Gumby Creator Art Clokey Honored in Nostalgic Google Doodle

Visit the Google homepage today and you might recognize a familiar face: Gumby is in the Google Doodle spotlight. The doodle, which commemorates the 90th birthday of late Gumby creator Art Clokey (he passed in January 2010), is also animated — clicking on the colored balls of clay reveals the whole Gumby gang, including Pokey the horse and the Blockheads.

Clokey is widely considered to be the grandfather of claymation for creating the Gumby character (who premiered in a 1955 short) and Christian duo Davey and Goliath.

Like Clokey, Gumby had a long and happy life, from a segment on ‘Howdy Doody’ to his very own series, and later, a Gumby movie and legendary ‘Saturday Night Live‘ spoof by Eddie Murphy.

See a preview of the doodle below:

And, for fun, a classic Gumby cartoon:

For even more fun, Murphy’s somewhat less-wholesome Gumby from ‘SNL’: