New Delhi: A set of five Google-coloured clay balls spring to life on Google's home page as a tribute to Arthur 'Art' Clokey, a pioneer in the art of stop motion clay animation.
October 12 is Art Clokey's 90th birth anniversary. Born on October 12, 1921 Clokey's birth name was Arthur C Farrington. After his parents divorced and his mother remarried, his step-father sent him to an orphanage. He was later adopted by Joseph W Clokey, a musician who introduced him to the world of arts.
After graduating from University of Southern California, Clokey experimented with short clay animation films including the three minute short Gumbasia (1953), that featured his most famous character Gumby. The interest generated by his short films led to the The Gumby Show.
In 1995 Clokey, along with Dallas McKennon, released a feature film Gumby: The Movie, but it could not match the success of the TV series. Art Clokey died at the age of 88 on January 8, 2010.
Wednesday's Google Doodle features some of Art Clokey's most famous characters including Gumby (the original clayboy), Pokey (Gumby's best friend and sidekick), the Blockheads ('J' and 'G' - the mischievous troublemakers), Tara (Gumby's girlfriend) and Prickle (Gumby's good friend).
Google doodles have gained immense popularity over the past few years and the Google team has put out commemorative doodles on events ranging from news events, civic milestones, birthdays, death anniversaries and important dates in history.
Google has now become more frequent with animated and interactive doodles. The Google doodle had first gone interactive in May 2010 to celebrate the 30th birthday of the popular Pac-Man game.
Google estimates it has created more than 900 doodles since 1998, with 270 of them running in 2010 and about 200 in 2011.####
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