Today marks the 90th anniversary of the birth of Art Clokey, a pioneer in the field of stop motion clay animation, who is best remembered for what green shapeshifter?
Art Clokey clay animations, produced by Premavision Studios. Art Clokey Arthur "Art" Clokey (born Arthur Charles Farrington; October 12, 1921 – January 8, 2010) was an American pioneer in the popularization of stop motion clay animation, best known as the creator of the character Gumby and the original voice of Gumby's sidekick, Pokey. Clokey's career began in 1955 with a film experiment called "Gumbasia", which was influenced by his professor, Slavko Vorkapich, at the University of Southern California. Clokey and his wife Ruth subsequently came up with the clay character Gumby and his horse Pokey, who first appeared in the "Howdy Doody
Art Clokey teacher Ray Alf, who took students on expeditions digging for fossils and learning about the world around them. Clokey later studied geology at Pomona College, before leaving Pomona in 1943 to join the military during World War II. He graduated from his father's alma mater, Miami University, in 1948. Art Clokey also made a few highly experimental and visually inventive short clay animation films for adults, including his first student film "Gumbasia" (produced in 1953 and released in 1955), the visually rich "Mandala" (1977) — described by Clokey as a metaphor for evolving human consciousness — and the equally bizarre