Faith and John Hubley used their art to advance themes of peace, love and understanding. All photos and images of and by The Hubleys © The Hubley Studio Inc.

When he asked David Smith, a Disney archivist/historian about Walt’s motivation for making the film he was told, “I agree that there was probably little thought of pacifism in Walt’s mind when making Ferdinand the Bull. One would have to research whether Munro Leaf was thinking of pacifism when writing the story.”

Smith also noted, “Walt did make an anti-Nazi film for the National Film Board of Canada — Stop that Tank — which was released in 1942. By the spring of that year, he was also beginning work on Victory Through Air Power, which totally opposite from pacifism.”

A search to find Munro Leaf’s thoughts on the subject also failed to turn up a definitive answer to his motivation for the creation of the book or film. The most interesting reference told what others thought of the works (and possibly read into them). When The University of Maryland inducted Munroe Leaf into their Alumni Hall of Fame in 1995 (posthumously), Dianne Burch included in her speech, “When published by Viking in 1936 as The Story of Ferdinand, the book sparked controversy. With the Spanish Civil War waging, political critics charged it was a satirical attack on aggression. In Germany, Hitler order the book burned while fellow dictator Stalin granted it privileged status as the only non-communist children’s book allowed in Poland. And India’s spiritual leader Mahatma Ghandi called it his favorite book. In spite of the notoriety, the nation embraced the peaceable bull.” Her talk also said the book was written “in less than one hour… so that his close friend Robert Lawson (a relatively unknown illustrator) could show his talents.” Ferdinand is available on the Disney tape Willie the Operatic Whale.

The Hole, an Oscar winner for the Hubleys in 1963, featured Dizzy Gillespie riffing on nuclear war.

The Hubleys’ Conversations About Peace
If there were a posthumous lifetime achievement award for dedicating ones art to the cause of world peace, preserving the ecology of our planet and other positive causes, my candidates for it would be John and Faith Hubley. They broke from the Hollywood narrative tradition and explored new ways to use the art of animation. Some of their works, especially works by Faith that were made after John died, explore legends and values of Native Americans and other non-Western groups of people. The Hubleys celebrated life in their work and put forth provocative ideas about peace, love and understanding.

While the theme of peace is found in much of what they did, a few works stand out as peace films.

The Hole (Oscar winner, 1963) is an improvised conversation between Dizzy Gillespie and George Mathews. Their onscreen characters are construction workers at a site on a New York street. They argue about the laws of chance and then discuss the possibilities of a nuclear war. Visually the film wouldn’t communicate much without the soundtrack. Besides winning an Oscar, it won the Grand Prize at the Venice Film Festival in 1963, a Special Jury Prize at Annecy in ‘63, and a Blue Ribbon Award at the American Film Festival. The Hole was released on a VHS tape called The Hole (collections of the Hubleys’ work is available on VHS and DVD at www.Pyramiddirect.com).

The following year they created The Hat, with voices by Dizzy Gillespie and Dudley Moore and music by Gillespie. Program notes provided by Faith describe the film as, “A soldier patrolling the border between two hostile countries accidentally drops his helmet over the line into enemy territory. He is prevented from retrieving it by his counterpart on the other side of the line. A dialogue ensues as the two men explore our global future.”

Faith’s Hello (1984) is a nine-minute film about a journey through space in a skyboat with three space travelers/musicians. Program notes for the film tell how the travelers detect that there is life on Earth. They “decide to send a message to Earth. The message is ‘Hello’ in many languages. Only one child gets the message. The child attempts to tell the adults, but they refuse to listen. Discouraged, the child pictures the Earth being blown up. The musicians are very compassionate and decide to send a second message. The second message is ‘Peace.’ This time, many children receive the message and they begin to play the Peace Ball Game. The adults join the game and soon, all the Earth people perceive the Universe as one big cosmic playground.”