DATE: Monday, August 11, 1997               TAG: 9708090048

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: E1   EDITION: FINAL 

TYPE: Column 

SOURCE: Larry Maddry 

                                            LENGTH:   71 lines

SOME FOLKS ARE JUST BLIND TO THE HUMOR FO MR. MAGOO

CAN YOU believe it? The National Federation of the Blind is seeing red over Mr. Magoo.

Yep, the federation wants to stop production of a Walt Disney Co. movie due to hit theaters this Christmas because the bungling old geezer with the bulbous nose and squinty eyes will be in it.

Lisa Bannon, staff writer for The Wall Street Journal, says the federation has demanded that Disney pull the plug on the film. They want it stopped because returning Magoo to the screen implies that ``it's funny to watch an ill-tempered and incompetent blind man stumble into things and misunderstand his surroundings.''

Well, of course, Mr. Magoo isn't funny. He's hilarious!

Or was until the Baltimore-based federation began sticking its nose into Disney's business. To find the merely amusing, you have to go snooping into the offices of the federation of the blind - when they aren't going out for three-martini lunches or taking in an Orioles game at Camden Yards.

The federation is like any other specialized interest group where jobs are dependent on finding something to raise hell about. I had a cousin who once worked for a facial tissue company. He couldn't wait to have someone write a news story using the word Kleenex - as a generic term for the product instead of his company's tissue.

When that happened, he got to dictate a letter to his secretary that complained to the newspaper, hinting of a possible lawsuit.

In his heart, he not merely wanted someone to use the word Kleenex - he prayed for it. Once it happened, he could write a letter. And have lunches at pricey restaurants with company lawyers.

What he really prayed for was publication of the competitor's name in a big West Coast newspaper. That meant he could fly to California at company expense to complain personally.

Those little trips to California are very nice in the hard of winter, as no doubt the clever rascals at the National Federation for the Blind are aware.

So you can imagine the joy with which the federation jumped into the case of Mr. Magoo. Hoo-ray for Hollywood . . . ta . . . da . . . dah. Nice chance to rub shoulders with big-time movie executives as the federation's ``concerns'' are expressed about the odious Mr. Magoo. There might even be the opportunity to go to lunch with movie stars. Hot damn!

The spurious, indeed ludicrous, position of the federation is as clear as the radish nose on Magoo's face.

Magoo is not, after all, totally blind. He's just a somewhat bungling old coot who also happens to have poor vision. People laugh at him because he is funny. He might be less funny if he didn't have a problem with his sight. But he is more old than - doncha hate this p.c. talk - visually impaired.

And there's nothing wrong with being old. As the American Association of Retired Persons will tell you straight up. If anyone would find Mr. Magoo offensive, you'd think it would be the AARP.

But has the AARP freaked out over Mr. Magoo's return to the movies? Nope. From them we hear not a peep.

Truth is that Mr. Magoo has been in retirement for too long now. Didn't you love the way he used to pat the tops of fire hydrants - thinking they were kids - and tell them to stay in school and make something of themselves when they grew up?

What a guy!

David Vogel of Walt Disney Pictures says the studio has taken pains to portray Mr. Magoo as a ``Forrest Gump''-like character with a greater intuitive ability to see what's going on than most.

In this instance, the American Federation for the Blind is a bit like Mr. Magoo in its bungling attack on that Disney film. It's a pity they lack his interior vision, too. ILLUSTRATION: [Color Illustration]

1997 UPA

[Mr. Magoo]

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