Mister Magoo’s Christmas Carol was the very first animated Christmas special. Before Rudolph. Before Charlie Brown. Before any of the others.
You don’t have to know who Mister Magoo is. This production stands on it’s own and features a score by Funny Girl songwriting team Jule Styne and lyricist Bob Merrill.
NBC aired this in 2012 and did a merciless hack job, doing random edits to fit a 60 minute time slot (cutting away to commercials during the middle of a scene and never returning to that scene).
The full 90 minute Christmas Carol will air on CW this evening (12/19) at 8pm and again at 8pm Christmas Eve.
Wow - I don’t remember that. It must have scarred me so deep I suppressed it. Guess those wounds will be (gladly) ripped wide open tonight. I plan on having a strong adult beverage in hand, room darkened and tears dripping at the end of “I’m all alone in the world”
I sat with my youngest son (now 22) and was swept away once again. I think he got a kick out of seeing me so invested in a cartoon.
I thought they did a great video restoration and I’m glad they kept the original aspect ratio instead of forcing it to fit 16:9. The audio had a few crackly spots but nothing tragic and they passed quickly.
While they certainly cut away to commercials frequently, it was done with respect to and without loss of content. I’ll gladly take that trade off to keep it coming back each year.
We’re looking forward to a Christmas Eve with Mr. Magoo and a Christmas night with Doctor Who.
Isn’t it funny how those tears can still sneak up on you? My father passed away 24 years ago and I still get that lump in my throat, especially during the holidays as his birthday was Dec 27.
Last year they were very respectful and careful of when the commercial breaks were placed and to the best of my knowledge it was the most complete showing in decades. (NBC did a hack job on it in 2012 and placed it in prime time, probably turning off a lot of new viewers)
Absolutely - including a semi-painful opening musical number about Broadway as Magoo careens down the road crashes and ends up going in the back door of a Chinese Restaurant by mistake.
