Clokey and his wife, Ruth, invented Gumby in the early 1950s at their Covina home shortly after Art had finished film school at USC. After a successful debut on “The Howdy Doody Show,” Gumby soon became the star of its own hit television show, “The Adventures of Gumby,” the first to use clay animation on television.

After an initial run in the 1950s, Gumby enjoyed comebacks in the 1960s as a bendable children’s toy, in the 1980s after comedian Eddie Murphy parodied the kindly Gumby as a crass, cigar-in-the-mouth character in a skit for “Saturday Night Live” and again in the ’90s with the release of “Gumby the Movie.”

Today, Gumby is a cultural icon recognized around the world. It has more than 134,000 fans on Facebook.

As successive generations discovered the curious green character, Gumby’s success came to define Clokey’s life, with its theme song reflecting Clokey’s simple message of love: “If you’ve got a heart, then Gumby’s a part of you.”

“The fact is that most people don’t know his name, but everybody knows Gumby,” said friend and animator David Scheve. “To have your life work touch so many people around the world is an amazing thing.”

Clokey was born Arthur Farrington in Detroit in October 1921 and grew up making mud figures on his grandparents’ Michigan farm. “He always had this in him,” his son, Joseph, recalled Friday.

At age 8, Clokey’s life took a tragic turn when his father was killed in a car accident soon after his parents divorced. The unusual shape of Gumby’s head would eventually be modeled after one of the few surviving photos of Clokey’s father, which shows him with a large wave of hair protruding from the right side of his head.

After moving to California, Clokey was abandoned by his mother and her new husband and lived in a halfway house near Hollywood until age 11, when he was adopted by Joseph W. Clokey. The renowned music teacher and composer at Pomona College taught him to draw, paint and shoot film and took him on journeys to Mexico and Canada.

Art Clokey attended the Webb School in Claremont, whose annual fossil hunting expeditions also inspired a taste for adventure that stayed with him. “That’s why ‘The Adventures of Gumby’ were so adventurous,” his son said.

Clokey served in World War II, conducting photo reconnaissance over North Africa and France. Back in Hartford, Conn., after the war, he was studying to be an Episcopal minister when he met Ruth Parkander, the daughter of a minister. The two married and moved to California to pursue their true passion: filmmaking.

During the day, the Clokeys taught at the Harvard School for Boys in Studio City, now Harvard-Westlake. At night, Art Clokey studied film at USC under Slavko Vorkapich, a pioneer of modern montage techniques.

Clokey’s 1953 experimental film, “Gumbasia,” used stop-motion clay animation set to a lively jazz tempo. It became the inspiration for the subsequent Gumby TV show when Sam Engel, the president of 20th Century Fox and father of one of Clokey’s students, saw the film and asked Clokey to produce a children’s television show based on the idea.

In the 1960s, Clokey created and produced the Christian TV series “Davey and Goliath” and the credits for several feature films, including “How to Stuff a Wild Bikini.”

Gumby’s ability to enchant generations of children and adults had a mystical quality to it, said his son, and reflected his father’s spiritual quest. In the 1970s, Clokey studied Zen Buddhism, traveled to India to study with gurus and experimented with LSD and other drugs, though all of that came long after the creation of Gumby, his son said.

His second wife, Gloria, whom he married in 1976, was art director on Gumby projects in the 1980s and ’90s. She died in 1998.

Besides his son Joseph, Clokey is survived by his stepdaughter, Holly Harman of Mendocino County; three grandchildren, Shasta, Sequoia and Sage Clokey; his sister, Arlene Cline of Phoenix; and his half-sister, Patricia Anderson of Atlanta.

Instead of flowers, the family suggests contributions in Gumby’s name to the Natural Resources Defense Council, of which Art Clokey was a longtime member.

“Gumby was green because my dad cared about the environment,” his son said.

Rob Kardashian cheated on Adrienne Bailon

Nice guy, huh?

No body knows who he did the deed with and we will probably never know. It is none of our business.

The  news, Adrienne has  on with her  and she has a new boyfriend.

Last night’s episode she was texting her new boyfriend and we still have to find out who it is.

We hope to see Dick Clark next year and hope that is counting will improve.

We hope Tiger and Elin will figure things out, whether they stay together or not.

We hope Michael Phelps will stay off the drugs.

We hope that Taylor Swift will keep her relationships private.

We hope Sammy Sosa will return to his dark skin look.

The list goes on and on.

Happy New Year 2010!

This New Year’s Eve, Dick Clark messed up the counting as the crowd was getting ready to ring in the new year. He skipped 13 and 11, and then went back to 12 from 10. Very funny.

But honestly, who cares? It is Dick Clark for crying out loud! The guy is a legend and an amazing man. Let’s not all forget that he had a stroke not long ago.

Happy New Year!!

Travis Pastrana celebrated his new record by ascending to the ramp’s highest point and saluting the cheering crowd, then black-flipping into the surely cold (and polluted) Pacific Ocean.

Despite being hidden away from the media for the past three weeks, Tiger Woods’ name was announced earlier today as the recipient of Athlete of the Decade award. The AP chose Woods for the honor Wednesday because of the top-ranked golfer’s 10 years of dominance on the golf course. Woods won 56 of the 142 votes that AP member editors cast, according to the AP’s Doug Ferguson.

Lance Armtrong, who overcame cancer and won the Tour de France six times in the past decade, was runner-up with 33 votes. Tennis star Roger Federer came in third, with 25 votes.

What a disgrace to sports. Absolutely pathetic.

I have to be honest, I loved every minute of that game.

Here is a photo of none other, Tim “the savior” Tebow crying.

Tim Tebow Crying

Neel Kashkari’s efforts toward “Washington detox,” which are featured today in a front page Washington Post story, are striking a chord with Americans.

As last fall’s financial crisis hit, Neel Kashkari was one of the most powerful men in the U.S. Treasury Department. In October 2008 he was put in charge of the Troubled Asset Relief Program — the federal government’s $700 billion bailout of the financial system.

Kashkari is featured prominently in Andrew Ross Sorkin’s book about that hectic time, “Too Big to Fail.” He is also helping with former Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson’s upcoming book, “On the Brink.”

Kashkari, 35, is now living in a cabin in an isolated part of Nevada County, Calif., having decided to leave behind the pressures of Washington, the Post reports. He resigned May 1.

Kashkari’s journey from the highest power circles of Washington to a cabin near the Truckee River in Northern California is resonating with Americans.

from examiner.com

Cori Rist has been identified has Tiger Woods’ fifth mistress. Sources told the Daily News that Manhattan clubgoer Cori Rist, 31, is yet another blond beauty who has hit the sheets with Tiger. Sources say Cori Rist found the intrigue fun.

“He would get the presidential suite,” says the same source. “It was the ultimate in luxury. The trouble is, he never wanted to leave the room.”

A longtime buddy, someone Tiger Woods trusted, recalls the star introducing him to Rist: “I remember she was quite attractive,” says the pal.

After about six months of sneaking around, though, “[Cori Rist] started to get tired of being cooped up. She felt like a bird in a gilded cage.” We’re on the look for a Cori Rist photo or picture.

When the newspaper ran all of these claims past Rist, who lives in a posh pad on the East Side, she said simply “No comment at this time.”

from buzznewsroom.com