![]() You buy that Caine is a wretched covetous old sinner who lives in a world where anthropomorphic felt creatures are commonplace but ghosts are out of the norm. Second, this is still a serious emotional tale that requires a grounded, focused actor as the lead. ![]() If Caine were as goofy as the rest of the Muppets or winking at the audience, it wouldn’t be funny. In virtually all forms of comedy you need a good straight man to bounce jokes off of. I know some critics clamor for tongue-in-cheek performances when working with the Muppets, but Caine’s dedication to his technique succeeds on multiple levels. He deliberately approached the material as if he were working alongside the Royal Shakespeare Company, playing it as seriously as possible, and by god it works. Caine is brilliant, and his Scrooge is one more highlight in his enviable career. They have a right to be completely wrong. He introduces us to the Marleys’ surviving business partner Ebeneezer Scrooge, played by Academy-Award winning actor Michael Caine.Ī lot of people have opinions on Caine’s take on Scrooge, some disparagingly so, and that’s fine. Gonzo kicks things off with a variation on the story’s famous opening line: “The Marleys were dead to begin with” (Yes, Marleys, plural. In addition, their commentary lightens the proceedings when they’re needed most, giving us that perfect amount of Muppet joviality to balance out the darkness of the source material. It’s a method I’m surprised other versions of A Christmas Carol haven’t utilized. Together they form a greek chorus that cleverly works in more of Dickens’ excellent prose near-verbatim. Rizzo acts as the audience surrogate, voicing questions and giving opinions that young first-time viewers might have. Making Gonzo “Dickens” is genius casting as he’s shown a love of culture and the arts in addition to his wacky stunts. Okay, we all know that’s Gonzo accompanied by Rizzo in the first of their many legendary pairings. Muppet Christmas Carol, however? Every song is perfect, and to lose any of them would be a huge detriment to the viewing experience. ![]() Though the music in each film is usually top-notch, there’s always that one song I have no qualms skipping over (“Never Before Never Again”, “There’s Gotta Be Something Better”, you get the idea). This might be a controversial opinion, but The Muppets Christmas Carol has the best soundtrack out of all the Muppet features. Jerry Juhl returned to write the screenplay and Paul Williams, who previously wrote the songs for The Muppet Movie, crafted the ones heard here. Brian Henson and the Muppeteers brought their A-game as well as some familiar names in their repertoire to give it that classic Muppet feeling. Heck, for the past several years it’s usually the first Christmas anything I watch come December. When Muppets fans say this is their favorite movie in the franchise, I can smile and say “Good choice, it’s easily in my top 3-4, natch*”. Despite my lack of childhood sentiment, I understand what makes it such a beloved holiday fixture. Guys, I am a Muppets Christmas Carol stan. But in 2016 I finally gave it another chance, and… Anything involving Muppets was a gamble for baby Shelf there was a 50-50 chance of it being enchanting fun and games or pure nightmare fuel, and in this case it was the latter due to one scene in particular. To be fair, my early memories of the film weren’t exactly positive. People claiming THIS was the best version of A Christmas Carol? I was convinced it had to be a nostalgia thing. Yet…for the longest time I just didn’t get it. It has since been reevaluated as a holiday classic and one of the best screen adaptations of A Christmas Carol. But the generation that grew up with annual viewings of this movie had the last laugh. Released through Disney since this was in that grey area before they outright bought The Muppets, The Muppets Christmas Carol was overshadowed at the holiday box office by another Disney feature, Aladdin, and one that they would eventually own, Home Alone 2. That in turn would charter the course the Muppets would take throughout the 90s and even affect them to this day. But when plans for that fell through, he turned to adapting classic literature with that singular Muppet charm. ![]() The first idea Jim’s son Brian had was a Halloween special. ![]() Could the Muppets and the brilliant people who brought them to life go on without him? Much like Walt Disney, the studio he founded was at a loss without their main creative driving force. “…which isn’t a lot, but it’s weird that it’s happened thrice, right?”īut enough memery, let’s go back to 1990, a magical year marred only by the passing of Jim Henson. ![]()
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