The Muppet Christmas Carol

This week’s movie is 1992’s The Muppet Christmas Carol. I will pause to allow you to recover from your shock that I had not, until this week, seen this movie.

Okay, feel better?

I don’t know why but I have never been big into The Muppets. I am by no means anti-Muppet, I’ve just never really pursued The Muppets either. When I was little one of the cartoons we regularly watched was Muppet Babies, which I remember enjoying. And over the years I’ve seen a few episodes of The Muppet Show that I also enjoyed, but that’s really it. Again, I’m not anti, just unexposed.

Well, after watching The Muppet Christmas Carol I officially regret having not seen this movie immediately upon it’s release in 1992 because I have not had the last 32 years to enjoy this delightful film.

What can I say about it? There are all The Muppets featured in both clever and amusing ways (Fozziewig, LOL). There are SONGS, for crying out loud. You’re telling me there are a whole collections of Christmas-y tunes that I could have sung obnoxiously to irritate my loved ones for lo these past three decades? What a tragic loss for them! And this movie is funny; The Muppets got jokes.

Plus, we have Michael Caine as Scrooge and he’s just splendid in everything he does in my opinion. Watching his transformation from the grouchy version to the joyous version of Scrooge was truly excellent.

I think one thing that has held me back from exploring The Muppets and their movies is that I thought it would be weird to watch human actors interacting with the Muppets; I thought it would distract from whatever story was being told. But truly it doesn’t. Somehow the humans and Muppets blend seamlessly and create this world that it totally believable.

Speaking of the world, the rooftops of London often shown in the movie look so cool. The buildings with their light dusting of snow kind of look like gingerbread houses. I found myself looking at all the details built into the backgrounds and marveling at it all.

There isn’t much else to say about this movie, to be honest. It’s great. If you haven’t seen it, you should. Learn from my mistakes and see it as soon as possible so that you too can start enjoying this heartwarming classic.