Welcome 2026!

Happy New Year!

Like Ebenezer Scrooge on Christmas morning, I’m throwing open the windows of Fezziwig’s Warehouse to breathe in the fresh winter air! I’ve awakened from my long winter's nap with a new mission...

To ensure every post meets the "Gold Standard" I've set for this space, I’m spending the first part of the year in deep curation mode. I’ll be hunting down A Christmas Carol and Scrooge-adjacent rarities to prepare for a massive rollout starting in October.

The Current White Whale: Leyenda de Navidad (1947) I’m officially on the hunt for this Spanish-language adaptation (literally, "Legend of Christmas"). It’s not a lost film, but it is an elusive one. I’m looking for any lead on a copy—subtitled or not. Between my knowledge of the Dickens text and my daily Duolingo sessions, I’m ready to tackle the "Leyenda" head-on!

Does anyone have a lead? Don’t be shy! This is my current white whale.

While we’re at it, do you have a white whale of your own? Let me know in the comments. We’ll track it down together!

In the meantime, the Warehouse shelves are already packed with treasures. Feel free to browse the archives and leave a comment.

Happy browsing!

Is it Just Me...

 Or is there a serious lack of new Scrooge/"A Christmas Carol" content this year?

                                                  

Intriguing!

This sort of thing always intrigues me:

More info at Neil Gaiman's website: 

FOR TWO NIGHTS ONLY: A CHRISTMAS CAROL

And a link to the audio of an earlier reading by Mr. Gaiman here: 

Neil Gaiman Bringing Dickens' "A Christmas Carol" to NYC Town Hall

I'd like to see a recreation of a Dickens public reading someday!

Happy Cinco de Mayo!

Meta!

I always like to have fun with something meta, such as this illustration:

How can Scrooge be reading "A Christmas Carol?" 

Or is that not "A Christmas Carol" as we know it,  but another book with that title in Scrooge's fictional universe?

Or is that not really Scrooge?

It reminds me of the beginning of the "Shower of Stars" version where a gentleman purchases a copy of "A Christmas Carol" in a bookshop, then walks into the story.

Of course, I do realize that this is just a fun illustration, but it does raise questions!

The art is by Amber Duan and is from the Study Breaks website where it accompanies an essay by Angelica Rovinksi.

There's an interesting little nugget thrown in that I'll talk about next time...

Casting Call!

Did we see this before?

I think it's a list of characters from "A Christmas Carol" for purposes of putting on a stage production.

Interesting looks!

I see that the usually unnamed Cratchit kids are named Betty and Bob here, but who is Wait?

I guess we'll have to "wait" to find out!

Chalk One Up!

"A Christmas Carol" (2014)

Puffin Chalk Series

Cover Illustrator: Mary Kate McDevitt

Also not a kid version is this edition with a striking "chalk illustrated" cover!

And a really cool back cover too:

Either one would make an awesome poster!

More info at Mary Kate McDevitt's website. 

In the Family!

So, we just saw a kid-friendly adaptation of "A Christmas Carol" from Doubleday, which I understand is an imprint of Penguin Random House.

Perhaps neither here nor there, but I think this non-kid edition of "A Christmas Carol" from Penguin has a snappy cover:

Good to see a reformed Scrooge milling about!

Not sure who the artist is, but the image also appears on this edition (although I don't think it's as effective):

Fun!

Double Down!

"A Christmas Carol" (2015)
Doubleday Books for Young Readers
Text: Adam McKeown
Illustrations: Gerald Kelley

Here's another kid-friendly retelling of "A Christmas Carol" without any piano!

Sample pages:

I find these things to be interesting, mainly for the illustrations.

I can't help but notice that Marley's gravestone shows that he was born in 1781 and died in 1836.

That would mean he was 55 when he passed away and if that was seven years earlier from the setting of the story, the story is taking place in 1843, one year prior to the original publication of the book.

Interesting!

Easy Does It!

"A Christmas Carol Easy Piano Picture Book" (1998)

Faber and Faber

Text: Kenneth Lillingam

Illustations: Annabel Spenceley

Here's an interesting edition of "A Christmas Carol" that blends an illustrated kid-version of the story with "easy" piano versions of Christmas carols!

A sample of the story:

A sample carol:

Kind of fun!

Even Shorter!

I had said before that the "Ebenezer Scrooge" song was about the shortest condensation of "A Christmas Carol" ever.

But, check this out:

I stand corrected!

Check out John Atkinson's Wrong Hands for more fun cartoons!

"Charles Dickens Christmas Stories" - World Publishing (1946)

Here's an interesting edition from the "Rainbow Classic" imprint of World Publishing in 1946:

The art by Howard Simon seems like such a1940s Americanized interpretation of Victorian England!

And Bob Cratchit especially seems very off-model here:

I get kind of a caveman vibe!

But always interesting to see different takes on these familiar subjects! 

"The Sesame Street Storytime Calendar" (1982)

A new year always brings new calendars and 1982 was no exception, with that year's "Sesame Street" calendar featuring scenes from classic stories for each month, with the Muppets taking on the parts, as illustrated by Michael J. Smollin.

So, December wisely chose "A Christmas Carol":

Oscar the Grouch naturally takes on the Scrooge part, which anticipates 2006's "A Sesame Street Christmas Carol," although in that special he was still himself as a Scrooge surrogate.

Bert is portraying Bob Cratchit and Ernie would be Peter, as he's wearing one of Bob's collars, which is a nice touch.

The calendar's cover points out that these are the "Sesame Street" Muppets, as opposed to "The Muppet Show" Muppets, who, of course, later featured in 1992's "The Muppet Christmas Carol."

So, a nice little vignette here!

As a bonus, let's go back ten years to 1972, for what I think was the first "Sesame Street" calendar (the show had premiered in 1969).

It interestingly features art by the legendary Jack Davis, best-known for his work in "MAD" magazine.

Here's the December page:

It never fails to amaze me how Jack Davis could do spot-on caricatures that still look like Jack Davis characters!

And a shout-out to the late Bob McGrath, who passed away at age 90 last month. Rest in peace.

"The Honeymooners Christmas Carol" (1977)

"The Honeymooners Christmas Carol" 

November 28, 1977

Director: Jackie Gleason

Scrooge: "Ed Norton"

From 1977 comes one of a number of specials featuring Jackie Gleason's "The Honeymooners," this time featuring a version of "A Christmas Carol" as staged by Ralph Kramden!

I'm a big fan of "The Honeymooners" and watched reruns of the "Classic 39" all the time back in the day, so I was excited when they had these specials reuniting Jackie Gleason as Ralph and Art Carney as Ed Norton along with classic Alice Kramden played by Audrey Meadows. Also along was Jane Kean, the Trixie Norton of the later musical episodes.

I hadn't thought of these specials in years and probably wouldn't have expected ever to see them again, but the four of them showed up on DVD last year, so I grabbed a set!

Watching the "Christmas Carol" episode again, I thought it was good fun. Dated to be sure, with then-topical references to everyone from Anita Bryant to Billy Carter, but fun.

The framing story has  Ralph volunteering to direct the bus company's charity performance of "A Christmas Carol" to get in good with his boss. Hilarity ensues with Norton playing both Tiny Tim and Ebenezer Scrooge!

Ralph's boss, Mr. Marshall, is played by sitcom vet Gale Gordon and he easily fits in!

I won't spoil anything else, but it's a fun, nostalgic watch!

"A Christmas Carol" (2021) - Frith Street Films - Part 2

A few words about the 2021 multi-media adaptation of "A Christmas Carol" from Frith Street Films...

I admit that I wasn't really sure what was going on at first, as the characters dance around a lot and their lips don't move although we hear them talking.

Then it dawned on me that we're seeing what the littlest girl is imagining as her grandmother reads "A Christmas Carol" to the family. This accounts for the different look of various sets and old pictures popping up here and there.

I rewatched the beginning and it all made sense! We see the kids setting up a toy theater (theatre?) and cutting out pictures including the John Leech illustrations from the first edition.

I hadn't watched those videos from yesterday's post before watching the movie, so I had to figure it out myself!

In any event, I enjoyed it quite a bit. I didn't know what to expect and I honestly wasn't expecting much, but I thought I'd at least give it a look as I have Amazon Prime anyway, but it held my attention and was well worth my time.

I quite liked the narration of Siân Phillips as the grandmother!

It kind of played like an audio dramatization with illustrations and the audio portion is a very faithful adaptation with only a few changes here and there.

The biggest addition, and a fascinating one at that, is the Cratchit children talking about Martha making hats and needing to ride a train to get home for Christmas dinner. And then we see Martha and some other girls making hats! I like it!

An intriguing aspect of the film is the various vintage (and vintage-looking) pictures that pop up to help illustrate the story.

This one really caught my eye:

Is that really how lighthouse keepers got their provisions? Yikes! I never knew! So, this was educational too!

A nit-picker (and there's some of that in me) would say that not everything we see looks like it would spring from the mind of a little Victorian girl, but I'm willing to go with the flow!

I think this film was a good kick-off to the Scrooge-watching of the season. An appetizer, if you will, before the main course of Sim and Magoo and the other perennials!

"A Christmas Carol" (2020) - Frith Street Films - Part 1

"A Christmas Carol" (2020)

Frith Street Films

Director: Jacqui Morris

Scrooge: Simon Russell Beale

Let's kick off December with a relatively new version of "A Christmas Carol, this one from 2020!

It's kind of a blend of different styles and hard to describe.

The trailer gives some of the flavor:

And here's a featurette with more background:

I don't remember having heard of it previously, but it popped up on Amazon Prime, so I gave it a watch!

Note that the video says it will be in theaters in 2021, but most sources say it's from 2020, so I'm going with 2020. I can say it's streaming in 2022 and that's what really matters!

Next up: The critique!

So Not Sure!

From the "I Don't Know Much About This One" department, here's an interesting illustration with an emphasis on the "Ghost Story":

Also not sure* if it's an actual book cover or just a print!

*not sure bring a euphemism for no clue !

A Puzzlement!

Here's the image from a jigsaw puzzle released by Professor Puzzle:

I like it, but the first thing that strikes me is that this scene isn't really in the book.

Fair enough, but the website has this blurb:

Just one title in our Jigsaw Library, this 252-piece double-sided puzzle features a beautiful illustration from an iconic scene on one side, with an extract from the book on the other, making it the perfect gift for book lovers and puzzlers alike.

Iconic scene? Hmmm...

Odd!

This edition has very odd character design on the cover:

The website says it was released in Storbritannien on September 6, 2012.

But "Storbritannien" is Swedish for Great Britain and the website is in English, so now I'm really confused!

I do like the tiles on Scrooge's fireplace, though!

Flashback!

The Scrooge on the cover of this 2018 edition from Brown Chair Books reminds me of something:

I get the vibe of the 1969 animated version from "Famous Classic Tales":

Too bad the art from the cartoon didn't have the same level of detail!