December 11 - The Muppet Christmas Carol

On this day, in 1992, the fourth Muppet movie, The Muppet Christmas Carol, is released in theaters. This is hands down, my favorite adaptation of the classic Charles Dickens story. And to think it almost never happened. After Jim Henson died on May 16, 1990, the fate of his Muppet creations was very much up in the air. He had been in negotiations to sell his empire to the Walt Disney Company for the supposed sum of 150 million dollars. With Jim's unexpected death, the deal fell apart, and, without the creative genius to lead the company, it was unclear what, if anything, the Muppets might do again. Thankfully, one of Jim's sons, Brian, grabbed the baton and ran with it.

While wondering what project might be suitable to keep his father's company going, a talent agent by the name of Bill Haber planted the idea of a Christmas Carol in Brian's brain. The idea was first sold to ABC as a made-for-television movie. Long time Muppet writer Jerry Juhl began working on a script and quickly decided to make Charles Dickens the narrator in order to retain the tone of the book. Various characters were looked at to play the three ghosts, combinations like Robin for Christmas Past, Miss Piggy for Christmas Present and Gonzo for Christmas Future. Ultimately it was decided that the darkness of the story demanded new characters for the ghosts and that the usual Muppet mayhem would come from the established characters playing all the lesser roles. A script was finalized and submitted to ABC. Executives at Disney saw a copy of it, however, and said Hey, why don't we make a theatrical release out of this? So they did with Brian as director.

Image copyright Disney

When it came time to cast Ebeneezer Scrooge, Brian considered several people ranging from Ron Moody (who played Fagin in Oliver!) and David Warner (who played Bob Cratchit in the George C. Scott version of Carol) to George Carlin. He ultimately settled on Michael Caine and, in my opinion, his choice was perfect. Michael said from the beginning that he was going to play Scrooge like this was a Royal Shakespeare production, no winking at the mayhem, no acknowledging that he was talking to puppets and not real people. It was a strategy that payed off marvelously.

The songs for the movie were written by Paul Williams, who also wrote the songs for the first Muppet movie. In a move that's proven somewhat controversial, Jeffrey Katzenberg decided to cut the song When Love Is Gone from the theatrical release. It's sung by Belle during the Christmas Past sequence and is about Scrooge loving her less and his money more. Katzenberg apparently felt that the song would lose the interest of the kids in the audience. Unfortunately, its removal makes the song The Love We Found, which Scrooge sings at the end of the film, much less poignant because we can't relate it back to him losing the love of his life. The real controversy arises, however, in the fact that some versions of the home video release of the movie include When the Love Is Gone and some don't. For those of us who like the song, it's difficult to know which copy we actually want to buy.

When it was released, The Muppet Christmas Carol received mixed reviews and was a modest box office success, coming in third behind its major holiday competition, Home Alone 2 and Aladdin. Since its release, it has become a bona fide cult classic. I know it's a sad Christmas season for me if I don't watch it at least once. In fact, if anyone needs me for the next 86 minutes, I'm not available.