Keeping Mr. Magoo out of Class Foghorn Leghorn

Josh Marshall has frequently compared Donald Trump to the character Mr. Magoo. That got me to wondering how many people out there have actually seen one of these cartoons.

Just so our younger readers will get the joke, here's an Oscar-winning short from 1954.





And while we're explaining jokes, the movie Magoo almost saw was a reference to another of the studio's hits, albeit in a very different vein, The Tell-Tale Heart.

The film was the first cartoon to be rated X, indicating it was suitable only for adult audiences, by the British Board of Film Censors. It was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film but lost to Toot, Whistle, Plunk and Boom from Walt Disney Productions.

In 1994, animation historian Jerry Beck surveyed 1000 people working in the animation industry and published the results in The 50 Greatest Cartoons: As Selected by 1,000 Animation Professionals, in which The Tell-Tale Heart ranked #24