Saturday, September 11, 2010
The Nearsighted Mister Magoo
I've always found the nearsighted Mister Magoo character to be quite funny. I mean, the idea of a crazy old koot who can't see straight sounds like the perfect idea for a cartoon series right? I always felt that UPA and Total Television Productions dropped the ball with the missed opportunity of pairing Magoo with Colonel McBragg for what surely would have been an awesome battle of the senile senior citizens! Anyway, Pyramid Books' 1967 paperback collection contains hundreds of Magoo's myopic misadventures, apparently "collected for the first time" though I'm not sure exactly where these originated, (I'm guessing the funny pages of syndicated newspapers.) AEET presents a small sampling of some of Magoo's finer, squinted moments, also co-starring his hilarious asian butler Charlie, and dumbshit nephew Waldo.
Thanks for posting this. I remember owning a Magoo book as a kid but it was so moldy my mom made throw it out. I remember loving the drawings. I didn't know who Magoo was back then but the drawings were awesomely cool.
ReplyDeletefunny stuff! "MISTER MAGLOO!..."
ReplyDeleteKarswell:
ReplyDeleteYeah, the old Magoo cartoons were funny -- although the one-joke plots wore old quickly, so were better suited for newspaper comic stripts and movie cartoon shorts than the feature-length Leslie Nielsen movie.
You probably recall that the movie was withdrawn from theaters after only two weeks because of protests by visually-impaired groups! In today's P.C. times, I'm sure the Asian "Charlie" character would also be protested. At least websites like yours still have a relaxed sense of humor about things.
SOME OF THESE ARE ALOT MORE ADULT THAN THE CARTOONS ON TV WERE:MAGOO GETTING A TATTOO AND THE ONE WHERE HE TAKES WALDO TO A BURLESQUE SHOW THINKING ITS THE BALLET HAAAAA. GREAT STUFF!!!
ReplyDeleteI do remember the controversy surrounding the Leslie Nielsen movie, not sure if I ever actually saw it though. And yeah, I'm definitely not going to make any excuses for the asian "Charlie" character... hey, at least he's being played by a REAL asian cartoon character and not an American cartoon character portraying an asian cartoon character! :)
ReplyDeleteOh for the days when comic strips were this well drawn (and funny).
ReplyDeleteI love how he's always somehow saved from near misses. He just wanders around totally oblivious - and blind - to everything never really gets injured. It seems like maybe that happened in the cartoon shorts more though.
ReplyDeleteI know a few people who wander through life blind but still somehow make it out okay... damn them.
ReplyDelete