At this point in the season, various versions have already aired more than a few times, but tonight marks the first time for me to sit down and popcorn out on A Christmas Carol (by any other name). And sometime this week I’ll read the online version at Gutenberg. It’s one of my all-time favorite stories!
Today also marks the beginning of the one-week Christmas Countdown. Each day brings a short controversy-free, technology-free, gluten-free, fat-free, sugar-free, chemical-free free range Christmas post with a link back to a post from the Christmas Cycle in 2012. Considering the viewing schedule tonight, the link can only be to A Christmas Carol. (You can watch the Mr. Magoo version there!)
And each day, below the fold: Christmas Music!
Let’s start off with a bang. A special favorite, Ricky Martin with Ay, ay, ay, It’s Christmas. Don’t get up and dance. I dare ya.
And today’s bonus, Bob Seger with The Little Drummer Boy:
Go forth and spread beauty and light!
December 18th, 2014 at 7:07 pm
In case anyone is wondering:
All on TCM (Turner Classic Movies) tonight.
December 18th, 2014 at 7:20 pm
“There are many things from which I might have derived good, by which I have not profited, I dare say,” returned [Scrooge’s] nephew. “Christmas among the rest. But I am sure I have always thought of Christmas time, when it has come round—apart from the veneration due to its sacred name and origin, if anything belonging to it can be apart from that—as a good time; a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time; the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow-passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys. And therefore, uncle, though it has never put a scrap of gold or silver in my pocket, I believe that it has done me good, and will do me good; and I say, God bless it!”
A Christmas Carol ~Charles Dickens, 1843
[emphasis mine]
December 18th, 2014 at 7:33 pm
“Why do you doubt your senses?”
“Because,” said Scrooge, “a little thing affects them. A slight disorder of the stomach makes them cheats. You may be an undigested bit of beef, a blot of mustard, a crumb of cheese, a fragment of an underdone potato. There’s more of gravy than of grave about you, whatever you are!”
A Christmas Carol ~Charles Dickens, 1843
December 18th, 2014 at 7:34 pm
“But you were always a good man of business, Jacob,” faltered Scrooge, who now began to apply this to himself.
“Business!” cried the Ghost, wringing its hands again. “Mankind was my business. The common welfare was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence, were, all, my business. The dealings of my trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business!”
A Christmas Carol ~Charles Dickens, 1843
December 18th, 2014 at 8:14 pm
Poop. The Ricky Martin one is blocked in my country. 😦
December 18th, 2014 at 8:35 pm
Oh, no, that’s awful! [ricky martin ay ay ay it’s christmas canada] returns a bunch of hits on YouTube… maybe one of them will work for you? [fingers crossed]
December 20th, 2014 at 10:45 am
“The Christmas Carol,” is an excellent story, which in my mind is up there with O.Henry’s, “Gift of the Magi.”
I am one that enjoys many variations of this fine Dicken’s story and its meaningful theme, including the movie about “Ghosts of Christmases Past,” with someone really having regrets along with some fun with Matthew McConaughey. In a way, “It’s a Wonderful Life,” has some elements of this and it is considered an all-time favorite classic movie!
December 20th, 2014 at 2:02 pm
Great stories and some wonderful films! But, please, let’s not sully their name by mentioning that McConaughey guy in the same paragraph! 😛
December 20th, 2014 at 3:07 pm
♩♪ Musical Notes:
Ricky Martin’s Ay, Ay, Ay, It’s Christmas goes back to 1999 and apparently initially only appears on the Australian CD maxi-single for his third album Shake Your Bon-Bon. (Amazon has a Rosie O’Donnell Christmas album with the tune.)
The Little Drummer Boy (originally Carol of the Drum) is an American classic Christmas song by Katherine Kennicott Davis in 1941. It was first recorded by the Trapp Family Singers in 1955 and further popularized by the Harry Simeone Chorale in 1958. Since 1960, it’s hard to find a musical artist who hasn’t covered the tune.
December 23rd, 2014 at 10:48 pm
Dare accepted. I did not dance at all to Ay, Ay, Ay, It’s Christmas.
December 24th, 2014 at 1:40 am
Oh, that’s terrible! I’m sorry to hear that! 🙂
January 21st, 2015 at 2:10 am
Enjoyed these, too!!
And WS – I still love Mr. Magoo 😉
January 22nd, 2015 at 12:00 pm
It’s actually one of the better version of A Christmas Carol. Much of the dialog is taking right out of Dickens — very surprising — and very cool — for a cartoon comedy for kids in the 1960s. (Clear proof we didn’t used to expect people to be so friggin’ uneducated.)
I was surprised my memory didn’t include the fact that the Magoo version swaps the order of the first two ghosts, plus I’d thought the Magoo version was one of the few that showed the avatar children of Want and Ignorance. It doesn’t.
Ah, well, it’s still a pretty good version (although I could do without the musical numbers — I’ve never liked A Christmas Carol as a musical — it just seems so wrong to me).