Art Clokey 1921-2010

Art Clokey, creator of Gumby, died this morning according to San Luis Obispo.com. Clokey, who lived in Los Osos, California was 89.

Clokey popularized clay animation with his Gumby cartoons in the 1950s and 60s. His studio thrived for decades doing various Gumby adventures and Davey and Goliath films for television. An excellent illustrated Clokey timeline is at the Premavision website. Gumbasia (1955) is the film that started it all – it’s success led directly to creating the Gumby universe and the Clokey style:

Here are Clokey’s opening titles for Dr. Goldfoot and His Bikini Machine (1965) – with vocals by The Supremes:

Clokey also did a more inventive 3-minute opening title sequence for How To Stuff a Wild Bikini (1965). No one posted that on You Tube, but the whole film is available free (and high quality) on Hulu.