Film Friday: The Muppet Christmas Carol (1992)

With Christmas just around the corner it’s time for a holiday film. There is no more quintessential Christmas story than Dickens’s “A Christmas Carol.” This story is so perfect that it’s been adapted at least 22 times in film and dozens of other times in other ways. So why is my favorite version the Muppet version? Read on. . .

The Plot

The story should be familiar to all. Ebenezer Scrooge (Michael Caine) is a money lender and a rotten man. He’s nasty and mean- spirited to his employees and unbelievably cheap. In fact, he’s so mean-spirited that his one loyal employee, Bob Cratchit (Kermit the Frog), must beg him to give the employees the day off for Christmas. Bah humbug!

On Christmas Eve, Scrooge is visited by the ghosts of his former business partners, Jacob and Robert Marley (Statler and Waldorf). They have been condemned to an afterlife in chains for their evil deeds, deeds which are shared by Scrooge. They have come to warn Scrooge that he will be visited by three ghosts who will show Scrooge the error of his ways.

These ghosts include the Ghost of Christmas Past, who shows Scrooge that he was once a decent man, the Ghost of Christmas Present, who shows Scrooge how miserable he is compared to others who value families over money, and the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come, who reveals that Scrooge will die unlamented and his miserliness will lead to the death of Tiny Tim. Naturally, Scrooge changes his ways and the story ends happily.

Why The Muppet Version Is The Best

There are many fantastic version of this story. The 1951 version is excellent as is the 1984 version with George C. Scott as Scrooge. Bill Murray gives us an excellent modern version in Scrooged. Even the most recent Doctor Who had a nice adaptation of this. But of them all, the Muppets are the best. Why?

Different types of stories require different methods of storytelling to be effective. Alien would not have worked as a musical. Ghostbusters would not have worked as a drama. And A Christmas Carol works best as a fable, not as a drama as it is typically portrayed.

The goal of a fable is to impart certain lessons or warnings to the audience. This is done by a narrator who talks directly to the audience, explaining the motivations of the characters and their flaws, describing their mistakes, explaining the consequences of those mistakes, and then summarizing the lessons learned. It’s like a legal brief presented with puppets.

Dramas, by comparison, have none of this. Instead, they require the audience to draw its own conclusions from the actions and words of the characters and the consequences of the plot. Moreover, characters in dramas must come across as real before we can accept their plight and find their stories interesting. Characters in fables do not. In a fable, the only “real” person is the narrator who tells us the fable to impart some point. So long as the narrator entertains us sufficiently, the story is a good one without regard to how true the details of the story seem. Because of this, fables can be told in parts, i.e. vignettes, and we can simply be told of necessary changes in the characters or their circumstances between scenes. Dramas, on the other hand, must demonstrate such changes.

A Christmas Carol is, at its core, a fable. It is the moral of Scrooge’s failings and how he came to save himself. It is a series of vignette, each of which affect Scrooge differently and Scrooge has significant growth from scene to scene which is not shown in the plot. Thus, the best structure for telling this story is the fable structure, with a narrator to walk us through the story, point by point, and explain how each segment of the story, i.e. each vignette, affects Scrooge. Further, Scrooge is too one-dimensional to be a “real” character. This is intentional. Scrooge is an archetype of our worst, greediest, miserly natures, and he works best when we see him as such -- as part of ourselves rather than as a real person to whom these events transpire.

This is why the Muppet version is the best, because they treat this story as a fable. Gonzo acts as Dickens the narrator. Caine brilliantly provides the wide mood swings needed to be an archetype. And the Muppet players provide important levity and breaks to let us digest each scene before we move on and to distract us enough to let us think sufficient time has passed for Scrooge to undergo the personality changes needed. George C. Scott’s version may be excellent, but it is a drama and it lacks these critical elements which connect us to the heart of the story.

Finally, let me add two things. Michael Caine is an incredible actor. He never disappoints and he doesn’t disappoint here. Indeed, Caine does something brilliant. By soft-pedaling Scrooge’s cruelty and retaining his sense of humor, though he has misdirected it in cynical directions, Caine plays Scrooge not as a cruel man who must change his nature, but as a decent man who has lost his way. This connects us better to Scrooge than prior versions because (1) it is harder to connect with a truly cruel Scrooge because none of us wishes to see any part of ourselves as cruel, and (2) it is easier to believe a return to our better natures than a fundamental change of character.

And lastly, the Muppets deserve tremendous credit for playing this film “straight.” Specifically, the Muppets are adept at blending their antics into the film so you’re never distracted from the film. Too often when a comedian is brought into a film, they become a distraction (e.g. Robin Williams, Robin Williams, Robin Williams) as they turn their time on screen into an advertisement for themselves. Not here. The Muppets do the things you love about them, but they do them quickly and within the confines of the storytelling. Thus, there are no breaks in the story where you feel like you’re about to watch a couple minutes of a generic Muppet routine jammed into the film.

These are all brilliant choices which put this version ahead of all the others.

So what are your favorite Christmas films?