"The Dicken's Christmas Carol" (1962) - Joe Basham - Icon Records

"The Dicken's Christmas Carol" (1962)

Joe Basham

Icon Records

Here's an oddity from 1962, odd punctuation and all:

It's odd, but I love finding obscure little nuggets like this!

I have no idea who Joe Basham was and can't find any info on him. I will says he tries his best to sell it, though!

The song reminds me of some other song that I can't quite put my finger on (I think it's mainly the "Ding! Dong!" part), but the songwriter is Bob Coulter and I don't think I've seen/heard that name before.

The flipside was also written by Bob Coulter and it's also a bit odd:

I keep throwing around the word "odd" here, but what perhaps strike me as oddest is that this is from 1962, per "Billboard" (Note that Icon Records is so obscure that "Billboard" gets their name wrong!):

So, who was this aimed at?

In 1962, it was generally kids that bought 45s and adults that bought LPs, and I don't think this would appeal to either.

If I were a teenager in 1962, I would much prefer this record, also listed as a new release in that same "Billboard" issue:

Ral Donner delivers the goods!

Giddyup!

This is cool - a painted cel and the corresponding animation drawing from 1962's "Mister Magoo's Christmas Carol":

Obviously this is from later in the special, after Scrooge has been reformed!

Monkeying Around!

A familiar spirit makes a surprise appearance during the séance scene of the "Monkee See, Monkee Die" episode of "The Monkees" TV show from September 19, 1966:

Pretty fun!

Stan Freberg is not buying Micky and Peter's mother/son disguise!

Of (perhaps) note is that in the very next episode, "Monkee vs. Machine," the character played by Stan Freberg says "Bah! Humbug!" at one point, channeling his Mr. Scrooge!

Davy Jones goes Cratchit with Butch Patrick!

And on the Christmas episode from 1967, the holiday-challenged youngster portrayed by Butch Patrick also says "Bah! Humbug!"

Good to know "A Christmas Carol" is so well-known within the Monkee-verse!

Humbug!

Here's a fun (mostly) instrumental song on a 45 taken from our friend Pete Fountain's 1964 album "Mr. Stick Man" on Coral Records:

Not overly Scroogey, but by 1964 everyone knew "Humbug" as a Scrooge expression.

I wonder how much Bud Dant's chorus got paid for yelling the title just the one time?

That "Other" Dickens Musical!

So, "Oliver!" the 1968 film version of the musical adaptation of "Oliver Twist" by Charles Dickens popped up on TCM as part of the 31 Days of Oscar, which is only natural, as it racked up six of those statuettes including Best Picture.

I know I saw "Oliver!" when I was a kid and didn't really care for it (I think I resented it as supposedly being good for me from a cultural standpoint - I was more excited to see "The Love Bug") and I don't think I've seen it since, so I thought why not watch it as I'll probably enjoy it.

But, you know, I didn't think it was that great. Not bad, but not brilliant.

I think my main beef was that I didn't like the songs all that much (sorry, Lionel Bart!) and I felt like the story kept grinding to a halt for a production number that had nothing to do with said story. For example, why were The Artful Dodger and Nancy singing "I'd Do Anything" at the hideout?

Perhaps it's obvious where I'm going with this, but I do think the songs in 1970's "Scrooge" fit better and don't slow down the proceedings.

I realize that "Oliver Twist" is a much longer book than "A Christmas Carol" and it needs to be pared down, but I felt like "Oliver!" just basically took the adaptation from David Lean's 1948 film version and shoehorned the songs in. And it can't compare to that classic!

On the plus side, I thought the performances were good with Ron Moody and Jack Wild standing out and deserving of their Oscar nominations, although they kind of come off as wacky comedy relief!

Of course, I associate Jack Wild with "H.R. Pufnstuf," a bizarre Saturday morning show from my distant youth!

Interestingly, "Oliver!" gets a rating of 7.4 on the IMDb whereas "Scrooge" gets 7.5. Hmmm...

Sketchy!

This is cool...

It's a preliminary sketch by Carl Barks for  the 1960 Little Golden Book "Donald Duck and the Christmas Carol":

Here's the finished page:

Carl Barks was the master!

PB (Hold the J)!

Besides fighting pirates and reissuing kiddie records over and over Peter Pan keeps busy driving buses and making peanut butter, that latter of which caught the attention of our favorite miser:

If Mrs. Cratchit had only sent Bob to work with a plate of cookies, everything could have been resolved much sooner!

Grumpy!

Here's an interesting ad from 1968:

Avis had a whole campaign showing how they got rid of "bugs" when you rented one of their cars:

The Grump bug even got his own coffee mug:

Make mine pumpkin spice, please!

Another!

Has anyone seen this modernized version of a "Christmas Carol" from 1964?

I did and just didn't find it entertaining, despite enjoying other work from many of the participants. (Hey, producer/director Joseph L. Mankiewicz produced MGM's "A Christmas Carol" from 1938!)

Kind of dated and preachy.

Chalk it up to it not being meant for people to watch 57 years later!

As for a Scrooge stand-in named "Grudge," give me "Green Chri$tma$" by Stan Freberg - that's still relevant 63 years later!

More Spirited!

Here's Scrooge with another load of Christmas spirits in this ad from 1969:

He looks pretty happy! He just needed to switch brands!

The Real Christmas Spirit!

Here's another interesting ad, this one from 1965, also purporting to show what Scrooge really needed to make him happy:

Is it working? Well, this one's from 1967:

Hey, if that doesn't get him going, nothing will!

"A Christmas Carol" - World Publishing Company (1961)

"A Christmas Carol" (1961)
World Publishing Company
Illustrator: Ronald Searle

We meet up again with Ronald Searle with this 1961 edition of "A Christmas Carol" with additional illustrations not included in the LIFE Magazine story that we had just seen.

Those wonderful two-page spreads are included with some black and white illustrations to flesh out the book.

Here's a look at some of them, starting with this nice frontispiece:

And here are some of the black and white:

There's also this two-page spread which was not used in LIFE, but is just as good:

The LIFE article doesn't say anything about the book coming out and makes it sound as if LIFE commissioned the paintings they used. 

Whatever the case, there's a lot of fun artwork here!

LIFE Magazine (December 19, 1960)

"A Christmas Carol"

LIFE Magazine (December 19, 1960)

Illustrator: Ronald Searle

We were last hanging around 1960 with the World Record Club's recording of "A Christmas Carol," so we'll stay a little longer to check out the December 19 issue of LIFE Magazine.

This issue features an awesome 12-page (six two-page spreads) adaptation of "Christmas Carol" with illustrations by British artist Ronald Searle!

Take a look:

Oh, and Mrs. Kennedy was on the cover - still probably not the adaptor of the World Record Club version!