Flat Hatting (1944) Online

John Hubley is most likely the only Disney striker on the picket line because of his belief that Walt was betraying the principals of animation. Hubley felt that animation, by its very nature, is flat and to try to make it a second rate copy of 3-D life is wrong.

Flat Hatting is Hubley's first chance to try out his theories. Flat Hatting, at the time, was the practice of buzzing civilians in military aircraft. Flat Hatters were looked at as heroes in the WWII air corps. Hubley's job was to make them look like fools. To do this he abandons character, as we know it, and gives us a figure that changes in age to reflect the changing maturity of the lead character.

Hubley was the genius behind the new animation and UPA, the studio that brought us this new vision. Most, if not all, of the great stuff coming out of UPA from 1943 to 1952 had his hand in it.

After he was run out of UPA by the Communist witch hunt of 1952 he and his wife, Faith, made a pact to create one animation per year for the rest of their lives. Both of them kept that pact although it took Faith longer to do so that it did John.

A must see for anyone wanting to understand how animation has changed from the Disney vision into what we see today.