This chapter traces the role of humour in Inside Magoo (1960), an educational
film released by United Productions of America (UPA) for the
American Cancer Society (ACS). Humour, I suggest, provided 1) a response
to ACS’s concerns that public fears of cancer led people to avoid appropriate
medical help, and 2) a commentary on 1950s America from the perspective
of someone – Mr. Magoo – who rejected the post-war world of white, male,
middle-class, consumerist suburbia. This film was thus not only about
cancer. It wrapped the ACS message within humorous observations on
life in the 1950s to charm audiences into adopting ACS approaches to the
disease; a technique, I suggest, that was common to other UPA cancer
educationals of the 1950s.