SCROOGE AND THE STARS (1963)

Balladeer’s Blog’s Eighth Annual Christmas Carol-A-Thon continues! Back in the 2012 edition I reviewed Rich Little’s Christmas Carol, his 1978 television special. In that review I mentioned impressionist Little’s earlier, shorter, stand-up version of the special in which he used the voices of entirely different celebrities for the characters in A Christmas Carol.

This time around I will look at that 1963 AUDIO version. Rich Little had compiled the piece over the course of years, stretching back to his days as a DJ when he would ad-lib much of the material.

A historical footnote is the fact that – since Rich Little prepared the material far in advance of Christmas – he used the voice of John F Kennedy for the Ghost of Christmas Present. The record album version was released mere days after JFK’s assassination.

The voice lineup for the other characters went as follows:

Scrooge – Jack Benny

Bob Cratchit – Eddie “Rochester” Anderson 

Nephew Fred – Jimmy Stewart

Narrator – Fred MacMurray 

Charity Collectors – Alfred Hitchcock and Jimmy Durante

Carol Singer – Bing Crosby

Marley – John Wayne

Ghost of Christmas Past – Walter Brennan

Fezziwig – Jackie Gleason

Dick Wilkins – Gregory Peck  

Ghost of Christmas Present – John F Kennedy

Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come – Ed Sullivan

Party Attendees – Peter Lorre, Raymond Burr and Van Hefflin

Non-Mourners of Scrooge – Jack Webb, Orson Welles, James Mason, Dana Andrews and George Burns

Christmas Morning Boy – Dennis Weaver (as Chester on Gunsmoke.)

LISTEN FOR YOURSELF – CLICK HERE

FOR MORE VERSIONS OF A CHRISTMAS CAROL CLICK HERE:  https://glitternight.com/category/a-christmas-carol-2/