Tag Archives: Balladeer’s Blog

Christmas Carol-A-Thon 2016 continues!

At the height of Fonzie-mania in the 1970s Henry Winkler had so much pull he could have insisted on a side-deal in which he got to play every D’Ascoyne in a televised remake of Kind Hearts and Coronets if he had wanted to. Mercifully he instead chose to star in this adaptation of A Christmas Carol.   

Eric Till directed this telefilm which sets Dickens’ story in Depression- Era America. Winkler, so heavily made-up he looks like a zombie instead of an old man, portrays Benedict Slade, the Scrooge stand-in and R.H. Thompson plays Slade’s man-bitch Thatcher, the Bob Cratchit counterpart. Kenneth Pogue has the Jacob Marley role as Latham and Susan Hogan barely registers as the forever-irritating Belle stand-in. (Thank you to Garrett Kieran for catching an error – I accidentally listed David Wayne as the Marley stand-in.) 

“I’m not gonna pay a lot for this makeup job!” … Henry Winkler IS a zombie Scrooge in An Undead Christmas Carol.

This version of the Carol pulls the annoying maneuver of pretending the visits from Merrivale and the other ghosts are all a dream. There’s even an in-world reference to the Dickens novel A Christmas Carol.

On the plus side the visits of each of the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Yet to Come are cleverly heralded by time period appropriate music and news broadcasts airing on Slade’s bedside radio. The old tight-wad is especially discomfited by the outre 1970s music blaring from the radio before the arrival of the black Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come.   Continue reading →