The Muppets Christmas Carol. “It is the season of the spirit; the message if you hear it is make it last all year.”
I clicked the link to see if this version was in the poll. I loved this version as a kid- for an animation it was wonderfully dark and scary. I’ve often wondered why it stopped being shown on the holidays- maybe it gave too many kids nightmares. Though it was animated it wasn’t really for kids.
I think it’s on youtube if anyone wants to see it.
The George C Scott version is the best. It gets that Scrooge is not an evil person, he is a miser. In the Alistair Sim version Scrooge is a villain who walks out on his dying sister, and screws Fezziwig out of his business. The Scrooge in the book loved his sister and Fezziwig and would not have intentionally hurt them. The tragedy of the story is that the love of money squeezed out the love of people from Scrooge and turned him into a lonely miser who has no friends and has no joy.
I seem to remember a rather nasty businessman who enjoyed talking about the poor dying and idiots who speak of Christmas.
George Scott, hands down. If you’re a child, Mr. Magoo but it’s unwatchable as an adult.
Scrooged with Bill Murray all the way.
Especially notable because I’m not much of a Bill Murray fan…
One begs to differ.
I have a four-way tie, differentiated by medium:
Best b/w version: Alastair Sim
Best color version: George C Scott
Best animated version: Mr. Magoo
Best hybrid human/puppet version: Muppets.
Make that two! Even today, I love that show! (I particularly love the soft “Sean Connery” accent of the ghost of Christmas Past.)
(I think this may be the first time I’ve disagreed with BobLibDem on any issue whatsoever!)
Speaking of which … note the widely varied depictions of GoCP in the various versions. In Alastair Sim, he’s an old-ish man; in Mr Magoo he’s kind of an elf; in George C Scott it’s a woman.
I’ll have to go back to the text to see how Dickens describes it.
![Dude looks like a [del]lady[/del] hairy dude.](http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-FqAmGGeyPq4/UqzVunkLG2I/AAAAAAAABw4/ZiM4Cy22xAQ/s1600/george_c_scott_1984_01_01.jpg){kind=link}
While Scrooge may not be my favorite telling of ACM, Albert Finney is definitely my favorite Scrooge. (If they’d added just a bit more from the story- most importantly Ignorance and Want- it might have been my favorite; it’s sometimes performed as a stage play so I wonder what changes were made.)
The Jim Carrey animated version was far better than expected and very close to the story, and they made full use of it being animated to have effects other versions couldn’t have. Not sure why they made the characters so surreal, but I loved the shots of London.
Patrick Stewart would be my vote for non-musical straightforward telling all around.
That’s Christmas Present (and I just realized my abbreviation was ambiguous). I was thinking of Christmas Past.
:smack::smack::smack:
I like the 1938 version the best.
I’ve gotten to see them perform many times…awesome! The actors also typically participate in the Raleigh Christmas parade (in costume and character!).
As a child, I was quite impressed with the Mickey Mouse version. My current favorite (as far as what you see on TV) is the Patrick Stewart version.
For me, 1951 is the correct answer. There’s no better Scrooge–Sim is pitiable, funny, and by the end, even charming and endearing. He’s not evil or a villain–we see the evolution of his character as a younger man, with his heart closing bit by bit as his loved ones abandon him. (From his father’s emotional abandonment to his fiancée’s breaking off their engagement to his sister’s dying…) Old Scrooge remembers Fezziwig fondly, and we see that young Scrooge wasn’t entirely devoid of guilt for watching Fezziwig going under.
Even ignoring Sim’s unequaled portrayal, there’s Michael Hornden’s delightfully macabre Marley, plus Hermione Baddley as a feisty but sweet Mrs. Cratchit… and the rest are perfectly Dickensian portrayals of Bob Cratchit, his housekeeper (can’t tell you how often my family quotes “if it ain’t outta keepin’ with the situation!”), adorable young Fred, the gruesome undertaker/laundress/rag man trio, and the fantastic casting of young Scrooge (who not only looks like a young Alistair Sim, he was Sim’s mentee and adopted son).
Okay, two wrong things here.
To take the second one first, Fezziwig’s destruction is set up in the film as being due in large part to his failure to keep up with the industry. As (non-canon but delightfully written character) Mr. Jorking warns him, automation is the future and they must move with the times or be left by the wayside; Fezziwig says he won’t change, he’d rather die with his old breed of businessman.
Jorking’s success–before embezzlement becomes is his own downfall–lets him woo Scrooge and Marley from Fezziwig, who was probably starting to falter already. And though Scrooge eventually takes over when Fezziwig goes bankrupt, he’s embarrassed and unhappy to watch Fezziwig go.
Now the biggest one. Sim’s Scrooge loves his sister Fan, and does not “walk out on his dying sister,” at least not in the sense implied by that phrase. He seems to think she’s dead (or nearly so) when he backs away from the bed in abject grief. Then he sort of staggers forward, spies Fanny’s husband and glares at him in resentment (for knocking Fan up, I guess) and then adds an even more disgusted look at wee baby Freddie before leaving. Thereby completing the unfortunate circle of resentment, just as his dad resented Ebenezer for his mom dying in childbirth.
Anyhoo, once Young Scrooge leaves the scene, Old Scrooge is already chastising the Ghost of Christmas Past for taking him to this morbid scene when he hears Fanny continue to speak. The shocked expression on his face strongly implies that he’d thought she’d already died–or was no longer conscious–when he left.
Even Scrooge’s behavior to Adult Fred when he comes to visit early in the film isn’t one of hatred or evil. He must still tolerate Fred’s company at times–or Fred wouldn’t have bothered to visit at all. He has some inklings of the better man inside him when he visits Jacob’s death bed. I mean, he’s cold and crotchety, but he tries to comfort the scared Jacob with “you mustn’t reproach yourself. We did no worse than anyone else.” And he adds with utter honesty, “…And no better, if it comes to it.”
So no, I’ll not accept the implication that Sim’s Scrooge is some one-note villain. That film is a treasure box full of unique, memorable secondary character performances; a fantastically gloomy/spooky aura with music, lighting and sets; clever writing that’s both sharp-witted and sympathetic; and above all, a lead who carries the whole thing with eyes that tell Ebenezer Scrooge’s entire story in their wide depths.
And anyone who doesn’t cry when Scrooge tentatively walks into Fred’s parlor and “Barbara Allen” starts playing is in need of three visiting ghosts him/herself.
If I’ve got this correct (and I may be crossed up) this is George C. Scott’s Ghost of Christmas Past. Kinda creepy, IMO.
I like the 1938 version the best, which for one thing, has the most tolerable Tiny Tim. You don’t mention either of the cartoon versions, but one of them, and I can’t remember which (although, I think it’s the non-Jones version), has a really genuinely scary Marley, and good ghosts one the whole, and was my childhood favorite.
I actually like Ebbie enough to say it’s the best of the pastiches-- the ones that make Scrooge a woman, or move him to a different country or time period. Susan Lucci is not an actress I particularly care for, but I thought she pulled this off, and even elevated a mediocre script.
The Disney version, with Scrooge McDuck (and Goofy as Marley’s ghost) is fair to middlin’. Fluffy, but fun.
Too bad the poll doesn’t include the many versions prior to 1938, including several silent ones. But of the ones listed, the Alastair Sim is closest to the way I think it should be.