I can’t watch it to confirm right now, but this must be the one I’m thinking of:
I remember when I was a kid it was wonderfully spooky, and it really delivered this old-fashioned Victorian Christmas feel (maybe because it was so spooky). Seems like it was on the usual rotation with the Rankin-Bass specials for a few years, then it was never shown on TV again. I always wondered why it stopped being shown. Maybe it was considered too scary for kids- even though it was animated, it was more sophisticated and darker than a typical cartoon for kids. I’ll have to check out my own link when I have time, and see if it holds up.
Yep. I remember when it came out. There was special feature on it in TV Guide about how they painstakingly based a lot of the drawings on the original illustrations.
Then I missed it when it ran, and didn’t see it for ages. I’ve never seen it for sale. I finally got a DVD copy from a friend, and at long last saw it.
It’s interesting also because Chuck Jones produced it, although he was not an animator or animation director for it.
Richard Williams (who was animation director for Who Framed Roger Rabbit, as well as the lamented Thief and the Cobbler/Nasruddin was the animation director.
And also because Alistair Sim, who’d been the canonical Scrooge in the 1951 version, provided the voice of Scrooge.
It also has Michael Redgrave and Michael Hordern. An impressive pedigree.
One of my favorites. well-made, with music by Jule Styne (“Let it Snow, Let it Snow, Let it Snow!”, “Diamonds are a Girl’s Best FRiend”, “People”) and Bob Merill (“Funny Girl”, extras for “Hello Dolly”), and the voice talents of Paul Frees, Jack Cassidy, and an almost unnoticeable Morey Amsterdam, as well as Jim Backus.
There was a 1969 cartoon that wasn’t as sophisticated as the 1961 version, but more “kid-friendly,” in that it looked a little more like a Saturday morning cartoon, and, if you ask me, had the scariest Marley ever. It was also a full hour, with commercials, instead of a half-hour, so TV stations didn’t have to pair it with something. Probably both of them are just scary enough for 9pm instead of 8pm, and so can’t run back-to-back with a lot of the other half-hour shows.
Of course, I was born in 1967, and I’ve seen both, and I know I saw both post-1969, but I’m pretty sure I stumbled upon them in the afternoon, while flipping channels. As a Jewish kid, I wasn’t familiar with A Christmas Carol, and I distinctly remember flipping to one of them right when Marley appeared, and thinking I’d run into an episode of The Funky Phantom, or something, and it wasn’t until I’d watched for a bit that I realized it was some kind of Christmas program.
That looks like the one I remember. I don’t have time to watch much of it now, but I think that’s it. I remember a montage of God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen that included a clip that took place on a sailing ship during a storm.
Yep, that’s the one- and I think two sailors on the ship clink mugs of ale together to toast the season. Still haven’t gotten a chance to watch it yet- maybe I’ll watch it with my kids to see what they think of it. The old Rankin- Bass Christmas specials don’t do much for them.
Yes, I remember that one! I hadn’t seen it since I was in 5th grade, but we were actually “assigned” to watch that one by our English teacher.
Chuck Jones produced quite a few animated specials in the Seventies that were based on “classic” stories. He had a pretty good version of Kipling’s “Rikki Tikki Tavvi,” for instance.
[After checking] I guess not, but unless I’m wildly misremembering, SOME version has Scrooge muttering that coal is expensive and Marley goes all smash and burn.
Yes, but he actually worked directly on Rikki-Tikki-Tavi, Mowgli’s Brothers, and Cricket on the Hearth – you can see that characteristic Jones drawing style.
He didn’t do the same for A Christmas Carol – he only produced. (Just the way he coi-wrote the screenplay for Gay Purr-ee, but neither produced nor directed)
I think you mean Cricket in Times Square.Cricket on the Hearth was done by Rankin-Bass, in a VERY loose adaptation of a lesser-known Dickens Christmas story.
Right you are.
I’ve read Cricket on the Hearth, BTW, along with the other, generally forgotten Dickens Christmas stories. In my opinion, there’s a reason they’re forgotten. A Christmas Carol is a great and wondrous work, but his brothers are poor relations.
The story is the scariness is exactly why it was removed from regular showing. I’ve also heard that copyright ownership is tangled up, hence it’s unavailability as an official DVD release. Tho I heard t’ings as to DVDs being available.
Btw, this may be the version mentioned by RivkahChaya…
