Goodbye Art Clokey, Creator of Gumby

Art Clokey, the animator who created Gumby, the claymation star of one of my favorite kids' shows in the 1950's, passed away last Friday (see obituary in the New York Times on January 11, 2010).  As I noted in my previous post about the Gumby Show, the program was the first extended use of stop-motion animation on television.  As a child, I was enchanted by the primitive-looking animation on the show and the fact that Clokey didn't try to make his characters and sets look realistic but instead celebrated the fact that the characters looked like something a child might have made and the sets consisted of toys and miniature models. 

I learned some interesting facts about Clokey's life in the Times obituary that shed additional light on the Gumby Show.  When Clokey was 8, his parents divorced and he went to live with his father, who was killed in a car accident the following year.  Clokey then briefly rejoined his mother in California, but  his mother's new husband didn't want Clokey around, and he was placed in a children's home.  When Clokey was 11, his fortunes improved when he was adopted by Joseph Waddell Clokey, a well-known composer of sacred and secular music.  Joseph Clokey was apparently a loving father who introduced Art to a new world of books and culture. 

After graduating from Miami University in Ohio, Clokey attended Hartford Seminary in Connecticut, intending to become an Episcopal priest.  However, he left before graduating and returned to California, planning to make religious films.  He entered the University of Southern California, where he studied with the modernist filmmaker Slavko Vorkapich.  In 1953, he made a student film titled Gumbasia, in honor of the Disney animated feature Fantasia, in which he used the form of claymation that he was to apply to the Gumby Show two years later.

Clokey's religious interests and apparent lifelong search for enlightenment help to explain the subtle undercurrent of spirituality that runs through the Gumby Show.  Clokey also created the Davey and Goliath Show, which was explicitly spiritual and was sponsored by the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.  Davey and Goliath was designed to teach children values like charity and tolerance. 

The Gumby Show was popular through the 1950's and 60's but was pushed aside when slicker violent cartoons began to draw larger audiences in the 1970's.  However, Gumby got a new lease on life in the 1980's, when Eddie Murphy created a raunchy caricature of the character on Saturday Night Live.  According to Clokey's family, Clokey loved Eddie Murphy's performance. 

We are indebted to Art Clokey for creating a charming and whimsical icon that represents some of the best of what children's television has contributed to our culture. 

Comments

[Steve Gorelick]

Here's a piece of Clokey info I haven't read anywhere. He was an early very influential mentor of six-time Academy Award-winning special makeup effects artist Rick Baker.

For many years, Art lived in my hometown of Covina, California. Rick, with whom I went to Junior High, found this out and approached Clokey, who let Rick work and experiment with models and animation. Rick idolized Clokey.

I, on the other hand, razzed Rick mercilessly about Gumby. I was an insufferable and politically precocious little jerk more interested in the 1964 LBJ/Goldwater election than dumb clay models. Rick came to my 12th birthday and gave me a monster model kit which I couldn't for the life of me appreciate. My loss.

But Clokey was known in town as one of the nicest guys ever.

And Rick.........well, six academy awards ain't bad.

Steve

[Jo Holz]

Steve, thanks for sharing this information. It's good to know that the person behind Gumby was actually a nice guy. I see Clokey's influence in many places, including much of Tim Burton's work (e.g., The Nightmare Before Christmas), which I also love.

[Goodbye]

Art Clokey was really an amazing artist...
HE made so many cute toys for children..
And Gumby is one of the best creation made by him...

I want to tribte his creation with a Cute Saying to him :

Work joyfully and peacefully, knowing that right thoughts and right efforts inevitably bring about right results..

[Fan]

I remember one of the quotes on art - Art is a collaboration between God and the artist. Goodbye Clokey.