South Florida,
University of Connecticut, and Alexandria, Virginia. By targeting large university communities
known for late-night food culture and passionate sports fan bases, Gumby’s positioned itself
squarely in the heart of America’s college-town economy.

Throughout the decade, Gumby’s Pizza continued its steady expansion into major college
towns and vibrant urban neighborhoods across the United States, building a reputation as
a late-night staple for students and sports fans alike. New locations opened at the University of
Missouri, Iowa State University, Emory University in Atlanta, University of California–Berkeley,
Virginia Tech University, University of Virginia, University of Colorado–Boulder, East Carolina
University, University of Wisconsin–Madison, Hartford, Connecticut, University of Iowa,
University of Kansas, Kansas State University, Madison – Lake Monona, South Tampa, Penn
State University, South Austin, Texas, SW Texas – San Marcos, UNC Wilmington, University of
Alabama, and Ft. Lauderdale, Florida.
Throughout the decade, Gumby’s Pizza was consistently ranked on Pizza Today magazine’s
Top 100 list of largest pizza chains in America, a reflection of the brand’s growing footprint and
the remarkable success of a company that began as a single college-town pizza shop. �

In the early morning of June 14, 1991, Marshall Ledbetter, then a student at Florida
State University, broke into the Florida State Capitol building, barricaded himself in a
room, and made a number of odd demands This triggered a police standoff that
eventually ended peacefully. Ledbetter told them that he wanted a 20” veggie pizza from
Gumby's Pizza(first on the list), a case of beer, a CNN news crew,and $100 worth of
Chinese food. The demand note was not sent directly to the police but was faxed to the
song request fax line of Gulf 104, a local rock station. The police surrounded the capitol
building and set up SWAT teams and snipers throughout the area, while Marshall
Ledbetter demanded that the police get the following people on the telephone so that he
could talk to them: Timothy Leary, Jello Biafra, Ice Cube and Lemmy Kilmister. Over
1,000 of the exact same pizza would be ordered over the next week throughout the
Gumby’s Pizza chain.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marshall_Ledbetter

https://www.amazon.com/Making-Sense-Marshall-Ledbetter-Political/dp/08130601
68?tag=ustxtaddt-20

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1o8WUE1bf6SxcIjzcK8muGqGJLziT5q7C/view?usp=sharing

Gumby’s Pizza launches an ambitious co-branding deal with Fuddrucker’s Gourmet
Burgers with a location inside the Fuddrucker’s in Overland Park, Kansas. Art Clokey
travels to the grand opening and stays a week at the home of Joe O’Brien. Art, Joe,
Chance, and Jeff use this opportunity to capitalize on a frozen pizza deal with Kroger
Supermarkets.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1uThEP4qiK6oYdeuOVXSn1rrGxvVp_RCf/view?usp=sharing
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1WhMR7xEIkVVfL71BMKsvRZUS7ljYFKIx/view?usp=sharing

Gumby’s Pizza launches locations at Illinois State University, University of Madison - Downtown,
Tampa - Bayside, Southern Illinois University, South Tampa, West Virginia University, St
Petersburg, FL, Western Michigan University, University of Madison - East Towne

The Gumby cartoon character is recognized in a CNN and TV Guide poll as the 16th most
iconic character of all time, placing the small green clay figure among some of the most
recognizable characters in entertainment history. The ranking highlighted how deeply Gumby
had embedded himself in American pop culture since his debut in the 1950s. Creator Art Clokey
personally thanks Chance & Jeff for reviving the character and keeping Gumby popular with a
new generation.
https://www.cnn.com/2002/SHOWBIZ/TV/07/30/cartoon.characters.list/

Chance and Jeff celebrate the 30 year anniversary of Gumby’s Pizza with a packed celebration
at their flagship restaurant in Gainesville. The party brings together longtime employees, loyal
customers, and friends who had been part of the brand’s journey since its early college-town
days. Stories from the early years are shared over slices of pizza and Pokey Stix, as the
founders reflect on how two college friends who started with a single shop in the 1980s had built
a business that became a staple in college towns across the country. The night feels less like a
corporate milestone and more like a hometown reunion for the extended Gumby’s family. 🍕🎉
https://www.gainesville.com/story/business/economy/2015/11/01/uf-dropouts-celebrate-3
0-years-of-gumbys-pizza/31224328007/
https://www.alligator.org/article/2015/10/30-years-of-pizza-at-gumby-s

After being contacted by executives at Goldbelly, a company that works with many of the most
well-known restaurant brands in the United States to ship their signature foods nationwide
through FedEx, Gumby’s Pizza agreed to launch on the platform. The response was immediate.
Orders started coming in from all over the country as longtime fans and curious first-time
customers rushed to have the world famous Gumby’s Pizza famous pizza shipped straight to
their homes.
Demand quickly became so strong that founder Chance Hippler had to step in and limit
shipments to 50 orders per week because the volume was beginning to interfere with the
normal day-to-day operations of the restaurants. Even with that limit, the first year on Goldbelly
turned into a milestone for the brand. Gumby’s Pizza shipped its famous pizza, Pokey Stix, and
Pepperoni Rolls to customers in all 50 states - twice, proving that what started as a
college-town pizza shop had grown into something with a truly national following.

Gumby’s Pizza begins work on a digital gift card and rewards program designed for the modern
online ordering era. As development progresses, the concept evolves beyond a simple
stored-value card into a broader digital coin ecosystem that could be used for promotions,
loyalty rewards, and customer engagement across the brand’s platforms. These coins would
become known as Gumby Coin, Pokey Coin, Blockhead Coin, and Gumby Metaverse Coin,
representing a new experimental way for fans of the 40-year-old pizza brand to interact with the
Gumby universe in a digital format while earning and redeeming value tied to food and
beverage purchases.

Gumby Coin officially goes live on Thanksgiving Day 2021, marking the public launch of
Gumby’s Pizza’s digital coin and loyalty ecosystem. The holiday timing was intentional — a
symbolic nod to gratitude for the loyal customers who helped build the brand over decades,
while also celebrating the start of a new digital chapter for the company. On the same day
families across America were gathering for Thanksgiving dinner, Gumby fans were discovering
a new way to interact with the brand online through Gumby Coin, Pokey Coin, Blockhead
Coin, and Gumby Metaverse Coin, which were designed to function as digital gift cards,
promotional rewards, and future ecosystem tokens tied to the Gumby’s Pizza universe.
Extreme Compressed Merged White Paper FINAL FINAL 11.24.21_compressed (1).pdf
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Ni3dCJNfJNw6tZk4D2W9mi9eVavHKRve/view?usp=sharing