John and Faith Hubley

John and Faith Hubley, left, with jazz musician Benny Carter

John Hubley (1914-1977) and his wife Faith Hubley (1924-2001) produced countless independent animated short films, commercials, and sponsored projects from their New York-based studio Storyboard Films, including many inserts for Sesame Street.

John Hubley began his career at Disney, serving as an art director on Fantasia (Stravinsky's "Rite of Spring" segment), Dumbo, and Bambi. He quit the studio during the 1941 strike, and moved to Columbia's Screen Gems division, where he began directing, including the "Fox and Crow" series. Screen Gems was dissolved in 1946, and Hubley eventually joined United Productions of America, or UPA (whose films would also be distributed by Columbia), for which he created Mr. Magoo and directed such acclaimed shorts as the jazzy melodrama Rooty Toot Toot.

However, Hollywood came under fire from the House Un-American Activities Committee in its hunt for alleged Communists in all branches of the entertainment industry, and Hubley, alongside several others, resigned from UPA (rather than get the studio in trouble) in 1952. The following year, he established Storyboard as a commercial firm, allowing him to work anonymously. He married Faith Elliott, an editor and script clerk who had worked for Columbia and Republic on such films as Twelve Angry Men. Together, the couple vowed to make one personal film a year. Their collaboration led to seven Academy Award nominations, three of which were wins, on such shorts as Tender Game, The Hole and Moonbird. With an emphasis placed on music, several of these projects were collaborations with noted musicians, including Dizzy Gillespie and Herb Alpert; voices were supplied by the likes of Dudley Moore, Jack Warden, and Meryl Streep, as well as the Hubleys' own children.

With the debut of Sesame Street in 1969, the Hubleys became an integral part of the show's animated landscape. Like their personal films, their inserts were distinguished by the use of jazz soundtracks, abstract and fluid imagery, and improvised dialogue. Several letter-specific segments almost function as free-form, stream of consciousness poetry. In 1971, they also began producing work for The Electric Company, notably the "Letterman" segments with the voices of Gene Wilder, Joan Rivers, and Zero Mostel. John Hubley's work was also showcased in The Grover Monster - Jean Marsh Cartoon Special.

Daughter Emily Hubley followed in her parents' footsteps, directing several animated projects of her own, including Sesame Street material. In 2003, the Hubleys were the focus of the PBS documentary Independent Spirits: The John and Faith Hubley Story.

Partial Filmography

Picture	Title/Topic	First Appearance	Description
	Letter E	Episode 0001	A dream-like fable involving long "e" sounds within words.
	Letter O	Episode 0011	A rolling O travels across shifting landscapes.
	Exit	Episode 0131	A polar bear learns what an exit sign is.
	k - kiss	Episode 0131	The "k" in "kiss" kisses an apple and a duck. Voices: Emily and Georgia Hubley
	Letter J	Episode 0133	Various J words.
	Birds Count 1-20	Episode 0134	Birds appear around the numerals one through twenty as jazz music plays. Music and voice: Dizzy Gillespie
	F, Football	Episode 0135	A football player talks about his favorite sport.
	Stop	Episode 0149	The O in STOP bounces around, and the other letters tell it to stop.
	DANGER	Episode 0151	Various renderings of the word DANGER.
	Telephone: Cat	Episode 0154	A cat chases after a telephone as if it were a mouse.
	Letter H	Episode 0162	A big elephant and a small elephant make lowercase Hs come out of their trunks.
	Small V	Episode 0167	Small v ... for voom, voice, violin, etc.
	Baby Fantasy	Episode 0184	A baby rescues a ball from a column.
	Catch the Kitty	Episode 0187	A girl (Georgia Hubley) tries to lure her cat out from under the chair so she can pick him up. Music: Quincy Jones.
	Fish Addition and Subtraction	Episode 0187	A bear has trouble adding and subtracting fish as he fishes at a lake; the number of fish keeps changing.
	Baseball Bully	Episode 0235	A bully won't give the kids' baseball back. The boy imagines a few scenarios before ultimately calling for his dog.
	Penguin Rhythms	Episode 0239	A penguin repeats the rhythms of the sounds it hears, which include a drum, a door knock, a saw and a typewriter.
	Cat and Mouse Chase	Episode 0244	A cat chases a mouse into a mouse hole. The cat and mouse make music as they hit the wall, until the cat breaks through the mouse hole. Music: Toots Thielemans.
	Jungle Abstract	Episode 0255	A black cat chases after a white bird, until a white lion steps in.
	Night Sounds	Episode 0257	A man tries to get to sleep, but is woken up by a fly, a chicken and a drum-playing rabbit, all of whom call him on the phone after he throws them out.
	Letter M	Episode 0276	A man invites an M to dinner. The M is very appreciative, and makes "Mmmmmm" sounds. It eats all of the food at the table, and winds up taking bites of the screen! Voice: Ralph Meeker
	Letter S	Episode 0278	A voice (Ralph Meeker) asks a face (Joshua Shelley) if it's aware of the letter S, and it is revealed that the face belongs to a snake.
	Transportation S-words	Episode 0279	S is for subway, sailboat, sled, scooter, skates, skis... and stop. Voice: Ralph Meeker
	G is for Glue	Episode 0279	A boy gets engulfed in glue, and several G-word objects get stuck on him.
	V, vitamins	Episode 0311	Vitamins give vim, vigor and vitality to a droopy V. Music by Billy Taylor. Voice: Jack Gilford
	'v' minuscula	Episode 0389	Small v (Spanish version)
	'b' minuscula - beso	Episode 0461	Spanish version of "k for kiss"
	'j' minuscula	Episode 0475	j words (Spanish version)
	If we dare...	Episode 0962	A poem about changing seasons.
	Consonant Letter Sounds	Episode 0964	A man demonstrates how certain consonant letters sound by playing them as instruments.
	My Name Is Fred	Episode 0977	Fred, a singer, fails to figure out the words that rhyme with his name in the song he sings.

Sources

Voice info from trusted documents

External links

• Independent Spirits