John Hubley’s Flat Hatting

We’ve debuted a new film on CartoonBrewFilms. It’s John Hubley’s Flat Hatting, a rare 1946 US Navy training film produced at UPA (at the time, still called United Film Productions). I’ve watched and studied this film countless times and I never get tired of it. There is so much graphic daring in the artwork of this film, and it is a terrific example of how beautiful animation can be created with a limited budget and small crew.

My introduction to the film came eight or nine years ago while I was working at Spumco. I was watching Tex Avery’s Symphony in Slang when John K happened to walk into the room. He said, “If you like that, then check out this film,” and pulled out a copy of Flat Hatting from his personal collection. Both of us assumed the films had the same designer since the guy in Symphony in Slang (designed by Tom Oreb) looks somewhat similar to the lead character in Flat Hatting. Of course, I later found out that Flat Hatting was the genius of John Hubley. And now, you can find out too just how much of a genius Hubley was by picking up a copy of Flat Hatting on BrewFilms.