Gumbasia

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