[7]

The Muppets have my blessing to reinterpret any piece of literature they want (except maybe Naked Lunch). It’s fun to see which characters are played by which Muppets, and all my favorites are featured in The Muppet Christmas Carol, from heckling critics Statler & Waldorf to gruff Sam Eagle. Michael Caine gives a faithful performance as Scrooge, and a lot of Dickens’ exact lines are used in Gonzo the Great’s narration. I gotta say, too, that when Beaker offers his scarf to Scrooge as a gift, by golly, I got a little teary eyed. If there’s a weak point in the movie, it’s Paul Williams’ songs. It’s an uneven collection of schmaltz, nowhere near as memorable as what he did for the first Muppet Movie.