in 1954, an animated film adaptation began production, directed by john hubley. the crew included art babbit, bill tytla and paul julian. among the cast were frank sinatra, ella fitzgerald, oscar peterson, louis armstrong, barry fitzgerald, jim backus and david burns plus david wayne and ella logan from the original broadway production. the era's mccarthyism caused financing to be withdrawn due to hubley and harburg's refusal to testify before the house committee on un-american activities. pre-production artwork, sketches from the storyboard, character designs, the script and some of the soundtrack recording have been recovered. examples of the art and designs were published in the march/april 1993 issue of "print" to illustrate an article by animation historian john canemaker about the backstory of the project.