Emoji Blitz Update - "Mickey's Christmas Carol"

Hot on the heels of "The Muppet Christmas Carol" event, Disney Emoji Blitz now has a "Mickey's Christmas Carol" event, featuring two new emojis!

The new emojis are Emily Cratchit Minnie (seen at top) and Ghost of Christmas Future Pete (below).

Pretty fun, but this raises the question of whether Mrs. Cratchit is actually called "Emily" in "Mickey's Christmas Carol" or was that a name that was assigned later, possibly based on Miss Piggy's Emily Cratchit from "The Muppet Christmas Carol."

This bears further investigation! Not that I mind watching "Mickey's Christmas Carol" again!

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 !

More Holiday Spirits!

Lots of spirits were no doubt consumed on St. Patrick's Day, but maybe not from this bottle:

Scrooge looks like he might have been dipping into the contents!

What's interesting is that the actual spirits are shown on another side:

But that's clearly Marley's Ghost and not the Ghost of Christmas Past!

So, who was sampling the product?

Friendly!

Another fun game one can play on one's phone is the popular Words with Friends (2).

One regular feature of the game is the Solo Challenge, where you work your way up through a series of increasingly difficult computer opponents.

For this holiday season, the Challenge had "A Christmas Carol" for the theme! 

Here's a look at the ladder:

Kind of an interesting mix of representations there! Martha Cratchit seems the most traditional and she actually seems to function as Mrs. Cratchit.

I did eventually defeat Scrooge, by the way!

"If I Were King..." - Stave Four

We're up to Stave Four with a peek into the future as we gather the elements from "A Christmas Carol" that I would like to see in a short-form adaptation.

In an audio adaptation, I can understand having the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come speak, but I'd prefer that it did not. I'd have Scrooge act as the de facto narrator, reacting to the ghost's gestures and such.

We need the businessmen talking about Scrooge (without saying his name so he's unaware), but we don't need the other two talking about "Old Scratch," so we save a bit of time there.

The business in Old Joe's shop is important, but we need to move that along. Definitely want the bed curtain business to reference how the Ghost of Christmas Past had opened them upon its entrance.

And we want an indication that Scrooge's body is lying unattended in a creepy room, again without him realizing it's his own body. This scene is not always included, but I feel it's important as we'll soon find out!

I do really like the seldom used scene of Caroline and her husband feeling relief at Scrooge's death, but that can be awkward to describe without using a lot of time, so I'm OK without it.

But we do need to spend some time at the Cratchit house and find out that Tiny Tim had died.

At this point as Scrooge starts pleading for another chance, it's important for him to ask the ghost whose body they had seen earlier, as the answer is his name on the gravestone. I think too many adaptations have the ghost show the grave, but without this context, it would just seem that Scrooge will die at some point in the future, which, like it or not, will happen to everyone someday.

A little more repenting from Scrooge and we're ready for the narrator to tell us that the spirit has dwindled into a bedpost!

"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 Sesame Street Christmas Carol" (2006) - Part 2

Since "A Sesame Street Christmas Carol," the 2006 direct-to-video special, actually has "A Christmas Carol" in the title, is it an actual adaptation of the classic story?

Well, no, not really. It's a takeoff on it, with Oscar the Grouch standing in for Scrooge, but it does follow the past/present/future structure and contains a few nods to the original.

This is by no means a Sesame Street version of "The Muppet Christmas Carol," despite what the title may imply.

One thing to keep in mind is that the Sesame Street productions are aimed at young kids, whereas the Muppet billed ones seem to seek more of a family audience. As such, I'm not really going to "review" this special, but just point out a few things.

This all got started because Tim Curry's the narrator here. He's only at the beginning and end, but sets a good tone, with Dickensian phrases like "to begin with" to give it flavor.

I have to admit that I'm a sucker for "fourth wall" type gags, so I think it's really funny how Oscar talks back to the narrator. It reminds me of how Boris Badenov, say, would interact with William Conrad's narrator on "Rocky and His Friends" and its later incarnations.

The story gets going with Oscar being visited by Joe Marley, who delivers Ghost-O-Grams. The Marley name is just used as an homage, as the character doesn't really seem to have a Marley-like connection to Oscar.

Oscar receives three Ghost-O-Grams, which summon the three spirits, who show Oscar some clips that appear to be from earlier Sesame Street episodes or specials.

In the Christmas Past sequence, the them is for Oscar to understand giving from the heart. The ghost here is Rhubarb, a legendary grouch from London of 1843. I get it! He came in an old baked beans can. The two grouches don't seem to learn too much, though!

The vintage Bert and Ernie "Gift of the Magi" segment is very good if predictable for adults familiar with that O. Henry story. You know this is older, as it features "Mr. Hooper," who had passed away in-universe after actor Will Lee died in 1982. Good to see him.

The next spirit comes in a jack-in-the-box and she's Christmas Carol, an anthropomorphic Christmas tree. She shows Oscar a few different holiday traditions to represent the present. I though the Hanukah and Kwanzaa segments were informative and the food in each looks awesome!

I enjoyed Kristin Chenoweth's voice characterization of Carol.

The spirit who shows what Christmas Future will look like is i-S.A.M., a robot operated with a  remote. His segment features a wacky animated take on the future.

When all is said and done, Oscar wakes up on Christmas morning and meets little Joey Dickens, who resembles Joe Marley, which seems to indicate the whole thing was a dream. He gives Joey a smelly old sneaker as a present, so I guess he learned something?

In any event, it's a cute little special aimed at kids and if looked at that way, it's not bad. It's 46 minutes long, which is a good running time for something like this.

One thing I always thought was interesting about Oscar the Grouch is that he wants to be miserable, but if he is miserable, then he's happy, which he doesn't like, so he's miserable again and so on. I remember an episode of "Sesame Street" addressing that conundrum when I was a kid and thought it was deep stuff!

"Donald Duck and the Christmas Carol (1960) - A Little Golden Book - "Stave 4”

Now it's "Stave 4" from "Donald Duck and the Christmas Carol," the Little Golden Book from 1960.

The Last of the Spirits:

That's Dewey, as the headband on his hat is blue. I rest my case!

Stave 5 ahead!

Scrooge's Future

The Christmas Future segment of Lionel Barrymore's 1947 recording of "A Christmas Carol" for MGM records is very brief. It only contains a scene of the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come showing Scrooge his own tombstone.

There's no context, so the only thing we (and Scrooge) know is that he'll be deceased at some Christmas in the future. What should Scrooge's takeaway be from this?

That got me thinking about how different versions treat this idea and what the original text indicates.

I think there's sometimes a misunderstanding that Scrooge is shocked that he's dead in the future. That's not really the case, however.

The wow factor of his name on the gravestone is not the fact that he's dead, but that he's the person whose passing got no sympathy from anybody and whose body lied plundered and bereft.

So, of there's not enough of a buildup, the grave doesn't have as much of an impact.

The other question to which there doesn't appear to be an answer is exactly how far in the future does Scrooge die and how?

Will his changed nature cause him to live longer, like he has more to live for niw?

We don't know how old he is, but he's on the old side. Life expectancy was shorter then as well.

Some versions seem to indicate Scrooge passes away fairly soon. Albert Finney seems to go from the impromptu parade celebrating his death to the Tiny Tim-less Cratchit house without any pause, which implies that they died around the same time, perhaps a year later.

And it looks like Jim Carrey sees 1840-something on his gravestone and that version is set in 1843, so that Scrooge wouldn't be around for too long either!

Conversely, Ronald Colman doesn't recognize one of the buildings in the future and the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come (who talks) tells him it will be built in years to come. So, even if this Scrooge were not to repent, he'd still have a few years left at least.

Things to think about!

Stave Four. The Last of the Spirits.

So, Scrooge sees the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come and knows he's in for it!

This ghost is a silent phantom, dressed in a deep black, hooded cloak, with one outstretched hand the only part of it that's visible.

No wonder Scrooge says, "Ghost of the Future! I fear you more than any spectre I have seen."

This ghost has such a simple description that the depictions of it don't vary an awful lot from one adaptation to another. Depending on the budget of the particular production, however, some eerie special effects might be thrown in!

So, what does this ghost show Scrooge? First we see some of Scrooge's business associates talking rather unsympathetically about some who had recently passed away. They know they're talking about Scrooge, we know they're talking about Scrooge. Everybody knows except for Scrooge!

Next we're brought inside the shop of Old Joe, the kind of joint where you can sell ill-gotten gains, no questions asked! Unloading their plunder are the undertaker's man, the laundress and the charwoman. Scrooge sees the parallel to himself, but doesn't recognize his own stuff!

Of these three, only one is called by name. I think it's the charwoman that calls the laundress "Mrs. Dilber." It's sort of hard to follow, but I do think that's the case. What's the big deal? Well, quite a few adaptations have Scrooge interacting with the charwoman, whom he invariably calls Mrs. Dilber!

Whatever her name is, the charwoman produces the pièce de résistance: Scrooge's bed curtains - rings and all!

As bad as that seems, the ghost next transports Scrooge to an extremely creepy room with a corpse covered only by a sheet. The ghost wants Scrooge to see who it is, but Scrooge is catching on now and is afraid he'll see himself under that sheet!

Scrooge's plea to see someone feel any emotion over that person's death is answered by a little vignette in which a married couple are relieved at the death of that individual, as he was hounding them to pay back a loan. The extra time afforded them by the death will be all they need to pay it off.

In a fashion that we're used to by now, we know the wife's name is Caroline, as the husband addresses her by name. We don't know the husband's name, however, as the wife does not say it.

Well, this did not satisfy Scrooge, so he wants to see some tenderness connected with a death. Be careful what you wish for, though, as the death he sees is that of Tiny Tim!

Bob, naturally a wreck over the whole thing, mentions that he ran into Scrooge's nephew, who was very kind to him, even though they had only met once before.

Of note is that Tiny Tim's body is still in the house, in an upstairs room which Bob visits. We don't see this in many adaptations.

One last thing is for Scrooge to find out who was that deceased fellow that nobody cared about. The answer is on a gravestone. Naturally it reads: Ebenezer Scrooge!

Scrooge is fully repentant now and vows to change his ways. He grabs the spirit, whose robes dwindle into a bedpost.

Could that bedpost be...?