Mr. Magoo's Christmas Carol
| Mister Magoo's Christmas Carol | |
|---|---|
DVD Cover for Mister Magoo's Christmas Carol
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| Directed by | Abe Levitow |
| Produced by | Lee Orgel, executive producer Henry G. Saperstein |
| Written by | Freely Adapted from Charles Dickens, by Barbara Chain |
| Based on |
A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens |
| Starring |
Jim Backus Morey Amsterdam Jack Cassidy Royal Dano Paul Frees |
| Music by |
Music by Jule Styne, Lyrics by Bob Merrill, Music Scored and Conducted by Walter Scharf |
| Distributed by |
UPA (1962-2000) Classic Media (2000-2012) DreamWorks Animation (2012-present) NBCUniversal Television Distribution (2016-present) |
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Release date
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December 18, 1962 |
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Running time
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53 min |
| Language | English |
Music by Jule Styne, Lyrics by Bob Merrill,
Mister Magoo's Christmas Carol is a musical adaptation of Charles Dickens's famous short story A Christmas Carol starring the cartoon character Mr. Magoo. Aside from the 1950 marionette special The Spirit of Christmas, it was the first animated holiday program ever produced specifically for television, originally airing in December 1962, and the only one until the stop-motion special Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer was first shown in December 1964. The special also inspired the 1964 TV series The Famous Adventures of Mr. Magoo. It featured the voice of Jim Backus as Magoo, with voice-over appearances by Paul Frees, Morey Amsterdam, Joan Gardner, and Jack Cassidy.
Mister Magoo's Christmas Carol was produced by Henry G. Saperstein and the UPA animation studio in its declining days. Commissioned and sponsored by Timex, it first aired on NBC on December 18, 1962. Although the special led to The Famous Adventures of Mr. Magoo television series, the studio ultimately found it could not adapt to the rigors of mass-producing cartoons for television.
The program was broadcast as a TV special many times during the Christmas season from the 1960s through the 1980s—though not always on NBC—before being released on VHS in 1982 and on DVD in 2001. The original 53-minute running time is often cut to make room for additional commercials, primarily by removing the framing device about Magoo himself. For the 2012 holiday season, NBC, which last telecast it in 1969, announced it would return the special to the air for the first time since the 1980s; it aired on NBC on December 22, 2012 even though it was heavily edited for the addition of more commercials including opening and closing wraparounds scenes, the finale scene of the musical as well as the end credits and other crucial scenes being cut from broadcast. The CW acquired the broadcast rights to the special for the 2014 season which was originally broadcast in its entirety but for the 2015 season broadcast the heavily edited NBC version instead.
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