# The old magoo **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [June 5, 2008, 4:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-old-magoo/451898 "2008-06-05T16:05:57Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![BurnMeUp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/91b2a8/32.png) [@BurnMeUp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BurnMeUp)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2008, 4:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-old-magoo/451898/1 "2008-06-05T16:05:57Z")
So every year my wife watches Christmas in Connecticut. Early on in the movie one of the military guys tells the other the way to get what he wants from a nurse is to “give her the old magoo”. As sexually euphemistic as it sounds, I’m pretty sure it’s just meaning “feed her a line of crap”. However I can’t seem to find any other use of the term anywhere. Is my guess on the meaning correct and was this a popular phrase at the time? ---
**Author:** ![Mark\_Ryle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8dc957/32.png) [@Mark\_Ryle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mark_Ryle)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2008, 1:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-old-magoo/451898/2 "2008-06-06T01:25:26Z")
[QUOTE=BurnMeUp] … I’m pretty sure it’s just meaning “feed her a line of crap”. [/QUOTE] From _[Christmas In Connecticut](http://www.cswap.com/1945/Christmas_in_Connecticut/cap/en/25fps/a/00_06#caption)_: :06:19 But it’s got to be convincing. That’s where magoo is different from baloney. :06:22 Altogether different. :06:24 But just how far do you have to go? :06:28 How hungry are you? :06:30 That far? :06:32 Break a girl’s heart that way. Say, how far did you have to go? :07:21 All the way. :07:23 - Yeah? - Yeah. She thinks I wanna marry her. :07:25 Nothing else worked. :07:26 Oh, well, don’t you worry. :07:28 Magoo got you in. Magoo will get you out. From [_Meridian Magazine_](http://www.meridianmagazine.com/videos/001218conn.html) – The Place Where Latter-day Saints Gather: > [@](#): > > Little White Lies > While _Connecticut_’s premise hinges on Elizabeth’s literary license, almost every main character can be blamed for some dishonest representation. All of the harmless lies collide to cause the commotion that ends up being the Christmas holiday on the Connecticut farm. Lacking a villain, as well as any malicious intent, the misrepresentation (or “The Magoo” as one minor character calls it) creates the conflict of the story. ---
**Author:** ![Mark\_Ryle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8dc957/32.png) [@Mark\_Ryle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mark_Ryle)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2008, 1:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-old-magoo/451898/3 "2008-06-06T01:35:40Z")
From [urban dictionary](http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=magoo&defid=906519): > [@](#): > > In the 1945 Barbara Stanwyck film “Christmas in Connecticut,” a "magoo’ is a seductive, complex story you tell to get what you want. > He gave her “the magoo” by saying he couldn’t marry her because he was going to die in 2 months. ---
**Author:** ![Mark\_Ryle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8dc957/32.png) [@Mark\_Ryle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mark_Ryle)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2008, 8:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-old-magoo/451898/4 "2008-06-06T20:08:40Z")
[QUOTE=BurnMeUp] … I can’t seem to find any other use of the term anywhere. …was this a popular phrase at the time? [/QUOTE] I don’t think it was too popular. At least it’s difficult to find anything on the web amid the avalanche of Mr. Magoo cartoon shorts references. You can’t even narrow your search with “Christmas,” for _Christmas in Connecticut_, since there is apparently a Mr. Magoo Christmas movie that brings another thousand pages of crap into the search. But here’s an odd one, an article titled “The Magoo,” from _Time_, July 26, 1943, not even on the web but cached by Google [here](http://209.85.215.104/search?q=cache:lbWGHov49ngJ:www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,802912,00.html+%22the+magoo%22&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=us): > [@](#): > > Monday, Jul. 26, 1943 > The Magoo > To all appearances, it was a routine press conference at Allied headquarters in North Africa. General Eisenhower spoke casually of the overall military picture. He was in good form, smiling, crinkling his forehead, moving his eyes swiftly from face to face. It was the middle of June. Then the General said quietly: Overseas operations will begin within a month. Objective: Sicily. > > This was it. The correspondents felt themselves tighten up. The General was not smiling now; his icy blue eyes moved from one to another of the reporters. None of them had expected the top Allied commander to take them so intimately, so significantly into his confidence. The General warned them that they must not talk. > > They Fly Through the Air. For days thereafter the 100-odd American and British correspondents in North Africa went about with the guilty demeanor of men bursting with a secret. When they had to refer to it, they called it “the magoo,” “that thing,” or just “it.” This was what they had trained for. Some veterans had been almost four years around the front lines. Others had studied invasions at service schools in Britain. One and all, they kept the secret. ---
**Author:** ![Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/earl_snake-hips_tucker/32/3269_2.png) [@Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Earl_Snake-Hips_Tucker)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2008, 8:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-old-magoo/451898/5 "2008-06-06T20:17:38Z")
[QUOTE=Mark Ryle] [T]here is apparently a Mr. Magoo Christmas movie that brings another thousand pages of crap into the search.: [/QUOTE] Whippersnapper! ---
**Author:** ![matgat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/43a26b/32.png) [@matgat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/matgat)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2026, 8:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-old-magoo/451898/6 "2026-02-25T20:08:56Z")
I found a reference in the first line of the Ella Fitzgerald 1944 version of “And Her Tears Flowed Like Wine” “He was such a handsome sailor, how he tossed the old Magoo…” The song was released in December of 1944, while “Christmas in Connecticut” was released 8 months later in August of 1945, so it was already an established slang phrase. ---
**Author:** ![Prof.Pepperwinkle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/prof.pepperwinkle/32/13627_2.png) [@Prof.Pepperwinkle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Prof.Pepperwinkle)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2026, 8:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-old-magoo/451898/7 "2026-02-25T20:22:39Z")
Welcome, **matgat!** It seems the people who posted before you have moved on, so they won’t be answering, but your type of trivia is our meat-and-drink here, so keep goin’! ---
**Author:** ![markn\_1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f9ae1b/32.png) [@markn\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/markn_1)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2026, 8:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-old-magoo/451898/8 "2026-02-25T20:45:27Z")
_The Random House Historical Dictionary of American Slang_ lists three meanings for “magoo”: > (1) a cream pie thrown in slapstick comedy (earliest quote 1926); (2a) an important person (1932); (2b) a useless or foolish person (1932); (3) sex appeal; (also) stuff; thing; situation; the right stuff etc. – used in a vague way to indicate the subject of conversation (1935). The last one seems to be the meaning referred to by the OP.