I think we’d all agree that Christmas Carol while once a decent enough story, has just been done to death. Patrick Stewart, Henry Winkler, Cicely Tyson, George C. Scott, Mr. Magoo, Albert Finney, Jack Palance, and F. Murray Abraham are just a few of the actors who’ve played the role of Scrooge and it increases every year. Even sitcoms (ALICE, DUKES OF HAZZARD, SANFORD AND SON, PARTRIDGE FAMILY) have done the tired old plot, and by 2002 you just want to have Scrooge clipped, send Bob Cratchit to assertiveness training, and get Sally Struthers to take Tiny Tim back to her underwater lair.
So how can you make Christmas Carol fresh again? My suggestions are below, and please feel free to ad your own:
MARTIN SCORCESE’S MAFIA CHRISTMAS CAROL- Robert Deniro is Edouardo Scroogioni, a mafia don who is visited by the ghost of his old consiglieri (Al Pacino) of how he once wanted to be the Mafia Don with a Heart. Highlights include Joe Pesci as the Ghost of Natale Past (“You let headlights like HERS get away you dumb **ckw*d? Why…[makes Scroogiani bleed by biting off his ear])”, Sharon Stone as a smack-addicted Ghost of Christmas Present (yeah, we’ll get to Christmas 2002, but first I got to stop off in 1975 Colombia where I can get my head straight for just $3 and its’ pure") and Chow Yun Phat as the Ghost of Christmas Future, a Vietnamese drug lord who has made the Cosa Nostra as dead as a Christmas Goose. The 1957 Christmas Massacre of the Antonioni Family Capos is something that will tug at everybody’s heartstrings.
DIXIECRAT CHRISTMAS CAROL- A corrupt and heartless Dixiecrat is visited by the Ghost of Christmas Past (George Wallace) who first led him astray by convincing him to pander to racists, then by the Ghost of Christmas Present (a 10 Commandments Toting Charlton Heston/Roy Moore judge who holds an assault rifle and demonstrates how pandering to racists gave way to pandering to Fundies [or Bill Clinton, who draws forth his robe to reveal Ignorance and Want, only instead it’s Monica], and the Ghost of Navidad Future, a gay Hispanic who in 2040 has done in the old guard by using their old pandering tricks to get the votes of the new non-white majority.
Lots more suggestions (STAR WARS, TELEVANGELISTS, etc.) but too little time. Please add your own.