Throughout Gumby's long run, Gumby toys have been a staple of toy stores everywhere. Despite Gumby's positive demeanour, his origins stem from tragedy. When Clokey was nine, his father was killed in a car crash. He lived with his mother for a while, but when her second husband made her choose between him and her son, Clokey was sent to an orphanage.

Fortunately, he was adopted by a good family. But Clokey wouldn't forget his father, whose head shape - characterised by a cowlick hairdo - would later provide the inspiration for Gumby's trademark lopsided head. After studying film at the University of Southern California, Clokey taught at a private military school, where he tutored the son of Sam Engel, a 20th Century Fox producer. After Engel invited Clokey to the studio, Clokey told Engel about a three-minute film he had made called Gumbasia, featuring abstract clay objects changing shapes to jazz music. "He said, 'Art, we've got to go into business,"' Clokey told The Tribune of San Luis Obispo in 2002. "I went back and experimented with clay to make a character, and I took into account the density of clay and figured out how the character would be shaped so it would be easy to animate and easy to duplicate."

While Gumby's head was modeled after Clokey's late father, his walk was modeled after his infant daughter. By the late '50s, Gumby was off the air, but the Lutheran Church paid Clokey to develop another kid's show - Davey and Goliath - to promote morality themes. Clokey and his wife used proceeds from that to fund more Gumby episodes, which would air again in the 60s.

By that time, Gumby toys were already ubiquitous. But Clokey had mixed feelings about commercialisation. "I didn't allow merchandising for seven years after it was on the air," Clokey told the Tribune, "because I was very idealistic, and I didn't want parents to think we were trying to exploit their children." MCT