What is "gumbasia"

Gumbasia, a 3-minute 10 second short film produced in 1953 and released on September 2, 1955, was the first clay animation produced by Art Clokey, who went on to create the classic series, Gumby and Davey and Goliath, using the same technique. Then, a TV series based on the short, titled Fun in Gumbasia, will be released in summer 2017.

Clokey created Gumbasia while studying at the University of Southern California under the direction of Slavko Vorkapić. The film was a surreal short of pulsating shapes and lumps of clay set to music in a parody of Walt Disney's Fantasia. Gumbasia was created in a style Vorkapić taught called Kinesthetic Film Principles. Described as "massaging of the eye cells" this technique, based on camera movements and stop-motion editing, is responsible for much of the look and feel later seen in Gumby films. When Clokey showed Gumbasia to film producer Sam Engel in 1955, Engel decided to fund a 15-minute short film that became the first Gumby episode—"Gumby Goes to the Moon".