Quincy Magoo, canned vegetable king and well-known philanthropist, is always taking wrong turns and having close calls. His eyesight may be terrible, but with the help of his loyal bulldog and shy nephew, he manages to foil one of the slickest jewel theives in the world. Readers will love the amusing antics and remain on the edge of their seats as the suspense and wild, wacky action mount. The book includes eight pages of full-color stills from the movie.

What do Franklin Roosevelt, Dr. Seuss, the U.S. Navy, and Mr. Magoo have in common? They are all part of the surprising story of the pioneering cartoon studio UPA (United Productions of America). Throughout the 1950s, a group of artists ran a business that broke all the rules, pushing animated films beyond the fluffy fantasy of the Walt Disney Studio and the crash-bang anarchy of Warner Bros. Instead, UPA’s films were innovative and graphically bold—the cartoon equivalent to modern art. When Magoo Flew is the first book-length study to chronicle the complete story of this unique American enterprise. The book features cameo appearances by Aldous Huxley, James Thurber, Orson Welles, Judy Garland, Robert Goulet, Jim Backus, Eddie Albert, and Woody Allen, as well as a select filmography of the best of UPA. Ebook Edition Note: The ebook has three images redacted: figures 1, 2, and 51.

An updated & revised version of the previous edition on the making of Mr. Magoo's Christmas Carol featuring new information, over 130 new images and a soundtrack CD.

The definitive portrait of one of the most important cultural figures in American history: Walt Disney. Walt Disney was a true visionary whose desire for escape, iron determination and obsessive perfectionism transformed animation from a novelty to an art form, first with Mickey Mouse and then with his feature films–most notably Snow White, Fantasia, and Bambi. In his superb biography, Neal Gabler shows us how, over the course of two decades, Disney revolutionized the entertainment industry. In a way that was unprecedented and later widely imitated, he built a synergistic empire that combined film, television, theme parks, music, book publishing, and merchandise. Walt Disney is a revelation of both the work and the man–of both the remarkable accomplishment and the hidden life. Winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Biography USA Today Biography of the Year

In Cartoon Vision Dan Bashara examines American animation alongside the modern design boom of the postwar era. Focusing especially on United Productions of America (UPA), a studio whose graphic, abstract style defined the postwar period, Bashara considers animation akin to a laboratory, exploring new models of vision and space alongside theorists and practitioners in other fields. The links—theoretical, historical, and aesthetic—between animators, architects, designers, artists, and filmmakers reveal a specific midcentury modernism that rigorously reimagined the senses. Cartoon Vision invokes the American Bauhaus legacy of László Moholy-Nagy and György Kepes and advocates for animation’s pivotal role in a utopian design project of retraining the public’s vision to better apprehend a rapidly changing modern world.

From Mr. Magoo to Papa Smurf chronicles the story of how television rescued animation and how animation learned to make films at drastically reduced prices in incredibly short time frames. From the 1920s through the 1950s the production and release of animated cartoons were in the care of the major Hollywood studios; the "shorts" didn't make much money but theater-goes liked them and characters such as Bugs Bunny, Donald Duck, Tom 'n Jerry and Woody Woodpecker were, and still are, popular icons. The sudden expansion of television was changing the movie business and the major film studios had to restructure or close. They certainly did not need to make animated cartoons and lose money. Without subsidy, animation, a cottage industry at best, seemed doomed to extinction. It seemed, at the time, as if only Disney would survive. Baldwin's book tells the story of an aspiring young artist who dreams of being a great mural painter. The idea of being just another screen cartoonist was not a role he found appealing but he needed a job. He learned. He grew, and with growth came the realization that he was perfectly suited to what he finally perceived as exciting potential in the art of animation. From Mr. Magoo to Papa Smurf is a great read for those of us who grew up watching cartoons and always wondered how they came to be.