Method Acting: Jim Backus never played Magoo sober. He had to have at least a bit of a buzz to get into character, and since he could drink as much as he wanted on the director's dime, he had nothing to complain about.
Role Reprise: Jerry Hausner, who was cast as Waldo for some of the shorts from 1949 to 1955, came back to the role for The Mr. Magoo Show.note This was after a hiatus in which Hausner was replaced by Daws Butler for some of the short films between 1956 and 1959.
The original plan for a Magoo feature film was to have him play Don Quixote. They even had author Aldous Huxley do a script treatment. However, when they went to the bank to secure financing, no one there knew who Don Quixote was, so they went with a more proven property. Magoo eventually did appear in an adaptation of Don Quixote as an episode of The Famous Adventures of Mister Magoo.
Pete Burness, who directed most of the Magoo shorts, was the original director for 1001 Arabian Nights, but became dissatisfied with how the movie was turning out and left the studio. He was replaced by former Disney director Jack Kinney, who directed most of the Goofy shorts.
Magoo was almost a paranoid, bitter, mean-spirited old man who constantly spouted misanthropic political rants, as a parody of the Communist-hating mindset of the McCarthy era (which was at its peak in 1949-50). His blindness was meant as an allegory for bigotry.
Written by Cast Member: "Destination Magoo", released in 1954, was written by Jim Backus and Jerry Hausner, voice actors for Magoo and Waldo respectively.
Live-Action Film
Box Office Bomb: A backlash from blindness advocates forced Disney to remove the Live-Action Adaptation from theaters before it could recoup its $30m budget. Because of this, it only made $21.4 million, just $9 million short of its budget.
Creator Killer: Stanley Tong never directed another American film after critics and the box office sent the 1997 adaptation into the dumpster.
Development Hell: Plans for the live-action adaptation had been announced as far back as the late 80's, and was supposed to be developed by Warner Bros., and then Columbia Pictures, before Disney acquired the rights years later.
Fake American: In the 1997 adaptation, the titular character is played by the late Canadian actor Leslie Nielsen.
Franchise Killer: The movie sent the franchise into the background for a long while.
Genre-Killer: The film's failure proved a devastating blow to both the early-mid 90s wave of reviving classic franchises and the traditional live-action family film for a short while anyway.
What Could Have Been: Disney already had plans for at least one sequel if the film was successful, which obviously didn't happen.
At one point during the movie's hop between studios, it was in the lap of Amblin Entertainment, and was set to star Danny Devito.
