For
a long time, adapting Charles Dickens’ classic tale A Christmas Carol
was a tried-true cliche for television shows. The setup was always the
same: some character who was behaving badly (it wasn’t necessarily
greed) would get visited by three ghosts who would show him the error
of his or her ways. I remember some of the more successful attempts
such as Blackadder’s Christmas Carol and the WKRP in Cincinatti
episode in which Mr. Carlson doesn’t hand out Christmas bonuses, eats
one of Johnny’s brownies and has a dream in which he gets visited by
the ghosts (the Marley in this case being Bob
Marley).
I also remember sillier adaptations, such as the Six Million
Dollar Man episode title A Bionic Christmas Carol, which is
summarized as follows:
Oscar
makes Steve give up his Christmas holiday to investigate a major systems supplier
for the space projects. Oscar fears that sabotage in the life support systems
may affect a Mars landing. Horton Budge is a cynical industrialist and is
so tight that his nephew, Bob Crandall, who is employed at Budge’s plant,
isn’t paid enough to support his family. The sabotage that Oscar fears is
the result of the low morale at the plant caused by Budge’s miserly ways.
Steve utilizes his bionics to bring some cheer and a change of heart to Budge
and his family
I was nine years old when the episode was aired (December 1976), and for some reason, it’s permanently burned into my memory.
There’ve also been many movie adaptations that have modernized the
tale, from the excellent Scrooged,
starring Bill Murray as a cynical
and selfish TV producer (and Bobcat Goldthwait playing the
Cratchit-like character) to the rather painful Skinflint: A Country
Christmas Carol, which was a made-for-TV musical that I think starred a
lot of the cast from Hee Haw.
I’m not as big a TV watcher as I used to be in my childhood and teen
years, so I don’t know if A Christmas Carol is still inspiring
television show plots. I thought that in the spirit of the cliche, I’d
present the original version in eBook form [412K, PDF] as
today’s Advent Calendar goodie.
Recommended Reading
Here’s a web page that covers a number of television and movie adaptations of A Christmas Carol.