Department 56 - "Bob Cratchit and Tiny Tim" (2001)

Much less elaborate than Precious Moments figurines, but not without their own charms are those made by Department 56!

They make a ton of miniatures as part of several lines, including some based on "A Christmas Carol."
Here's a snappy little (2 x 2.75") figure:

And remember it's not a toy - it's a decorative article!

Precious Moments - "Scrooge Holding Tiny Tim" Figurine

Here's another figurine from Precious Moments, this one in their more traditional style:

I  might have thought this was Bob Cratchit holding Tiny Tim, but they grey hair confirms it's a reformed Scrooge looking rejuvenated!

Precious Moments - "Disney Mickey’s Christmas Carol" Figurine

 Here's a fun figurine from Precious Moments:

Precious Moments figurines are really on-model with their licensed properties!

Yahtzee with Buddies!

Another pleasantly diverting game is "Yahtzee with Buddies" (aka "Dice with Buddies").

They often feature "Dice Masters" that are thinly disguised dice versions of well-known characters, such as:

Whom do you think they had in mind?

Disney Emoji Blitz!

One pleasant way to relax between blog posts is to play games on one's phone!

Perhaps my favorite is "Disney Emoji Blitz," one of those insanely addictive matching games. I like this game because it features a ton of characters from the Disney conglomerate, with Pixar and "Star Wars" and Muppet characters joining in the fun!

They also feature seasonal emojis, such as this one of interest from last year:

And for this past holiday season, these two made their debut:

I think they did a great job with these!

Here's a little video of "Bob Cratchit Mickey" in action:

Play on! 

Happy Boxing Day!

 

A Journey Back to 1938

So, around the holidays, TCM always shows MGM's 1938 version of "A Christmas Carol" with Reginald Owen. Certainly makes sense!

I usually either record it or watch it "On Demand" as that's easier than digging out  the DVD or whatever.

This particular version is not overly well-regarded and I have certainly taken it to task, but if I get past what it's not, I do enjoy it as a bit of fluff.

TCM showed it as part of a Dickens block with the David O. Selznick produced MGM blockbusters "David Copperfield" and "A Tale of Two Cities" from 1935 and David Lean's brilliant "Great Expectations" and "Oliver Twist" from 1946 and 1948, respectively.

The 1938 "A Christmas Carol" suffers mightily in such company (1951's "Scrooge" can stand with them), but take it away from those other ones and it's a pleasant diversion.

"All-Star" Barry MacKay's Fred is awesome and Gene Lockhart's Bob Cratchit is outstanding too. They carry the movie, offsetting Reginald Owen's somewhat cartoonish Scrooge and the miscasting of Terry Kilburn as Tiny Tim.

Wait, did I go full-circle and start "dissing" the movie again?

Oh, well...

Merry Christmas!

               

Hope your celebration is as happy as this one:

Cheers!

"A Christmas Carol" All-Star Team - Day 24

We reach the end of our "All-Star Team" countdown with:

What else is there to say?

"A Christmas Carol" All-Star Team - Day 23

We're getting near the end of our countdown of the members of the "A Christmas Carol" All-Star Team, so we land on the second biggest character - Bob Cratchit!

Bob features in the beginning and end "real time" segments as well as the Christmas Present and Christmas Yet to Come scenes, so he has a big impact.

I find that Bob Cratchit portrayals are all over the place in various adaptations, but I've said before that a good Bob to me is a humble and loyal employee. He knows he needs his job, but I don't think he's resentful, or else he wouldn't raise a toast to "the founder of the feast" at his family's Christmas dinner.

I think a lot of Bobs argue with Scrooge too much, which is something that up with which Scrooge would not put!

So, who makes a really good Bob from a notable adaptation that hasn't been represented yet? Donald Calthrop from the 1935 British production "Scrooge," starring Seymour Hicks as Scrooge:

I know I've said before that he looks like he stepped out of the pages of an old edition of "A Christmas Carol" but he acts the part in addition to looking the part:

Donald Calthrop is another actor that I really don't know outside of this part. He's in quite a few British films - I don't think he was ever in a US production - from the silent era up through his death in 1940.

But he certainly left his mark as Bob Cratchit!

"A Christmas Carol" All-Star Team - Day 22

We roll along with our All-Star Team and encounter the iconic character of Tiny Tim!

Everybody knows Tiny Tim, the very sickly child of Bob Cratchit. Scrooge was unaware of Tiny Tim until he saw him with the Ghost of Christmas Present. Scrooge was immediately taken with the child and Tim's potentially unpleasant fate was a large factor in Scrooge's conversion.

Because Tiny Tim is supposed to be so small and frail and young and sick that you can't really cast a kid who meets that criteria in a live-action version without breaking half a zillion child labor laws!

Generally speaking the TTs in movie and/or TV adaptations tend to be too big and healthy.

Audio dramas, such as radio broadcasts have a bit of an advantage since you don't see Tiny Tim, but a lot of those have adult actors doing a kid voice and you know it!

So, I think the key to a good Tiny Tim really comes down to likeability rather than authenticity.

And what version offers the most likeable Tiny Tim of all? The great 1962 "Mister Magoo's Christmas Carol" special:

Who can forget the razzleberry dressing?

This special was produced by the UPA cartoon studio and I had previously mentioned here how Tiny Tim definitely resembles UPA's other (beside Mr. Magoo) superstar Gerald McBoing Boing, subject of the brilliant and ground breaking, Oscar-winning, eponymous short from 1950.

The chatter is always how Gerald could play Tiny Tim when he can only talk in sound effects.

I stand by my take that in the Magooverse (or UPAverse) in which Mr. Magoo is an actor that "Gerald" is also an actor who starred in cartoons. A versatile performer, he could imitate sound effects and speak dialogue.

We know that Joan Gardner does the voice here, so no Denise Bryer/Olive Gregg controversy this time!

Whatever the case, he's a great Tiny Tim and a important part of the TV special!

"A Christmas Carol" All-Star Team - Day 21

As we continue to assemble our "A Christmas Carol" All-Star Team, we move from the supernatural figures to what I consider to be the major human characters.

Up to the plate steps Scrooge's nephew Fred!

He's an important character as his holiday cheerfulness contracts sharply with Scrooge's lack of said cheerfulness. Fred actually gets the first line, wishing his uncle a "Merry Christmas" and getting a "Bah! Humbug!" for his efforts!

And as the son of Scrooge's deceased younger sister, Fred provides  a link to some relatively happy moments from Scrooge's childhood.

There are naturally lots of Freds out there, but my favorite is Barry MacKay from MGM's 1938 version with Reginald Owen:

That production certainly has its issues, but Barry MacKay's Fred is not one of them. His role is expanded quite a bit from the original book, but he's up to the task.

I really like the way he interacts with the other characters, including Bob, Peter and Tiny Tim Cratchit, as well as his fiancée Bess and Scrooge himself. He's extremely cheerful, but it never seems forced.

I only know Barry MacKay from this one role and I don't know his story, but he's terrific here! He's in a few British movies, mostly in the 1930s and his last move credit is from 1955, although he was around for another 30 years after that!

I believe the only other movie I've seen in which he's involved is "Knights of the Round Table" (1953), the big MGM picture with Robert Taylor and Ava Gardner. Barry has an uncredited part as "Green Knight's Squire," so I'll have to see if I can spot him the next time that flick shows up on TCM.

This American one for Republic Pictures in 1939 looks cool, though:

I'll have to see if I can track it down!

Interesting that Barry MacKay plays Fred here and Fred MacKaye plays Fred on Ronald Colman's 1941 Decca recording. Coincidence, no doubt, but fun!

"A Christmas Carol" All-Star Team - Day 20

Our All-Star Team continues to grow with the addition of one more supernatural visitor - the ghost of Jacob Marley!

Marley's Ghost looms very large as he (it?) sets everything in motion with his visit to Ebenezer Scrooge on Christmas Eve.

Every adaptation has a Marley's Ghost in it and there are a lot of good ones, but which makes the cut?

It's Alec Guinness in the 1970 musical film "Scrooge" starring Albert Finney:

Befitting his stature, Alec Guinness gets a fair amount of screen time with a song ("See the Phantoms") plus a rare extra scene in the Christmas Yet to Come segment:

He makes the most of it and adds another memorable portrayal to his long list of credits!

"A Christmas Carol" All-Star Team - Day 19

 

As we continue to put together our All-Star Team, we encounter the Ghost of Christmas Past!

This particular spirit is the one that varies the most from one adaptation to another, due to the hard-to-capture description in the book, which is hard to depict in illustrated form, let alone live-action!

One depiction to me captures the "like a child: yet not so like a child as like an old man, viewed through some supernatural medium" pretty well, though - Joel Grey in the 1999 made-for-TV version starring Patrick Stewart:

I think Joel Grey has always had a child-like quality anyway and with his age at the time (67) and some special effects, he nails it!

Of course in my little world, the Oscar, Tony and Grammy winning Mr. Grey is best-known as the son of master song satirist Mickey Katz:

But that's a whole 'nother story!

"A Christmas Carol" All-Star Team - Day 18

The next member of our All-Star Team is the Ghost of Christmas Present.

He seems to be a popular character, representing what we love about Christmas.

Since he's a giant, my favorite Ghost of Christmas Present is an "actual" giant - Willie from "Mickey's Christmas Carol" (1983):

I really think it's brilliant that starting with the original LP from 1974 that they went to the stable of Disney characters for their own giant to play the giant ghost!

I had previously discussed in this post how Willie was the giant in the "Mickey and the Beanstalk" segment of the 1947 Disney feature "Fun and Fancy Free." He was supposedly just a fictional character in the story that Edgar Bergen was telling, yet he appears in "real life" in an amazingly meta moment!

He's an easy choice for my team and represents "Mickey's Christmas Carol" very well!

"A Christmas Carol" All-Star Team - Day 17

We now move on to the more iconic characters for our "A Christmas Carol" All-Star Team, starting with the ghosts.

First up is the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come.

This is the most enigmatic of the spirits, usually not saying anything or emoting too much.

But let's go (literally) outside the box, with this cute ornament version from the Steinbach company of Germany:

This little guy was issued in 2013 along with the other two Christmas spirits:

Perhaps the wackiest member of the team, but there you go!

"A Christmas Carol" All-Star Team - Day 16

Now that we've selected the minor characters for our "A Christmas Carol" All-Star Team, we turn to a more of a concept than a character.

Part of the appeal of the book is the wonderful expository descriptions of the scenes and actions.
A lot of different adaptations use a narrator, so we ant a good one for our team. And who better than Orson Welles?

Welles was a terrific radio actor with a great voice and he does full justice to Dickens's text on the radio broadcasts he did for "The Campbell Playhouse" in the 1930s.

We'll choose the 1939 broadcast which starred Lionel Barrymore as Scrooge. Orson gets plenty of airtime on that version and he doesn't have to worry about doubling as Scrooge, although I'm sure he had a blast when he did that on the 1938 broadcast.

The 1939 broadcast is one of my favorite adaptations, so it's good to have it represented as well!

Now that we have an awesome narrator to set the scene, we'll move on to the major characters!

"A Christmas Carol" All-Star Team - Day 15

As we continue to assemble our "A Christmas Carol" All-Star Team, we're back in real time with Scrooge having found himself back in his own bedroom on Christmas morning!

The last minor character who needs to be represented is the kid Scrooge addresses out his window to buy the prize turkey.

It's not a big part, but there's one portrayal of this window boy that's my favorite: Walter Tetley from Basil Rathbone's 1942 Columbia Records album of "A Christmas Carol."

Walter Tetley was a terrific radio actor who did the best "kid" voice around. He acted well into his 40s but still sounded like a kid, unlike some adult actors who sounded like adults playing a kid.

His best-known radio role was Leroy, nephew of "The Great Gildersleeve" on the program of that name and he also had a great role on the Phil Harris/Alice Faye show as Julius the grocery boy. Leroy was a good kid, but Julius was just nasty!

Walter also voiced Andy Panda in some of Walter Lantz's theatrical cartoons, then later burned his voice into a segment of the public's consciousness as Sherman on the "Rocky and His Friends" show and its subsequent incarnations.

He had an unusual look (part-kid/part-adult), but made a good messenger or bellboy or whatever in walk-on parts in a number of movies. He is seen to really good advantage as an elevator operator in Universal's 1942's Abbott & Costello vehicle "Who Done It?" where he really gives Lou the business!

Interestingly, Walter also employed his stab at a British accent with a small role as a chimney sweep in the 1939 Universal picture "Tower of London" starring... Basil Rathbone!

And please tell Lucy Van Pelt about this bubble gum card!

He's a favorite of mine and I'm happy to have him on the team as the window boy, wacky British accent and all!