I have vague memories of watching the 1962 animated Christmas special on television as a child, perhaps around 1977 when this book version came out and I would have been ten. Magoo was never a favorite of mine, but any cartoon would do back then.

This adaptation isn't very compelling, but I have a notion to try the show again since I see it is streaming on Peacock.

In sampling the first few minutes I find that it opens with a song as Quincy Magoo makes his way to a Broadway theater to star in a production of Charles Dickens' "A Christmas Carol." The book can't do music, so it opens with a terribly overwritten, slow, and boring alternate version of Magoo getting to work. Then the majority of the book is simply a dull retelling of Dickens' original tale with Magoo playing Ebenzer straight without any of Magoo's trademark near-sighted mishaps. Half of each page is a blurry, black-and-white screenshot from the film.

FOR REFERENCE:

Mister Magoo's Christmas Carol was directed by Abe Levitow from a screenplay by Barbara Chain based on the story by Charles Dickens. ( )