Gumbasia

Gumbasia is a very short movie made in 1953 by Art Clokey.[1] Gumbasia was a clay animation movie.[1] Clokey became famous for his two series Gumby and Davey and Goliath which also used clay animation.[2]

Clokey made Gumbasia while he was studying at the University of Southern California and being taught by Slavko Vorkapich. It was Clokey's first clay animation movie and it was only 3 minutes and 45 seconds long. The movie showed moving lumps of clay set to music in a copy of Walt Disney's Fantasia. Gumbasia was made in a style Vorkapich taught called Kinesthetic Film Principles. This style, which uses camera movements and stop-motion editing, is used in later Gumby movies.[3] After watching Gumbasia, movie producer Sam Engel decided to give Clokey money to make a 15 minute movie that became the first Gumby movie -- Gumby Goes to the Moon.