With songs written by a former addict, the tale of redemption is sincere. And its heartfelt goofiness awakens your inner child
Forget It’s a Wonderful Life. Forget Miracle on 34th Street. Forget (please God, forget) The Holiday. There is only one definitive Christmas movie, and that is The Muppet Christmas Carol. Not only is it the best Christmas film, but it is the best screen adaptation of the Charles Dickens novella – though this has had the unfortunate side-effect of convincing a generation of children that Marley had a brother called Robert.
“The Marleys were dead, to begin with,” that’s how Gonzo, our self-professed “omniscient” narrator (this film really doesn’t talk down to children), begins the metanarrative. His companion Rizzo the rat, meanwhile, is mainly “here for the food”, and says what we are all thinking: “A blue, furry Charles Dickens who hangs out with a rat?” Yes, indeed, that is the setup. In a postmodern stroke of genius, Rizzo acts as a sort of Greek chorus with a New York accent, enduring a series of slapstick mishaps that include being set on fire, thrown from windowsills, and falling down a chimney on to a red-hot goose.
The Muppet Christmas Carol is one my brother’s favourite films. My brother is autistic and tends to watch things he likes repeatedly, so I have worked out that over the course of my childhood, assuming he watched it three times a week – a low estimate – I have seen it more than 1,000 times. I know every line by heart, from “no cheeses for us meeces” via “LIGHT THE LAMP, NOT THE RAT” to “He is odious, stingy, wicked and unfeeling, and badly dressed.” I know all the songs, too: Scrooge (“if they gave a prize for being mean, the winner would be him”), It Feels Like Christmas (“It’s in the giving of a gift to another / A pair of mittens that were made by your mother”) and the recently rediscovered When Love Is Gone.
(This ballad, which sees Scrooge jilted by his fiancee, featured on the original VHS release but was cut because it was thought five-year-olds wouldn’t respond to it. Fans have been calling for its reinstatement ever since, but the original tape had been lost. Until earlier this month.)
I have, for quite some time, been trying to put my finger on what makes The Muppet Christmas Carol so enduring – as I have grown older, it has become a viral meme. Watching it again this week, I can only conclude that it is because it is, quite simply, an excellent film. It’s beautifully made, the script is hilarious, the sets are magical, the puppeteering incredible, and the acting an amazing feat, when you consider how the human performers were playing it entirely straight alongside a bunch of all-singing all-dancing furry Muppets. Michael Caine completely embodies Scrooge, portraying his conversion from nasty old miser to Captain Christmas with touching sensitivity and a small pinch of cockney charm. To this day, no actor ever feels quite right in the role.
As for the Muppets, the casting is genius. Kermit is perfect as Bob Cratchit, the gentle, kind, loving father whose froggy son, Tiny Tim (who, we are hilariously informed at the end “DOES NOT DIE”) captures our hearts. Miss Piggy is thrillingly furious as Mrs Cratchitt, the only character in the film who is so blatantly sick of Scrooge’s shit, and therefore a socialist hero. Statler and Waldorf are evilly brilliant as Marley and Marley, basically your typical cartoon Tories, cackling evilly about evicting children from orphanages.
It’s ridiculous, really, to carry so much affection for a children’s puppet film. Strangely, several critics really didn’t get it at the time, and I feel almost offended reading their faint praise. Part of the reason that this film continues to be so beloved, I think, is because it doesn’t have a bad or cynical bone in its body. Its heart is so firmly in the right place, and yet it is never saccharine because any sweetness is undercut with humour. It is a film made with the purest of intentions – to entertain children and tell them a story about how it is better to be kind. The songs were written by Paul Williams, a recovering drug addict who had spent much of the 1980s blitzed on vodka and cocaine. Williams poured his feelings about the miracle of recovery and redemption into the music, especially Scrooge’s song Thankful Heart. (“Stop and look around you. The glory that you see / Is born again each day. Don’t let it slip away / How precious life can be.”)
The film reminds me so potently of being a child that this time I welled up during One More Sleep ‘Til Christmas. My brother lives in a care home now, and I haven’t seen him all year. His carers have told him that it will be “lots of sleeps” until he sees me. It’s been a horrendous year for everybody, and I think that’s why we all need to watch this film. It allows us, for a tight one hour and 29 minutes, to become children again. And to remember that most important of life lessons: never eat singing food.
Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett
The Guardian, 21 Dec 2020
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