'Mr. Magoo's Christmas Carol'

"Mr. Magoo's Christmas Carol," the first animated yuletide special, premiered on NBC in 1962 and introduced a lot of youngsters to Charles Dickens' beloved "A Christmas Carol." Featuring a musical score by Broadway composers Jule Styne and Bob Merrill, and a masterful turn as the miserly Ebenezer Scrooge by the nearsighted cartoon character Quincy Magoo, the hourlong special quickly became a perennial on NBC during the 1960s and has lived on in syndication and DVD.

But the special encountered a few challenges that could have turned this "Christmas Carol" into a humbug instead of a delicious serving of "razzleberry dressing" and "Woofle jelly cake."

"Lee wanted Robert Goulet to sing all of Jim Backus' parts," Van Citters says. "Somehow Jim must have persuaded him he could pull it off. I don't think it would have worked with Goulet. There would be a real audience disconnect."

Mr. Magoo was created by UPA animation studio and made his debut in "Ragtime Bear" in 1949. Two of the shorts starring the little, wealthy retiree who refused to admit he needed glasses won Academy Awards: 1955's "When Magoo Flew" and 1956's "Magoo's Puddle Jumper." He even starred in a feature-length film, 1959's "1001 Arabian Nights."

But in 1960, UPA changed hands. Because the theatrical market for animated shorts had run dry, they began making cartoons for television.

It was Orgel's idea to put Magoo and UPA's other famous character, Gerald McBoing-Boing — as Tiny Tim — into a musical version of the Dickens classic, Van Citters explains. "It seemed like an odd thing, but he probably saw Lionel Bart's "Oliver!' on stage, and that was the first time they put music and lyrics together to Dickens."

Van Citters says that it is the score that really makes the special soar. And so do the performers, including such Broadway vets as Jack Cassidy and Jane Kean. Among the gems are the lively "The Lord's Bright Blessing," the poignant "Alone in the World" and the haunting tune of lost love, "Winter Was Warm."

The first and the last book of Magoo

To the very end Millard Kaufman was telling jokes, which was some sort of hobby to him. In that job he was gently helped by his wife. They had a phone trick; both of them would be online and just at one instant in the middle of the conversation one would say a joke. In a happy environment, Millard Kaufman lasted to live for 92 years: he died in his apartment in Los Angeles on March the 17th, this year.

He is well known, first of all by giving us a nature of an old, near-sighted Quincy Magoo, the famous cartoon character. Then, he had enough guts to write and publish his first book when he was at the age of 90. It was the book “Bowl of cherries”, translated to many languages. When the novel was conventional by riders, Millard got inspirited. One year later he started with writing a new novel “Misadventure”, which will unfortunately be published posthumously this drop.

The thing which applauded up Kaufman was the fact that the publishers to whom he had offered his writing couldn’t think that the book was written by a 90 years old man. “Bowl of cherries” is a story of an American soldier who went to Iraq where he found out the secrets of an ancient architecture. Novel is filled with curses, but as well with jokes of ex American president Bush.


Born in 1917, “father” of Quincy Magoo was a journalist. He stopped his career as a journalist for attending the II World War, to fight beside Hitler. He hasn’t continued to his returning his job as a journalist. Coming back to Los Angeles he started functioning in the film industry. First job was a beat to him. He wrote a script play for a cartoon. He made up a quality of a bold, rich, short-sighted and short gentleman who is getting into troubles because of his seeing problem. The character of Quincy Magoo came lively by John Humbly and Robert Canon. Then the life of this charming gentleman found his way directly to the Oscar. After that Kaufman got a job in MGM where he worked as a writer for 15 years. One of his best movies is for sure is “Bad day at Black Rock” with Spenser Tracy.

And so that was his job until he got withdraw. That is when Millard got to his senses and comprehend that all he wanted to be for all those years was to be a writer. The last script he wrote in 1986.

“It was a magnificent experience for me”, said Millard Kaufman in one of the latest interviews. “At the commencement I believed that writing a book is not more differences from writing a script play for a movie. I was wrong. It was a real confront for me.