The byline cites the author as "the Berman Professor of Jewish Civilization..." and I will note that Scrooge does not apologize to Cratchet, he shows up with a tangible act of contrition. Rabbi Ruttenburg just published recently https://danyaruttenberg.net/books/on-repentance-and-repair on Judaism not really giving a shit about "I'm sorry" but about... repentance and repair: action of amendment by the transgressor rather than grace from the transgressed.
The Muppet's Christmas Carol is a such a unique moment of time where you have legendary actor Michael Caine playing a role accurate to the original Charles Dickens story, combined with Gonzo as narrator and Rizzo the rat. I feel like since then we have somewhat lost the capability to make these sorts of movies.
> I’m going to play this movie like I’m working with the Royal Shakespeare Company. I will never wink, I will never do anything Muppety. I am going to play Scrooge as if it is an utterly dramatic role and there are no puppets around me.
Nailed it he did, but isn't this how all people treated the muppets? My memories of the original shows were of celebrities working with the muppets just like their peers. It's one of the greatest examples of buy-in to a shared pretend, alongside the likes of Father Christmas/Santa and arguably outshining kayfabe.
I was actually thinking the very same thing since I posted that! I don't remember the original series that well, but I do have a vague recollection of everyone 'buying into it' incredibly well, like you say. I guess it's a testament to the Muppeteers, too! I need to rewatch the recent - excellent - movies and do a comparison.
Tim Curry could be argued to have acted precisely as a Muppet in Muppet Treasure Island - That said in certain circumstances that may be an accurate description of his acting style to begin with.
I was upset when Disney cut the “when love is gone” song from it in the dvd release because it was “too sad for children” or some other dumb reason.
This lead it to being mostly missing from it on streaming services.
The cut part was then also lost, but very recently they found it again and added it back in. Still, at least on apple streaming it’s missing and we have to switch to YouTube to see it at the right point (my family watches it every year).
"When Love is Gone" was not in the version of the movie shown in theaters, it was ONLY on home releases (one or two of them only had it available as special features, the original VHS release had it in the right place in the movie). It was never lost at all, they always knew where the footage was. Brian Henson says that Jeffrey Katzenberg (Chairman of Walt Disney Studios) strongly suggested but did not order him to cut the song- saying that it was too much adult emotion that children did not understand, and caused children to start to fidget and get bored.
This came up in my family because I had only seen the movie in theaters and my wife had seen the VHS copy many times, so when we watched it on our blu-ray back in December I blithely selected "widescreen theatrical release" and got what I remembered and she was wondering where that song went, if we'd selected 'Full-screen VHS release' we would have gotten this song that I didn't remember at all.
In it they say Disney cut it - I had read elsewhere it wasn’t an order but they definitely seemed to have pushed it despite what he wanted.
That article says they then lost it after.
>” While the scene was cut from the theatrical release, Henson very much wanted it to be included. Speaking to Entertainment Weekly in November, Henson explained that Jeffrey Katzenberg (yes, the Quibi one, who was then in charge of Disney) was the one who had the scene cut. “He’s like, ‘It’s just a little too adult-emotional for little kids to stay connected,’” Henson recalled Katzenberg saying, adding that the film “certainly plays well without the song, but I obviously preferred having the song in. I think it’s good for kids to be pulled into deeply emotional moments, even if they feel slightly awkward about it when they’re in a movie theater.” According to Henson, Disney lost the original footage soon after, but efforts have been made to recover it. “For years and years, I’d call them every six months and see how they were doing. And they actually even put together a team and a little budget to try to find it, and they still couldn’t,” he told EW. “It’s very frustrating.””
Also at the end of the movie the last song is a throw back “when love is found” which loses some meaning with the other song cut.
I don't understand how this is possible, since it was definitely in the VHS release. Maybe he meant the original master of the scene was missing? Again, it was in the VHS release, and on the DVD release that we own, so it was not like the scene was truly missing.
As for which is shown on Disney+, given that streaming generally has to pick one version, I can see the argument for going with the theatrical release or the director's cut, or even going Disney Vault style and swapping back and forth somewhat randomly, which is what they appear to be doing.
Yeah, they mean the original masters (so they could add it back in at high quality in future releases).
We had it on vhs which is the first one I saw.
It looks like Disney finally updated Disney plus December 9th 2022 - it just took them 2 years after finding the masters to do it (and more than a decade since their unfortunate decision to cut it when releasing it on dvd I guess?)
Tbf, Paul Williams was coked out of his mind when he wrote the music for that, to the point that he later introduced himself to Caine as though they hadn’t done the movie already. So hard to recreate the conditions of creation.
One thing I find very striking about it is that it felt free to swing between being a Muppets movie and being a faithful rendition of the story according to whatever was better for the movie. There are two Marleys in the Muppet Christmas Carol, because the best Muppet personality match to Jacob Marley is a set of two Muppet characters. That's great. But then on the other end, when Dickens has produced a great piece of writing that doesn't translate well to film... Rizzo the Rat can whip out his copy of the book and just read that passage to the audience. Even better!
Someone had a vision for this movie and did an amazing job.
> I feel like since then we have somewhat lost the capability to make these sorts of movies.
Copyright is a big problem here. If you want to find the best possible version of a story, you need to let different people experiment with different ways of telling it.
> There are two Marleys in the Muppet Christmas Carol, because the best Muppet personality match to Jacob Marley is a set of two Muppet characters.
It also let them have the parental bonus of a character named Robert Marley.
> Rizzo the Rat can whip out his copy of the book and just read that passage to the audience.
The neat thing about that is that the book was basically meant as a read-aloud. Dicken's had a condensed version which he'd get up on stage and read to audiences in a dramatic way. (He'd failed as a professional actor, but definitely found another path to success!)
So I love that Gonzo reciting narration passages directly from the book is even more true to authorial intent in some ways.
Henson's Kermit had a kind of realism, he was kind but not cotton candy airhead.
He showed contempt, anger, hints of cynicism and sarcasm sometimes even hints of what we would call 'violence' in todays parlance - but profoundly humanist.
Every GenXer hates 'Barnie' the syruppy naive Dinosaur because he's an inauthentic fool, I think that says a lot about generations. The 'villains' in Gen X films used terrible language because they were 'bad guys' and all of them complicated. See 'Casino' for stellar peformances by Pesci/Deniro/Shrone Stone . You can't make that film today because of depictions of violence against women, ugly slurs. But it's clearly very good. But 'verbotten' for common creators who have to make their way through the industry.
Barnie kids villains aren't allowed to be evil.
I really think kids ought to have more rounded role models, and not infantile empty characters.
+ Is there a post 2010 popular film where a violent boyfriend husband hits his wife? Wherein that woman antagonised the man, making the audience 'feel' her 'culpability' in some ways, wherein both characters are presented as mostly bad, but also had elements of humanity? Wherein bad characters call each other (trigger warning / vulgar language) 'jew k*ke' and other terrible slurs? Maybe it was just an artifact of that era, or maybe I'm watching too much Netflix because even 'noir' is not 'noir'.
+ 'Barnie kids' villains, not Barnie's villains.
Villains are barely disagreeable. Aside from maybe 'Hans Landa' here hasn't been a dark villain in a very long time. They are at best, sad charicatures of 'bad people'. 'Grand Moff Tarkin' from Star Wars is scarier than most bad guys, merely with his presence.
You won't see anyone smoking in films these days either. Which is also bad for noir.
See also https://bloodknife.com/everyone-beautiful-no-one-horny/ ; it's a conundrum of modern action movies that they're allowed unlimited violence but must be strictly unshocking in all other ways. And then there's the total dominance of superhero CGI.
To a great extent this stuff just moved to TV. Would Game of Thrones meet your criteria for domestic violence?
Thanks for that example because 'smoking' is exactly an example of what I mean.
'Game of Thrones' initally was pretty good. Towards the end however, it veered a bit to safety as they had to 'make it up' given the story was not written.
We should note that it's fundamentally a European production, not Hollywood, and, that it started even before 2011, so a while ago, before a lot of the sanitization has sunk in.
> Wherein that woman antagonised the man, making the audience 'feel' her 'culpability' in some ways, wherein both characters are presented as mostly bad, but also had elements of humanity?
If you want the movie to make audience feel like the woman is culpable for being beaten, then you are asking for waaay more then just "depiction of violence against women". You are asking for moral lesson that it is ok to hit women (or people) if they are annoying.
Really not true. "Uncomfortable" is there, you can show uncomfortable and morally complex in many various ways. It does not require "making the audience 'feel' her 'culpability' in some ways:.
What op asked for is literally specific moral judgement and lesson. Just not the one you (presumably) agree with.
I definitely did not imply there should be a moral imperative.
Moroever, the 'making the audience contemplate her culpability' in having attacked a man before she was hit, is definitely the 'verbotten' form of depiction, the reason being too many people would feel that would somehow justify domestic violence.
This is the essence of 'what cannot be put on screen' - ideas that are counter narrative or don't fit nicely.
A man hitting a woman is tricky, but a man hitting a woman who is harrassing him is much worse because it might seem to imply the 'guy had a good reason to hit her', even if that 'implication' isn't necessarily obvious, lot of people would freak out anyhow.
In 'Gone Girl' the film, you can see the woman was the villain, making 'fake claims' of being raped etc. - this was met with severe blowback, because some people didn't want to see the depiction (and therefore possible justification of the narrative) of woman lying abour rape. The 'social justice imperative' is to 'believe women' and so from their view, it's not something they want on the big screen. The blow back is strong enough that it pushes producers and writers away from those kinds of things. Nobody in the industry wants to be see as 'that guy' aka that 'guy' who may secrety be a 'trump guy' etc..
Unlesss they have a lot of power and people give them the benefit of the doubt, aka Scorsese.
Yes, this is my point, and the commenter is displaying exactly the moral tendency I'm wary of in cinema.
Ironically, if you just watch the darn film, you see it for what it is. It's also not a morality tale, it's mostly just entertainment. They're all faulty people, and 'it's complicated'. You can hate them and sympathise with them at the same time.
I suggest almost nobody has a problem with 'Casino' the way it is - I do however believe that it wouldn't get made today, for exactly the 'moral concerns' that the commenter indicated.
Not only are studios risk averse, there's a culture of people who would just feel such a depiction immoral and 'problematic' as though everything we see is a morality tale, or, that these films directly influence behaviour a bit like Joe Rogan yapping on about vaccines when he probably should not be ... except that this is different.
And possibly generation of writers who don't come across enough 'ugly people' in real life to provide fodder as writing material. We're just all becoming a bit too genteel without accents, colour, hints of ethnic orientation.
Oh - and teeth. Look at the teeth. Everyone has perfect teeth on film. It's hilarious. It happened over a few years, but now it's unthinkable that someone doesn't have a perfect smile, even the bad guys. Compare it to British TV where they don't select for that and it becomes obvious.
The baddies had braces and definitely use 'Crest Strips' and god forbid they don't smoke or drink coffee!
Except that you specifically demand that audience ends up with specific moral conclusion in specific situation/scene.
And that is the thing, I do watch movies and there is plenty of bad or immoral characters being depicted. It is just not true, at least for shows I watch on netfix, that they would be full of likable moral characters. But they are not enough, because I guess those movies do not have specific lesson you want there to be.
Yeah but that show isn't for kids. Not that kids can't watch it, it's just not very interesting to them in my experience.
Popular media for kids now typically is gaming media and/or fanfiction. Undertale, FNAF, Harry Potter, and God knows what else (I try my best to avoid hearing about it). True villains feature quite prominently in all of this.
I could be crazy, but I feel that there is a 'sanitzation' happening, and it could be a multi-faceted thing.
Of course there is 'violence' but it's generally very clean and surreal, even when they are trying really hard to make it dirty, it just feels fake.
It might even just be bland writing by people with limited life experience?
But I feel that we are all 'careful about what we say' in a way we were not before.
On Smartless and Conan all the actors just tell each other how much they 'love one aother', it's purid, a bit revolting. ('aka' I hope you consider me for you next project and don't think I'm one of the 'bad people').
Where are the deviants? Wierdos? Trolls? Odd looking people?
Just Google 'Character Actor' - and you get a long list of old guys!
Scorsese packs his films with tons of very regular looking people, and the production design embellishes but it feels very real, just part of why I think his villains are more 'scary'.
The Joe Pesci "You Think I'm Funny?" from Goodfellas is one of the most unsettling bits in cinema - and consider how simple the scene is and even the relative power dynaic of the characters. He's not the head of the mob, or even a mass murderer like 'Dahmer'.
And probaably 'globalism' aka 'global audiences' is a primary factor among others.
Anyhow - Kermit himself is a classic case.
Have a look at this classic Kermit and Cookie Monster, the later throws a wrench into Kermits thing and he gets pissed. For some reason that level of emotional reality just does not exist on Barney or Paw Patrol.
Watching Paw Patrol feels dystopian, I watch my newphews watching that and it feels more like a 'visual opioid' than anything else.
Paw Patrol and Daniel Tiger are safe and inoffensive and inclusive and diverse and socially correct. Its suits some parents, I guess?
That’s why my 4 year old watches Bugs Bunny from the 40s-70s. People and shit blowing up. Guns and bombs and violence and LAUGHTER. Bugs saying, “what the heck!” And it’s ok.
yes, some kids are taught not to say “what the heck”, probably the same ones taught not to say “hate”? It’s NOT ok you hate beets, damn it. Well, you can hate them but don’t use THAT word.
I saw a couple of “Bluey” episodes yesterday (the ones Disney temporarily banned for discussing farts). I was impressed. Maybe because it’s Australian it does not have the same modern American values being taught to kids.
Bugs and Kermit are essentially 'adults' whereas newer kids characters are themselves kind of infantalized, obviously not children, but removed from all hints of potential conflict or ascerbic nature.
I really do feel there's something very creepy and ultimately very obvious happening right in front of us, that we just won't see until retrospect becuase it wasn't a purposeful characterization.
I have some dealings with Spin Master (aka Paw Patrol) and it's 100% 'just business'. It's just a product like anything else: eyeballs, distribution, attention, view count etc..
> Bugs and Kermit are essentially 'adults' whereas newer kids characters are themselves kind of infantalized, obviously not children, but removed from all hints of potential conflict or ascerbic nature.
Quite frequently, they are explicitly children (e.g., PJ Masks, where, AFAIK, the existence of adults is implied but never shown, Ada Twist, Scientist, where the focal characters are children, with adults in supporting roles, etc.)
But, no, generally there is plenty of conflict, and often more realistic conflict than in older kids programming. Murderous intent and lethal violence (both serious and played for laughs) are less common than in children’s programs when I waa growing up, but... I don't see thr problem with that. .
> I have some dealings with Spin Master (aka Paw Patrol) and it's 100% 'just business'. It's just a product like anything else: eyeballs, distribution, attention, view count etc..
As if that has ever not been the case with most kids programming (with the biggest counterexamples being some of the early leaders in inoffensive, conflict-minimizsd TV, like pre-HBO Sesame Street.)
> I really do feel there's something very creepy and ultimately very obvious happening right in front of us, that we just won't see until retrospect becuase it wasn't a purposeful characterization.
That seems, historically, to be a very common reaction people have to situations that don’t fit the subconscious expectations of their formative years.
Phineas and Ferb is a very well written children's show on Disney, that is somehow able to construct amusing characters with some substance, an A & a B plot in every episode, clever writing and on the whole completely inoffensive, “family friendly” and just generally nice.
My children (25, 22 and 17) have long outgrown it, but when they are all home together for the holidays, will sometimes put it on.
Disney’s 2021 “Cruella,” based on the 101 Dalmatians franchise, has a main villain who tries to kill her own daughter. Lot of complexity there. Great film.
Frank Oz was Bert, as well as Miss Piggy and Fozzie, and Henson was Ernie, as well as Kermit and a producer on the Muppet Show. I think they had enough to do on the show as it was.
Also: Oz was better at doing different voices than Henson. I think Ernie and Kermit in a scene together would be bad, since the voices were so similar.
I don’t remember Grover ever being on the Muppet Show. Big Bird had a guest appearance once, perhaps that’s what you’re thinking.
Kermit was very much Jim Henson’s avatar and was the core character that the Muppet Show was built around, and existed before Sesame Street (IIRC, he was the very first puppet that Henson made, cut from his mother’s green coat). I believe that the Sesame Street Muppets other than Kermit are all owned by Children’s Television Workshop which is at least in part why they only made limited appearances in non-Sesame Street productions. There was a significant overlap in the puppeteering staff between Sesame Street and the Muppet Show (most notably Jim Henson and Frank Oz who were arguably the greatest comedy duo of the late twentieth century, but I think some other SS puppeteers also worked on the Muppet Show).
Of course, all of this is going from memory and someone going to Wikipedia could probably find all the places where I’ve misremembered things or am just plain wrong.
I remember going to a muppet exhibit at what is now the museum of popular culture in Seattle and finding out that the muppet Henson most identified with was Rowlf.
I also learned that Henson did some delightfully bizarre commercials. My favorite was this one for La Choy chow main. It absolutely caused me to buy some:
https://youtu.be/4bfdaR4xMeU
Grover too? To me, they're almost entirely separate. Kermit is the only one I remember who regularly appeared in both. I think there's a very brief Big Bird cameo in the Muppet Movie, but I cannot recall any other significant character from one show appearing as more than a brief cameo in the other.
