Surely, modern art inspired the animators behind “Mr. Magoo.” At the time the cartoons were released, audiences must have recognized the richly hued, imaginatively drawn Technicolor backdrops as a break from the conventions of Disney and Warner Brothers. And that’s not even to mention the benign Surrealism of the myopic Magoo shaking hands with a water pump and mistaking a dog in the window for his own reflection in the mirror.
A four-DVD set, “The Mr. Magoo Theatrical Collection (1949-1959),” includes all 53 short cartoons released to theaters plus a full-length film featuring the incorrigibly grumpy protagonist. Magnificently voiced by Jim Backus in self-assured Ivy League tones (“By George, that’s a corker!”), Magoo is a wealthy eccentric bungling his way through calamity with nary a scratch. Although he can barely see, he accuses everyone else of being blind!
Wearing a homburg and gesturing with his cigar and walking stick, when he isn’t driving the wrong way down a one-way street in his antique roadster, Magoo inadvertently thwarts dangerous housebreakers, crooked car dealers, corrupt insurance agents, wild animals and arrogant officials. His oblivious aplomb remains hilarious decades later.
