Art Clokey's first clay animation film was Gumbasia (1953), a short film showcasing a series of clay shapes twisting, turning and contorting in kaleidoscopic patterns. Clokey showed the film to producer Sam Engel, who suggested that Clokey apply the technique to form children's stories. Although the next film Adventures of Gumby: A Sample (1955) was never televised, it is confirmed to be the first pilot episode of what would become The Gumby Show. Soon afterward, Clokey completed the second pilot for the National Broadcasting Company (NBC) through the financial assistance of Engel. Entitled Gumby on the Moon (which Moon Trip Part 1, the actual first episode), this marked the television debut of Gumby. The cartoon was presented on Howdy Doody to much success, and led to the development of the series The Gumby Show.
Reworked and colored images of people playing at the seashore.
A subjective view of an UFO. Shot frame-by-frame along the Tama River.
Adam and Eve are cast out of Eden. They discover that flowers can bring both joy and solace.
A gin bottle is personified with a spirit. As the gin bottle changes hands the spirit of the bottle tempts the various possessors to take a drink. A pro-prohibition movie, the story exemplifies the tragedies of drinking.
The small town of Pinchcliffe is experiencing a great lack of snow, which is why the inventor Reodor Felgen is asked to create a snow machine. However, things do not go as planned.
Sara is the protector of her brother Soma. In order to keep Soma's feelings from being hurt, Sara must face six rivals.
Long ago, four extraordinary beings of dual male and female spirit, led by Kapaemahu, brought certain healing arts from Tahiti to Hawaii and were loved by the people for their gentle ways and the miraculous cures they performed.
Follow Brigitte Fontaine as she wanders in the streets of Morlaix.
Short animation by Al Jarnow based on the work of British poet Edward Lear. Made at NYU.
A stream of consciousness experiment committed directly to celluloid, Jarnow pays homage to Stan Brakhage and Harry Smith. Abstract designs transform self portraiture, lettering tests and images traced from other films including a Charlie Chaplin short.
Tondo introduces the cosmic formalism that was the primary theme of Al Jarnow's independent films. An infinite gridscape alternates with vibrating etchings, spirograms and other surreal realities.
Intended to be an "animation machine," Four Quadrant Exercise finds Jarnow adapting a perspective system, enabling him to render complex motions almost automatically. Created prior to the streamlined ease of computer software, this short is a commitment to the joy of making marks on paper.
The primary motif in this silent picture is a grid that controls the shapes and motions of forms contained within the framework of a rotating cube. Constructed from interlocking cycles, the film explores branches and loops along paths laid down by geometric logic.
This is the story about a boy not like the others that dreams about finding his place in the world.
A poet and a spirit have an ongoing deal: Haiku for life.
Life’s Musical Minute, recently re-discovered, is a short promotional film of this kind, based on Gene Krupa’s drum solo from “Golden Wedding” by the Woody Herman jazz band. It was Lye’s attempt to gain support from Life Magazine.
An adventure about two minions which try to escape from jail.
This story is about a place long ago, before birth and before death, that everyone knows and no one knows.