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J. Quincy Magoo, better known as Mr. Magoo, is a fictional cartoon character created at the UPA animation studio in 1949. Voiced by Jim Backus, Mr. Magoo is an elderly, wealthy, short-statured retiree who gets into a series of comical situations as a result of his extreme near-sightedness, compounded by his stubborn refusal to admit the problem. However, through uncanny streaks of luck, the situation always seems to work itself out for him, leaving him no worse than before. Bystanders consequently tend to think that he is a lunatic, rather than just being near-sighted. In later cartoons, he is also an actor, and generally a competent one, except for his visual impairment. Magoo episodes were nominated for the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film three times, and received the award twice, for When Magoo Flew (1954) and Magoo's Puddle Jumper (1956). In 2002, TV Guide ranked Mr. Magoo number 29 on its "50 Greatest Cartoon Characters of All Time" list. History Mr. Magoo's first appearance was in the theatrical short cartoon "The Ragtime Bear" (1949), scripted by Millard Kaufman. His creation was a collaborative effort; animation director John Hubley is said to have partly based the character on his uncle Harry Woodruff, and W. C. Fields was another source of inspiration. Columbia was reluctant to release the short, but did so, only because it included a bear. However, audiences quickly realized that the real star was Magoo, one of the few "human" cartoon characters ever produced in Hollywood at the time. The short became a box-office success. The Magoo character was originally conceived as a mean-spirited reactionary. Hubley, who had created Magoo, handed the series completely over to creative director Pete Burness. Under Burness, Magoo won two Academy Awards for the studio with When Magoo Flew (1954) and Magoo's Puddle Jumper (1956). Burness scrubbed Magoo of his meanness and left only a few strange comments that made him appear senile or somewhat mad. At the same time, art director Sterling Sturtevant, one of the few women working in animation at the time, redesigned the character's appearance. Magoo was frequently accompanied in his on-screen escapades with his nephew Waldo, voiced at various times by either Jerry Hausner or Daws Butler. In 1957, the record album Magoo in Hi-Fi was released. Side 1 consisted of a dialogue between Magoo and Waldo taking place while Magoo was attempting to set up his new sound system. Music on the album was composed and conducted by Dennis Farnon and his orchestra. Side 2, "The Mother Magoo Suite", was a series of musical pieces which included two solos by Marni Nixon. In 1959, Mr. Magoo starred in 1001 Arabian Nights, directed by Jack Kinney, UPA's first feature-length production. In 1994, a Sega Mega Drive game starring Mr. Magoo was in development and planned to be published by Millennium Interactive but never released. In 1997, the live-action comedy film Mr. Magoo, produced by Walt Disney Pictures and starring Leslie Nielsen as the title character, was released in December, earning bad reviews from critics. In 2010, a direct-to-video action-comedy film based on the character, Kung Fu Magoo, was released on DVD on May 11, 2010. It features the voices of Jim Conroy, Chris Parnell, Dylan and Cole Sprouse, and Alyson Stoner. The film is a Mexican–American co-production, produced by Classic Media, Ánima Estudios, and Santo Domingo Films. The film was directed by Andrés Couturier. His most recent appearance was in DreamWorks Animation's The Boss Baby, where he briefly appears on the cover of a comic book. On television and in popular culture In the 1960s, UPA turned its attention to television, and began producing the series Mister Magoo for the character. Because UPA had shut down its animation studio in 1959, the animation for these cartoons was done by Jack Kinney Productions and Larry Harmon Pictures. The cartoons suffered from varying character designs and choppier animation, due to rushed production schedules. Magoo's nephew Waldo (voiced, as in most of the theatrical cartoons, by Jerry Hausner) was seldom seen with his uncle, now appearing in his own episodes, introduced by a brief phone conversation from Magoo's point of view, which acted as a teaser. The Waldo episodes also featured a slick-talking con man named Prezly, and always ended with a return to Magoo saying, "Oh, that Waldo and Prezly. What'll they be up to next? Hee hee hee!" Magoo's houseboy Cholly (i.e., "Charlie") took up a lot of Waldo's slack. Cholly was an Asian stereotype with huge buck teeth and comically fractured English pronunciation. Despite his stereotyped appearance and voice, he nonetheless usually plays straight man to Magoo's shenanigans, rather than being a source of humor on his own. He is the "sane" one of the pair. His resourcefulness often saves Magoo from danger. Still other cartoons featured Tycoon Magoo, voiced by Mel Blanc, and his bumbling assistant Worcestershire. During the UPA television era came Mister Magoo's Christmas Carol, an abbreviated but largely faithful retelling of Charles Dickens' tale. It was the first ever animated Christmas special made for television and the first hour-long animated TV special and is considered to be a holiday classic of the 1960s, ranking alongside A Charlie Brown Christmas and How the Grinch Stole Christmas!. The special inspired the production of an animated TV series titled The Famous Adventures of Mr. Magoo, which placed Magoo as an actor in other well-known stories. After an introduction in Magoo's backstage dressing room, Magoo was depicted in such roles as The Count of Monte Cristo, Merlin in an upbeat retelling of the story of King Arthur, Friar Tuck in Robin Hood, and Puck in A Midsummer Night's Dream. In 1970, Mr. Magoo starred as Uncle Sam in the TV special Uncle Sam Magoo. In the late 1970s, Mr. Magoo appeared in a new Saturday morning CBS television series called What's New, Mr. Magoo? This series was made under license by the DePatie–Freleng studio, as UPA had by this time ceased in-house cartoon production. Mr. Magoo was planned to have a cameo in the 1988 film Who Framed Roger Rabbit, but was later dropped for unknown reasons. Nickelodeon's Weinerville anthologizes most of his shorts. In 1997, Mr. Magoo was portrayed by Leslie Nielsen in a live-action Mr. Magoo feature film. It failed to find critical or popular success, and some support groups for the disabled, including the National Federation of the Blind, protested it on behalf of the blind and sight-impaired. A Mexican-U.S. animated feature, Kung-Fu Magoo, was released as a direct-to-DVD release in 2010 and made its TV debut on Disney XD in 2011. Mr. Magoo helped advertise the General Electric line of products throughout the 1950s and 1960s, sometimes under the name J. Quincy Magoo. In 2005, Mr. Magoo became the spokesman of the optical retail store Sterling Optical. Magoo also was featured in a series of commercials.... Discover the Uncle Paul Mr Book popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Uncle Paul Mr Book books.