Boy, that Charles Dickens didn’t a have a clue what he had unleashed upon the world.
There have been, oh, let’s say, 487, 211 film and television adaptations of “A Christmas Carol.” Here are 5 I like.
Mr. Magoo’s Christmas Carol
If artistic and musical quality were the only qualifiers, “Mr. Magoo’s Christmas Carol” would have aired on prime-time network television every year since its first broadcast in 1962 on NBC. It is one of the best animated Christmas specials ever made.
However, it has a couple of strikes against it. “Mr. Magoo’s Christmas Carol” is a faithful retelling of the Dickens tale, with vast sections of actual Dickens text used verbatim. The typical “Nearsighted Mr. Magoo” gags are poured on heavy in the first moments and final moments of the special, but for the vast majority of the hour it’s Magoo playing a very “straight” Scrooge. (Other characters sometimes sneak in lines like, “You’re the one too stingy to buy a pair of spectacles.” But Scrooge does not, for example, mistake a coal stove for an elevator or similar hijinks.)
The other thing that possibly makes Magoo’s Scrooge a hard sell today is the music. The songs, by Broadway icons Jule Styne and Bob Merrill, are at turns hauntingly beautiful, heartbreaking, and lyrically sophisticated.
To contrast: It’s easy to see why something like “Rudolph”, with its simple story and bright cheery songs, has become an annual tradition. Parents love it because they’ve seen it their entire lives and kids love it because it’s bright, fast-paced and unchallenging. “Mr. Magoo’s Christmas Carol”, for today’s audience anyway, is basically an animated special for adults. And honestly, I think it was that in 1962 as well. For that reason it went from being on NBC to being shown at kiddie matinees…shopped around to local stations in syndication…picked up by cable networks like USA and Cartoon Network…and eventually released on DVD and Blu-Ray. There was, several years back, an airing of the special on NBC –but as is so frequently the case, the show was edited beyond recognition.
Rich Little’s Christmas Carol
Are you like me? Do you enjoy impressionists? Well, probably not as much as I do. But I’m kind of weird. I can sit through this one-hour special which stages “A Christmas Carol” with each character played by Rich Little as one of his trademark impersonations. Scrooge is W.C. Fields, who instead of running a counting house runs a “ship-in-a-bottle” store. (Scrooge’s job, you see, is to empty the bottles. Because drunken behavior was a beloved aspect of W.C. Fields’ stage persona. If I have to explain all the impressions to you this is going to be a novel.)
Bob Cratchit is Paul Lynde. Mrs. Cratchit is Edith Bunker. Tiny Tim is Truman Capote. Scrooge’s brother Fred is Johnny Carson. Fezziwig is Groucho, who sings a very Groucho-like song about wild office Christmas parties. RIchard Nixon is Marley’s ghost–and instead of chains he is weighed down by……reels of audio tape! Because the Watergate deal, and so on and so forth.
I don’t expect you to believe this, especially if impressions aren’t your cup of tea…but this is really quite entertaining! First of all, it’s a technical accomplishment just to stage something like this. Lots of “back of the head” doubles, ocassional chroma-key shot to get two characters together…but mostly it’s just camera cuts from one Rich Little character to another. And this is not done on the level of a “Carol Burnett” sketch. There’s a huge set depicting an Elizabethan-era block with snow everywhere–all of the sets are really well done as are the costumes. That helps create the illusion of multiple characters.
Incidentally, one of Rich Little’s best impersonations was Jack Benny. So why isn’t Jack Benny Scrooge? Little notes in the audio commentary (yes, I listened to it) that it was felt Fields was a stronger and more threatening character as Cratchit’s boss than the more genteel Benny.
The Honeymooners: A Christmas Carol
From the sun and fun capital of the world! It’s one of the four “reunion specials” starring Jackie Gleason, Art Carney, Audrey Meadows and Jane Kean!
Ralph is cornered by his boss (special guest star Gale Gordon, about 70% less agitated than he was on all those Lucy shows) and gets talked into directing a production of “A Christmas Carol” for the boss’ wife’s charity: providing meals for stray cats. Ralph, who takes the assignment in hopes of getting a promotion, drafts his pal Norton as assistant. Alice and Trixie also help out, even though Alice was promised a Christmas trip to Miami which is now cancelled so Ralph can direct the play.
To be fair and accurate, this is not at all a retelling of “A Christmas Carol.” The finale of the show is a fleeting glimpse at Ralph’s play, in which noted thespian Ed Norton plays both Scrooge and Tiny Tim (with wardrobe malfunctions to beat the band).
But hey…it’s called “The Honeymooners: A Christmas Carol”, and it’s got a Scrooge in it, even if he comes out dressed like Tiny Tim once or twice. OH! And Johnny Olson, the official announcer and audience warmup man for all of Jackie Gleason’s Florida-based productions, gets a nice walk-on part in this as a town crier. He reads one of the commercials that Ralph has sneakily sold to Brooklyn businesses, and finishes by yelling “GET ON DOWN!” The studio audience gets the joke, even with one word changed, and roars its approval.
The Flintstones Christmas Carol
We’ll ignore for the moment the long noted disconnect between The Flintstones and the birth of our savior. Because if you start pulling threads on Flintstones stuff you get a naked Fred Flintstone.
For example, how can the Flintstones and their Bedrock brethren stage a Charles Dickens novel hundreds of years before the author was born? (Okay, I pulled one thread. I’m stopping now.)
This two-hour made-for-TV movie uses the reliable “onstage drama/backstage drama” framework. While the gang is performing the show, actors are dropping like flies backstages, suffering from the “Bedrock Bug.” (Wait’ll they get the Dino Variant.) Also, Fred, who plays Scrooge, forgets to do Christmas shopping. Like, any of it. So during intermission he bails out of the theater and runs to the department store. Shenanigans ensue.
Like “Magoo”, this version stays close to the Dickens text. But there’s lots of typical Flintstones gags and the backstage plots which makes this a more accessible Carol for the kiddos. Henry Corden, the officlal voice of Fred Flinstone since Alan Reed’s death, Jean Vander Pyl, the one and only Wilma, Don Messick as Bamm-Bamm and John Stephenson as Mr. Slate are among the old schoolers who contribute voicework. Frank Welker takes over the parts of Barney Rubble and Dino which had been done originally by Mel Blanc.
Mickey’s Christmas Carol
Mickey Mouse made his first appearance on the big screen since 1954 in this 1983 featurette, which began life as a record album featruing Alan Young (Wilbur, Mr. Ed’s human friend) doing a variety of Disney characters telling the Dickens tale. The animated version keeps a lot of the genius casting of the record, starting with Scrooge McDuck as Ebenezer Scrooge. Mickey as Bob Cratchit casts him as hero and family man, with Donald Duck (surprisingly containing his temper…most of the time) as Scrooge’s nephew Fred.
The other characters are portrayed by a variety of DIsney animated notables–no biggies like Dumbo or Snow White or the like, but familiar favorites like Willie the Giant from “Mickey and the Beanstalk”, “Pinocchio”‘s Jiminy Cricket, and Peg Leg Pete as the three ghosts; Mr.Toad as Fezziwig; Goofy as Marley’s Ghost (complete with “yaaaaaaaaaaaaa-hoo-hoo-hooeyyyy” utterance)and others.
This short and sweet telling is smart in what it keeps and what it trims. And the use of color and background to indicate mood is as potent as you would expect it to be in a DIsney film…the sight of Mickey cradling Tiny Tim’s crutch with tears running down his cheek is incredibly moving.
Alan Young, by the way, ended up being the voice of Scrooge McDuck for decades, including the entire run of “Ducktales” and several video games. A duck is a duck, of course of course.
Honorable Mention (and/or Shameless Self-Promotion): An Alliance Christmas Carol
Well, this isn’t TV. It’s radio. This is my Christmas Carol, produced in 2007 with a cast numbering over 35. We had a choir, local businessmen, radio station folk, and members of our local community theater group, the Main Street Players. MSP had only a year or two before done an ambitious stage version of the story, and many of the actors from the play reprised their roles in the radio production. Chief among these was Jim Joule as Scrooge. Jim, as well as KCOW sales director John Jones who does the closing credits, passed away in recent years. It is great to hear both of them, and all of the cast, in this production. Out of the entire cast, only the choir performed their part together. Everybody else was recorded separately and edited together. I’d give the world to do this show today with 14 extra years of skill, technological advancement and better studio facilities. But 35-year-old me had a lot more energy that “holy Jesus, I’m gonna be 50 in a month” me.