When Magoo Flew

I recently saw a restored print of this at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences, as it won an Oscar for best Cartoon Short Subject of 1954. (Part of the Facets of the Diamond series). It is apparently not currently available on VHS or DVD -- which is a shame. Apropos of the year it was made (1953 was the BIG year for 3-D movies)nearsighted Magoo goes to a movie. Misreading the one-sheet, he thinks it's a 3-D movie! Then, through a series of blunders (having some nostalgic charm, as they would be impossible in the post 9/11 travel world) he uses his theater ticket to board an airplane -- all the time thinking he is watching a new 3-D movie that even FEELS like you are flying! I'll spare you more of the plot (you get the idea) -- in the hope that it will be re-released one of these days soon! It hasn't lost the ability to keep you laughing, almost half a century after it was made!

I recall watching the UPA cartoons featuring "The Nearsighted Mister Magoo" – as his full credit appears here – on Italian TV as a kid; for the record, the "Leslie Halliwell Film Guide" rates his 1952 'vehicle' BAREFACED FLATFOOT a highly respectable ***! Recently, too, I did catch his inevitable 1962 rendition – via a half-hour special – of "A Christmas Carol"; however, I did not bother with the live-action Leslie Nielsen incarnation (or, should I say, abomination) when it emerged in the late 1990s. Anyway, this delightful effort emerged the winner of the Best Animated Short Oscar: typically voiced by Jim Backus, Magoo goes out to experience a 3-D movie but he invariably takes a detour and winds up a passenger on a plane; he takes the flight to be the realism of the movie and, when the man next to him disappears but leaves his bag behind (he proves to be a spy being chased by cops), Magoo goes to look for him all over the place – literally, even walking on the wings of the plane, through clouds (which he mistakes for the smoking area of the theatre!) and even sliding across the cockpit windscreen to demand the flabbergasted pilots if they have seen the man in question! Incidentally, among the film's competitors at the Oscars were Tex Avery's CRAZY MIXED-UP PUP and the "Tom & Jerry" swashbuckler TOUCHE', PUSSYCAT!

This rant isn't new for me, but as this film earned the Oscar for Best Animated Short, I feel it wouldn't hurt to do it once again. In the 40s and much of the 50s, Hollywood was producing some of the greatest animated shorts in history. Amazing characters like Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Tom & Jerry, Droopy and the like were coming into their own and the quality of the toons were amazing...simply amazing. However, starting in the very early 50s, some cynical cheapskates decided that cartoons were mostly watched by children and that children were stupid, so they wouldn't notice or care when cheap animation was substituted. Low frame-rates, lousy backgrounds and poor animation quality was in and one of the worst perpetrators of this catastrophe (Columbia Pictures) was actually rewarded for making wretched and cheap cartoons. Believe it or not, cartoons like Gerald McBoing-Boing and Mr. Magoo were getting Oscars while great products like those of respected studios were being overlooked. Had crack been popular then, I might be able to explain the Academy's decisions--but I can't.

This is one of many Mr. Magoo cartoons. And while some hate them for their political correctness, I cringed at WHEN MAGOO FLEW's horrid animation--third-rate throughout and an offense against humanity. The story was dumb but the animation made my skin crawl. And to think it got an Oscar!!!!

Quite why the blind as a bat "Mr. Magoo" would want to go to the cinema in the first place is anyone's guess, but off he sets. His first ever 3D film - he has to fasten his seat belt and is impressed by the sensation that he might actually be flying... Well, yes, in fact he is - actually flying. He has mistakenly gone to the airport and is now thousands of feet up in the air. He goes for a stroll, takes what he thinks is the door to the smoking lounge and ends up doing a bit of a wing walk whilst playing havoc with the tail plane. Luckily he makes it back in ok, and just in time to help the police apprehend a thief! Safely landed, he disembarks the plane having throughly enjoyed his trip to the cinema - except, well there were no cartoons. "Magoo" was never my favourite cartoon character but this daft story works well enough with a simple scenario that raises a smile - especially when the woman looks out of the window!

This short won the Oscar and probably deserved to. It's an excellent effort and one of the shining moments of the Mister Magoo series of theaterically released shorts. It is hilarious and quite mad and chaotic, even for a Magoo cartoon. Most recommended.