Rufus Rose working on one of his handmade puppets.
Balladeer’s Blog’s Twelfth Annual Christmas Carol-A-Thon continues! This version of the Dickens classic featured beautifully crafted marionettes as all of the characters. It’s a shame this baby was in black & white since the costumes for the marionettes could have really dazzled in color I’ll bet. It also makes you wonder why more puppet versions of the Yuletide tale weren’t mounted during the Golden Age of Television.
ABC broadcast this holiday treat on December 24th, 1948 when televisions were still comparatively rare. Manipulation of marionettes is not easy but the legendary Rufus Rose Marionettes were the perfect choice for the task in that era. Rufus, best known as Howdy Doody’s off-camera operator directed this program along with his wife Margo.
Dickens’ Christmas Carol, as this production was titled, was an hour long production which was praised in Variety of December 29th, 1948. The review stated in part: “More than a dozen marionettes, beautifully modeled in the traditional manner, were put through their paces and if the actual manipulation could have stood perfecting the production itself outweighed this crudity.”
FOR MORE VERSIONS OF A CHRISTMAS CAROL CLICK HERE: https://glitternight.com/category/a-christmas-carol-2/
© Edward Wozniak and Balladeer’s Blog, 2013. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Edward Wozniak and Balladeer’s Blog with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.
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again, well done.
Thank you, sir!
Scrooged is the one for me.
Yeah, that’s a good one, too!
This sounds lovely, I’d love to come across it somewhere and see it someday. Thanks for bringing this one to our attention.
Thanks! Yes, it’s a shame that all these early television Carols are lost forever!