Mister Magoo's Christmas Carol
Mister Magoo's Christmas Carol
NR | 18 December 1962 (USA)
Mister Magoo's Christmas Carol Trailers

In this animated musical version of Charles Dickens' "A Christmas Carol", Ebenezer Scrooge - via Mr. Magoo's starring performance in a stage production of the classic - doesn't have a ghost of a chance unless he learns the true meaning of Christmas from the three spirits who haunt him one Christmas Eve.

Reviews
Claysaba

Excellent, Without a doubt!!

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Stevecorp

Don't listen to the negative reviews

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Verity Robins

Great movie. Not sure what people expected but I found it highly entertaining.

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Dana

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

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Christmas-Reviewer

BEWARE OF BOGUS REVIEWS & REVIEWERS. SOME REVIEWERS HAVE ONLY ONE REVIEW. WHEN ITS A POSITIVE REVIEW THAT TELLS ME THEY WERE INVOLVED WITH THE PRODUCTION & THAT IS WHAT IS GOING ON HERE FOR THIS FILM! NOW I HAVE REVIEWED OVER 300 Christmas MOVIES. I HAVE NO AGENDA. I AM FAREThis up-tenth version of the "Charles Dickens" famous book has an excellent framing device. There is a musical score that has some very memorable tunes. I also love the fact the rearrange the appearance in which the 3 G Host appear. Mister Magoo's Christmas Carol was produced by Henry G. Saperstein and the UPA animation studio in its declining days. Commissioned and sponsored by Timex, it first aired on NBC on December 18, 1962.[4] Although the special led to The Famous Adventures of Mr. Magoo television series, the studio ultimately found it could not adapt to the rigors of mass-producing cartoons for television.The program was broadcast as a TV special many times during the Christmas season from the 1960s through the 1980s—though not always on NBC—before being released on VHS in 1982 and on DVD in 2001. The original 53-minute running time is often cut to make room for additional commercials, primarily by removing the framing device about Magoo himself. For the 2012 holiday season, NBC, which last telecast it in 1969, announced it would return the special to the air for the first time since the 1980s; it aired on NBC on December 22, 2012 even though it was heavily edited for the addition of more commercials including opening and closing wraparounds scenes, the finale scene of the musical as well as the end credits and other crucial scenes being cut from broadcast. The CW acquired the broadcast rights to the special for the 2014 season which was originally broadcast in its entirety but for the 2015 season, the broadcast was the heavily edited NBC version instead

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oscar-35

*Spoiler/plot- Mr. MaGoo's Christmas Carole, 1962. Famous actor, Quincy MaGoo is in a Broadway show playing Ebeneezer Scooge in the Dicken's Christmas Carol play. The production is part comedy, drama, musical and melodrama and is shared with the TV viewers.*Special Stars- Jim Backus, Morey Amsterdam, Jack Cassidy, Royal Dano, Paul Frees, Les Tremayne, Joan Gardner.*Theme- Redemption is possible at anytime of your life.*Trivia/location/goofs- Animation, USA, One of the first Christmas specials that would be broadcast every year during that season. The Christmas tree was not a seasonal fixture at the time the story takes place.*Emotion- Great memories of this film and catchy tunes for the Christmas Dicken's story. However, has been re-broadcast for it's 50th anniversary with bright digital colors on network TV, but horribly butchered for today's commercial many breaks and shorter running time. See it in it's original running time and uncut on DVD or Director's Cut VHS.

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olderbutwiser

"A Christmas Carol" is 100 pages long and would take 2 hours to read, however it has generated so many variations on screen and stage(and probably the Internet). Here is the first animated one, after reading the original last year(cost 25 cents)I was surprised to find out that the cartoon version took great pains to preserve much of the exact wording of the novel. There is not even a hint that it is not the mid 1800s in the cartoon. One particular scene always gets me- the ghost of Christmas past's(a young boy or girl)face turns profoundly sad when Scrooge/Magoo sings "why such a lonely beach" and it seems like the ghost understands Scrooge's sadness. When you are a kid, there is NOTHING scarier than the ghost of Christmas future, and nothing more desolate than Scrooge/Magoo on the grave singing "I'm all alone in the world" with the camera panning the cemetery. A close second in scariness is when Marley jumps out the window(as a ghost) and bellows as he merges into all the other ghosts flying around London. Music, dialog, and even the chintzy animation is just right. I must go home and play my VHS tonight!

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middleburg

I just recently saw again this old beloved (for us baby boomer generation) Mr. Magoo cartoon version of "A Christmas Carol". The moment when Mr. Magoo sings "and on the tree a star of shining Christmas gold...", well I just felt this lump in my throat, and the tears well up....what a beautiful, beautiful version of this fable....improbable as it seems...it is the best version of "A Christmas Carol" ever made! The Alisdair Sim version is also great, dark and chilling, the early MGM version a treacly joyful delight--and this version combines the best elements of both--with the added bonus of one of the best original television scores ever written. There are even some acting and dramatic details that outshine the previous classic versions...This is the only Scrooge that in the beginning shows his rapturous love of money- -in the very catchy song celebrating the jingle/jangle of coins. Mr. Scrooge is still a miserable miser--but that glee is positively revelatory, positively addicting--and the viewer even has a little bit of affection for this Scrooge right away--and this doesn't show up in the other versions where Scrooge is simply a Scrooge until the end. So many others have commented on the poignancy of the heartbreaking song of loneliness sung by the young Scrooge left alone at the boarding school. The simple touch of the old Scrooge turning the song into a duet is simply masterful...showing Scrooge's turn-around simply, effectively and powerfully. "Winter was Warm" deserves to be a standard song (as other commentators have aptly described it!) It is quite simply, haunting. Used as an instrumental interlude--sometimes full and rich, as it appears during the opening titles, sometimes hauntingly mysterious as it appears between acts setting up the ghostly encounters on that mysterious Christmas Eve, it is always beautiful, always so very memorable. And that glorious song celebrating the joy of Christmas, sung by the Cratchit family at the beginning and end of the show--what a perfect song! It resonates long after the show has ended. This all adds up to an adaptation of the Dickens story that is joyful, heartbreaking and surprising real: the cartoon characters--including the simple/poignant depiction of the Cratchit family seems somehow more real and affecting than the other adaptations portrayed by Real people!!) In the versions with real people portraying these Dickens characters--they often come across as cartoonish, artificial and over-the-top. On the other hand, in this Mr. Magoo version, because they are already cartoon figures, they come across as almost more human, which makes their situations all the more poignant, all the more powerful. How cool is that? This film is one to treasure. If you have never seen it, you will immediately take it to your heart. If you have already seen it, I'm sure it has become a staple of your holiday viewing and will remain so forever!

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