Animator Art Clokey, whose bendable creation Gumby became a pop culture phenomenon through decades of toys, revivals and satires, died on Friday. He was 88.
Clokey died in his hometown Los Osos on California’s Central Coast, caretaker Chrisanne Wollett Clokey told the San Luis Obispo Tribune.
Gumby grew out of a student project Clokey produced at the University of Southern California in 1963 called “Gumbasia.” That led to his making shorts featuring Gumby and his horse friend Pokey for The Howdy Doody Show and several series through the years.
He said he based Gumby’s swooping head on the cowlick hairdo of his father, who died in a car accident when Clokey was nine. Clokey’s wife suggested he give Gumby the body of a gingerbread man.
Clokey said that though Gumby eventually became one of the most familiar toys of all time, he was at first resistant to roll out the bendable doll.
“I didn’t allow merchandising for seven years after it was on the air, because I was very idealistic, and I didn’t want parents to think we were trying to exploit their children,” Clokey told the Tribune in 2002.
Eddie Murphy brought a surge in Gumby’s popularity in the 1980s with his send-up of the character on Saturday Night Live as a cigar-smoking show business primadonna.
Clokey said he enjoyed Murphy’s profane Gumby.
“Gumby can laugh at himself,” Clokey told the Tribune.
Murphy’s Gumby brought new toy sales and eventually led to a new syndicated series starting in 1988.
It was only then that Clokey started seeing serious financial returns on his creation.
“It took 40 years,” he said.
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