“I always wanted Kermie to play Ebenezer,” Miss Piggy said, “but, alas, the producers wouldn’t listen to me.” She paused, continued. “I kicked the shit out of them in that alley two years later.”
“I tore a hangnail something fierce.”
The Muppet Christmas Carol (1992) suffers from a central flaw:
The supplier of most of the cast members, the eponymous source of the title, the Muppets of The Jim Henson Company, is for kids.
What does this cause? While I’ve not read the also-eponymous actual source material, A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens, I’ve seen enough versions of the story, effective or disappointing, to notice that this is, wait, keep the groans to a minimum, a quintessential story of redemption. Money-lender Ebenezer Scrooge, despite several positive role models growing up, decides to embrace laissez-faire capitalism, free of sentimental restraints: the lascivious, single-minded pursuit of wealth. At the beginning of this story, when his partner, Jacob Marley, passes away just prior to Christmas, Scrooge is rich in money and, maybe, material things, but poor in his ties to the community and communal morality.
And the spirit world, from ghosts of humanity to embodiments of Christmas, objects. It objects strongly. The spirit world, interrupting his rest, guides Scrooge to access to information he doesn’t have: how hard his assistant Bob Cratchit works; the sad circumstances of Cratchit’s family, in particular the failing health of his youngest son, the charming Tiny Tim; Scrooge’s nephew, Fred, poor in wealth and possessions, yet undoubtedly a happy man for all that lack, for he has enough to eat, and has his many friends, and a fiancee: his ties to the community and, therefore, communal morality content him; and several other more anonymous members of the community.
The more effective versions of this story include Scrooge committing vile, morally dubious acts in pursuit of wealth, such as forcing Fezziwig, one of his good role models, and a moneylender himself, into selling out. Doesn’t sound so bad? As a moneylender, such institutions have a choice: to be, like Scrooge, highly avaricious people, perhaps members of the community in name; but, in reality, more in the vein of parasites, creatures that are all take and no give. Or moneylenders, through using their judgment concerning rates charged and the strictness of repayment, can be pillars of the community, respected and happy because of it, for that is one of the things that make humans tick.
Given the importance of exploring moral dimensions, it may be telling that the most popular movies of the season are those deriving from A Christmas Carol, and It’s A Wonderful Life (1946), include, as a necessary part of their foundation, and in different forms, moneylending institutions. I’ve not reviewed It’s A Wonderful Life, but I can recommend it.
Returning to the tragedy of Fezziwig, he is portrayed as a pillar of the community, and the joy that helping people brings him is integral to the character. When Scrooge, in those versions of the story that include Fezziwig’s victimization, destroys him as a moneylender, both Fezziwig and the community are damaged – and it’s an avoidable tragedy.
One more example, which I’ve only seen in one version, is Scrooge (and his partner Marley) backing the embezzling head of, as I recall, a charity. They are helping persuade the Board of Directors not to report their client, the embezzler, to the police, by suggesting it would destroy the charity’s reputation. The case is dubious; yet, through veiled threats, Scrooge and Marley carry the day, much to the detriment of Justice, and to the great outrage of the audience. Naturally, the morally bankrupt, but flush CEO, rewards Scrooge and Marley.
As I said, this story is about redemption, and the worse Scrooge’s moral turpitude and decay, the more effective the story becomes at his redemption.
And herein lies the problem. Muppets are, by nature, comic characters. That’s their purpose, which drives their design, and that comedy is marvelously accomplished. This carries forward to the movie. Nevermind their reputation; their appearance and mannerisms, even toned down, constrain the effort to make Scrooge’s initial moral decay strong enough to sustain a high level of uplifting redemptive force. The makers of this story understood that, and so the moral decay of Scrooge is minimized. He drove his fiancee away with his avarice, a common element of these derived stories, but not convincingly here; he insults the advocates for the poor, but not memorably. He’s Scrooge, but it’s more of a handwave at the avarice, not a heaping spoonful.
And therefore, when we came to the end of The Muppet Christmas Carol, my Arts Editor and I stared at each other and said, Well, that was a little flat.
The other elements of this rendition are quite nice. The stage is a revelation, the muppetry is fine puppetry, and the implied humor of adding Jacob Marley’s brother, Robert, to the mix was one of the more clever bits that I’ve seen. But while Scrooge’s portrayer, Michael Caine, has a reputation for playing morally torn characters himself, it doesn’t come through here. The script doesn’t let him be evil enough.
It does make me wonder how famed evil character actor Basil Rathbone, who I see played Scrooge in The Stingiest Man In Town (1956), would play Scrooge. I’ll have to search.
In the end, Muppet completists will not suffer in viewing this movie, because it’s well done. However, inherent limitations make its impact dilute, and that’s a sad result.
