This post is the “flip-side” of an article I posted here a few weeks ago (The Last Five Screen Gems Cartoons 4/14/26) where I looked at transition of the outgoing Columbia’s Screen Gems releases and the incoming UPA cartoons. A real changing of the guard.
Roughly ten years later, the guard changed again. Things weren’t going well for UPA in the second half of the decade. Their satellite studios in New York and London closed; the Magoo feature was a troubled project; The Boing Boing Show was bombing; the Columbia contract for theatrical shorts had an expiration date: 1959.
The last of the 1958-59 season, released in July 1959, was Terror Faces Magoo. Produced in New York during the production crunch in Burbank on 1001 Arabian Nights, the Magoo feature.
By the end of the year UPA founder/producer Stephen Bousustow found a new financial “partner” to bail the studio out – Henry G. Saperstein – who essentially bought the studio and ultimately inched Bosustow out the door. Beginning in November, Columbia began releasing Hanna Barbera’s TV-styled Loopy DeLoop shorts as theatrical subjects (an arrangement that lasted through June 1965)!
Mr. Magoo was still extremely popular, if only as a short subjects star – and Bosustow knew that. Bosustow decided to keep making “UPA shorts” for theatrical release, and from this point on UPA itself would release them. Four new shorts were put into production.
The first one, Magoo Meets Boing Boing (The Noise Making Boy), directed by Abe Levitow, was given an Oscar qualifying release in late 1959. This cartoon was certainly a perfect idea to start with a ‘Bang-Bang’. I love how in the ‘UPA-niverse’, Magoo is on a short list of babysitters in the McCloy household. Magoo mistakes Gerald for his dog (and vice-versa) and “rescues” Gerald from a fire (actually just Gerald’s sound effects voice). The animation is no worse than the last few Columbia Magoo films – but far from the heights of greatness both characters had previously attained just a few short years earlier. Note that the theatrical title for this film was Magoo Meets Boing Boing (The Noise-Making Boy), the TV version is retitled Magoo Meets McBoing Boing.
The second Magoo cartoon, released in 1960, was likewise submitted for Academy Award consideration – I Was A Teenage Magoo – this time directed by Clyde Geronimi. It’s an odd one. The most UPA aspect of it is the background designs by Tom Yakutis, which are very cool. The animation is up the theatrical standards of the last Columbia Magoo’s – but that’s not saying too much. Told in flashback, the plot has teenage (but still nearsighted) red-headed Magoo picks up his date “Melba” (a kangaroo) from her home (in a circus) and go on a picnic. Sort of a prequel of sorts to Magoo’s Young Manhood (1958). Bosustow’s attempt to self-distribute was a huge failure. This cartoon was ultimately released as part of the TV package – albeit cut by two minutes and shown under the title Teenage Magoo.
The third short produced by Bosustow for theatrical release was Bric’s Stew – directed by Harvey Toombs – which featured a pair of new characters “Bric n’ Brac”. The negative was discovered a few years ago among film elements acquired by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences – within unclaimed inventory from the defunct DuArt Laboratory in New York City. Why it was abandoned and forgotten no one knows. Why there is a UA-TV logo at the end – no one knows. Asifa-Hollywood funded a preservation and I wrote about it in a post about this find in January 2019. I’m happy to present the entire cartoon, for the first time, below.
A fourth Magoo short intended for theaters – Magoo Meets Frankenstein – joined the other two in the Mr. Magoo TV package (130 new cartoons made-for-TV). Below is the first half of the rare theatrical version:
Bosustow finally sold his interest in UPA in June 1960. This wasn’t the end of Magoo – he would live on in his Christmas Carol TV special (a classic), a 26 episode series of Famous Adventures, as Uncle Sam, a GE light bulb salesman, in a Saturday morning DePatie Freleng series – and a live action movie (released by Disney)!
Despite a bittersweet fade-out, UPA was a historic game changer for animation during the 1950s. It was a studio – like Walt Disney’s – that is worth exploring with deeper dives.
For more information on UPA – I highly recommend Adam Abraham’s outstanding UPA history, When Magoo Flew: The Rise and Fall of Animation Studio UPA.
SPECIAL THANKS to Al Warner and Denis-Carl Robidoux for permission to share their transfers of the first two UPA Magoo theatricals – and to ASIFA-Hollywood for letting us debut the complete “Bric’s Stew”.
Jerry Beck is a writer, animation producer, college professor and author of more than 15 books on animation history. He is a former studio exec with Nickelodeon Movies and Disney, and has written for The Hollywood Reporter and Variety. He has curated cartoons for DVD and Blu-ray compilations and has lent his expertise to dozens of bonus documentaries and audio commentaries on such. Beck is currently on the faculty of CalArts in Valencia, UCLA in Westwood and Woodbury University in Burbank – teaching animation history. More about Jerry Beck [
I remember going to see “Mr. Magoo‘s 1001 Arabian nights“. Of course I loved any kind of animation in theaters so you can imagine that I wanted to jump at a chance to see this. It was a good afternoon’s viewing. Glad I now have the DVD. I was also one of the few that liked the “Mr. Magoo“ television cartoons, even though most folks didn’t like the cheapest of the animation, nor did they appreciate the stereotype that was Mr. Magoo‘s Chinese man, servant. For the most part, I thought they were funny, not as offensive stereotyping, but just as situations, taking the absurd nearsightedness of Mr. Magoo to new heights. I don’t remember the cartoons that are included with this article, but they were fun. It was just another great theatrical animation studio to explore, and I hope you do get to explore that further on Blu-ray some wonderful fine day!
I agree with Kevin that there is much to appreciate in the Magoo feature and the TV show. I grew up watching the TV cartoon shorts, which often were randomly packaged with other animated offerings from other studios. Annual repeats of “Mr. Magoo’s Christmas Carol” kept the character in the public eye for a few years and also despite its lasting only one season the Famous Adventures series often turned up at holiday time. I recall a Christmas showing of “Little Snow White” and other times of year “Mr. Magoo’s Treasure Island” or “Mr. Magoo in Sherwood Forest” would be rerun on a special occasion. They always ran the dressing room scene at the start so that the audience would recognize the “real” Magoo before he went into his play-acting role. (Later, when the series was rebroadcast on USA Network, the intros were dropped completely.) On an educational note, these reruns were also a reminder to kids about what great literature was like. Thus, even though the later Magoo efforts may not have been as profitable or popular, the character survived into the 70’s, even getting a Saturday morning show “What’s New Mr. Magoo?” toward the end of the decade.
Just as with the character of Felix the Cat who was discussed yesterday, Magoo had staying power. For those interested, I highly recommend the (long out of print but still possible to locate) paperback collections of Mr. Magoo comic strips “The Nearsighted Mr. Magoo” and “The Return of Magoo” as these offer glimpses into his daily life, along with his pets, his nephew Waldo, and even Charlie–and we see how they all were part of the same household. Even features a side trip to a famous theme park which Magoo refers to as “Magic Land.”
UPA stopped doing animation because of the financial disappointment of Gay Purr-ee and instead went into being basically Toho’s middle man for a while as UPA dubbed most of Toho’s films (mainly the majority of the campy Showa era Godzilla films)
Great entry on UPA/Magoo. I too grew up watching the TV Magoos in the early 60’s. First saw Magoo in a theater in 1958. It was “Rock hound Magoo”
I loved the old coot from then on and was very happy to see thè tv cartoons.
(On a side note this would have been a great post to have used your Magoo pencil test footage. Hope that you’ve still got that planned for a new future entry !!!! DJA
Worth noting that it was UPA who made the VERY FIRST animated Christmas special. That counts for something.
Ah, Magoo, part two! You’ve done it again!
A few years after Magoo met Frankenstein, Magoo himself would play Dr. Frankenstein in a Famous Adventure that adhered more closely to the Mary Shelley novel than most Hollywood productions. An important part of Magoo’s legacy is that his Famous Adventures introduced a lot of children to stories from classic literature. I’m sure Jim Backus relished the opportunity to play Magoo in dramatic roles, though I think it’s for the best that his dream of making a pornographic Magoo cartoon never came to fruition.
As for “Bric’s Stew”, I’m a sucker for any cartoon with rhyming dialogue, and the characters have an endearing silliness that really appeals to me. We’re lucky that it still exists at all today. Thanks for rescuing this unique piece of UPA history from oblivion.
One more oddity: There was an episode of the first Magoo TV series in which Charlie is going to see “Cyrano De Bergerac” and Magoo gives him a Fractured Fairy Tale version of the plot, drawn in a different style. Pilot for a new series, a leftover from the McBoingBoing show, or what?
It has been mentioned elsewhere that for at least a portion of the 1964-65 season, “Famous Adventures” on NBC was scheduled opposite “Gilligan’s Island” on CBS, meaning Jim Backus got to compete against himself in the ratings.
Just a heads up that there at least appears to be a part of “Magoo Meets Frankenstein”’s theatrical cut up on YouTube, albeit unlisted.
Here’s the link:
https://youtu.be/DsTpEfV_OOg?si=72lKLgaHhp3NrXaE
What I wouldn’t give to see the whole thing in its entirety…
Thank you for finding that…. I’ve added it to the post above.
Hi Jerry, I have a question about the Film Forum screening of Superman shorts this Sunday that you’re scheduled to introduce. Film Forum says two of the seven shorts will be new “Fleischertoons” restorations, which leads me to wonder how the other five will look. Do you know what kind of shape those are in, what format they’re showing in, etc? I’m visiting NYC this weekend and just looking for more info before I commit to going. Thanks!
I actually do not know the sources of the SUPERMAN shorts at the Film Forum this weekend. I was only involved (in this case) with the curation – not in the pulling the films together (exception: The STONE AGE cartoon – and THE RAVEN two-reeler (on 35mm film!) in the ODDBALL Show. Come to that one!
I’m guessing the self-released UPA Magoo cartoons were distributed on a “state rights” (territorial) basis. Years ago, when the long-gone 16mm distributor Modern Sound Pictures, Inc. in Omaha was selling off their huge short subject inventory, it included 35mm prints of the theatrical Magoos you mentioned. So it’s at least possible they were one of the regional distributors. Trying to release short cartoons on this basis seems another of Steve Bosustow’s more impractical ideas.
Independent territorial film distributing was a catch-as-catch-can business. My late friend Jim Maloy, from Austin, Texas was for decades a projectionist, dating back to the nitrate era. He recalled all the major companies having their exchanges on “film row” in (I think) Dallas, but his boss booking the Laurel & Hardy reissues through some little outfit in San Antonio which otherwise specialized in Spanish-speaking pictures.
I grew up with Mr. Magoo, I’m not sure if it was videos on Beta tapes, if so it was because my mother had watched them and said they were good. Later when we actually had a VHS, we would get one that had a racist portrayal of an East Asian servant who call him “Bloss”. Still, i have a fondness for the character and had no idea about the history, so this was a very fun history lesson to read. As for Mr. Magoo’s Christmas Carol, it was parodied first rate on The Simpsons as “Mr. McGrew’s Christmas Carol”.