Gumbasia (1955)
Article 5853 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 9-27-2020
Directed by Art Clokey
No cast
Country: USA
What it is: Abstract animation

As a jazzy score plays, clay molds itself into various shapes.

I haven’t covered anything as of yet from animator Art Clokey, largely because he mostly worked in television; he was responsible for the Gumby series, as well as “Davey and Goliath”. I originally thought I wasn’t going to review this as well, as my copy of it was nestled in the middle of a set of Gumby shorts, but a quick look at it as well as a quick check on IMDB cleared up that it was not made for a TV series; it was, in fact, a student film. It’s another of those abstract animation films (such as you’d expect from Norman McLaren) where images pass by as music plays, only in this case, Clokey’s chosen medium to animate is clay. As such, it’s about average for this sort of thing. It was striking enough, though, that it won Clokey the contract to do the Gumby series. I’m not sure who performs the score; no one is credited, and if some of the notes on IMDB are correct, it was shot without the score, which was added later.