Gumbi has left the building.

In 1953, a man named Art Clokey (along with his wife Ruth), coerced small lumps of clay in and out of shapes and figures. He captured the whole process in stop motion photography and created a short 3-minute film. Meant as a parody of Disney’s Fantasia, Clokey set the whole works to music and named it Gumbasia. This surreal film would later act as the catalyst for the creation of the legendary character Gumbi. Gumbi and his horse-friend Pokey appear in 233 episodes. That’s a lot of stop and motion.

Art Clokey died Friday at his home in Los Osos, Calif., at the age of 88.