Mr. Quincy Magoo

Mr. Magoo
Mr. Magoo and McBarker from What's New, Mr. Magoo?
Created by	Millard Kaufman John Hubley Willis Pyle Sherm Glas
Portrayed by	Jim Backus (1949–1989) Jim Conroy (Kung Fu Magoo) Leslie Nielsen (film)
Information
Aliases	Quincy Magoo
Species	Human
Gender	Male
Family	Waldo, Mother Magoo, Granny Magoo, Tycoon Magoo
Nationality	American

Mr. Magoo, sometimes given the first names J. Quincy, is a cartoon character created at the UPA animation studio in 1949. Voiced by Jim Backus, Mr. Magoo is a 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.

Affected people (or animals) consequently tend to think that he is a lunatic, rather than just being nearsighted. 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 (the Oscar) four 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.

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. In a legend circulating among medievalists, Harvard University professor Francis P. Magoun is also said to have been the model for the character. However, there is no evidence that artist Hubley knew the scholar. 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 McCarthy-like reactionary whose mumbling would include as much outrageous misanthropic ranting as the animators could get away with. Kaufman had actually been blacklisted, and Magoo was a form of protest. Hubley was an ex-communist who had participated in the Disney animators' strike in 1941. Both he and Kaufman had participated in the blacklist front and perhaps due to the risk of coming under more scrutiny with a successful character, Hubley, who had created Magoo, handed the series completely over to creative director Pete Burness. However, it was Production Manager Sherm Glas who designed the character itself.