Mr. Magoo's Christmas Carol

 Review

Common Sense Media says

Respectful Magoo treatment of Dickens is fun for kids.
greenON: Content is age-appropriate for kids this age.
yellowPAUSE: Know your child; some content
may not be right for some kids.
redOFF: Not age-appropriate for kids this age.
not for kidsNOT FOR KIDS: Not appropriate for kids any age.

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Quality
 
Sometimes media can be age appropriate but a real waste of time. Our star rating assesses the media's overall quality.

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Parents say

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Kids say

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What parents need to know

Parents need to know that this is a faithful rendering of the Dickens novel, with Scrooge/Magoo getting a glimpse of
the bleak future in which both he and Tiny Tim have died. References are made to Jesus and the religious basis for Christmas. Certain pressure groups have complained that the Mr. Magoo concept mocks the disabled because much of the humor involves Magoo's poor eyesight.

  • The cartoon short-feature connects to kids who are just a little too young to read Charles Dickens' novel.
  • Dickens' messages about the emptiness of greedy materialism and the redemption of Christmas and kindness are preserved. References are made (without dropping names) to Jesus and the religious basis for Christmas in both Dickens-derived dialogue and in song lyrics.
  • If you like the Dickens characters you'll find nothing to argue with here. Some activists claim Mr. Magoo is an insult to the handicapped because of his near-blind bumbling.
  • A stage-set collapse conks a supporting character (but Magoo escapes unscathed). 

What's the story?

MR. MAGOO'S CHRISTMAS CAROL bowed as a 1960s prime-time NBC-TV cartoon special. In the 1980s Sir Alastair Cooke surprised many with a commentary calling the cartoon one of the best of the many A Christmas Carol adaptations he'd seen. In the cartoon the premise is that Mr. Magoo has somehow become a Broadway star in a new musical "Christmas Carol," which we see in its entirety, after Magoo arrives at the last minute backstage. Magoo plays the London miser Ebeneezer Scrooge, of course, who learns the meaning of Christmas thanks to a ghostly series of interventions, in a narrative that is almost entirely faithful to the Charles Dickens novel.


Is it any good?

 

The Jule Styne songs aren't terribly catchy, the line-art animation is coloring-book simplistic, and Bob Crachit looks like George Jetson. Still, for the younger set this is an appropriate Christmas Carol that does indeed preserve much of Dickens' pathos and quotes his dialogue directly, not rewriting or dumbing down. It's indeed compelling to see Magoo, even with a few bad-eyesight-gags mixed in, playing the storybook miser straight, right down to tearful regret.

Following this, more Magoo cartoons came out as mini-editions of classic literature -- casting Magoo as Don Quixote, Long John Silver, Dr. Frankenstein, and the Count of Monte Cristo, among others -- that (not unlike PBS-TV's Wishbone) treated the stories seriously and made the themes accessible to child viewers.


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What families can talk about

  • Families can talk about what makes Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol so effective -- and so easily adaptable. Ask kids which is their favorite retelling and why.

  • Study up with animation-savvy kids on the history of the Mr. Magoo
    character and some of the real-life models for him, like legendary
    comic W.C. Fields. Mention that the original Magoo of the late
    1940s/early 1950s was conceived as nastier, more adult-oriented and
    mean-spirited than the harmlessly silly gent he became on TV.


This review was written by Charles Cassady Jr.

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This review was written by Charles Cassady Jr.
Topics:holidays
Studio:Paramount Pictures
Director:Abe Levitow
Cast:Jack Cassidy, Morey Amsterdam, Paul Frees
Genre:Family and Kids
Run time:48 minutes
DVD release date:September 14, 2004
MPAA rating:G

This review was written by Charles Cassady Jr.
 

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About our rating system
ON: Content is age-appropriate for kids this age.
PAUSE: Know your child; some content may not be right for some kids.
OFF: Not age-appropriate for kids this age.
Learning ratings
BEST: Really engaging, great learning approach.
GOOD: Pretty engaging, good learning approach.
FAIR: Somewhat engaging, OK learning approach.
NOT FOR LEARNING: Not recommended for learning.

 

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