The Muppet Christmas Carol

I have this theory that everyone has their own personal favorite version of A Christmas Carol.  I know there are some out there who just love the story and love seeing it adapted in any form, but for most of us, there's probably just one you prefer and seeing any other version just feels like treading water.  My own personal favorite version is Mickey's Christmas Carol, which I was recently surprised to find is only 26 minutes long.  That may go a long way in explaining why I really have little patience for other versions of the story.

I don't remember seeing the Muppet version when it came out.  I bought this around Christmas last year, hoping the timing would get me in the mood.  I literally turned it off around the 15 minute mark and put it away.  For the sake of this marathon though, I was committed to watching it all the way through and giving it at least a fair shot.

Surprisingly, even though I was dreading watching it and put it off for as long as possible, I actually did enjoy it.  Michael Caine plays Scrooge, and this is really his movie.  He takes the character from miserly to remorseful to reformed well.  The story felt a little simple at times, both barely showing us why Belle leaves Scrooge and then having him very quickly reform when he sees Tiny Tim, but for what is mostly a children's story I suppose that is all we need.

Beyond Statler and Waldorf playing Marley & Marley and Gonzo and Rizzo narrating, this isn't so much a Muppet movie as it is A Christmas Carol told using puppetry for the Christmas Spirits.  Sure, Kermit plays Bob Cratchitt and Robin is Tiny Tim, but they are very much those characters and not really themselves at all.  Fozzie is also largely absorbed into his role as "Fozziwig," with the only real trace of his characterization being the fact that he runs a rubber chicken factory and is heckled by the Marleys very briefly.

The spirits, however, are great.  The Ghost of Christmas Past is a small girl, and she floats beautifully, as if she was underwater the whole time.  The Ghost of Christmas Present is a full body puppet with strong similarities to Santa Claus, and it's neat to watch him age as his time with Scrooge passes.  The Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come manages to not be too scary as to give children nightmares, but still has an air of creepiness to him, with his lack of face and overly long arms that point ominously.

Going from watching the older films to this one, Kermit, Waldorf, and the Swedish Chef sounded very different.  Dr. Teeth and Rowlf, the other two characters Jim Henson voiced, don't have speaking parts at all from what I remember.  Statler, originally voiced by Richard Hunt who had also passed away before this film was made, is also noticeably different.  If you watched this on its own I'm not sure how noticeable it would be.  They all do a decent job of at least trying to sound right.

So, I have to admit, this isn't as bad as I was expecting it to be.  Granted, if I had been doing this marathon any other time of the year, I probably wouldn't have been able to stomach it.  That's the problem with Christmas films; they're simply not something you can watch any time of the year.

Tomorrow I'll talk about the other Muppet adaptation of a story, Muppet Treasure Island.

A Garfield and Claymation Christmas

As a child, one of the best things about holidays beyond getting the free stuff was watching the various cartoon specials that would air in the weeks before the holiday arrived. Easter, Halloween, maybe Thanksgiving, and definitely Christmas. There are so many Christmas specials that there's usually at least one TV channel that airs them night after night in December these days. We all know the Charlie Brown Christmas Special, with its commentary against commercialism and C.B.'s poor little tree. We've all memorized How the Grinch Stole Christmas. Your age determines just how many of the Rankin/Bass specials you're familiar with, but Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer is definitely the most well known and popular of the lot. I love all of those and could probably recite them to you I'm so familiar with them. But I also have strong memories of another series of specials that seem to have fallen by the wayside, and honestly I don't understand why. I'm talking about the Garfield holiday specials.

There were three Garfield holiday specials in total, made for Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas. The good news is that you can still get them by purchasing Garfield's Holiday Celebrations, but I really think it's a shame that they don't show these on TV anymore. The Halloween and Christmas ones in particular are excellent, and it seems to me like Garfield is still a viable character. He's still in the papers, isn't he? They made movies about him just this past decade. Ok, they weren't very good, admittedly. But if they can air a Shrek Christmas special, it seems to me like Garfield is still worthy too.

I watched the Garfield Halloween special this year in time with the season, and I can tell you without a doubt that it still holds up. It's a perfect balance between spooky and funny and has some fun songs besides. The Thanksgiving special on the other hand, much like the Peanuts version, is forgotten for a reason. It's more about Jon and his attempts to woo Garfield's vet. You would think they would have saved that for Valentine's Day. So I decided to sit down and watch the Christmas special again and see if the reality matched my memory.

At a half hour long, it really keeps things moving. We get an opening of Garfield dreaming of getting every present he ever wished for, but then he wakes up and they're off to the farm to go see Jon's family. There's a cute song where Jon talks about the joys of Christmas and Garfield counteracts it with all the negatives. The absolute best part of the special is Jon's grandmother. She's a sassy lady who shares most of Garfield's philosophies and the two of them bond immediately. There's a lot of cute jokes mixed in with the sentimentality of the special. I really love the way that Jon and his brother Doc Boy act like small children all over again, forcing their dad to read them a story and waiting anxiously to open their presents on Christmas morning. There's a cute side story as Odie secretly builds a present for Garfield. The main story is mostly about Grandma and how much she misses Grandpa. Garfield stumbles upon some old love letters Grandpa sent her when they were dating and gives them to Grandma as a present. It's sappy, but there's enough humor mixed in so as it's not sugary sweet.

In writing this I realized there's another special I used to watch that even I had nearly forgotten: Will Vinton's Claymation Christmas. Perhaps the most obvious reason that this is no longer shown is because its most well known section features the California Raisins, but that doesn't mean this isn't quality entertainment. It's a collection of Christmas carols put to various claymation sequences.

The special is hosted by two dinosaurs, one a straight man and the other an idiot. They provide the comic relief in between the carols. The stop motion animation is still high quality and great to watch even after all these years. I really enjoy the Carol of the Bells. There's something about watching those bells smack themselves on the head that makes me giggle. The absolute best is the Joy to the World sequence, which uses a 2D surface rather than 3D figures. It has the look of an animated watercolor painting, and its just gorgeous. While most kids these days won't have a clue just who the California Raisins are, their Motown rendition of Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer is still pretty good. Unless kids are too "cool" to appreciate Motown these days. While I understand why someone wouldn't want to shell out the money for the DVD of this, you should be able to find it on Youtube.

What's your favorite Christmas/holiday special?