Peace on Earth (1939 film)

"Peace on Earth" is a 1939 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer cartoon short subject directed by Hugh Harman, about a post-apocalyptic world populated only by animals.

Two young squirrels ask their grandfather on Christmas Eve who the "men" are in the lyric "Peace on Earth, good will to men." The grandfather squirrel then tells them a rotoscoped history of the human race, focusing on the neverending wars men waged. Ultimately the wars do end, with the death of the last man on Earth, a soldier. The cartoon features an original song written to the tune of "Hark! The Herald Angels Sing".

According to Hugh Harman's obituary in the "New York Times" [cite web |url=http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9D0CEEDB1039F933A05752C1A964948260 |title=Hugh Harman, 79, Creator Of 'Looney Tunes' Cartoons |publisher="New York Times" |date=November 30, 1982] and Ben Mankiewicz, host of "Cartoon Alley", the cartoon was nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize.cite book|last=Barbera|first=Joseph|title=My Life in "Toons": From Flatbush to Bedrock in Under a Century|year=1994|publisher=Turner Publishing|location=Atlanta, GA|isbn= 1-57036-042-1|pages= 72-73] However, it is not listed in the official Nobel Prize nomination database. [cite web |url=http://nobelprize.org/nomination/peace/database.html |title=The Nomination Database for the Nobel Peace Prize, 1901-1955 |publisher=nobelprize.org] Mankiewicz also claimed that the cartoon was the first about a serious subject by a major studio. In 1994, it was voted #40 of the 50 Greatest Cartoons of all time by members of the animation field. It was also nominated for the 1939 Academy Award for Short Subjects (Cartoons), but lost to "The Ugly Duckling", a Silly Symphonies short by Disney.

William Hanna and Joseph Barbera remade the cartoon in CinemaScope in 1955. The new version, entitled "Good Will to Men", was also nominated for the Best Short Subjects Oscar.

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