The 1982 Australian animated version of "A Christmas Carol" from 1982 has a generous running time of 70-odd minutes, so it's able to fit in just about every main story element from the original book.
They add in a few little interesting things here and there. I'm mainly going to talk about those little things instead of rehashing the plot.
There's no narrator here, but we start with some very limited animation of people going about their holiday business. I believe this same animation is used at the end to represent Christmas morning, but in order to make sure, I'd have to watch this again and I really don't want to!
We see Scrooge walking to his office, being mean along the way.
The opening scenes include some business with Scrooge's nephew and a wreath and we see Bob Cratchit playing blind man's buff (bluff) with his family. It must also be noted that the tavern where Scrooge eats is by no means melancholy!
There's an interesting montage of flashbacks when Marley's Ghost talks about his past offenses. In one scene Fred says hi to him and then we see Marley die! His face turns to a skull and his ghost rises out of him. Marley's Ghost does not have a flaming skull in this version, though!
The Ghost of Christmas Past has an odd appearance. He has blond, curly hair and wears a very short tunic. He looks ancient Greek or Roman or something.
The scene where they see lonely young Ebenezer at school is really odd, as Scrooge perhaps doesn't know that the boy is him at first?
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| Who wore it better? |
In the scene with Fan, Ebenzer looks like Johnny Appleseed to me and Fan giggles like Theodore from "The Alvin Show." Just thought I'd point those things out!
The party at Fezzwig's is not well-attended. It's Just Ebenezer, Dick Wilkins, Mr. and Mrs. Fezziwig and their two daughters plus a fiddler. I guess that's to save on animating more characters, but it reminds me of the BBC radio version with Alec Guinness. Old Scrooge dances around very oddly in this scene.
In the breakup scene with Belle, Scrooge says he was 25, but the spirit says he looks 35. I say at least 45!
The Ghost of Christmas Present has an appearance that seems more in line with how we've come to expect him to look.
At the Cratchit house, this version also seems to just have Martha, Peter, Belinda and Tiny Tim for the kids. I actually laughed when Scrooge yelled out to Bob that Martha was hiding behind the sofa!
When Bob talks about Tiny Tim and their church visit, we actually see them there.
Throughout this scene, Scrooge mentions a couple of times that he doesn't like turkey and would rather have some cold toast and a cup of tea. So, the spirit conjures that up for him!
The Ghost of Christmas Present also shows Scrooge a husband and wife celebrating at a lighthouse and they drop into Fred's house, where it's just Fred and his wife and the wife's sister and Topper.
In a rare animated appearance, we see Ignorance and Want. When the ghost repeats Scrooge's words, "Are there no prisons...?" he uses Scrooge's voice, which is an odd effect.
I realize that I've been using the word "odd" a lot. I stand behind that word choice!
The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come is not ovely scary here, but he's a bit better than the one from 1969. This character is perhaps hurt the most by the limited animation. The cloak just doesn't flow and it just winds up standing there.
This spirit brings Scrooge to the tavern where he usually eats lunch, but since Scrooge isn't there, he thinks he's working through the lunch hour! At Old Joe's Scrooge recognizes his charwoman, but he's pretty slow on the uptake, not realizing that the spirit is trying to show him that he's deceased.
They also drop in on the Cratchits, but when we see Tiny Tim's room, only his crutch is there, not his body. (Thank you!)
The most bizarre future scene is where they drop onto Scrooge's old office, where some other gentleman is tending to a fairly big fire, then makes a donation to the charity collectors.
On Christmas morning, Scrooge talks to the kid out the window. The kid is actually playing with a couple of other kids, so it seems less weird than him just loitering. The odd thing here is that Scrooge doesn't give the kid any money for the turkey until after the kid came back with it, and even at that, the kid was going to bring it to the Cratchits' house without asking for money.
Humorously, the kid asks him if he's indeed Mr. Ebenezer Scrooge. Scrooge asks if he's heard of him and the kid says he thought he had. Similarly, when Scrooge gives some money to a street urchin, that kid says, "Thank you, Mr. Marley!"
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| This is the final fade! |
The show ends with Scrooge and Bob in the office and Bob tells Scrooge about the turkey that he got by mistake. Scrooge then raises Bob's salary and it all ends abruptly with the credits rolling. No real wrap-up.
All in all, this adapatation is extremely faithful to the book as far as plot points go, with some extra business added in to make it more kid-friendly, I suppose.
In the final analysis, though, the cheap animation and not-particularly-appealing character design make this less than ideal.
I like the idea of the extra runnimg time, but the slow pace of the whole thing makes it a bit of a chore to watch.
I wouldn't recommend this as a good way to spend an hour-plus unless you have OSD!
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