#Ghost of christmas past muppets movie#
Time has a way of blunting the darker, more sobering edges of a movie like this-it’s easy to remember, as I had, the beauty of the lavish feast that the film closes with without recalling how glum everything preceding it was. It’s a reminder that this movie, ostensibly one meant for children, is also a film about death. The scene is driven by a subtle sense of memento mori facing this paltry feast, Scrooge wonders aloud: Will Tiny Tim live? He takes notice of Bob’s frail, ill son, Tiny Tim. The table is spare, but, for this family, it’s enough. The bird is rotating on a spit, captured so lovingly that it makes 'Big Night' look as if it were shot with a potato.īut Cratchit's multi-species family sings in praise of what they have, which isn’t much. Scrooge’s churlishness has material consequence-he pays Cratchit so little that this is all the family can afford to eat. Scrooge peers through the window, declares it a meager feast, and realizes he is partly responsible for it. The goose is the centerpiece of a pithy and unsatisfying meal the family eats together with heads hung. The bird is rotating on a spit, captured so lovingly that it makes Big Night look as if it were shot with a potato. Rizzo smells goose through a chimney and eagerly falls down the chute and directly onto the flaming hot bird, tap-dancing atop the meat to resist the burns. The apples are out of focus, but they somehow end up being all I can focus on. “I am here for the food,” Rizzo declares. READ MORE: Tampopo Rises: Beloved Japanese Film About Making Ramen Is Back in Theaters The film’s narrators, a rat named Rizzo and a species of indeterminate origin named Gonzo, stand before a bed of red apples that look as vivid as rubies. A vendor, outside the frame, shouts to the townspeople asking them to get their Christmas turkeys. The first words uttered in the film, by a pair of hogs milling about town, are about food: “That was a fine meal.
This is a film that pays such diligent, delicate attention to food that the larger meaning Dickens grasped for when he first published this story in 1843 somehow becomes more persuasive. Besides, the Muppets endure as the kind of cultural icons some naive, earnest part of our culture revisits to feel comforted all we've become conditioned to expect from these puppets is a sense of warmth. Unfairly, it's also been submerged beneath the countless other adaptations of Dickens' original story. It’s a children's movie, for one, with the added vanilla stench of Disney. I have my suspicions as to why The Muppet Christmas Carol isn't considered a "food movie," whatever that means. Sometimes it’s nice to see original Muppets added, even if only for one movies, especially if the movie has more roles than there are famous Muppets.READ MORE: Andalucía Is a Christmas Paradise of Ham, Candy, and Parades Original Muppets took on the roles of the Cratchit children, with the exception of Tiny Tim and the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Yet to Come. On top of the favorites, some original Muppets were introduced to fill out the cast. His quick change to “It’s the British way!” is laugh out loud hysterical. Sam the Eagle shows up being his normal All-American self until he’s informed the story is set in Great Britain. It’s always funny to see the pair climb the fence, only for Rizzo to run through the gate bars to get what he’s left behind. Gonzo the Great and Rizzo the Rat serve as narrators and Rizzo’s comedies is on point. Michael Caine plays, what I think is, the best version of Scrooge and he does it against Muppets.Īll of the favorite Muppets are back with some great one liners. You see how his heart breaks at the site of Tiny Tim and how hard it is for Bob Cratchit and his family. You see what a good man he was when he was working for Fozziwig, played by Fozzy Bear. It’s a perfect dichotomy that helps you really hate Scrooge at the beginning and come to love him as he redeems himself. He plays Scrooge like a dignified nobleman which is polar opposite to anything you think of involving the Muppets. Michael Caine is one of the greatest actors of our time and he brings a sense of gravitas to the role. It’s my favorite version of “A Christmas Carol.” Charles Dickens’ famous tale of ghosts, greed and redemption gets that special Muppets twist in “The Muppets Christmas Carol.” Michael Caine stars as Ebenezer Scrooge as he meets the ghosts of his former business partners, played by Statler and Waldorf meets the ghost of Christmas Past, Present and Yet to Come and learns about the struggles of Bob Cratchit and his family, played by Kermit the Frog and Miss Piggy.
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