#mr. magoo

[soweirdondisney]

A little throwback to Disney Channel's February 1999 schedule found in a copy of Behind the Ears magazine.

[finalproblem]

Join the Wednesday Watchalong in The Giant Chat of Sumatra! 🔗

This month, It’s Conceptual Art. So of course we have to kick things off with what will surely be a very high-brow cartoon. Join us tonight for The Famous Adventures of Mr. Magoo: Sherlock Holmes (1965).

We'll watch & chat live tonight at 8:30 pm US Eastern time (click for your local date/time) in the #giantchat text channel of our Discord server.

[cosmicretreat]

[misforgotten2]

I guess the background images look like that is because Mr. Magoo is nearly blind. How insensitive.

American Home  December 1963

[thinkbolt]

Love Comes to Magoo (UPA, 1958) - dir. Tom McDonald

[pulpsandcomics2]

cartoon posters

[punster-2319]

I’ve been stacking up on my classic animation collection lately with Warner Bros, MGM, and Disney, so it made sense to add UPA as well. This studio’s history is interesting, mostly ran by former Disney artists that wanted to get away from the realistic character animation popularized by Disney in favor of more experimental animation.

[profesor-javaloyes]

Vistos los que se presentan, el tío Abe y yo tenemos un candidato que nos ofrece mayor confianza.

[gorillageek27]

Which character do think would be mostly to accidentally take over the world?

Most character to accidently take over the world?

This guy

This guy is blind so he'll somehow just stumble his way into power

[jessalopod]

So MASSIVE The Bad Batch Season 2 spoilers, but I’m really looking forward to Season 3 opening with a lone Tech, having lost his glasses, Mr. Magooing his way around a planet absolutely crawling with Imperial Stormtroopers. 

[victoria-weee]

More of Weasel's doodles from Xilam Mr. Magooᐠ( ᐛ )ᐟ

[dorothydalmati1]

Obscure Animation Subject #90: 1001 Arabian Nights

A 1959 American animated feature that serves as one of the only two films produced by United Productions of America (UPA), the other being the more well-known Gay Purr-ee. It is directed by Disney director Jack Kinney from a script written by Dick Shaw, Dick Kinney, Leo Salkin, Pete Burness, Lew Keller, Ed Nofziger, Ted Allen, Margaret Schneider and Paul Schneider. It was distributed by Columbia Pictures as their first animated feature they distributed, and was released on December 1, 1959.

The film serves as a a loose adaptation of the Arab folktale of Aladdin from One Thousand and One Nights, albeit with the addition of UPA’s star cartoon character, Mr. Magoo, to the story as Aladdin's uncle, "Abdul Azziz Magoo".

The film was originally gonna be directed by Pete Burness, who was the series director on the popular series of Mr. Magoo theatrical cartoons produced for Columbia by UPA between 1949 and 1959. However, Burness resigned due to creative differences by producer and UPA owner Stephen Bosustow. Jack Kinney replaced Burness as director since Kinney had recently left the Disney studio at that time. The voice of Magoo in the cartoons, Jim Backus, reprises his role in the feature, with Katheryn Grant, the singer/actress wife of Bing Crosby, as the voice of Princess Yasminda and Dwayne Hickman, from TV's The Bob Cummings Show and The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis, as the voice of Aladdin.

UPA was already recognized at the time, since the studio, alongside WB director Chuck Jones, had revolutionized animation during the 1950s by incorporating design and limited animation. It also featured a voice cast of multiple stars voicing the characters, so how successful was it?

It was box-office bomb, due to competing with the highest-grossing film of the year, Ben-Hur. As a result, Columbia ended its distribution deal for UPA in favor of of lower-cost Loopy De Loop cartoons from Hanna-Barbera, a studio which Columbia had begun its deal with to distribute The Flintstones, the first animated series produced for prime-time. Following the film's release, Bousustow sold UPA to Henry G. Saperstein, who would own the studio with its animation assets dissolved and turning it into a film distribution company, before his death on June 24, 1998. UPA shuttered operations by the new millennium.

Today, this film is largely forgotten about and its not well known unlike UPA’s other animated feature, which got a cult following.

[finalproblem]

Sherlockian Wednesday Watchalongs: It's Conceptual Art

You may not know much about art, but you know what you like. And I hope one of the things you like is another month of new-to-us watchalongs!

Wednesday, September 4 The Famous Adventures of Mr. Magoo: Sherlock Holmes (1965) Definitely a very serious cartoon adaptation. For sure.

Wednesday, September 11 Doctor Watson and the Darkwater Hall Mystery (1974) Watson finally gets a case of his very own.

Wednesday, September 18 Sherlock Holmes: Sechsmal Napoleon (aka The Six Napoleons, 1967) Another episode of Schellow!Holmes with our custom homebrew subtitles.

Wednesday, September 25 The Case of Marcel Duchamp (1984) Holmes and Watson come out of retirement to solve a final case concerning the artist.

Here’s the deal: Like Sherlock Holmes? You’re welcome to join us in The Giant Chat of Sumatra’s #giantchat text channel to watch and discuss with us. Just find a copy of the episode or movie we’re watching, and come make some goofy internet friends.

Keep an eye on my #the giant chat of sumatra tag and the calendar for updates on future chat events.

[princesssarisa]

A Christmas Carol Holiday Season: "Mr. Magoo's Christmas Carol" (1962 animated musical)

Now we reach a pop culture landmark: the first animated Christmas special ever produced for American television. Before A Charlie Brown Christmas, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, or any other similar classics, there was this 1962 cartoon musical from the UPA animation studio, starring their most famous cartoon character, Quincy Magoo. A character rarely seen on TV today, because the comic mishaps caused by his weak eyesight aren't politically correct by modern standards. But this special, with songs by legendary Broadway composer Jule Styne (Gypsy, Funny Girl, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, and more) and lyricist Bob Merrill (Funny Girl), has never lost its popularity.

The framing device of this Christmas Carol is that Mr. Magoo is starring as Scrooge in a Broadway musical of Dickens' tale. While the opening scene of Magoo's arrival at the theatre and the final scene of the curtain calls feature the standard Magoo slapstick, the Christmas Carol itself is played surprisingly straight, with only a few small gags hinting that Scrooge needs glasses. For the most part, it's a faithful, if abridged version of the story. There are only two really notable changes: (a) the character of Fred is cut, and (b) the order of the first two ghosts' visits is reversed, so that the Ghost of Christmas Present (voice of Les Tremayne) comes first, and then the Ghost of Christmas Past (portrayed as an androgynous golden-colored child, voiced by Joan Gardener). I can only assume the latter change was made because the Christmas Past sequence is more emotional for Scrooge than Christmas Present, so they were re-ordered to create a "rising line of tension," so to speak.

The result is a Carol that's both funny and emotionally effective, which both children and adults can enjoy. Especially worth appreciating is its poignant emphasis on Scrooge's lonely childhood, since so many other versions downplay or cut that plot point. UPA's impressionistic style of animation, simple yet colorful and vivid, suits the tone of the production well, and the voice cast is first-rate too. Jim Backus, Magoo's iconic voice actor since 1949 (also known as Thurston Howell III on Gilligan's Island and James Dean's father in Rebel Without a Cause), is a vivid, engaging Scrooge throughout every stage of his character development. Meanwhile, standouts in the supporting cast include Jack Cassidy as a warm, rich-voiced Bob Cratchit, Royal Dano as an imposing Marley's Ghost, Jane Kean as a touching Belle, and Joan Gardener doubling as an ethereal yet wry Ghost of Christmas Past and an adorable Tiny Tim (who looks like another popular UPA character, Gerald McBoing-Boing). Last but not least, Styne and Merrill's songs – "It's Great to Be Back on Broadway," "Ringle, Ringle," "The Lord's Bright Blessing" (a.k.a. the "razzleberry dressing" song), "Alone in the World," "Winter Was Warm" and "We're Despicable" – are all memorable and strike an excellent balance between childlike simplicity and Broadway quality.

The first-ever Christmas cartoon special is still one of greatest.

@ariel-seagull-wings. @thealmightyemprex, @reds-revenge, @faintingheroine, @thatscarletflycatcher

[misforgotten2]

The last thing Mr. Magoo ever saw was the inside of, well let's say, a kangaroo's internal anatomy.

Look - November 16th 1965

[arconinternet]

Mooch Goes to Hollywood (Video, 1971)

You can watch it here.